Another Mensa meeting with me being the only non-Mensa member. Lucky to hang out with Spencer, LaBarre, and McDonald for the game, and Spencer and LaBarre during the baseball game. As to the baseball game, we had seats right behind the plate, first base side. I was there to witness 21 of the 26 runs scored by the baseball team and we really did have lots of laughs and good discussion with the guys during both games. We’re awfully lucky to have such a great group of people helping out with Staking The Plains.
Believe it or not, Mom and Dad Fehoko were at the scrimmage and wearing Tech gear. Just sitting there and watching pretty intently. You can do that information what you want. I don’t know if anyone else noticed, but they just happened to be sitting by us.
I’m getting to all of the non-game stuff first, but the Special Olympic kids were just a ton of fun to watch. I don’t know if this was on television, but they had some Special Olympic kids do a mini obstacle course that would eventually lead to a touchdown. The first kid that scored a touchdown had his touchdown celebration planned because he dabbed within 1 second of scoring and then he later did the worm in the end zone. He’d been thinking about this for a long time. They were having the times of their lives and the Make-A-Wish and now this for the Special Olympics are some special things that this athletic department and program are really embracing. Oh, and kudos to what seemed like some students hanging out with these Special Olympians during the game and guiding them through the obstacles.
You all got to se how the offense was inconsistent at best. The best drive of the night was the drive where Jett Duffey drove 95 or so yards for the touchdown and his unit would have had another touchdown had Jojo Robinson not fumbled the ball into the end zone at the 1 yard line. That’s why you’ve heard head coach Kliff Kingsbury and offensive coordinator Kevin Johns say that they’d like to see these quarterbacks more reps. That part is all true and Jett Duffeys’ worst pass is one that he should have thrown away and that’s something that he’s really only going to learn with time. A full-on blitz and pressure and Duffey made a bad decision.
I’m still firmly in the camp that Duffey is the best quarterback. He makes the best throws and he goes through his progressions better than McLane Carter. Carter is okay, and so is Alan Bowman but I don’t think they are there yet mentally. Bowman’s reps were with less than starter competition and he was fine, but he’s a freshman. Lots of check-downs and first reads.
The offense was without Antoine Wesley and Quan Shorts and there were other notable absences, probably just precautionary. Jah’Shawn Johnson was out, as was Tony Jones. I don’t remember Desmond Nisby playing in Frisco or in this scrimmage. I don’t know if Quan Shorts played either, but having not watched on TV, I’m not sure if I missed stuff.
I thought that T.J. Vasher was not keyed into the game. He had his hands on a fade that should have been a touchdown and he didn’t catch a pass. I’m not sure that he caught a signifiant pass in the Frisco scrimmage. Remember this: The coaches put Antoine Wesley at his spot during the Frisco scrimmage and there’s a chance that if Vasher doesn’t get things going they’ll go to Wesley on the outside. They seem to trust Wesley and I’m guessing that he has the mental aptitude to handle both the inside and outside positions (because they’ve put him in both spots). You’d let Jojo Robinson and De’Quan Bowman go at it inside and then Donta Thompson is your tight end and change up. Just watch for this.
A lot of the things that I saw last week seemed to take place again for this game. I thought Da’Leon Ward popped and I thought he did again. Tre Kings is good, but he doesn’t have the burst that Ward Has and I think Ward can be special if given the opportunity.
The defense played a lot like they did last week, I thought they were generally pretty efficient in the running game and they closed out on the receivers pretty well. I don’t remember a ton of yards-after-catch. The defensive line looks serviceable, and good, but I don’t know that they have any high-end pass rushers that I saw this spring. Lonzell Gilmore was out all spring and Noah Jones was also out and I don’t know how much Eli Howard played this spring. S there are guys missing out of that strongside defensive end position and the weakside defensive end, like Tony Jones or Kolin Hill, will need to do it with speed.
You wonder who that rush defensive end will be next year.
As mentioned previously, the defense is going to be good. Better than pretty much most of the folks in the Big 12 think. they’re going to think, same old Texas Tech defense and they are making significant strides. Make no mistake that the defense will continue to be mocked, but they’ll be fine. Remember last year, there was only one team that they really couldn’t compete with, that was Oklahoma because they had opposing teams on skates all year long. I don’t know if OU will be that dominant on the offensive line again, but Texas Tech has the horses defensively to pretty much play with anyone.
I think the key will be how much the offense can improve and consistently put points on the board. One of the things that we thought while watching the scrimmage was the running threat that Duffey or Carter could be. That part of the game was essentially eliminated from the game that won’t be when there’s live-action.
I did like the running game quite a bit and I can’t remember a few of those drives, but there was one in particular that I remember it being pretty run-heavy. I thought the offense was pretty vanilla, most likely by design, but at some point, I hope we see some of the creativity that Johns and McGuire will bring to the table.
It’s about to be 5:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, I’m hitting the road to head back home and I’ll see you all on Monday.
