No real Texas Tech news other than the soccer game out there. I will start my in-week preview of things starting tomorrow. And if you missed a Morning Stake from this weekend (because there are no days off – at least right now), here’s Saturday and Sunday.
On the Pitch
Texas Tech fell to San Francisco, 2-0 yesterday afternoon in what could maybe be described as a disappointing loss. San Francisco was 0-2 entering the game and Texas Tech could only muster 2 shots the entire first half. They return home to host SMU on Thursday night.
On the Gridiron
ESPN’s Max Olson has an interesting piece about what transfer position costs (approximately). There’s a lot to the article and this is one that I’d recommend you clicking on over to read. The most interesting thing was the thought from a Big Ten GM that said that Texas Tech was messing up the defensive tackle market because they were over-paying. Good.
The Athletic’s Scott Dochterman and Sam Khan, Jr. ($) on the idea that there’s never enough money in college sports. They picked a handful of programs to look at and Texas Tech was one of them. For instance, Texas Tech went from $46.3 million in facilities in 2005 to $136.4 million in 2023.
“The minute one school does it, the next school and the next school and the next school (does it),” Rhoades said. “‘Well, if we’re expected to beat them and compete with them, and they just hired 10 new staff members, then we need 10 new staff members.’ And as an industry, we’ve been really good at doing that.
“What’s interesting is you sit and you have private conversations amongst athletic directors, and even amongst some coaches, and we’ll all sit there and go, ‘What are we doing?’ But then your competitor does it and you go, ‘OK, we’ve got to do it.’ So we’re, at times, our own worst enemy.”
The schools averaged jumps of 321.8 percent in recruiting costs, nearly 300 percent in sports equipment, around 250 percent in both medical and gameday expenses and more than 200 percent in travel. Support staff and administration costs rose by an average of about 240 percent per athletic department, while financial aid costs averaged about a 146.5 percent increase.
“Everything has had inflation tied to it,” Texas Tech athletic director Kirby Hocutt said. “It’s like everything else in life: Your expenses continue to escalate, and you do all you can to monitor your expenses.”
This is not really related to Texas Tech at all, but I found myself reading The Athletic’s articles on how Notre Dame and USC have gone about building their programs. Both of these articles are behind The Athletic paywall, but found them interesting to read in comparison to how Texas Tech has navigated everything the past two years and I think that it is incredibly clear that alignment from staff to donors to the athletic department is incredibly important. Just taking USC for instance, there was initial confusion about what USC collective people should donate to and there was never confusion on Texas Tech’s side of things. Taking those two programs and thinking about Texas Tech’s commitment to basketball and football are really something to appreciate.