This morning's post caused a little bit of controversy and Mocking the Draft's Matt Miller responded to some of my and your questions regarding the Big 12 Conference rankings. I loves me some discussion, so here we go. I thought it would be a great way to kick off a weekend (do I know how to party, or what?) and ask you how you would rank them. Let's take the offensive unit rankings first and go from there. I'll start. Leave your rankings in the comments section:

• Backfield
1. Oklahoma
2. Missouri
3. Texas

Rational: OU is perhaps the most balanced scoring team in the Big 12, and there's a lot of talented running backs in their stable (Murray and Brown). Missouri has shown that they are an offensive force to be reckoned with. Daniel and Jimmy Jackson are talented (we should know). I'm not convinced that McCoy will return to his freshman success, but there are a lot of talented runners who were waiting behind Charles. Besides, who else are you going to put at this spot? There aren't a lot of options and I don't think that the Aggies will turn it around that quickly, especially behind a very young offensive line.

• Receivers
1. Texas Tech
2. Missouri
3. Kansas

Rational: I think Texas Tech deserves the top spot just because of Mr. Crabtree, but including Morris, T. Walker, Britton, etc., there's just a lot of talent. I was close to putting Missouri at the top spot because Maclin supremely gifted as well, plus Missouri has Coffman as a completely different threat. I was also pretty torn with this 3rd spot, but went with Kansas because they've got a pretty good QB and they return quite a bit of their receiving corp (Fields, Briscoe, and Meier).

• Offensive Line
1. Oklahoma
2. Texas Tech
3. Texas

Rational: OU returns a ton of talented players and they do it every year. For a team that passes as much as Tech Tech, they only gave up 18 sacks for the year and would imagine that Potts gave up a few of those in mop-up duty. Texas was awfully young last year on the O-line and that means they are a year better.

• Overall Offense
1. Oklahoma
2. Missouri
3. Texas Tech

Rational: First, although Kansas was outstanding offensively last year (1st in the conference in scoring), I need for them to do it one more year before I believe. It's not fair, but it's my rankings. Again, OU is balanced with 34 rushing TD's and 39 passing TD's, that's some pretty good football. Missouri was just a step behind Texas Tech last year, but I thought Missouri was more consistent. I struggled putting Texas Tech 3rd, but until those hiccup games stop, this is where they need to be.

Have at it.

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Texas Tech Football:

Up first, New Era Scouting's Matt Miller (also of Mocking the Draft) previews the Big 12 Conference. First, I understand the perception that Texas Tech is an up and coming program, perhaps this year's squad is expected to be one of the best in the school's history, but Miller seems to ignore that perception and lump the Red Raiders in the lower half of the conference. That's just odd that Miller would ignore the preseason hype, especially when it seems more warranted than in previous years because we are actually talking about the defense. Quite simply, we know the offense is going to be good, but with a defense that can actually stop a few folks (crossing fingers), and I think they will, is something this should be mentioned.

I'm also still not sure about the lack of offensive linemen who get mention on either the All-Conference team. I shake my head when Louis Vasquez isn't even mentioned on either team, and I think Rylan Reed, were it not for the injury, would be one of the best linemen in the conference. Shawn Byrnes is mentioned as the first team center, but the latest from the spring is that Stephen Hamby may take Byrnes' job.

I also wonder about Bradford as the first team quarterback, personally, I think that Chase Daniel is the conference's best quarterback. He wins and he puts up numbers, but I think that right now, Harrell is a better quarterback than Bradford. Bradford is no slouch, I just don't think he's the best quarterback in the conference.

Defensively, I get it. No players deserve to be on either team. The Red Raiders have got to prove it and I've got no problem with that.

Texas Tech makes ESPN's Mark Schlabach list of Three Things I Can't Wait to See This Fall:

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We're now in part 3 of a 4 part series on Tipping a program. We've already introduced Tipping A Program, and talked about The Law of Few and now we've moved onto the Stickiness Factor, perhaps the most difficult to define aspect of Tipping a Program.

Without a doubt, I am one of the least creative individuals that I know. Original ideas with me are few and far between so this is where I really need the help of the readers of DTN to figure out how this would work. First and foremost, I think it should be acknowledged that I've never sat in a living room listening to a recruiter talk about why his school is better than someone else's school nor have I ever sat in on the ad campaign for a football season or basketball season. My question is if there is a better way to get out your message?

