The Morning Stake | 2022.06.09

Baseball

Our very own Red Raider Dugout’s Keith Patrick had a terrific essay on the ejection and 7-game suspension of J-Bob Thomas and what the coaches sacrifice to coach these players. Take the time to read this today.

Congrats to freshman catcher Hudson White for being named Freshman All-American by Diamond Sports and to infielder Jace Jung for being named 2022 Academic All-American!

Football

24/7 Sports’ Chris Hummer has a really long Q&A with Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire and recommend reading the whole thing and I’m going to blockquote the part about recruiting because I found that part, as well as the part about recruiting West Texas, the most fascinating.

247Sports: You have the No. 2 class in the country in 2023. You can’t talk about specific recruits, so I wanted to ask about philosophy. Based on your commits, it seems like you’ve targeted athletic traits as a baseline measurement for offers. You worked under Matt Rhule at Baylor doing things that way, so what role do testing numbers and evaluations play in your evaluations?

McGuire: “Really high. My director of Player Personnel is James Blanchard. I hired Brian Nance, who was also under Matt Rhule. Sean Kenny, who was with Alabama as a student assistant and got to see what they did there. Those guys spend a huge amount of time trying to find verified numbers, whether it be track times, a combine. They have a video they’ll send to coaches on how they want to measure arm length, hand size. We want to get as much verified data to go with the film as possible.

“If you go back and think about Matt Rhule, at the combine this year, you saw those guys. In 2018 that was the fastest class signed in the country. You had the fastest kid sign with Baylor in Kalon Barnes. So you turn around in three to four years and you see what they’d done at the combine. I’d have bet my house they’d have done that because I saw them do it at Baylor.

“We’re trying to do the same thing. We’re trying to find the traits we can develop. You’re probably not going to get as many readymade players, so you’re trying to find the traits your nutritionist, strength coach and position coaches can develop. Then you look up in four years and you have a bunch of guys at the combine, you’ve won the Big 12 and you’ve really got it rolling.”

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