The Assignment: Arkansas-Pine Bluff vs. Texas Tech

The Assignment

Good Guys: Texas Tech Red Raiders (0-0, 0-0)
Bad Guys: Arkansas-Pine Bluff Golden Lions (0-0, 0-0)
Where: Jones AT&T Stadium | Lubbock, Texas
When: Saturday, August 30th @ 6:30 pm
TV & Streaming: ESPN+
Radio: The Varsity Network
The Line: N/A
Weather Report:

We enter another season. A season of hope and expectation. That’s a good thing, I’d rather this than have a season of disappointment and no expectations. For those of you wanting to read about different teams, I did previews of every team during the summer and you can check it out.

If you are at all thinking that you’d wish that I’d do the same sort of previews, but for basketball. Well, ESPN’s Jeff Borzello has already done that and it is organized by conference. It’s incredibly well done.

Regarding what I plan on doing, I’m not sure. I sort of start planning in July and August and then I think there’s only so many things that I can do that’s any different than from what I’ve done before. The biggest thing for me is try to have something every day, something early in the week and a preview on Friday for sure. This year I have gone with a school theme since, ya know, college is still school. The Assignment will be an introduction to what to expect and you can be surprised for the rest of the week. I know that you will on the edge of your seat.

The News:

Texas Tech released their depth chart (PDF) and if you have been following along for the preseason practices, there were really no surprises other than John Curry starting at the Star hybrid safety/linebacker position. Maybe the most interesting aspect are the “or” designations.

RB: Cameron Dickey or J’Koby Williams
TE: Johncarlos Miller II or Terrance Carter Jr.
SLOT (backup): Roy Alexander or Kelby Valsin
STAR (backup): A.J. McCarty or Miquel Dingle Jr.
CB: Amier Boyd or Maurion Horn
K: Upton Bellenfant or Stone Harrington

A few other notes:

Redshirt freshman D’Anthis Upshaw, Jr. is the backup at left tackle.
Micah Hudson is the starting kick returner and also the backup to Reggie Virgil at the X position.
The 3 players at the DOG position, Romello Height, Terrell Tilman, and Cheta Ofili are all 6’4″ and 240.
Offensive coordinator Mack Leftwich (I think) has said that starting right guard Davion Carter might be 5’10” on a good day, although he’s listed at 6’0″. I am going to try to watch the height difference between him and starting right tackle Jacob Ponton, who is listed at 6’8″.
Ian Hershey is the backup punter and 3rd string kicker.

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal’s Nathan Giese has 7 bold predictions for Texas Tech football including Texas Tech getting to Arlington and the trip to Utah being a wake-up call.

I obviously have not had time to do non-transcripts of the weekly presser, embedded above, but Lubbock Avalanche-Journal’s Don Williams and Ava Hounshell have summarized.

CBS Sports’ Chip Patterson have the staff College Football Playoff predictions with your friends Shehan Jeyarajah, Chip Patterson, and Brad Crawford picking Texas Tech to make the playoff.

Under the Microscope: The position group that I will have questions about until I see them in action is the secondary. After all of the transfers, it turns out that only cornerback Brice Pollack and boundary afety Cole Wisniewski will start, which means that 3 starters return in some form or fashion. Field safety Brenden Jordan and cornerback Maurion Horn are likely two of the starters with the coaching staff raving about the play of John Curry playing the star position. I don’t like discussing so many negative things, but this was one of the worst pass defenses in the nation, and given the improvement in the line, the job of these guys should be significantly easier, but they still have to cover. This will be the thing I’ll be watching the most as these non-conference games get going.

Bright Idea: I ran across this site and it’s really basic, but really informative without a lot of extra stuff. I also wanted to continue with the education theme of things so we’ll post one of these videos each week. There’s a ton of videos at the channel so if you want to watch more, then have at it.

While you are at it, watch some highlights of Ark-PB. Lots of 3-down linemen on defense and they have a tough time making plays on routine things. Offensively, they are going to motion, lots of 11 personnel, but they also had a good blocking tight end that they used late in the first half. I believe that the quarterback and receivers are largely new, but I think the look will be the same.

Bright Idea: Anyone else catch the thought from offensive coordinator Mack Leftwich, when he was asked if he had any trick plays. The answer was that he has run a reverse or two, but he didn’t do trick plays. Think about that for a second, a reverse being a trick play. That’s it. Texas Tech is not returning to a Mike Leach offense, but they are apparently returning to being a team that does certain things repetitively, hopefully really well. The fact that there’s nothing in his bag of tricks other than a reverse means that they probably drill the same thing over and over again.

Cash Money: This won’t always be so literal, but I have never understood the problem with trying to punch up within the new rules. If any institution has a donor that wants to fund something like Cody Campbell and Dustin Womble have done, then that’s great. If Texas Tech isn’t successful, okay, and there may be some ink spilled about how they might not have been successful, but they tried. And if Texas Tech is criticized for trying then so be it, but that’s not going to come from me. Not having a big donor(s) helping and not making an attempt would have been a bit depressing perhaps, but trying to do SOMETHING is better than the status quo or doing nothing. The effort was made, and we don’t know if all of the pieces will work out the way that I hope, but Texas Tech football did put forth the effort.