And although I've never been in a living room with a recruiter, and I've never taken a marketing class, I think that a big part of this is to consider who is the audience. My way of thinking tells me that we've got two potential audiences here. The first being recruits and the second being the ticket buying public. Let's tackle the recruits first.

I would imagine that recruits hear the same message from each and every recruiter that comes through the door. That every letter that they receive is like any other letter that they receive. There's probably no distinguishing factor from one school to the next. They're all just words on a piece of paper and if anything, these letters are at the very least to let a potential player know that a particular school is interested in bringing that player to their school.

We learned in The Law of Few that there are certain factors that play a greater role in a player's decision of what school they will commit to and those they won't. Thus, if all of the messages are the same and there's been a study as to what's important to athlete's then I have to wonder if schools are changing their messages to make their message different from a rival school.

The bottom line, is Texas Tech's message memorable, or more appropriately, is it "sticky"?

Before we get too much further, I don't think this is about spending more money, or increasing any sort of advertising or recruiting budget. I don't think that's what Tipping a Program is about. Rather, this is more about making fundamental changes that hopefully and eventually turn the tide.

So I would imagine that the point here is not to do what every other school does, but to do it differently. If the difference in landing a recruit is presenting the message in a way that is entirely unique AND tailored to what what is important to these recruits then this is where you start. The problem with the current method is that if a school does the same thing, again and again, without improved results, then perhaps you have to take a look at the method. Or perhaps if the results don't come about as quickly as you want, then you might have to take a look at the method. It's tipping the program for a sustained period of time that's the key, not treading water or slowly making progress to an eventual goal.

Isn't this the epitome of marketing? Looking at data, determining how people make decisions (external influences), and creating a working model that might help you determine how to better reach that recruit with relatively less effort, yet still achieve a high level of success.

So now you're saying, that's really great, but who in the hell is Texas Tech or any other university going to employ to do all of this marketing research? Well. . . how about the university itself. The nice thing about a college is that within any university you're going to have everything you need to get this done. Almost any university has the resources at its fingertips to figure out what is important to a recruit, what sticks with a recruit, and what eventually what is that one thing that determines where a recruit goes to school. Research, statistics, and marketing are all there to be taken advantage of at any school. So I have to wonder how much self-study goes on with recruits once they are on campus? Have coaches ever considered utilizing the university to figure make this all happen? Does any school tap the minds of their own recruits to learn what they could have done better in the recruiting process?

As far as getting a class or department involved, you may ask what's in it for them? How about getting to use an ad campaign that the university utilizes on your resume as motivation. Or being a part of the production, writing, marketing, etc.? Those students involved get the credit for the work they've done and they get the satisfaction of doing something to create some interest in their school.

Next up is the ticket-buying public. I cannot recall any ticket-buying campaign from Texas Tech that is memorable or one that "stuck" with me over time. A perfect example of a sticky advertising campaign, at least in my opinion, is the NBA's "Where Amazing Happens" advertising campaign. The campaign itself is simple and effective. It's memorable. It's sticky. In fact, it's so sticky that someone put together a similar video related to Texas Tech that DTN posted some time ago.

I know it's a little unrealistic to ask that any university come up with something as sticky as the NBA, but let's take the current Texas Tech ticket buying campaign. Here we have the current 30 second commercial, "Big Plays, Big Games, Big Time". It's a fine commercial and I've got no problems with it, but here's my question. Is this memorable? Is this commercial any more memorable than a previous commercial for Texas Tech football?

As an aside, why didn't Texas Tech upload this video? Did you know that Texas Tech has it's own YouTube video channel? Why wouldn't a school promote itself, especially for something that's free, like YouTube, as much as possible. Why aren't there more highlights of every sport on Texas Tech's channel?

But back to the idea of making a particular message memorable or sticky, I tend to think that almost every football program's advertising campaign is fairly static and there's probably plenty of room for improvement. It's a picture or clip of the team or a player, looking tough or making a spectacular play with a catchy slogan. Is there a different way to get out the message and make it memorable or are we stuck with the same type of message year after year?

