The Morning Stake | 2020.12.21

I don’t think you see this very often, this is from the Avalanche-Journal Media Editorial Board opines that the right thing for Texas Tech athletic director Kirby Hocutt to do was to retain head coach Matt Wells.

Savvy football fans know what’s going on here. Many times, when a program has several consecutive seasons in which it does not meet expectations, the first thing that happens is a staff shakeup. Many times this involves offensive and defensive coordinators, who outside of the head coach, have high-profile jobs with results easily discernible, often from a glance at the scoreboard.

That said, the departure of Yost may not be the only change in the Red Raider staff between this season and the one to come. It may just be the most public. It is no secret the team had spotty special-teams play and questionable game-management decisions that proved costly in several close contests. These are addressable between now and the 2021 season. It is also worth pointing out that outside the Oklahoma game, the team was mostly competitive against Big 12 opponents.

But near misses have been a haunting regular occurrence during Wells’ time at Tech with the Raiders falling six times in games in which they led at the end of the third quarter or later.

I thought this was pretty fair and not too far one way or another. The idea here is that it’s been a weird year because of COVID-19 and two years is typically not enough time to decide on a coach. The article also acknowledges the offense and special teams not being up to snuff and the near-losses are a pattern. All those things are true and yes, it is reasonable to retain Wells. And it is fairly normal for Don Williams to opine during the season, but not the editorial board. I don’t recall that happening often.

A couple of other football notes gleaned off of headlines. Safety Eric Monroe will return to the team to play another year. Tight end Connor Killian will retire and start coaching as an intern for the team. Defensive back Alex Hogan has decided to transfer.

This is a video only, but really terrific story about the mother of Andre Emmett providing clothing and gifts for those who have parents who have died are incarcerated, via NBC/DFW.

Here are some tweets.

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