The Morning Stake: Football Freshmen Impact

We take a look at who can make an impact as a freshman on the football team. Plus, three more players were drafted in the MLB Draft.


Photo via Charles Henry @ Flickr.

Baseall

Three More Drafted. Here we go:

  • Shortstop Tim Proudfoot was drafted in the 35th round by the Oakalnd A’s, the second year in a row where he was drafted by the A’s where he was drafted in the 21st round. That injury this year probably cost him a bit and I’m hoping his bat comes to play in the pros.
  • Pitcher Matt Custred was drafted in the 31st round by the Atlanta Braves. Custred is a junior so he could return to school.
  • Pitcher Cameron Smith, one of Texas Tech’s best pitchers last year, was drafted in the 36th round by the Arizona Diamondbacks. Smith doesn’t have a prototypical pitchers build, standing 6-0/155, but he sure as heck got people out for two years in a row for Texas Tech, going 14-8 over his career with a 2.81 ERA.

Taylor Named 3rd Team All-American. In other baseball news, Corey Taylor was named a third team All-American by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association. Congrats!

Track and Field

NCAA Outdoor Championships. This is a three day event and yesterday was the first day, Texas Tech had two players finish top 20, Kyle Thompson finished 12th overall in the pole vault and Jerome Wilson finished 19th overall. Congrats.

Basketball

Rule Changes. I think Dan is going ot have more on this later, but the NCAA is adopting some rule changes for the 2015-16 season, including a 30-second shot-clock, a larger restricted area and a reduction of one timeout, five to four.

Miscellaneous. Baylor forward Rico Gathers was arrested after stealing about $170 worth of stuff from Wal-Mart . . . the Chronicle of Higher Education has this report on how there may have been some shady things going on while Rick Barnes was at UT in regards to players cheating to improve the team’s academics . . .

Football

Multi-Threat. ESPN’s Brandon Chatmon has his list of multi-threat players and includes RB DeAndre Washington:

Washington plays with a toughness that belies his size while bringing quickness and versatility to Tech’s offense. The Big 12’s top returning dual threat led all Big 12 running backs with 328 receiving yards in addition to his 1,103 rushing yards in 2014. He averaged 6.56 yards per touch from scrimmage as a junior.

Freshman Impact. DMN’s Tommy Magelssen has his list of three freshmen that he thinks will have an immediate impact this fall, including DT Breiden Fehoko (absolutely), WR Donta Thompson and RB Corey Dauphine. I have serious doubts about Thompson producing, namely because I think that the lack of strength at receiver is a huge problem for incoming freshmen. Oh, sure, the height and leaping ability is great, but without that strength, getting off the line of scrimmage is a real problem. It’s the reason why I think that Quan Shorts has the best chance of the receivers as he’s already got a big body, nearly 200 pounds. That helps a ton. And if I had to pick a third, I’d probably take D’Vonta Hinton, who I think, at the very least, will play special teams and most likely get some looks at linebacker this year. S Jamile Johnson would be another option, but it’s going to be really tough for him to break into that 3-deep. There are a ton of players in the secondary.

Miscellaneous. Three Jayhawk players were dismissed from the team, including leading rusher Corey Avery, leading receiver Rodriguez Coleman and linebacker Jake Love . . .

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