Oduduru is a National Champion
Divine Oduduru is your 200m NCAA National Champion by one one-hundredth of a second. Watching the video, it’s almost as if the announcers somewhat forget that Oduduru is running because he’s in lane 8 and you almost never see someone win from the 8th lane. I think Oduduru’s reaction is just magical after he wins and the video from head coach Wes Kittley and Oduduru is just terrific.
Thoughts from Coach Kittley, Coach Robinson and Divine Oduduru on tonight’s victorious 200m race ⬇#WreckEm | #NCAATF pic.twitter.com/Qg5xrnFbPb
— Texas Tech Track & Field/Cross Country (@TexasTechTF) June 9, 2018
“It’s the dream of every student-athlete to get to the national meet,” Oduduru said after the race. “Coming over and winning it, I’m very happy. I want to say thank you to my coach and my teammates and everyone who made today a reality. I appreciate God for having those people around me.”
“How incredible was he [Oduduru] today?” Head Coach Wes Kittley said. “He didn’t run great in the prelim, but he got in there today and was just focused. [Assistant] Coach [Calvin] Robinson did a fabulous job getting him ready for today.”
Oduduru’s finish meant that Texas Tech finished 5th in the nation, tied with Alabama. You can read about Oduduru’s performance (TexasTech) and the conclusion to the 2018 season (TexasTech). This is arguably the best season ever for Texas Tech track and field, a huge congrats to the student-athletes, Kittley and the assistant coaches. Just tremendous.
Texas Tech Baseball
Things did not go according to plan yesterday. Caleb Kilian was, in my opinion, shakey at best (he was in trouble early, got out of it, and then got in trouble late and that was that). Game 3 is today at 3:00 p.m. on ESPN2. I’ll have a very special open thread for game 3 at 2:30 p.m. and whoever wins goes to the College World Series.
Texas Tech Football
SB Nation’s Bill Connelly has his excellent Texas Tech preview and I’m going to write a bit more on that late in the week. I always reccommend reading Connelly’s stuff, it’s always good and truthfully, Bill is sitting right where I’m at, which is that this team could be disasterous or it could be great. To claim that the team is trending in one particular direction with certain confidence is probably showing your bias more than anything else. As bill concludes, there are 7 toss-up games this year, depending on how the offense and the defense turn out. That’s a pretty big swing and that’s what you call OPPORTUNITY.
I think Jared Kaster was an offensive quality control coach for Texas Tech and he’ll be joining Zach Kittley at Houston Baptist (Zach Kittley @ Twitter). That’s how these guys move on up, so congrats to Kaster for the promotion.
USA Today’s Lindsay H. Jones writes about the hype around Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes:
But now the Chiefs are trying to reconcile their sheer excitement about Mahomes’ potential with the reality that the highs he achieved in that come-from-behind win against the Broncos are sure to be paired with some rough patches.
“We’re loading him up, and he’s handling it. He’s spent a lot of time away from here working on it, and you can see that in the results when he comes out here,” Chiefs coach Andy Reid said. “Long way to go, but we love his attitude.”
Miscellaneous . . . LandGrantGauntlet’s josh Cowan ranks the Big 12 defensive backs and has Texas Tech 5th overall . . . this was a pretty big recruiting weekend (I’m sure that LaBarre will have a full update this week) and InsideTheRedRaiders’ Zach Tanner has reaction from a handful of players who made the visit for a camp this weekend, all of them were impressed, now we just need to get some commits . . .