Athlon Sports has their annual Big 12 coaches talking about their opponents, which is always a big hit in some form or fashion. Let’s get to the Texas Tech portion.
“They’re better pretty much everywhere, obviously. But don’t assume you can spend your way to a power conference championship in one cycle. Don’t get me wrong — all of us would rather have an NIL collective that’s throwing a ton of cash instead of the alternative, but there’s a lot of questions here.”
I don’t know if I agree that you can’t buy a power conference championship because you absolutely can just throw money at a team and buy a Big 12 Championship (i.e. softball just did that). Now, softball is entirely different than football because getting the best player, who was also the most important player, proved to be an incredible investment. The quarterback is the most important position and that is still a question. The comment goes on to say that they’d rather have a collective be incredibly active, so yeah, I agree. The final portion of the quote, “there’s still a lot of questions here,” is one where I’m not sure if he’s questioning the roster, the collective process, etc.
“Will [Behren] Morton stay healthy? They didn’t bite on Nico [Iamaleava] in the portal, so they believe they’ve got a high-caliber starter.”
This is a weird comment because I think the Iamaleava situation was one where people assumed that Texas Tech would be interested because Texas Tech was spending a lot of money therefore they must be involved with Iamaleava. So this feels like a coach or comment that’s just based on internet rumor, which is weird. I think that Behren Morton is not a high-caliber starter as of right now. I think he can be very good, but I also think there’s a lot to approve. I’ve mentioned previously that in Morton’s rating versus Power Five is 128, but against everyone else it is 269.
“Can [Shiel] Wood come in and flip the defense with all that free-agency spending? They were a classic Texas Tech defense last year, and that’s not a compliment.”
The above statement is 100% true. The defense didn’t have the horses to play and they simply just didn’t play well.
“If they’re not a double-digit win team this season, it will be considered a failure. It’s hard to know if that’s fair, or if spending like this is a smart long-term strategy.”
I’m torn on whether or not anything less than 10 wins is a failure. And what do I do if it is less than 10 wins. Fire McGuire? Do you feel any different if it’s 9 wins? I don’t know. I also think it is interesting that the presumption is that the transfer class is 21 one-year transfers, and as we broke down earlier in the offseason, 11 are seniors, 6 are juniors, and 4 are sophomores. So the comment regarding if a transfer class is a long-term strategy is true to an extent, but this transfer class was a pretty good mix in my opinion.
And after reading all of the anonymous comments, I am still intrigued by the reunion of West Virginia and Rich Rodriguez. I know what he did way back in the day, but no idea what or how his offense has evolved. Curious as to what caught your attention on teams other than Texas Tech.
Ed. Note: I am headed out for vacation for the week. I know there is news that I’m not getting to, but we’re leaving at 4:30 this morning for the airport. Will check in with news most likely tomorrow.