Leading Off
Reminder About the Rules. Just want to remind everyone that there is a no religion or politics rule here at Staking The Plains. If you think you might be leaning towards either topic, then go somewhere else. If you think that everyone would enjoy a link about a story about religious persecution from a former Texas Tech athlete, then go discuss it at that link, but don’t discuss it here. Your link is not an exception and it doesn’t matter if it is a Texas Tech athlete at the center of attention. I’ve had this rule for a long time and I think it has served this community well. It is either my biggest flaw or my best attribute, to keep this focused pretty much on Texas Tech.
The one thing that binds us together should be our love for Texas Tech, and this world has become incredibly divisive. I don’t want us to be divisive here, so the rule is in place and I’d ask you to respect that rule for my and our sake as a community.
Australian National Champs. Via KCBD’s Devin Ward, the Texas Tech Mead Judging Team are now your 2019 Australian Collegiate Mead Judging Champions.
Texas Tech Track and Field
Some international running today!@ceps800 represented his home country of Croatia at the European U23 Championships in Sweden. 🇭🇷
The rising sophomore beat his NCAA Preliminaries time in the 8️⃣0️⃣0️⃣ with a 1:51.05 in the qualifying round.
🔴#WreckEm⚫️ pic.twitter.com/uiNSA5E90o
— Texas Tech Track & Field (@TexasTechTF) July 12, 2019
Texas Tech Baseball
McMillon to Return. Relief pitcher John McMillon did not work out a deal with the Detroit Tigers and will return to Texas Tech. That’s huge.
Looking forward to another great year in Lubbock! pic.twitter.com/ugO8ueFUH6
— John McMillon (@JohnnyMac_17) July 13, 2019
Texas Tech Basketball
.@K3vans12 led the @memgrizz with 8 assists to help lead them to the Las Vegas Summer League Championship game.
Evans and the Grizzlies play at 8 on Monday (ESPN2) for the title.
— Texas Tech Basketball (@TexasTechMBB) July 14, 2019
Texas Tech Football
Big 12 Media Days. Texas Tech football’s turn at the Big 12 Media Days is today as head coach Matt Wells, offensive lineman Travis Bruffy, safety Douglas Coleman, III, linebacker Jordyn Brooks, and defensive lineman Broderick Washington, Jr. will be in Arlington, at Texas Stadium. That’s a new location for the Big 12 Media Days, so that part could be interesting.
Kingsbury Not a Fan of Recruiting. Former Texas Tech head coach Kliff Kingsbury admits that he was not as big of a fan of recruiting as he should have been, via ESPN’s Josh Weinfuss:
Jumping from college to the NFL also relieves Kingsbury of one of the fundamental aspects of being a college coach: recruiting. That, in addition to not having any of the peripheral responsibilities that accompany representing a school’s football team, such as fundraising and meeting donors, has opened up Kingsbury’s schedule so he can just focus on football.
“That’s a huge plus for me,” Kingsbury said. “I enjoyed all aspects of being a head coach in college, but the recruiting, that’s the lifeblood of any program. That should be your focus. That may not have been my focus at times as much as it should’ve been because I wanted to coach the quarterbacks and be in the X’s and O’s and study other offenses.
“Now I get to do that and make that first and foremost, and it’s been good.”
It’s fine that he has his preference, but if you take that job of being a college head coach, I kind of think you have to be fully invested and be as dogged as Chris Beard appears to be at recruiting at the college level. I’m a little bit surprised that he admitted that recruiting wasn’t his thing, as we all somewhat suspected that the handshaking and alumni events were probably not his thing either.