Salary Increases. LAJ’s Don Williams has the details on the salary increases for all of the coaches except for David Gibbs. Basically, everybody got a raise. Head coach Kliff Kingsbury’s contract stipulates that the salary pool must increase at least 3% annually and it rose 6%, which is good because you want AD Kirby Hocutt making that investment.

Notebook: Murphy and Brown May Flip. LAJ’s Don Williams writes that offensive line coach Leey Hays may flip Baylen Brown and Justin Murphy, saying that Brown is more of a natural tackle and Murphy is more of a natural guard:

Hays said he feels comfortable with four players at guard: Alfredo and Tony Morales, Brown and Murphy. And he feels comfortable with three at tackle: left-side starter Le’Raven Clark, Brown and Murphy.

“If Murph is not the tackle,” Hays said, “He’ll compete for a guard spot or be in a rotation someplace.”

Other items of note:

• Nigel Bethel and D’Vonta Hinton were in non-contact blue jerseys today, Bethel with a cast on his left hand.
• Paul Stawarz is making progress coming back from his stress fracture and conditioning.
• Via LAJ’s Don Williams, there are four linebackers that are in good position: Micah Awe, Kris Williams, Malik Jenkins and Dakota Allen. Here’s linebackers coach Zac Spavital on that group:
  

  “Obviously, we know about Micah,” Spavital said. “He’s been great as far as kind of combining everybody and keeping everybody on the same point out there when the coaches step away from the field.”

  Spavital said Williams “has improved greatly” since switching to weak-side linebacker late in spring ball. He’s appeared to be the starter since spring ended, whereas Jenkins has competed with Sam Atoe at strong-side linebacker.

  “Dakota Allen and Malik Jenkins have done a great job, not just learning one position,” Spavital said, “but kind of being that utility role and knowing multiple (positions).”

Good News, Ubben Scooped Up by Sports on Earth. I’m probably burying the lede here, but yesterday we found out that David Ubben will be writing for Sports on Earth for the upcoming football season and his first article, the one that I’ve linked, is about some guy in Oklahoma getting the starting nod at quarterback. I kid (of course) and yes, Baker Mayfield is the starting quarterback for Oklahoma. I mentioned this a couple of days ago that Texas Tech’s starter wouldn’t be named until after the first day of classes and as you might expect, a bunch of coaches followed suit, Oklahoma, Texas A&M, etc. So, when an opposing fanbase makes a big deal about Kingsbury and Texas Tech not wavering on Mayfield having to sit out a year, just remember that these coaches pretty much just did the same thing to the back-ups, i.e., they’ll have to sit out yet another year if they want to play somewhere else.

Congrats David!

ESPN’s All-Big 12. The ESPN Big 12 Blog Bros released their All-Big 12 team and Alfredo Morales and Le’Raven Clark made the team on offense while Pete Robertson made the defensive team and Taylor Symmank was named their top punter.

Media Roundtable. I very much enjoy SI’s Richard Deitsch and he did a college football media roundtable, with all sorts of interesting questions for a handful of SI’s college football analysts. It’s a good read and there was one mention of head coach Kliff Kingsbury as Andy Staples felt that he would make a terrific analyst:

Staples: Kliff Kingsbury, and not just because he can fill out a suit like the guys in GQ. Kliff has a knack for translating football to English in a relatable way, and that’s critical in television and radio. (Shaw is also great at this, which is probably why Richard made him the obvious default.) One other coach who could be great as a broadcaster is Nick Saban. He thinks about things differently than most people—which helps explain his success—and he’s adept at articulating why he feels that way. That’s a great combination for a coach and for a broadcaster.

Madison Improving. RedRaiderSports’ Will McKay writes about CB Tevin Madison, who likes what defensive coordinator David Gibbs brings to the table and says that the competition and experience in the secondary has helped make everyone better:

“I mean, it’s gone very well. The defense and offense are both clicking now. Everybody is kind of getting a feel, really starting to get the technique down, so it’s going really good, ” he said. “”Man, it’s crazy. Everybody has been working hard, getting everybody better. There are like eight or nine guys in the secondary that have playing time, so just our experience and the competition we’ve had is helping all of us in the long run.”

Sorry. NewsOK’s Berry Tramel opines on the Baylor situation . . . Grantland’s Charles P. Pierce also opines on the Baylor situation, stating that the back-and-forth he said-she said between Briles and Peterson doesn’t really matter . . . I’ve been quiet on this subject since Friday as I assume that you’ve heard plenty about the topic. Before we get too far, via Barking Carnival, Texas coach Charlie Strong had some things to say about how he runs his program and presumably talking about Briles:

You’re not going to let your child just go do anything he want to go do. So why all of a sudden that you have someone else’s child, you feel like hey, this is what they can go do. I don’t – I don’t understand it, but Ryan, that’s the way a lot of people are, so that’s how they run their shop. It’s their store. They’re the manager of their store.

And I should probably add this for context:

Strong could have torched Briles worse than that. Truthfully, as much as Art tells recruits Strong won't last his contract he deserves more.

— EricInsideTexas (@EricNahlin) August 23, 2015

The one thing that no one has said, rather than engage in a pissing match about what he did and didn’t know, was to just say that you’re was sorry (without being followed up with, “But let’s talk about football.”). There needs to be a stop there. Someone needs to say, that they are sorry to the victim that this happened and whoever it is will try to do better. I know that this probably isn’t possible in today’s litigious world, but being genuinely sorry goes a long ways. A girl was raped, and lost her virginity, and her identity:

She said he robbed her of her virginity, adding that at times she feels like she has lost her identity and feels like now she is just the “girl who got raped.”

“At times, I want to cry a tsunami,” she said. “Not a river. Rivers are too calm and too peaceful.”

Maybe that’s what makes this so maddening is that no one is saying that their sorry, just pointing a lot of fingers.

Miscellaneous. The FWST has a general preview of Texas Tech . . . via the official site, they have a list of the new things at Jones AT&T Stadium, which includes a Chik-fil-A . . . DMN’s Michael DuPont with his five breakout candidates for the season . . . DT’s Jeremy Krakosky writes about the new mindset of the defensive line . . .