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The Morning Stake | 2020.08.20

The Morning Stake
Seth C

The Morning Stake | 2020.08.20

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Peeling back the curtain a bit. I’m doing the Texas Tech football notebook in lieu of a Morning Stake. I’ve always loved doing the Morning Stake, but it’s so non-discript in the title, sometimes you really don’t know what I’m covering or not covering. Maybe that’s a good thing. Sort of like an Easter egg every morning.

The football notebook also takes quite a bit of time, listening to the video and transcribing. By the time I get done, I’m usually falling asleep or it’s time for me to go to sleep. I know that some of you have suggested a program that transcribes for you, but I simply haven’t taken the time to figure out how to do that with a YouTube video. There’s always next year.

I did get to watch the Krista Gerlich press conference after work today and she was good. I thought her Q&A session was better than her prepared statement, but I think I want my coaches to be good conversationally and don’t really care about how good they are with prepared statements. Gerlich has a real passion for Texas Tech and for the ladies and it really showed. And the “ladies” that I am referring to are the current Texas Tech players, the UTA players who were sad to see her go, and the West Texas A&M players that she coached previously. Gerlich seemed genuinely excited to talk to Tim Tadlock and excited to learn from Chris Beard.

I desperately want Gerlich to succeed.

Avalanche-Journal’s Don Williams reported on the presser today (it was not posted on YouTube so I didn’t get to transcribe it) with linebacker coach Keith Cosgrove:

Taking a crash course in Tech defense, Merriweather isn’t where he needs to be, Cosgrove said, but applying himself and giving effort aren’t an issue.

“He wants to get better. It’s important to him,” Cosgrove said. “He loves the game. He loves everything about the game, the physicalness of it, the excitement that you have when you play this game as well as coach this game. I look for him to continue to improve and have a big year.”

Jeffers, Merriweather and Bouyer-Randle are the Red Raiders’ presumed top three at linebacker. Cosgrove also had high praise for Kosi Eldridge, a junior from Denton Ryan who played in 10 games last season, and newcomer Jacob Morgenstern, a graduate transfer from Duke.

North Carolina was open for an entire week before they had to shut down in-person learning and go to virtual learning for essentially all undergraduate students with maybe the post-graduate students still being permitted with some in-person learning. Of course this would happen. It was inevitable, college kids being college kids. Going to massive off-campus parties and essentially ignoring any sort of orders for facemasks or social distancing. The downside to all of this is that this sort of behavior could negatively impact the football team. With the potential for increased positives, there’s an increased chance to spread among the football team.

The Alabama AD pleaded with students to wear a mask if they want college football, so this sort of thing is probably pretty vital to continuing.

And from earlier in the week, if you were at all wondering why the Pac-12 and Big Ten decided to cancel football, while other conferences decided to continue, well, SI’s Ross Dellinger reports that it is a complete cluster (as if you couldn’t already guess this) and he spoke with medical professionals on how conferences can come to such different conclusions. I’d also add that the Big Ten is an absolute disaster right now and I don’t have enough time to get into what’s happening there. I’ve got my own things to follow.

During joint calls with Big Ten leaders, physicians didn’t have answers to questions about this issue and others, says Lushniak. Why? He says there are no real answers to particulars about a virus that was introduced to the world just eight months ago. “As a physician, it’s really what I don’t know about the virus that scares me. I don’t know long-term health effects,” he says. “What’s it do to that athlete’s heart? I can’t just say, ‘Go out and play this game and put yourself at higher risk.’”

Amesh Adalja is a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins University and an infectious disease physician who sits on the NCAA COVID-19 advisory panel. He acknowledges that risk tolerance is a significant part of the decision making. “Any activity we do in the era of the pandemic is going to be dictated by what risk tolerance you personally have.”

RedRaiderSports’ Ben Golan talked with 2021 Texas Tech basketball commit Jaylon Tyson. Conveniently, Texas Tech has one scholarship spot available, so that works out just fine. Lots of Q&A, so go check it out.

Relationship with Tech coaching staff: “Me and coach Mal (Ulric Maligi) talk every day almost. Me and coach Beard we probably talk about once a week, he’ll holler at me. I know both are busy so whenever they get the chance to hit me up they do. I just can’t wait to get down there to be honest with you.”

Role at Texas Tech: “We haven’t really gone into specific role yet. They play all guards, they play position-less basketball so whatever they need me to play that’s what I’m going to come in and play.”

Mercury News’ Jon Wilner has the receipts in the termination of the agreement between Cal and Under Armour and only read this if you want to be certain that Under Armour appears to be a poorly run company and I will be surprised if Texas Tech and Under Armour see the end of their contract because Under Armour very well may be out of business.

Pro Football Focus ranked all 130 quarterback starters and they had Alan Bowman ranked as the 52nd best signal caller in the nation:

Bowman won’t have any magical plays by creating outside the structure. He’s a one-read QB, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Rarely will he misfire at an open target. In 2018, he led Power-5 QBs in completion rate to receivers with separation and ranked 27th in the FBS in accurate passes thrown beyond the line of scrimmage. His tight window passing, however, has been extremely poor (115th in percentage of accurate passes thrown into a tight window since 2018).

I think that’s and the ranking appears to be based on on health, but on other things. I’d also add that Bowman said that he’s working on really throwing through his passes and not doing all of the arm slots, but really throwing through his passes.

A couple of additional football links here. CBS Sports ranked the top 76 teams (that’s weird to type) and has Texas Tech as the 36th best team. Texas Football’s Greg Powers ranks the 10 highest rated high school quarterbacks and he has Behren Morton at #8:

Committed to Texas Tech. Morton takes defenses apart with surgical precision. He will fit in perfectly in Lubbock running one of the Bog 12’s most prolific offenses. The son of Eastland head coach James Morton.

Here are some tweets.

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