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Grant McCasland Isn’t in this for the Short-Term
Texas Tech Football Notebook | McGuire Recaps Spring Game
Weekend Open Thread | 2024.04.20
The Morning Stake | 2024.04.19
There Are No Ls in RPI | 23 Personnel Podcast
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Texas Tech Football Notebook: DeRuyter and Kittley Ready for Spring Game

The Morning Stake | 2019.03.07

The Morning Stake
Seth C

The Morning Stake | 2019.03.07

Texas Tech Soccer

Texas Tech Golf

Texas Tech Softball

Weekend Tournament.

Big 12 Player of the Week. I forgot to post this yesterday, but congrats to Jessica Hartwell for being named the Big 12 Player of the Week.

Lady Raider Basketball

Big 12 Awards. Huge congrats to the following Lady Raiders:

  • Chrislyn Carr for being named the Big 12 Freshman of the Year, All-Big 12 Honorable Mention, and a part of the Big 12 All-Freshman Team.
  • Brittany Brewer for being named All-Big 12 Honorable Mention.

Send Off.

Texas Tech Baseball

Texas Tech 12, San Diego State 9. What a bonkers game (box score). This is one of those games where it would take me a decent amount of time to detail the swings in this game. Texas Tech never led until the 8th inning, where they were down 5-4, roared in front in the 8th by scoring 4 runs and taking an 8-5 lead. San Diego State would score 4 of their own in the bottom of the 8th to re-take the lead, 9-8. In the bottom of the 9th with 2 outs, your man Cam (Warren) drilled a grand slam to take a 12-9 lead and that was the game.

Trey Garlett got the start but was yanked after an inning and giving up 2 runs. John McMillon is still struggling a bit, as he subbed in and gave up 2 runs, walking 3, hitting a batter and only striking out 2 in 2.1 innings. By the end of the game, Taylor Floyd got the win despite giving up 3 hits, 2 runs, both earned, in 0.2 innings with Hunter Dobbins getting the save in the 9th (even though he gave up a hit and a walk).

Overall, the pitching staff gave up 13 hits, 9 runs, walked 8, and struck out 4 with 192 total pitches thrown. There were also 2 errors, in the field which is costing this team runs and were a large part of the reason for the 8th inning come-back by SDSU.

Offensively, Dylan Neuse is on fire, going 2-2 with a home run, 3 RBI, 3 walks, 2 stolen bases, and scoring 4 runs. Cam Warren obviously had a good day, going 1-3 with 5 RBI (Warren had a sac-fly to score Neuse), with a grand slam. Josh Jung went 2-5. Dru Baker went 1-3 with 2 RBI and 2 walks.

Oh, and one of STP’s incredibly loyal readers, Craig, who lives in San Diego, was at the game was able to witness that glorious grand slam to end it all.

Texas Tech Basketball

Wild Night in Big 12. It was another wild night in the Big 12 as West Virginia defeated Iowa State, 90-75 and Oklahoma State defeated Baylor, 67-64, in Waco. West Virginia has played much better since they dismissed a bunch of players or suspended them (I can’t remember which it was) and Oklahoma State is one of those teams you really don’t want to play because they don’t quit and if they get hot from outside, they’ll beat anyone. The Big 12 standings have Texas Tech and Kansas State tied at 13-4 with Kansas alone in 3rd place at 11-6, and Baylor at 10-7.

The last Saturday of Big 12 play will see the following games:

  • TCU @ Texas – both teams fighting for an NCAA birth I think.
  • Texas Tech @ Iowa State – ISU is in Tournament, but it’s senior night for the Cyclones.
  • Baylor @ Kansas – I’m not betting against Kansas after a bad loss and at home on senior night.
  • West Virginia @ Oklahoma State – both teams are 4-13 and tied for last in the Big 12.
  • Oklahoma @ Kansas State – Oklahoma may feel like they are in with their win against Kansas on Monday night, but they’re fighting for seeding in the NCAA I think.

Texas Tech Football

Padded Helmets. I meant to mention this the other day, but I noticed that the linemen, both defensive and offensive, are wearing these padded helmets that go on top of the hardshell helmet. I’ve obviously seen these before on other teams and especially in high school (heck in rugby a lot of players wear this softshell helmet for head protection), but couldn’t remember if this was the first time for the Texas Tech football team.

Winding Path. TexasFootball’s Shehan Jeyarajah has a long look at how Matt Wells became Texas Tech’s head football coach. I think I know a lot of this story (please read all of it as it is very good), but the part I didn’t know was this:

That has always been the issue at Utah State. Talented coaches have stopped through the program, like Orlando, Dave Aranda and Mike Sanford. None of them stay. After sustained success under Anderson and Wells, it finally started to bite them. It all culminated in 2016 with a huge setback.

“Coach Wells won’t say this, but I’ll say this: they lost an entire recruiting class because of the transition,” Garrard said. “It bit them in the butt in a bad way. They were in a lot of close games that year, but it was what it was – a 3-9 season.”

There was concern that Wells missed his chance, that he couldn’t be the same coach without Todd Orlando, that he coasted on Anderson’s success and now couldn’t build his own. It hurt worse that the scoring offense fell to No. 107 nationally with the two coaches that stayed – his brother Luke Wells and Jovon Bouknight – sharing offensive coordinator duties.

We’ve spent a lot of time here trying to explain or argue about that 3-9 season and not really knowing how to account for it. This is as decent of an explanation as I’ve seen, with the solution being with Wells making some pretty terrific hires (even demoting his brother who was co-offensive coordinator). Coaching matters? And with the relative free-flowing assistants that don’t seem to stay in one place, being able to hire good coaches is maybe a head coach’s most underrated talent.

Ranking the Coaching Jobs. AthlonSports ranked the coaching jobs of each Big 12 program based on attractiveness of the position. I’ll let you read the entire article to see how things turned out, but Texas Tech ranked 5th overall:

Texas Tech is an interesting program. It’s in a remote location, but Lubbock isn’t exactly a small town (population 250,000). It’s a big state school, but it’s at best the third-best program in the state. Recruiting can be a challenge as well since Dallas is a five-hour drive. Bottom line: There’s a lot to like — and a lot that makes this a tough job.

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