When I first wrote this, almost a month ago, I wondered if Texas Tech would utilize the most recent success of Wes Welker and Michael Crabtree, and sure enough, I received a letter from Wes Welker asking me to contribute to the Red Raider Club. Before that, I received a phone call from Michael Crabtree, I think asking me to buy season tickets. I think the school is on the right track here. This is a move in the right direction, capitalizing on the success of current and past athletes, something that hasn't necessarily happened at the same time before.

If anything, this should really highlight how special a time it is at Texas Tech. Perhaps unprecedented. And this is what will lead us to the Law of Context, the next segment.

Again, I don't think it's necessary to spend more money or increase your advertising budget. It's about spending the money uniquely. Spend the money so that the message is memorable among those who buy tickets an those who we want to come to Texas Tech.

A Series In Tipping A Program:

• Introduction
• The Law of Few
• Stickiness Factor
• Law of Context
• Conclusion

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Double-T Nation News:

In no particular order, DTN's Top Four:

1. Bonnie Richardson of Rochelle High School won the Texas 1A track title -- all by herself.
2. Kinda funny, Baron Davis and Adam Sandler promote Don't Mess With Zohan.
3. ESPN's Tim Griffin breaks down the Big 12 North.
4. The Dagger with an even-handed look at the O.J. Mayo situation (there's plenty to blame to go around - the NCAA, the NBA, and the colleges who take players with baggage).

Texas Tech Football:

ESPN's Tim Griffin breaks down every team of the Big 12 South, including your Red Raiders. I think Griffin hits on my two biggest concerns, finding a kicker and figuring out if this team knows how to handle success. Griffin also mentions the running back situation and thinks that Kobey Lewis might have an inside track for the job because of his blocking skills, but it's always been my understanding that it's Woods' blocking skills that have what might earn him the starting spot, while Batch may have the best combination of size and speed and Crawford has the best size, but not game-changing speed. In any event, I still think that all 4 see time this year in some form or fashion.

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Texas Tech Baseball:

The Red Raiders were able to hold off the Dallas Baptist Patriots for a 9-8 win on Tuesday. Robert Kilcrease pitched 5.0 innings, giving up 9 hits, 6 runs (only 3 earned), 2 walks and 3 strikeouts. The bullpen pitched well in relief, although James Leverton seems to be struggling a bit in his last few appearances. Leverton opened up the 8th inning, pitched only 0.1 innings, giving up 4 hits, 2 runs, both earned, walking none and striking out none. Brian Cloud did come in relief of Leverton, going 1.2 innings, without a blemish and striking out 1.

Willie Rueda continues to play well as he went 1-4 with 2 RBI, but the hero at the plate was Roger Kieschnick who went 2-5 and 3 RBI. Interestingly, Hays moved Kieschnick to third in the lineup, which makes some sense. With Rueda and kenworthy hitting the ball so well and Richburg playing pretty well as well, perhaps this is the best spot to protect Kieschnick.

LAJ's George Watson recaps last night's game. Here's Hays on this weekend's big series with Baylor, remember, the Red Raiders have got to sweep and it all starts on Friday:

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Fingers-crossed, next Friday morning, when you wake up, you'll see a brand new DTN, complete with new-fangled buttons and whistles. I've been messing around with quite a bit of the features behind the scene, but thought that I'd talk a little bit about what you might expect and why the upgrade to SB Nation 2.0 is going to be awesome.

1. Auto-Refreshing Comments: Think about this for a second, you will no longer have to refresh you page to see a new comment. It happens like internet magic. Somehow the SB Nation tech guys have sprinkled pixsy dust on everyone's computer and these comments pop up like no one's business. To see for yourself, join a blog of a baseball team that you enjoy and sit in a game day thread. I think you'll be amazed as to how quickly this works.


2. Read Comments Without A Mouse: If I'm working at the the computer, I'd prefer to have the hands on the keyboard. I feel like I'm a faster typer than a mouserer. Thus, a cool feature is that you can scroll through a comment by just hitting the "Z" key and it marks the comment as read and replying to a comment is easy as hitting the "R" key, typing in a comment, tabbing a few times and you're done. The other cool part is that the page never re-loads. Again, pixsy dust.


