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The Morning Stake | 2019.03.04

The Morning Stake
Seth C

The Morning Stake | 2019.03.04

Leading Off

Ultramarathon Complete. I started the run at 7:30 and finished about 7:34 later (my watch said 7:03, which I started and stopped when I was running, but time was spent at the aid stations talking to my family). Regardless, it was a lot of fun. I didn’t ever really have any bad moments, although miles 16 through 18 were pretty tough. Things were tough because it was so much rock, kind of like hiking in Colorado, and rock is tough to run, mainly because you’re afraid you’re going to trip and fall and possibly face-plant into a cactus. As a result, I probably went a bit slower in those situations that I normally would have, but I didn’t want to fail and anything under 8 hours was going to be regarded as a win. I thought that I’d be absolutely gutted when I got to mile 30, but I felt pretty good. I’d definitely do things a bit different, but given that this was my first one, I’m pretty happy with the result. Thanks for indulging me. I did ask my wife if she’d be cool with me getting on the treadmill this morning to get in a 6 or 7-mile run and she gave me the “give me an effing break” look so I’m giving her a break. Wednesday is right around the corner though . . .

Texas Tech Soccer

Texas Tech Track and Field

Texas Tech Golf

Texas Tech Tennis

Texas Tech Softball

17-1. I go away for a weekend and the ladies rattle off 4 more wins, beating UT-Arlington and North Texas twice each this weekend, in relative convincing fashion: 9-1, 6-1, 8-1, and 8-4.

Lady Raider Basketball

Texas Tech Baseball

Welp. I only followed the baseball games this weekend with final scores, so I’ve got no idea about how well the team played, but from what I gather, maybe some errors played some part in the Mississippi State game. Texas Tech has two mid-week games in San Diego on Tuesday and Wednesday and then hosts Wichita State over the weekend before hosting Texas to start conference play (who swept #2 LSU I think).

Texas Tech Basketball

Senior Night. Game is at 8:00 on ESPN. I have no idea what’s about to post for the rest of the day, but the preview and GDT will go up at noon.

Texas Tech Football

Spring Practice #1. The first practice was held yesterday. To clarify, I will typically do a stand-alone post if the official site posts the press conference video because I can create the content, but when it’s not there, I’m obviously relying on other actual news organizations (which I have a ton of respect for them). With that being said, let’s go.

A-J Media’s Don Williams wrote about that first practice:

Wells said he’s not sure how much carry-over there is from what players learned under Kingsbury’s staff to the systems being installed by Wells and new coordinators David Yost and Keith Patterson.

“Defensively, it’s a hundred percent new,” Wells said. “Offensively, there’s a decent amount of stuff that’s new, but I don’t know what (Kingsbury’s staff) called stuff.”

There’s more than enough to keep Alan Bowman busy, and that’s been the case for the sophomore quarterback seemingly since he first stepped on campus.

“It’s definitely been crazy,” Bowman said, “because I’ve been here for two years now and I’ve learned two new offenses. So each January, I’ve pretty much learned a whole new language, because that’s what it is — relatively the same concepts and the same things, but it’s all different signals, language. So it’s been hard, but it’s been good. Coach Yost has helped me out.”

RedRaiderSports’ Jack Densmore recaps what head coach Matt Wells said after practice:

– On getting back to actually spending time with the players on the practice field, “There’s a lot of parts to a job, there’s a lot of parts to being a head coach and then the transition and recruiting to boosters, donors, speaking engagements, meetings, offseason workouts and then this is going, this is practice one, this is what we live for to get out here with our guys and the players and really see them for the first time and they’re still learning a lot of their names but you’re getting to coach them for the very first time.”

– For Wells, he said the biggest thing in these early practices is stance, effort and ball security among other things. “You don’t want to see repeat mistakes. That’s what you don’t want to see. You want to see correction and then improvement.”

A-J Media’s Don Williams has a notebook where he starts with a few the return of Joel Filani. When Wells was asked about coaches leaving, he seemed pretty confident in his ability to identify and hire replacement coaches as well as what Filani brings to the table:

Asked how their departures affected him, Wells said, “How does it affect me as a head coach? Not one bit. I hired Joel Filani (Bouknight’s replacement) in 24 hours, and I hired Mark Tommerdahl (Lorig’s replacement) in three hours.”

The performance of Filani’s position group at North Texas stood out to Wells.

“Joel’s tape is his resume,” Wells said. “The way his guys played at North Texas, I’m going to hire off that (more) than a piece of paper. We as a staff watched his wideouts at North Texas. They had a great year. He’s done a great job recruiting. I see the way they play.”

Also noted is that Xavier Martin is at quarterback, while McLane Carter had ankle surgery (he was out with a high ankle sprain that he suffered in the Ole Miss game) and will be out except for the last 2 weeks of practice. Seth Collins has moved outside and will take over at the X-receiver spot, while Bailey Smith ran with the fist team at center, the NCAA has not ruled on a 6th year of eligibility for Octavious Morgan and Tyler Carr was playing the slot/tight end position.

NFL Combine.

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