Texas Tech Football: Spring Football Thoughts, Chapter I
The biggest surprise coming out thus far is that Madison Akamnonu and Terence Steele will be getting first team snaps at both tackle spots. I don’t know how long this will last, but it would seem that Justin Murphy will get a shot at either one of those tackle spots and that might move one of them off. The other thing that this screams is that there really aren’t any tackle prospects on this team other than those three players mentioned above.
I’ve embedded the opening presser, which really wasn’t very much at all from each coach. We don’t get much at all from any of the coaches, but at the very least we get introduced a bit.
I might be the most interested to see what Karl Scott does as a cornerbacks coach. It’s interesting to pluck a guy with such little experience at this level to get a Power Five coaching job. Perhaps there are two things in his favor. The first being he’s coached and done pretty much everything, from recruiting coordinator, to coaching linebackers, to defensive coordinator, to safeties to cornerbacks. There’s no doubt that one of the positions that needs the most help is cornerback, at least from a standpoint of not giving up huge plays.
Joe Robinson may end up being the Swiss-army knife of the staff, being able to coach and do so many things might be an incredibly valuable hire for Kingsbury. Of course, being able to focus solely on special teams should help him out, but he’s coached the defensive line, running backs, linebackers and I think even tight ends. Good coaches can coach and I hope Robinson has that effect on the rest of the staff.
I think the hire of DeShaun Foster raised some eyebrows a bit and we all wondered what the connection was between Kingsbury and Foster and we’ve come to learn that Foster recruited Texas for UCLA. They probably met on the road some place, recruiting against each other. Despite his California roots, with Foster recruiting Texas, this seemingly made a pretty nice fit for Texas Tech and Kliff Kingsbury. The other part of it is that Kingsbury is giving another coach an opportunity to step up in the coaching ranks. Foster was blocked a bit at that spot as Jim Mora promoted Kennedy Polamalu as the offensive coordinator, who was previously serving as the running backs coach.
Emmett Jones seemed very much ready to get back into the coaching aspect of his profession. He seemed to be happy to sit on the sidelines and do his job, but he also seemed excited to be able to coach and teach, affecting young people.
There are some fantastic photos in the most recent photo gallery, but you should also know that Eric Morris has a mustache. And not the kind of mustache that could be mistaken as a goatee, but the kind of mustache that’s just a mustache (this is a screen shot from the photo gallery):
