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The Morning Stake: December 22nd

The Morning Stake
Seth C

The Morning Stake: December 22nd

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Football

24/7 Sports’ Travis Haney writes that Texas Tech and Kliff Kingsbury could experience a resurgence like Colorado, Auburn or West Virginia:

It would certainly boost Tech’s 2017 chances if quarterback Patrick Mahomes opts to return for another season. That’s 50-50 and could come down to a mid-January decision, sources close to the program have recently told 247Sports.

As much as it would help, it’s glaringly obvious that the defense is what has to improve for Kingsbury to earn another season. Coordinator David Gibbs has enjoyed success in other places, but this particular rebuild job has at times left him exasperated. Time is running out. Because of that, the Red Raiders will sign several JUCOs to help fill gaps, especially in the secondary.

The best news for Kingsbury and his staff is that the bar to clear is likely not all that high: A seven-win season would at least be received as a sign of promise. The indication from those close to the program is that AD Kirby Hocutt and key administrators do not want to fire the beloved former Tech quarterback; it’s looking for reasons to keep him.

I am guessing that the mid-January decision is probably about right for Mahomes. I don’t have any inside information, but I get the idea that Mahomes isn’t in any sort of rush to make a decision and Texas Tech doesn’t need him to hurry up and make a decision because McLane Carter has already signed, so it seems that Mahomes can make his decision after the Christmas break.

As to the premise of the article, I think that last sentence is key. Hocutt really wants Kingsbury to succeed and you can read that a couple of different ways. I’ve heard from a handful of sources that Hocutt very much fought for Kingsbury to return in 2017.

The ESPN Big 12 Blog Bros have a post on the Big 12 best freshmen of 2016, which includes LB Jordyn Brooks and RB Da’Leon Ward and the top 25 Big 12 players from 2016 which includes only Patrick Mahomes.

I haven’t written too much about the Joe Mixon situation, but thought we should catch everyone up. NewsOK has the interrogation video of Joe Mixon after he hit Mia Moliter and he said at that time that it felt like “a dude hit me”. The reason I’m posting this is because there’s been these allegations that Moliter used a racial slur and here he said that the racial slur came from Moliter’s male friend and that Mixon in turn responded with a homophobic slur against the friend. Also from NewsOK are quotes yesterday from Oklahoma head coach Bob Stoops, who said that the punishment would be different had the incident occurred today and this rational doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s almost as if Stoops is blaming society for his lack of discipline two years ago, almost as if his standards changed as a result of society changing. I’m not sure. The video was the video and I think if Stoops is being honest, it’s that Mixon is really good at football as the reason why he’s still at OU. In this instance, I feel pretty comfortable stating that Stoops absolutely put football above everything else in this instance. Oh, and the NFL doesn’t care about this stuff, which is why it’s likely that Mixon leaves for the NFL. Oklahoma State had Tyreek Hill on their roster when they learned that he punched his pregnant girlfriend in the stomach. Hill was immediately released and he’s now starring for Kansas City.

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