Admin

Thank you again for the continued support. It is very much appreciated. This is the last day I’ll run this. Should also mention that I’ve been doing these snapshots for the football teams in the Big 12 to get an idea as to what to expect in 2024 and I’ve also got a very good outline for a similar post for Big 12 basketball teams with the first one set to be published on Friday.

On the Track

Texas Tech track & field begins their NCAA Championship run today with the schedule located here. Good luck to all of the participants!

Hall of Fames

Congrats to Larry Hays, Wes Kittley, Zach Thomas, Lari Dee Guy (roping), Randy Smith (golf pro at Royal Oaks in Dallas and of all things my dad worked with him as my old man was the golf course superintendent at Royal Oaks), and Jerry Moore for being nominated to the Texas Sports Hall of Fame 2025 class!

Congrats to the 2025 College Football nominees for the 2025 class.

The 2025 @NFFNetwork College Football Hall of Fame Ballot is West Texas 📍

▪️ RB Byron Hanspard
▪️ QB Graham Harrell
▪️ Coach Jim Carlen
▪️ Coach Pete Cawthon#WreckEm pic.twitter.com/eAMLXa4TKG

— Texas Tech Football (@TexasTechFB) June 3, 2024

On the Court

Congrats to Jasmine Shavers for being the first Texas Tech athlete with an adidas deal. I also do not know whether or to capitalize adidas, but read that it is all lowercase except at the beginning of a sentence.

Instagram saw it first /// #adidasNILambassador pic.twitter.com/DZyHxbWSAE

— Jasmine Shavers (@JazzShavers) June 3, 2024

Texas Tech official has a good Q&A with new point guard Elijah Hawkins:

Is there a moment when you were young that you think changed the trajectory you were on to get to this level of college basketball?

“When I was 10 or 11 years old, I started to get consistent with working out and taking the game seriously. I was waking up early and going to the gym every day. I started going to camps, just playing every day and working for a purpose to get better at the game. I also played football but basketball was my love. I was young but I remember wanting to get up early and get to the gym as fast as possible to start playing again. I’ve always just wanted to play basketball.”

On the Gridiron

College Football News’ Pete Fiutak previews Texas Tech (he does this for every team) and this is a pretty good point:

2023 Texas Tech lost to one mediocre team – again, BYU – and the other five defeats came to teams that finished with nine wins or more. It played eight bowl teams, and one of them went to the College Football Playoff.

The first five games this season – and eight of the first ten – are against teams that didn’t go bowling. There’s no more Texas on the slate, missing Utah and Kansas State take out two of the Big 12’s best teams, and not playing Kansas or UCF isn’t a bad deal this season, either.

But it shouldn’t take a super-light schedule for Texas Tech to finally break through. It should have the talent to go along with the coaching to make a big push in the Big 12 chase – the Red Raiders had 12 straight losing seasons in conference play before McGuire went 5-4 in each of the last two years.

Lubbock Avalanche-Journal’s Don Williams writes about the position changes for Marcus Ramon-Edwards and Mike Dingle, Dingle was switched to the star spot in the spring, but may be switched to linebacker, while Ramon-Edwards was at boundary safety, but could move to star.

“We’re kind of in the same boat at star,” McGuire said. “The thinking at star is, I think he (Dingle) could really help us against bigger people, almost being a (strong-side) linebacker instead of a nickel.

“And then A.J. McCarty’s kind of your swing guy. I feel great about (sophomore starter) Chapman (Lewis), but if I needed somebody to play free safety, I’d move A.J. back there, and so then you’d want Dingle at star. We’ll make a decision before (preseason) camp, so we can get our reps and everything, but we’re still kind of talking through that, about where we think he can help us the most.”

On3’s Andy Staples, Ari Temkin, and Kaiden Smith talk about Texas Tech’s floor and ceiling for 2024 and the prognosis is not what you think. There’s also a video there that you can watch.

“We’ve talked a lot about the draw this season. No Kansas State, no Utah, they play Oklahoma State. This is a very manageable schedule,” Staples said. “They’re at Washington State, we don’t know that that’s going to look like in the new Pac-2. North Texas and Abilene Christian they should be able to handle. But they get Arizona State, they get Cincinnati, they get Baylor, they get the teams that we’re not thinking are going to be particularly tough. If you’re consistent, which has again been the problem, that screams high floor.”

If you are into recruiting and camps, Red Raider Sports talk to June 2nd camp participants and also participants from the first camp. I can’t imagine putting this post together, lot of detail. Kudos.