The Morning Stake | 2019.09.04

Leading Off

The Jones Has Changed. Thought this was neat.

Texas Tech Volleyball

Texas Tech Soccer

Texas Tech Softball

Lady Raider Basketball

Powell Commits. Daija Powell is a 6’2″ forward from Georgia, who averaged 17 points and 10 rebounds a game as a junior.

Texas Tech Baseball

Texas Tech Football

Getting Up to Speed. A-J Media’s Don Williams was part of the media scrum to interview offensive coordinator David Yost and quarterback Alan Bowman and they each talked about the speed of the offense:

“When we went fast tempo-wise, we were pretty good,” Yost said Tuesday. “We were averaging about 28 seconds on the (play) clock when we snapped it. That’s kind of on the low side of what we want, but it’s not far off. Twenty-nine’s kind of on the high side, so it’s within a second.”

Tech not only ran the offense at a rapid rate, but the Red Raiders committed only two penalties on offense, both false starts. They committed four penalties altogether, matching the season low achieved twice last year.

“We want to get it snapped above 30 seconds on the (play) clock,” quarterback Alan Bowman said. “That’s kind of our goal. We get lined up and go as fast as we possibly can. Whatever number it hits, we live with it, but we’re shooting for 30.”

Also noted was that Alan Bowman graded out at 91% which is championship level football.

RedRaiderSports’ Brandon Soliz has his takeaways from the same media session and Yost talked a bit about the running backs:

Yost talked about SaRodorick Thompson, Ta’Zhawn Henry and Armand Shyne each having a hand on the ground game. That takes pressure off of Bowman but also cuts back on the distance on third downs in reference to the yards to gain category.

“We had like 11 3rd-and-6 or less … Having a lot of really positive third down situations. That helps because basically every time we ran the ball it guaranteed we’d get about four or five at least.”

Also part of the media session was starting right tackle Casey Verhulst, who talked about the game slowing down as he started:

“I learned that college football slows down when you start playing,” Verhulst said. “Going back to those nerves that I had, once I got through that first drive, I learned that it’s only as bad as you make it and if you’re playing hard the game’s going to respond in a positive way for you.”

Miscellaneous . . . FiveThirtyEight’s Josh Planos looks at the data in hiring an alumni as the head coach, which is that it can be good or bad, it’s not consistent . . . SI’s Michael Shapiro has bowl projections including Texas Tech vs. Kentucky in the Liberty Bowl . . . ESPN’s Bill Connelly has his updated S&P+ ratings and Texas Tech is at 31st overall, 44th on offnese and 48th on defense . . . Texas Football’s Shehan Jeyarajah has 10 players for the weekly all-state team with Alan Bowman at quarterback . . . Heartland College Sports’ Cameron Brock previews and predicts UTEP vs. Texas Tech . . .

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