In this morning’s stake, we get some baseball news, including Dominic Moreno returning and excelling his senior year, plus, we’ve got links to lists of ranking of football things.
Photo via Charles Henry @ Flickr.
Around and About
New Campus Pictures. Via TTURed at Totally Texas Tech we’ve got some new campus photos.
Baseball
Moreno Returns and Excels. LAJ’s Nicholas Talbot writes about pitcher Dominic Moreno, who returned for his senior year:
Moreno ended the regular season with a 2.01 ERA, a 1.29 WHIP and a team-leading seven saves, serving primarily was the team’s closer this season. He has also struck out an incredible 68 batters in 53 1/3 innings — a rate of 11.48 per nine innings.
“He has been as advertised and the really neat thing to see is a player who comes back as a senior and is even better than they were as a junior,” Texas Tech coach Tim Tadlock said. “It is not every day guys who are juniors come back and improve their status for what is to follow this.”
Burleson Heating Up. Also from LAJ’s Nicholas Talbot is about second baseman Bryant Burleson, who has emerged out of a slump to be a terrific hitter.
Football
Defensive Line Rankings. The ESPN Big 12 Blog Bros have their post-spring defensive lien rankings and as you might imagine, Texas Tech is pretty far down the list:
8. Texas Tech (8): There’s cautious optimism in Lubbock about the defensive line, which has a chance to be much improved in Davis Gibbs’ 4-3 scheme after a disastrous 2014 showing. Ends Pete Robertson and Branden Jackson could together total 20-plus sacks. But the key will be the tackles, where the Red Raiders will be leaning on former juco transfers Rika Levi and Keland McElrath, who underwhelmed last year. Both will be pushed by ballyhooed true freshman Breiden Fehoko, who Gibbs already has stated will play a pivotal role in the fall.
Big Shoes to Fill. ESPN’s Brandon Chatmon is looking at each team’s best player to replace and for Texas Tech it was Bradley Marquez:
Candidates: Junior Dylan Cantrell, junior Reginald Davis, junior Devin Lauderdale. Kliff Kingsbury should feel pretty confident he can replace Marquez’s production between Cantrell, Davis, Lauderdale and the incoming freshman receivers. There’s good competition at the position and the Red Raiders have a good track record of replacing receivers, so Tech should end up just fine at receiver.
Eh, I don’t know if I’d count Lauderdale as he plays the opposite side, but we are talking about production and he could fill that role. Still sorta waiting to find out with Reginald Davis, although I’m guessing that if we haven’t heard any news, there may not be a lot happening. As an aside, Davis is a star student as well.
Recruiting Scorecard. Also from ESPN (they’re busy) we have an update for the list of commits in the Big 12. Texas Tech sits at 8, which is tied for most in the Big 12, but doesn’t have any of ESPN’s top 300 players.
Ranking in Texas. The DMN is ranking the position groups and after the quarterback ranking, I lost interest and forgot that they also ranked the running backs with Texas Tech at #3, wide receivers with Texas Tech at #4 and offensive line with Texas Tech at #4.
Ranking the Running Backs. Sports on Earth’s Matt Brown ranks the running backs coming into this year and has DeAndre Washington at #20, which is just one step ahead of Shock Linwood and three spots behind Aaron Green at TCU. The guy that still gives me nightmares, Samaje Perine at Oklahoma, is at #6. Here’s the blurb on DeAndre:
20. DeAndre Washington, Texas Tech. Running backs can struggle to earn recognition in air raid systems, and Washington is no exception. Still, with musical chairs at quarterback continuing under Kliff Kingsbury, the 5-foot-8 Washington proved to be a valuable weapon for the Red Raiders. Texas Tech running backs have to make their mark in the passing game, and Washington did just that: He caught 30 passes for 328 yards and two touchdowns, on top of running 188 times for 1,103 yards and two TDs. In 2002, as Texas Tech’s quarterback, Kingsbury hit tailback Taurean Henderson for a team-high 98 receptions. Washington won’t match those numbers, but he does have a chance to emerge as one of the most complete running backs in college football.