The Morning Stake: February 9th

Track & Field

Men’s Track Team Continues No. 14 Ranking. The men’s track team continues their strong ranking as they are still No. 14 in the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association computer rankings:

In back-to-back weeks, Kyle Collins has recorded an indoor personal-best in the 400 meters, putting up sub-47 second times. Finishing with a time of 46.84 in his first trip to Albuquerque, Collins clocked in at 46.43 seconds on Saturday, earning runner-up honors by 0.006 seconds to Olympic medalist Jarrin Solomon. Collins’ time ranks sixth in the NCAA this season and was the seventh-fastest time in school history.

Another Red Raider who jumped up in the NCAA rankings after his performance last weekend was high jumper Bradley Adkins. The five-time All-American had the top clearance of any collegiate athlete in the event across the nation over the weekend, going over the bar at 2.20m/7-2.5. It was a season-best for Adkins and ranks fourth in the NCAA in 2016.

Lady Raider Basketball

Dean Named Big 12 Freshman of the Week for 5th Straight Time. Japreece Dean continues her run as a freshman as she was named the Big 12 Freshman of the Week, her fifth time to win it this year.

Baseball

Texas Tech Adds Game Against Oral Roberts in Frisco. This is good news for all of those Red Raiders who live in the Frisco area, the baseball team will play one game against Oral Roberts on March 8th at 2:00 pm at the Dr. Pepper Ballpark, which is the regular home of the Frisco Roughriders.

Basketball

McKay Out; Temple Should Be Okay. LAJ’s Krista Pirtle reported yesterday that Matthew Temple should be okay, no damage to his eye other than just looking terrible and a bruise. Also, via the Big 12 coaches press conference, Iowa State starting center Jameel McKay will continue to be suspended for Texas Tech’s game with Iowa State. ISU isn’t a big team, so this could be significant for the Red Raiders.

Football

You Probably Can’t Do This.

You Probably Can Do This.

Clark at the Senior Bowl. Real Football Network had a brief interview with Le’Raven Clark during the Senior Bowl and in typical Clark fashion, he’s not overly talkative.

Ranking the Newly Signed Quarterbacks. ESPN’s Max Olson ranks the newly signed crop of quarterbacks from the 2016 class and has Jett Duffey as the 7th best signee:

Duffey racked up an impressive list of honors as the top player in the Dallas-Fort Worth area this year and led his Lake Ridge team to the state title game. His size (6 feet, 180 pounds) might be the only reason he’s rated a three-star. Kliff Kingsbury would like to redshirt him, if possible, but he loves that Duffey brings a Patrick Mahomes-like mentality to the game. “Very similar attitudes,” Kingsbury said. “Both think they’re the best when they step out there.”

The funny thing about Duffey’s size is that he’s probably the same size as Shane Buechele (I’m almost positive that Duffey is a legitimate 6’1″, so he’s undersized, but the same size as Buechele), but that never seems to come up when discussing Buechele, and Duffey had significantly better stats than Buechele. Of course, there’s a ton that goes into having good stats in high school, but just something to think about.

More on the 2016 Recruiting Class. DMN’s Mike DuPont talked with 24/7 Sports recruiting analyst Ryan Bartow. Here’s a bit:

“For their program to really take that next step you need to get better on defense and that starts with the defensive line. And I think they quietly had a really good defensive line class. Obviously [Mych Thomas] will be able to help them right away. [Nick McCann] is exactly what you look for in terms of 6-foot-2, 290-pounds, big, thick kid and getting Ivory Jackson – same kind of deal. The hardest position to find in the country is defensive tackles over 6-2 that are explosive, that can move. There’s only a few of them, that’s why there’s big competition for them. But getting a guy like Ivory Jackson, too, and Joe Wallace who’s a big zero-technique. I thought they had four really good defensive tackles in that class. Guys that are already coming in thick, ready-made. And you add a guy like Noah Jones who has great length off the edge, I mean he’s walking in the door at 6-5, 255-pounds. So I mean he’s ready to go in there. Houston Miller out of Keller can bring some pass rush off the edge. Obviously the strength of their class is their wide receivers and nine times out of 10 it’s always going to be that way, but this defensive line class is really good. For [Texas Tech] to get better they need to be better up front and defensively, more physical, and you’ve got five really good defensive linemen.

There’s lots more there, so go check it out. Also of note is that Bartow seems to think that Texas Tech should take the same blueprint as they did this year, which is sign a lot of linemen, on both offense and defense and then try to upgrade where you can on the backside of the defense.

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