We’ve got some updates on Texas Tech’s football schedule from the LAJ and we get you ready for the MLB draft that starts tonight.
Photo via Charles Henry @ Flickr.
Football
Scheduling Updates. LAJ’s Don Williams, coming off of his use of using terms like “hippies” and “window washers” in ranking the Big 12 cities, has an extensive update update regarding the schedule as Texas Tech has added Missouri State in 2018 and Montana State in 2019 and another home-and-home with UTEP in 2019 and 2020. There is still a Power Five slot available in 2018 and athletic director Kirby Hocutt is working to fill that spot. Williams also mentions that Texas Tech will play Wyoming in 2020 in Lubbock and will visit Laramie in 2023.
Weekly Red Raiders. Speaking of recruiting, our old pal, Wreck’Em 24/7’s Michael LaBarre has your weekly recruiting roundup.
Robertson Ranked. Sports On Earth’s Matt Brown ranks the top defensive linemen and Pete Robertson is #10 among the defensive ends / outside linebackers:
10. Pete Robertson, Texas Tech. A hybrid end/linebacker, Robertson will essentially be playing a standup rush end type position in new coordinator David Gibbs’ 4-3 scheme. Whatever you want to label him, he’s easily the best player on a defense in dire need of playmakers. The Red Raiders struggled to tackle and defend anything last year, but Robertson proved to be an explosive edge rusher, leading the Big 12 with 13 sacks and finishing with 82 tackles. He has room to grow against the run and will face questions about his size in the pros (6-foot-3, 238 pounds), but he’s perhaps the Red Raiders’ most valuable player after picking up more than half of the team’s sacks in 2014.
Baseball
MLB Draft. The MLB Draft starts today and goes through Wednesday. Rounds 1 and 2 start tonight at 6:00 pm and you can watch it at MLB.com or on the MLB Network. Texas Tech has a draft central page and the only thing I found missing was the list of the 2015 class for head coach Tim Tadlock. There will be lots of names to watch, including Trenton Clark, an outfielder from Richland Hills and is top two or three high school outfielders in the nation.
Blogging and Stuff
Local Sports Portals. Really interesting piece from Awful Annoucning’s Ben Koo who writes about how blogging, sites like Staking The Plains and other sites of it’s ilk has killed off the local sports portal. Remember when SB Nation had local portals for every city? A hug for Houston, Dallas and whatever city? Well, those quickly disappeared. That’s interesting and all, but I thought the kicker was one of the last paragraphs that mentioned that to do local really well, you have to essentially be SB Nation and Fansided (I think Wreck’Em Red is owned by Fansided). The other interesting note is that Koo links to the rumor that Comcast could buy Vox (which includes SB Nation) and Recode (the newly acquired blog). I suppose I’ll always be interested to see what eventually happens to SB Nation. I wasn’t in on the ground floor, but I was in pretty early. If SB Nation is purchased, I don’t think it will really mean all that much in the end for the individual team bloggers, but it will mean a lot for the investors who should have a terrific payday.