Lubbock Avalanche-Journal’s Don Williams on preparing for Oregon State’s passing attack:
To the extent there’s suspense about the matchup in Corvallis, this is a key reason: New Oregon State quarterback Braden Atkinson won the Jerry Rice Award last year as the top freshman in the FCS, and the transfer from Mercer made his FBS debut last week by throwing for 376 yards in a 33-20 loss at Houston.
“Confident in the pocket,” Tech defensive coordinator Shiel Wood said on Monday, Sept. 7. “Able to see down the field. Didn’t let the rush affect him. Kept his eyes down the field. Made some really good throws kind of in tight spaces. … And then did a nice job with ball placement down the field.”
Red Raider Sports’ Lane Selph on special teams coordinator Kenny Perry and the special teams issues (to be clear, Perry does praise the specialists and snappers, but has some things to say about coverage):
Perry made it clear that the breakdown was unacceptable regardless of who was on the field when it occurred. “That kickoff return, that sucked, and that can’t happen,” Perry said. “I don’t care who’s in the game, what part of the game it is, whether it’s the first kick or last kick, that cannot happen.”
When asked specifically what he saw on film from the return, Perry had this to say. “One of the things, we probably got to run a little faster down there,” Perry said. “A couple of guys kind of shut it down, and then we missed two tackles. That’s the big thing. You can’t miss tackles on kickoff.”
Red Raider Sports L. Jordan on tight end Jett Carpenter returning home:
Saturday’s road trip doubles as a return home for Carpenter, who has been rounding up as many tickets as he can.
“I’m super excited to get back home. Earlier in my career, I played Oregon when I was at Eastern Washington, and so now being able to get back and play Oregon State, my two kind of hometown colleges, it’s a dream come true.”
“I’m going to have a lot of people out there. Friends, family, people from high school, teachers from high school. Everyone’s going, so I’m trying to get as many tickets as I can.”
The next episode of What’s Next with Robert Giovanetti and Head Coach Joey McGuire:
Key themes covered in the video include:
West Texas Tough: The coaches emphasize the importance of instilling a resilient “West Texas” identity in their players, focusing on hard work, discipline, and grit (0:14-25:29).
Program Culture: McGuire talks about the ongoing mission to educate, serve, and develop the student-athletes into well-rounded individuals and “fearless champions” (0:00-25:29).
Season Outlook: The discussion reflects on the team’s progress, training efforts, and the collective focus required to compete at a high level in their conference (0:14-25:29).
College Poll Tracker has the voters on the latest AP Poll, including the voters for Texas Tech.
The long national nightmare is over and LSU blinked. Via Yahoo Sports, LSU has added two players to its roster and the roster now sits at 105 for the Tigahs. Those two players ARE NOT former NFL players, Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris, and this lawsuit against LSU and Lane Kiffin has decided not to add those professional players. One of the things that I feel like we are finding out with all of this litigation is that the conferences do yield quite a bit of power. Also, these former NFL players have a court order which says that they are permitted to join LSU and so I wonder if there was some sort of inducement action against LSU, where a promise was made by Kiffin, they enroll as students (which I think they are) relying on that promise, and now LSU has not gone through with that promise. Is LSU in contempt of that state court order from Baton Rouge? Maybe? Texas Tech was also maybe in violation of that court order as well with Sorsby perhaps. I don’t know that this is over for these players and LSU and I’m still a bit interested to see where this goes.