On the Pitch
Behind the scenes before Senior Day for the Iowa State game. Terrific stuff and that’s not just me typing words, this was really good. The final regular season game is at the John Walker Soccer Complex on Friday against BYU at 7:00 pm.
On the Court (Volleyball)
Texas Tech volleyball will take on Cincinnati tonight and West Virginia on Saturday to finish out the conference slate.
On the Court (Basketball)
Big 12 Media Day for the men’s team was yesterday, lots of content
USA Today writes that Texas Tech was one of a handful of teams that was snubbed from making the AP Top 25:
In a league where five teams occupy the top nine spots in the preseason poll, there are going to be some ups and downs during conference play. But the journey in the Big 12 should help get the Red Raiders battle-tested when the time comes to make a tournament run. The foundation of their success under Grant McCasland and predecessors Mark Adams and Chris Beard was defense. That won’t change this year. But there will be enough scoring to win games with holdover Darrion Williams getting help from transfers JT Toppin (New Mexico) and Elijah Hawkins (Minnesota).
On the Gridiron
Running back Tahj Brooks was named a finalist for the William V. Campbell Trophy, the 6th in program history [John Scovell (1967), Keith Cockrum (1999), Kliff Kingsbury (2002), Graham Harrell (2008) and Cody Davis (2012)].
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal’s Nathan Giese on the 2022 trip to TCU, complete with 8 hours on the tarmac in Lubbock because of weather in DFW.
“It was kind of a fever dream,” Rogers said, “but it was actually awesome the way it kind of brought the team together at the time. I mean, we lost the game to the national championship runner-ups, but it was an insane experience.”
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal’s Don Williams on Coy Eakin growing up doing rodeo and football:
“Eighth grade, middle school, we started practicing two hours after school for football,” he said, “and then I still wanted to rodeo, so I’d go practice for another hour and a half after football. It got to the point where it was, ‘All right, I need to pick one, because this is too much on my body.’ If it came down to it, I’d miss a rodeo rather than miss a game, so I was like, ‘Yeah, I need to go to football.’ “
During his time with the Red Raiders, Eakin has come to be called Cowboy Coy, not just for the alliteration. Born in Canyon when his father was rodeo coach at West Texas A&M, Coy recites a memory of going with his dad to school on Friday mornings and stopping for donuts.
Coy turned 5 in August 2008, and that’s when his father got the job at Tarleton, which might be like a football coach getting the job at Alabama. The Tarleton men’s team has won five national championships, the women’s team has won four national championships and its individuals have claimed 30 national titles. For several years, Mark Eakin said, Tarleton’s had the largest team in the country.