Leading Off
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A day after news broke yesterday that the Texas Tech Board of Regents voted to oust Chancellor Robert Duncan, most likely sinking the thought that Texas Tech would be able to move forward with their veterinary school. Well, Texas Tech announced that they were moving forward with the vet school. Personally, I think that without Duncan on board and his political influence, I think this thing is dead in the water. A good strong reader emailed me and asked if I could explain how this all works and I’m really not the guy for this. What I do know is that the Board of Regents essentially are the governing body for the University. Think about it as like a Board of Directors for a Corporation. Except rather than the shareholders appointing the Board, it’s done by the governor and a regent spot is usually given to someone who is highly involved politically.
There is the thought that a handful of the current Board were appointed by former Governor Rick Perry, an Aggie. With Texas A&M not down with the vet school, the thought is that TAMU Chancellor John Sharp called in a favor to get the Perry appointed Regents to vote out Duncan to essentially sink the vet school. Via A-J Media, Governor Greg Abbott denied that he had any involvment, althought all five regents that voted to oust Duncan are listed as major donors in Abbott’s upcoming visit to Lubbock on August 22nd.
At this point, it’s a lot of piecing things together and I don’t know that there’s been anything definative about what’s really happened.
Texas Tech Tennis
The Texas Tech women’s tennis spring schedule was released yesterday and will play 15 opponents who were ranked in the 2018 final rankings and 7 of those teams were top 25 teams (TexasTech). There are only three players returning and five incoming freshmen.
Texas Tech Volleyball
There will be three Texas Tech volleyball games that will be televised on FOX Sports, Kansas State on Octobe 3rd, Oklahoma on November 7th, and Baylor on November 12th (TexasTech). The ladies open things up on August 24-25 in the Red Raider Classic.
Texas Tech Soccer
Texas Tech soccer will open things up this Friday, hosting New Mexico, and then hosting Pepperdine on Sunday (TexasTech). We haven’t delved into this much, but the Red Raiders are picked to finish 6th in the Big 12 this year, behind West Virginia, Oklahoma State, Baylor, Texas, and TCU (Big12Sports). They had no players picked on the 2018 Preseason All-Big 12 team, which probably hasn’t happened in quite a while (Big12Sports).
These two games are not televised, but the official site did release their television schedule, which is four games, September 9th against Oregon State, September 23rd against Iowa State, October 25th against Texas, and October 5th against Oklahoma State.
Texas Tech Golf
Head coach Greg Sands is in Gothenburg, Sweeden for the Nordea masters, which has one senior, Adam Blomme, and four former players, Clement Sordet, Oscar Floren, Hannes Ronneblad and Fredrik Nilehn (TexasTech) and you can follow along on the TexasTechMen’sGolf Twitter.
Texas Tech Football
The team took the day off from what I can tell and was at Main Event yesterday.
Main Event was the move. 🎟🎳#GunsBlazin19 #WreckEm pic.twitter.com/xhHKifuNz4
— RedRaiderFB Recruiting (@RedRaider_FB) August 15, 2018
LandGrantGauntlet’s Josh Cowan has the newcomers to look for in 2018 for each Big 12 team and Cowan picks quarterback Alan Bowman and I suppose that’s a fine pick, but truthfully, I can’t think of any other freshman or JUCO player that’s being considered to receive significant playing time this year.
LandGrantGauntlet’s Patrick Mayhorn had an interesting article where he talked to various Big 12 players about how they felt about RPO’s (run-pass option) and included in that was Travis Bruffy, who liked the offense with the right quarterback, but obviously has to worry about getting downfield as a lineman. Anyway, make sure and check it out.