I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a happy holidays. I’ll post an open thread tomorrow just in case anyone wants to post and show the class any Texas Tech gifts that you might receive. Love you all and hope you enjoy the time with your family.
Justin Gray’s Comeback.
Top Five Plays vs. Little Rock.
Setting the Table for Possible Postseason. Basketball Predictions has a good conversation about how Tubby Smith set up this year’s schedule to make a run at some sort of post-season and Jeff, who writes the article, lays out the idea that if Texas Tech goes 7-11 in Big 12 play, Texas Tech would have an RPI of 47, which would be higher than West Virginia, Texas, Kansas State and Baylor. And something else I didn’t know, KemPom has Tesas Tech going 8-10 in the Big 12, which is downright shocking.
Miller is Star-Telegram Defensive Player of the Year. Via the Star-Telegram, Texas Tech commit Houston Miller was named the Defensive Player of the Year after a year where he had 119 tackles, 16 tackles for a loss, 9 sacks, and 4 forced fumbles. Here’s Miller on football and how he’s ready to get to work:
“My life is football,” he said. “I knew before my eighth-grade year that I wanted to play football for as long as I could and I thought knowing the coach was an important piece of that.
“I’ve already been writing messages to our defensive coordinator at Tech to find out who he’ll bring on as the defensive line coach. I’m ready to start researching him and his style and what I can expect.”
The Grant Collection. Sports On Earth’s Matt Brown is running down the top plays of the year and Jakeem Grant, not just one play, but a collection of plays, checks in at #6. Yes, it’s the Grant Collection.
We expect big numbers out of Texas Tech offenses, and nobody’s all-purpose numbers could look good this year in comparison to Christian McCaffrey. Still, it’s possible that no player is more underappreciated than Grant, the Red Raiders’ top playmaker. The 5-foot-7 senior has 80 catches for 1,143 yards and seven TDs, two rushing TDs and an average of 26.6 yards per kick return. He put together a season of highlights.
Go check out the highlights and memories.
Top Junior College Players. Rivals released their top 100 JUCO players and there may not be anything more polarizing than JUCO rankings. For comparison purposes, here are the JUCO rankings for 24/7 Sports.
On the Rivals list, Derrick Willies is #22, Mychealon Thomas is #55 and De’Quan Bowman is #63. On the 24/7 Sports list, Willies is #11, Bowman is #88 and Thomas is #113.
Miscellaneous. LAJ’s Don Williams has a story about how Emeka Okafor has had to move a bunch of his buddies to get some extra tickets for the Texas Bowl game . . . TheAdvocate’s Ross Dellenger writes about how Texas Tech doesn’t have a ton of household names, but that the defensive front is mobile, so there’s that . . .