STP Stuff

I’m officially back in the saddle and good to go. Last week was a rough week coming back from vacation (I know, the world’s smallest violin plays for all of my problems), but I’ve had a weekend to get organized and there will be loads of content moving forward. It’s also time to start opponent previews, so we’ll start that this week as well. The only thing that I haven’t had time to update is the 2018 recruiting table, but that’s on the schedule for me to tackle next weekend.

Enjoy your Memorial Day and I might recommend Oliver Wendell Holmes’ speech from 1884 on why to continue Memorial Day:

But grief is not the end of all. I seem to hear the funeral march become a paean. I see beyond the forest the moving banners of a hidden column. Our dead brothers still live for us, and bid us think of life, not death–of life to which in their youth they lent the passion and joy of the spring. As I listen, the great chorus of life and joy begins again, and amid the awful orchestra of seen and unseen powers and destinies of good and evil our trumpets sound once more a note of daring, hope, and will.

Texas Tech Track and Field

🗞 The Red Raiders finished the weekend with a total of 1⃣3⃣ punched tickets! #WreckEm https://t.co/ku0xOVTPKq

— TTU Track & Field/XC (@TTU_TF_XC) May 28, 2017

Texas Tech Baseball

 Lubbock, Texas was selected as one of 16 regional sites along with Fort Worth as the only othe rBig 12 schools. We should find out today who the other three teams will be in Lubbock’s regional. The revealing of who made the field of 64 will air on ESPN2 at 11:00 a.m. CST. Baseball America projects Lubbock to host Missouri State, Sam Houston State and Central Connecticut State. I can say that I don’t know a thing about any of those teams. D1Baseball projects Holy Cross, BYU and NC State to be part of the regional and I don’t know anything about those teams either.

Texas Tech Football

Athlon Sports ranks the Big 12 coaches and our guy, Kliff Kingsbury, ranked 9th overall:

Kingsbury is 24-26 through four seasons at his alma mater and enters 2017 squarely on the hot seat. The former Texas Tech quarterback took over the program in 2013 after joining the collegiate ranks as an assistant in 2008. Kingsbury spent four years at Houston, followed by a successful one-season stint at Texas A&M in 2012. The Red Raiders appeared to be trending in the right direction after an 8-5 mark in Kingsbury’s debut. However, the program has one winning record over the last three years and is just 13-23 in Big 12 play since 2013. Scoring points hasn’t been a problem for Texas Tech, but the defense has surrendered over 40 points a game in three consecutive seasons.

Phil Steele has the toughest schedules by opposing team winning percentage and according to that metric, Texas Tech has the 19th toughest schedule next year. The next Big 12 member is Iowa State at #41, so there’s a pretty big jump. Of course, with Kingsbury coaching for his job (in my opinion), he’s got an incredibly tough slate.

ESPN’s Jake Trotter has a list of the impact Big 12 summer arrivals and the only Red Raider on the list is LB Dakota Allen:

Texas Tech linebacker Dakota Allen: Tech’s second-leading tackler from two years ago, Allen is back after being kicked off the team following a stint in junior college. The Red Raiders desperately need more tackling, and Allen has shown he can give them that.

RedRaiderSports’ Maitland Rutledge has a Q&A with 2017 signee CB/S Adrian Frye that you can check out.