3. Tags: Previously, the only way to organize stories at DTN was to label them as football, basketball, baseball, news, etc., which always seemed like a very inefficient way to know what an entry is about. Thankfully, we're going to have tags to help us organize how stories are searched. Thus, if there's a story with Mr. Crabtree, Harrell and Leach, I'll add tags for all three players, with commas separating the tags. Let's also say that a DTN reader finds a cool YouTube video of Mr. Crabtree so they post it to a FanShot (more on that later) and tag it as "Michael Crabtree" and some other user finds a quick chat transcript about how Michael Crabtree might not go in the draft at all because it would be too much of an unfair advantage for all of the other NFL teams who don't get to draft him, and it's tagged "Michael Crabtree". When you search for Michael Crabtree, you're going to find all of that information right at your fingertips, literally. It's going to be beautiful.


4. FanPosts v. FanShots: FanPosts are diaries, it's just that they've been re-named FanPosts. These are intended to be your more thoughtful items, something you put a little work into rather than a quick link. FanShots are links, quick quotes, videos, pictures, or a list that you can quickly post to DTN. Doesn't have to be much content with FanShots, just quick-hitters. There's also a bookmarket that you left-click on once, and then drag it to your bookmarks browser. If you run across something that you think would be a perfect fit at DTN, you hit that bookmarklet and, with internet pixsy dust, it fills in most of the items, you tell it to which blog you want to send it to, tag it, hit post and you're on your way. I also believe you can highlight text, hit the bookmarklet, etc., and it' will format it in blockquotes. The FanShots are the quick articles that you find, but don't know where to post them because it's not really an entire FanPost worth of material.


5. Gameday Open Threads: I mentioned in the very first point that the comments will automatically appear. I'd love for you to just consider how great this is going to be when the action is happening quickly during a game, you'll be able to post a quick thought without having to constantly refresh your browser. My sports-pants are going crazy.

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Texas Tech Football:

LAJ's Don Williams talks with new Texas Tech commits Dion Chidozie and Aaron Fisher. There are a couple of interesting things here, let's first tackle Fisher. Fisher's receiving numbers are quite different from the numbers linked yesterday from the FWST (which BTW, is no longer a good link for whatever reason), so he's a little more productive than originally thought. That's the good news. The interesting thing about Fisher was his quote about the Texas Tech staff only taking one receiver:

Now I would guess that if the right receiver were to come along, Texas Tech would jump all over it, but I find it interesting that this would be 2 classes in a row where the staff decides that there's not much need to take 3 or 4 receivers. Granted, the 2008 class and the 2009 class are both classes without a large number of commitments. In that 2008 class, there were only 2 receivers that committed, Cornelius Douglas and Austin Zouzalik. I like both Douglas and Zouzalik (why wouldn't I), but considering that receivers are the life-blood of this program, I wouldn't mind seeing 3 receivers per class. I also realize that the 2007 class had a number of receivers (Hawk, Flannel, Lewis, Swindall, and Franks), but I'd like to see a more even distiribution.

Fisher talks about the strengths and the spread offense:

Chidozie currently plays outside linebacker at Bishop Lynch, and also talks about what is expected of him:

If Chidozie is 190 rather than then 175, then the Red Raiders have an interesting commitment. I'm hoping Chidozie has a big frame to add a little more weight, otherwise he's not any bigger than some of the safety commits the Red Raiders have already received.

If I sound a little negative, I don't mean to. I like how this staff is going after athletes who project to get bigger and stronger with the key factor being speed amongst all of the new commits. I like the direction this thing is going.

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Texas Tech Baseball:

LAJ's George Watson previews this mid-week series and mentions that unless the Red Raiders sweep Baylor and OSU beats OU in 2 of three this weekend, Texas Tech is not going to the Big 12 Tournament. There are other variables, but it would take wins and losses from a number of other Big 12 teams. If Texas Tech should take care of business on it's own then we'll get into those variables, but for now, the offense needs to get on track.

