Texas Tech Football Notebook: Community Service Update; Columbi Eligible

The football team protested on Thursday and Friday’s practice, with Friday spending time with Lubbock leaders to not just protest, but actually discuss what they can do to help.

I don’t know where you stood on this issue, a lot of fans didn’t like the protests at all (this always brings to mind the old quote of you can only worry about the things that you can control and this is not something that you can control). Obviously, you can voice your displeasure, with the not going to games, getting on Twitter to voice your displeasure at coaches or players (I hope that you don’t do this), making comments here, or or whatever you want to do.

The cool thing is that it sounded like Coach Wells told the players that he understood their plight and concern and told them that actions speak louder than words. So, they figured out how to spend Saturday, which entailed registering people to vote, spending time with underprivileged kids, and cleaning up a park (that’s what it looks like).

If you’re thinking that you want to complain about something that they did, well, then you’re probably not going to be happy about anything that’s happened.

And when I write about how player protests are a part of things now. There’s nothing you can do about it other than not go to games or support programs. I think I’m getting push-back from folks because I’m typing these things. I think I see things a bit differently. I tend to see this as the reality we’re living in and you can be opposed to player protests, but your anger at the situation won’t stop players from protesting. The other reality we are living in is that there’s going to be football despite there being a pandemic. So even if I were against football (I’m not, I think as long as the team and coaches attempt to protect student-athletes as much as possible and that athletic departments feel comfortable making this move, then I’m all-in.) I’ve typed something similar to this just last week: The football team had 21 positive COVID-19 tests and continued to practice, so if you thought that having football in the middle of a pandemic is a bad idea, well too bad because football is happening whether you like it or not.

I think the other positive from this weekend is that Wells probably coached a bit on Friday and Saturday. He helped turn words into actions and maybe he taught the players that words can be meaningful, but actions and touching people’s lives and doing something about the situation in poor neighborhoods actually mean more. That’s a really good lesson. There’s a lot of bad things happening now, but players working towards bettering their lives and the lives of other people is a good thing.

Go look at these photos from Saturday and I hope they put a smile on your face.

Also lost in the shuffle a bit was the immediate eligibility of Utah State quarterback transfer Henry Columbi, a junior who backed up Jordan Love the last two years for the Utes. Columbi is part of the quarterback race with Alan Bowman, Maverick McIvor, and Donovan Smith, the freshman.

This interview was maybe posted on Wednesday or so, and I’ve been saving it until I thought it was appropriate to post here. Austin McNamara and Trey Wolff also spoke in the press conference, but I didn’t summarize their thoughts.

Special Teams Coach Mark Tommerdahl

[Re. Xavier White] Watched him at Dodge City. Watched spring practice, they had a new coach, their numbers were downand X was the best player on the field. It was simply, who the heck was that. It worked out fine. I was there building a list for the following year, we weren’t targeting a player at his position. He simply wanted to come back home.

[Re. Austin McNamara and Trey Wolff] They had a really good year, in this program at this time, I don’t know if there are 3 established people on this team. They compete every day. Their priority is to get better every day. With the possibilities with what could happen week-to-week, every back-up in this organization has to be ready to play.

Cody Wadell is our back-up punter, he’s been here just as long as Austin, he is a solid Division I back-up punter. We have two kickers, Garibay and Lozano, who are competing with Trey, and Garibay can punt, so he’s a pretty valuable back up.

Every unit has gotten their fair share. We have not done much live work yet. We have quality depth, Frye is a really good athlete, Chux can return punts. Zech McPhearson, and some freshman too. We’ve worked on it, but not battle-tested.

That question can be attributed to Dave Scholz. Scholz is a really good football strength coach, our guys don’t just run to run, or lift to life, they train for football skills. For coverage units, we did a lot of change of direction work and drills in space, that’s not me, that’s Scholz workout, what he does equips them very well for what they do.

Just with the way that we’ve come back early and have 2 weeks walk-throughs is invaluable for special teams. Allows players to have field vision. Have to find players that see and move in space.

It allows us to look at a lot more than in a traditional camp. This is a not a traditional season, that’s why you guys are looking at me on zoom. It has helped us prepare a broader cross-section of this team because who knows is going to play this year.

I would fully concur with his sentiments it gives us such a good preparation heading into fall camp and I think the players would say the same thing, both physically and mentally.

We really want to be cautious, we don’t want to take anything for granted, last year was last year, these guys have to come in with an edge, if we were established program and we had all-American kickers and punters, and God bless them, they have to have a good day tomorrow.

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