Believe it or not, I was out of town all week, on vacation, and yesterday the family and myself drove back and am a bit tired, but am throwing out some stuff because that’s what I do.

Heartland College Sports’ Pete Mundo ranks the Big 12 coaches and has Texas Tech’s Matt Wells at #8, which I’m fine with to be honest. Wells is ahead of Kansas’ Lance Leipold and Baylor’s Dave Aranda. Aranda is getting a lot of love recently as he thinks he’s cracked the code on the type of offense that will be successful (remember last year Aranda hired Larry Fedora and that did not go really well and ended up hiring BYU’s offensive coordinator this year who coached one of the Heisman finalists).

Land Grant Gauntlet’s Josh Cowan ranks both the Big 12 offensive lines and defensive lines. Cowan has the offensive line for Texas Tech at #6 and the defensive line at #8. The defensive line portion isn’t all that accurate, but the sentiment remains the same, there’s a lot to prove. Here’s the bit for the offensive line:

This was an offensive line that helped pave the way for 162.8 yards per game on the ground last season, and certainly has the potential to be a real asset for new offensive coordinator Sonny Cumbie next season. The Red Raiders allowed only 16 sacks in 2020, and four of five offensive starters return from that unit. That includes senior Dawson Deaton, was named to Phil Steele’s Postseason All Big 12 Second Team at the end of last year. The offseason addition of T.J. Storment from TCU, one of the better tackles in the conference, should bode well for this team in 2021.

If the offensive line is better than average, the kids are gonna be alright.

Heartland College Sports’ Matthew Postins writes about three things that will define the Texas Tech defense and it is largely about if the defense can improve, the linemen, and the secondary, which is about right. The linebackers have been good to quite good, and it’s the other parts that need to pick up the pace. For me, I’d say that I need to know who will be rushing the passer, will the secondary improve, and can the defense stand up to the strong rushing attacks the Big 12 is presenting (Oklahoma, Iowa State, and I think Texas will have one).

This story from Kansas City Star’s Jesse Newell is all sorts of wild and crazy. Of course it is relatively one-sided as we really only get the player’s perspective, but essentially a Kansas player had an argument with teammates, that escalated when those teammates did some pretty terrible things, including threatening the player with his life (sort of). Les Miles proposed the guys settle it on the field (really?) and Kansas then ended up buying out the Kansas player in exchange for his silence. There is no doubt that the Les Miles hire will go down as one of the worst in Kansas history and that’s saying something since they also have Charlie Weiss on the ledger.