Good morning West Texans and all you good, fine, friendly folks out there who wish you were. . .
TEXAS TECH SPRING GAME THOUGHTS
It is hard to read too much good or bad into a spring game like Tech’s that is more glorified scrimmage and a collection of plays than a game, but here goes. First off though, I must say I really enjoyed calling the “game” with Mark Finkner on KFYO. I can’t remember the last time Fink and I worked a football game together, but we had a good time.
My two biggest story lines going into the “game” were the consistent impact play of Tech’s defensive front and the battle at running back. Neither disappointed Saturday as far as giving us something to talk about.
From Rajon Henley’s play on the first snap till the first and second units were off the field, Tech’s defensive front was as advertised. They consistently harassed the quarterbacks and got good pressure with their base front. When they did stunt it was faster and when Tech blitzed you could actually tell they were blitzing, a nice change. Chris Perry got dinged up for a few minutes causing us to hold our breath in the booth, but he returned so Tech got out ok on that front.
As for the running game, it is an embarrassment of riches for Tech RB coach Seth Littrell. Shannon Woods is still the most complete back Tech has but Barron Batch is going to make a strong push to keep him off the field some next fall. I talked to petro-plex media-type and all around good guy Oscar LeRoy and he said Saturday that this is what Batch looks like when he’s healthy and Oscar should know. Batch gives Tech perhaps its fastest, take-it-to-the-house RB since Byron Hanspard. We’ll let that settle in.
If Woods gets cranky, it’ll be easy for Mike Leach to insert Batch into the line-up with no hesitation. Kobey Lewis will still be used a lot and I think this year will see Crawford take a step back playing-time wise but he’ll be able to develop in the system without having to learn on the job like last year late.
Other than those two things, it is really hard for me to make big-time value judgments based on the scrimmage. Since the two sides don’t game-plan and there’s really no way to create great continuity it has to be taken in a play-to-play vacuum where you just look at individuals on one side of the ball on a play and do the same thing for players on the other side of the ball. Each play stands alone and really, offense and defense stands alone from a valuation stand-point.
Leach is smart though and he uses the “spring game” to teach with one more practice coming later today. That allows him to set a tone going into the summer workouts for his team that they must still improve vs. having had a great day in front of a big crowd in their last spring workout like some other programs. That’s one smart Pirate.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP ODDS ARE OUT
Oklahoma6/1 Oklahoma State100/1
Texas30/1 Texas A&M100/1 Texas Tech100/1
http://www.fastodds.com/odds/cfb/futures.htm
I got these from the above website, so take it for what it’s worth.
I wonder how T. Boone Pickens feels about the R.O.I. he’s got going right now at 100/1 with Oklahoma State. I understand they are offering prop bets on Mangino at The Wynn’s buffet as well as how long before Dr. Tom Osborne puts the headset on and coaches the Huskers his own self.
MORE LATER.
HYATT
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