We Have A Responsibility to Do Our Due Diligence. Via the DMN’s Michael DuPont (emphasis mine):
“We have a responsibility to do our due diligence and our background work when we invite young men and young women into our programs and to make sure that we know of anything that we need to know about as we make those decisions. You can’t hide the from fact that there’s a current event out there that we need to pause and make sure we learn what we can from and that we take action if needed and we talked yesterday as a group of athletics directors that this is one time that we do need to take action and we need to develop a Big 12 Conference policy that pertains not only to transfer students but prospective student-athletes at the high school level.”
Hocutt isn’t one to take shots, that’s not his style, but he’s being perfectly clear here.
Notebook: Defensive Line Depth; Freshman Receivers. LAJ’s Don Williams gives us a little bit of insight as to how the depth at defensive line will shake out, essentially that Josh Outlaw is trying to move up to second team nose tackle to unseat Marcus Smith and Zach Barnes and Mike Mitchell are fighting for time between second and third team at the rush end. Also, later in the article, head coach Kliff Kingsbury said that DT Breiden Fehoko is going to start, so your starters will be Rika Levi and Fehoko. Other notes:
- Tony Brown is the back-up to Devin Lauderdale.
- Kingsbury said that Nigel Bethel is practicing and Keland McElrath and D’Vonta Hinton should be available for the opener.
- Offensive line coach Lee Hays said that Kaster, A. Morales, Clark, B. Brown, T. Morales and J. Murphy have all earned spots in the rotation.
Impact Freshmen. DMN’s Michael DuPont has three freshmen that he expects to make an impact this season and he’s going with Breiden Fehoko, Jah’Shawn Johnson and Jamile Johnson. The interesting thing here is that Chris Level said yesterday that Jamile may not be the freshman safety that gets the most burn, that being Christian Taylor, the safety from Jersey Village that was a 3-star recruit with a ton of mid-major offers and a few of Power Five offers, Baylor, Minnesota, Louisville, and Utah.
Ranking the QB’s. ESPN’s Max Olson has ESPN’s ranking of Big 12 quarterbacks and goes TCU’s Boykin at 1, OSU’s Rudolph at 2, Baylor’s Russell at 3 and then Mahomes:
4. Patrick Mahomes, Texas Tech: Kliff Kingsbury is keeping his cards close to his vest on this one and giving Davis Webb (and Nic Shimonek) every opportunity to keep battling Mahomes. But the true sophomore is bound to become the guy for the Red Raiders this season and his dual-threat talents should make the gunslinger a handful for opposing secondaries (just ask Baylor). He brings an edge to the job that his coaches love.
Ward Ready. RedRaiderSports’ Will McKay writes that S Keenan Ward was always in the right spot, but that defensive coordinator wanted him to be a better tackler and as a result, Ward is the second guy to discuss gap integrity in as many days:
“I think I can actually be a true safety now. I don’t have to worry about being in the run, and when I do, I have my gap and I’ll stay in it. It’s not a free for all. My assignment is what I need to do. He doesn’t want me to do anything out of the ordinary. He just wants me to be in my gap when I need to be,” said the defensive back. “It’s great. It takes a lot of pressure off my shoulders. I can just chill back, and like I said, when I do have to be in the run game, I know what gap I have to be in, and that’s it. That’s what Gibbs has asked of me.”
Pretty awesome, right.
Miscellaneous. Pretty cool from UniWatch, which is a ranking of the best Texas high school uniforms . . . LAJ’s Don Williams writes about “what if” Tom Osborne had been hired over Jim Carlen . . . LAJ’s Denise Marquez reports on Kingsbury being at the Lubbock Chamber of Commerce Texas Tech Football Kickoff Breakfast . . . DT’s Jeremy Krakosky writes about the impact of Justin Stockton and Quinton White at the running back position . . .