The Morning Stake | 2018.10.01

Leading Off

Well, it is officially October and I’m also back at full strength after being sick last week. Just in case you didn’t know, the football team has a bye, which is probably for the best considering the health of some of the skill positions. And just in case you’re wondering, Texas Tech won’t play again until Thursday, October 11th in Ft. Worth against TCU. So we somewhat get to stretch our legs for the week and maybe assess some things. Oh, and TCU doesn’t play until the 11th as well, so there’s no advantage necessarily to Texas Tech having a bye because both teams get 12 days to recover.

Texas Tech Volleyball

And the volleyball team is 3-0 in the Big 12, only the second tie this has happened in program history and broke a 23 match losing streak to Iowa State. Huzzah!

Texas Tech Soccer

Texas Tech Basketball

Texas Tech Football

Keke Coutee broke records for Houston yesterday as it was his first action of the year as he’s been injured for the first few games thus far. Not any more. He’s healthy.

We touched on Alan Bowman’s partially collapsed lung last night and hope he has a speedy recovery. TCU is also having quarterback injury issues as head coach Gary Patterson refused to update the media on Shawn Robinson’s injury against Iowa State. He apparently injured a shoulder late in the fourth quarter.

Kliff Kingsbury met with the media yesterday and below is a non-transcript of his comments.

[On status of Alan Bowman] He had a partially collapsed lung, took him to the hospital, still under observation now, he is at covenant, went yesterday, he’s in good spirits, I’ve never had one that’s had it, he’s doing better, up and alert, and seemed to be in a good mood. Don’t know which lung it is, not broken ribs, avoided some things there. I think we’re still waiting to hear from that, without the broken ribs, it should be sooner than later . . .

[On assessment of team after watching film] I think a little of both, they out-coached us and outplayed us in the firt half, we didn’t see the sense of urgency I didn’t see the toughness we have been playing with until the second half, we played timid, and I’m not sure why, we didn’t respond like I thought we would, our two losses we were down 24-7 and 28-7 in the first quarter to good football teams you can’t get down like that . . .

[On how much the of the playbook Jett Duffey knew] It was a similar situation, the game plan was built around Alan [Bowman] and adjusted to Jett [Duffey], that’s pretty universal in football, the starters are going to get the majority of the reps, then we called things that Jett was familiar with and could operate at a high level, I had a couple of play calls that put him in a bad spot, he did everything he could to get his teammates to win . . .

Yeah, no questions, I think that’s the fight you see in the second half, the guys believing where you can be, we’re not there, still a work in progress, to have the ball and go down and tie it with 4 minutes left, our guys are fighting an that’s a step in the right direction . . .

[On getting everyone healthy] We were talking about that as an offensive staff, talked about how many guys have played, and not having T.J. hurts, he’s one of the more dynamic players in the Big 12, all of the running backs we rolled through, good time to reevaluate and reset and get our starters back healthy, get them going again, the last few weeks it’s been a hodgepodge and we need to get everyone on the same page . . .

[On a quarterback getting injured] I think more than anything, you like for that guy to take a majority of the reps and that’s when they take off, that learning curve accelerates, you’d like to get one guy and ride, him, but it hasn’t worked out thus far . . .

[On McLane Carter’s status] He’s worked back a little bit, he’s a bit different than Alan he’s going to move and make plays, we’ll want to make he’s 100% before we get him out there we’ll see if he’s ready this week . . .

[Status of T.J. Vasher] We expect him to being back, we didn’t want to put him in harm’s way, we decided to get through the bye week and get to 100% . . .

[On not starting out well] We definitely addressed it and talked about it, not play so timid and on our heels, we don’t need that feel out period, we’ll preach that and practice that this week . . .

[Assessment of the defense thus far] Two weeks in a row, they basically shut out Big 12 offenses, but the first half were very poor, we have to figure out way to start faster on that side of the ball, we have to get more takeaways, there have been positive moments, but we have to be more consistent and start faster . . .

[What Kingsbury looks for in quarterbacks] Can they get you out of a bad play, they can all extend plays with their feet, IQ, accuracy is huge, mental toughness, if they make a bad play how do they respond, they all have that and it’s been fun to coach those guys . . .

[Making mistakes while playing too timid] We’ll see, we addressed it, we’re making mistakes playing timid, so you might as well make mistakes full go, we’ll address that this week . . .

Miscellaneous . . . ESPN has their updated bowl picks and both writers pick Texas Tech to go to the Academy Sports + Outdoors Texas Bowl, one writer thinks it will be Texas A&M (will never happen) and another thinks it will be South Carolina . . . RedRaiderSports’ Jack Densmore has those same quotes from Dakota Allen, Demarcus Felton, and Jack Anderson . . .

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