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Double-T Nation News:

In no particular order, DTN's Top Six:

1. Via BON, a pretty interesting situation between the UT athletic department and the student newspaper, the Daily Texan.
2. SMQ says Michael Lewis created a monster -- yarr.
3. An even better graph of average rank of college football pre-season polls.
4. Inspiring picture of NYC circa 1941.
5. Craftsman 1,470 piece tool set, only $8,600.
6. Gate 21 takes a look at the situation between the Bengals and a fan blog (this is really worth your time).

Texas Tech Football:

A couple of post-spring football articles this morning. DMN has it's Spring Football Wrapup and Rivals.com's Olin Buchanan has his Big 12 Spring Review. Since I find the problems more interesting, here's the problem per the DMN:

And per Rivals.com:

Texas Tech picked up two commitments, one on Friday and one last night. Friday the Red Raiders picked up their 8th commitment from Aaron Fisher, a 6-3/175 wide receiver from Fossil Ridge High School in Keller, Texas. There's no official link, but you can find Fisher's name on both RaiderPower and RedRaiderSports commitment lists along with Rivals and Scout profiles. I also found Fisher's stats from last year where he caught 46 passes for 832 yards and 14 touchdowns.

Last night, the Red Raiders received their 9th commitment from Dion Chidozie, a 6-1/190 linebacker from Bishop Lynch (free RRS article). Here's your Rivals and Scout profiles. You'll note the discrepency between the Rivals and Scout profiles (6-1/190 v. 5-11/175). Although I did dig up the results of the Dallas Nike Combine where Chidozie had a 32.8" vertical jump, but also seemed to weigh in at 6-0.5/176, and that was March of this year. Here's Chidozie:

You'll also note that I've finally gotten around to doing the 2009 Football Recruiting Board.

Texas Tech Baseball:

It's only one win out the series, but it's better than no wins in a series. The Red Raiders were able to come back from an 8-0 deficit to beat the OSU Cowboys 12-10. Karns struggled again, going only 3.2 innings and giving up 10 hits, 8 runs, all earned, walking 3 and striking out 3. Brian Cloud came in and pitched 4.0 solid innings of relief, giving up 4 hits, 1 run, 1 earned, walking none and striking out 3. James Leverton pitched the final 1.1 innings for the win, giving up 2 hits, 1 run, walking and striking out none.

The Red Raiders got production up and down the lineup. Willie Rueda continues to hit the ball, but today he drove in runs to boot, going 3-6 with 4 RBI. Joey Kenworthy and Chris Richburg had 3 hits a piece, while Roger Kieschnick went 2-5 with 2 RBI and his 14th home run of the season. Chris Hall also went 3-3 with 4 RBI.

LAJ's George Watson is back with a game recap. Per Watson, the Red Raiders must sweep Baylor, along with some help from OSU, to make the Big 12 Tournament.

Here's Cloud:

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I'm not a recruiting guru, but I do like compiling information. Thus, the DTN recruiting board is a little different than others. You have the two recruiting service profiles, so if you're a member of either, feel free to click on for news. The one thing that I do differently, is that if you click on a player's name, it is a Google News link. What I like to do is bookmark this page and during the football season I can follow if a particular player is in the news or making headlines.

Later tonight I'll put a link on the right margin for quick reference.

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I'm out for the rest of the day, but wanted to wish to my Mom and any other moms out there a Happy Mother's Day!

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Texas Tech Baseball:

The Oklahoma State Cowboys hammer the Red Raiders, 13-3, ensuring Texas Tech of their first losing season since 1987. Freshman pitcher Chad Bettis was lit up, going just 5.0 innings, and giving up 14 hits, 12 runs, all earned walking only 1 and striking out 5. I'm not sure why they left Bettis in for so long. Bettis only threw 96 pitches, and he was throwing strikes 70% of the time. It was just the 3rd and the 5th innings where Bettis really struggled, every other inning Bettis pitched pretty well. I'm still scratching my head over this one.

Cory Large pitched well in relief, with 2.1 innings and giving up 3 hits, 1 run, walking none and striking out 2, while Jordan Stern closed out the game with 0.2 innings, 1 hit, and no runs, walks or strikeouts.

The offense has been quite stagnant since the break for finals, managing only 8 hits and 3 runs. Willie Rueda continues to get on base, going 2-4. Chris Richburg also went 2-4 with a RBI.

Strangely, there is no story from the LAJ this morning.

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