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The Morning Stake | 2020.09.25

The Morning Stake
Seth C

The Morning Stake | 2020.09.25

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We’ll lead off with Hook’Em’s Kirk Bohls and his profile on Matt Wells. I enjoyed it. It was stuff we generally knew, but it was well written and I enjoy well written things. Wells discussed how he would be judged by the left-hand of the win-loss ledger:

“We needed to get old,” Wells during a taping of our “On Second Thought” podcast this week. “I needed an older team to compete in this league. It’s not an end-all, be-all, but it’s part of the solution.”

Had the Red Raiders been a little luckier — and healthier — down the stretch in 2019, they might have avoided four close losses by three points or less. But playing without injured quarterback Alan Bowman, they fell on two last-minute field goals and dropped a controversial game with Baylor when an obvious Bears fumble in overtime was not reversed by replay.

Any one of those games could have offered an opportunity for instant momentum and a boost to Wells’ culture and might have altered a later game with Kansas that Tech lost.

“That,” Wells said, “is the understatement of the year. I’d rather fake it till we make it, but in some ways, we didn’t earn that luck.”

A reversal or two could have dramatically changed that 1-6 finish, but he notes a different record wouldn’t necessarily ensure his culture had been established. That timeline usually takes longer.

“It would have jump-started our program in the eyes of many,” he said. “I know I’ll ultimately be evaluated by the left-hand side of the ledger. It takes time. How long remains to be seen, but we won’t allow the logo to be diminished in any way.”

I think Wells doesn’t have any thoughts about how being just “okay” is good enough, I think he’s driven to be great. I don’t know if he’ll get there, but I don’t get that he’s satisfied.

Want to read a preview? Me too. Dallas Morning News’ Brice Paterik, AthlonSports’ Allen Kenney, and Heartland College Sports’ Derek Duke all have previews.


Here are some tweets.

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