The Morning Stake: January 21st

Miscellaneous

New Campus Photos. Lots of great stuff from TTU Red!

Track & Field

Caldwell Named Big 12 Athlete of the Week. Congrats to Chris Caldwell for being named the Big 12 Men’s Track & Field Co-Athlete of the Week:

Caldwell kicked off the 2016 season with a bang, finishing first in both the prelims and the final of the 60-meter hurdles in Fayetteville, charging down the track to a time of 7.75 seconds to claim the victory. His mark sits atop the Big 12 leaderboard this season, ranks second in the NCAA and eighth in the world.

“Great start for Chris with his first meet running with seven steps to the first hurdle,” head coach Wes Kittley said. “Look for big things in the weeks to come.”

Tennis

Tennis Teams Ranked. The men’s team and women’s team have both continued to be ranked as the men moved up to #15 in the ITA Rankings and the women are at #17 in the rankings.

Lady Raiders Basketball

Lady Raiders Blown Out in Norman. This was a pretty terrible game as the Lady Raiders fell to Oklahoma, 92-53 yesterday morning (recap). Texas Tech was down early, really down, 30-6 after the first quarter. Ivonne CookTaylor led the way with 20 points, but other than that, there wasn’t a ton to get excited about. OU forced 20 turnovers and scored 25 points off of turnovers.

Football

More on Big 12 Expansion. Via AAS’s Kirk Bohls, he thinks that the Big 12 will eventually expand, but there are definitely some members that aren’t in favor of doing so. Also, the idea of adding Houston is apparently not high on the list of potential members:

Another athletic director told me the league is “split at best” on the expansion issue. … I sense zero groundswell at all for adding Houston, even though there are 225,000 UH alumni living in that fourth-largest city in the nation and, according to the school, it has the second-most alumni in the State Legislature. …. And don’t rule out the Big 12 considering extending football-only invitations. … There are so many ramifications concerning expansion, but one that schools should remember is that in a 12-team conference, you can’t play a round-robin schedule, and some teams will not play Texas and Oklahoma every year. That could be good as far as avoiding a potential loss — assuming Texas becomes Texas again — but bad in that the lack of marquee opponents could adversely affect season ticket sales. Quite frankly, I would think the smaller Big 12 schools would favor expansion for the sake of stability after schools like basketball power Kansas saw how vulnerable they were in the last round of realignment. OU president David Boren, Baylor’s Ken Starr and West Virginia’s Gordon Gee head up a Big 12 composition committee to study expansion.

And to add to this, Gridiron Now’s Chad Scott dug a little deeper into how much money the SEC Network really made of the reported $527.4 million in revenue. Without giving it all away, and I do recommend clicking on over, the SEC Network was really approximately $102 million, which is great, but then divided by 14 colleges and the SEC’s cut (thus by 15) the total amount is around $6.8 million per institution.

Not So Fast. Apparently, Texas Tech did not offer Tristan Cooper, the defensive back that was said to have been offered that was highlighted yesterday. The original report was from Felix Chavez from the El Paso Times, but in any event, Wreck’Em 24/7’s Carlos Silva, Jr. confirmed (here and here) that Cooper has not yet been offered, by Texas Tech, but has been offered by others. In any event, it appears that Joe Robinson is the one that visited Cooper:

Smith Talks In Home Visit. RP’s Jarrett Johnson talked with 2016 commit, Desmon Smith, regarding his recent in-home visit with David Gibbs and Joe Robinson:

“Yeah coach Gibbs came by Sunday and Friday coach Robinson came by,” Smith said. “Coach Gibbs discussed my works and filled us in more about my OV. Coach Robinson was really cool, we talked for like an hour straight. We talked about everything; Permian, Tech. home, friends, my videos.”

Recruiting With DuPont and LaBarre. DMN’s Michael DuPont interviews Wreck’Em 24/7’s Michael LaBarre about recruiting thus far for Texas Tech. There’s lots there, but here’s a bit:

On the biggest need still unfulfilled:

LaBarre: “When you look at the class in total, they really didn’t address the secondary like I thought they would. Tech’s secondary was not very great this year – there was a lot of downside to it and really they got three cornerbacks, I believe. All of them are tall, good guys that could probably come in and play some minutes right away. But I think they should’ve addressed the secondary more, especially with how weak that position was this season.”

Coaches Visit Henderson. RRS’s Landon Wright talked with defensive end commit Clarence Henderson and he talks about what DL coach Kevin Patrick thinks about Henderson:

He said he really likes my work ethic and my intensity and said that he just keeps hearing good things about me. He likes that I’m a hard worker, he likes my aggressiveness and he likes that I’m coachable.”

Miscellaneous. Here are a few ESPN links. ESPN’s Travis Haney runs down the list of the top 25 players returning and QB Patrick Mahomes checks in at #24:

Mahomes came into his own in his first season as a full-time starter, despite the fact that the Red Raiders are still searching for consistent vertical passing threats. That’s likely part of the reason he took too many chances, throwing 15 interceptions.

If the program has really addressed the need for physical skill players, Mahomes should find another gear in ‘16 and turn himself into a legitimate NFL prospect. He already has the arm, athletic ability and intangibles.

. . . ESPN’s Max Olson counts down the top 25 Big 12 players and has 11 through 15 with appearances from Mahomes, RB DeAndre Washington and LT Le’Raven Clark . . . Texas Tech made the hiring of defensive line coach Kevin Patrick and running back coach Jabbar Juluke officially official . . . Texas Football’s Mike Craven has an overview of the Texas Tech recruiting class as does DMN’s Mike DuPont . . . via LAJ’s Don Williams, Trey Haverty has been hired as the defensive coordinator at Lamar . . .

Recruiting Stuff.

DaMarcus Fields:

Jack Anderson:

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