Texas Tech Thursday Morning Notes - A Little More Zip Edition

It's a pretty quiet news day today.

Recruiting Notes

Earlier this week ESPN Big 12 Blogger Tim Griffin posted Texas Tech's recruiting needs starting off with this ominous quote:

After unprecedented success last season, Mike Leach will be facing the biggest rebuilding job of his coaching tenure at Texas Tech.

I'm not sure at all that I agree with Griffin's initial contention, especially considering the overall lack of talent Mike Leach has had to overcome, slowly but surely since his hire. Nevertheless, I think I get what Griffin was trying to say, in that Leach has taken this team where it's never been and will need to begin to duplicate those results from 2008.

ESPN's and Scout Inc.'s Billy Tucker takes a look at each of the Big 12 South teams and recruiting and overall, Tucker is pretty positive about the Red Raiders. Tucker made this comment when talking about the overall talent coming in this year's class:

The national success and exposure is definitely reflected in this Red Raiders class, arguably one of the better ones in Mike Leach's tenure. The class still lacks an elite prospect -- currently no ESPNU 150 prospects are committed -- but it has its fair share of difference-makers; this group is very solid top to bottom, particularly in the middle range.

Snip

The majority of this class still comes out of the Longhorn State, but Tech is not just picking up residual talent passed over by Texas and Oklahoma anymore.

That's what I like to read. No shots in the dark at a special player that may have issues (grade or personal) as well as not signing players that don't quite have the talent, but instead signing talent that's better than what accustomed to seeing.

There's also a reference to the Aggies in the Texas Tech section and I think what Tucker is referring to is that he believes the Aggies lack overall talent at the quarterback position and he's a bit surprised that Jacob Karam decided in favor of Texas Tech, especially considering that Karam is in TAMU's backyard.

I also liked this bit of encouraging news:

Don't be surprised if . . . Texas Tech snags another big-name prospect down the stretch and is right on the cusp of its first top-25 class on signing day.

Mays: Not So Fast

Killeen Daily Hearald's Kevin Posival writes this morning that recent Texas Tech commit Derrick Mays isn't so sure he's coming to Texas Tech. Mays sounds like a kid who's not sure which girl to choose:

"(I'm concerned about) making the wrong decision and regretting it," Mays said.

Snip

"This is going to be hard. It was a good thing (to have two interested schools)," Mays said. "When it hits you, it's a hard decision. It's what's best for you."

There are some additional quotes from Texas Tech commit Daniel Cobb (DB) on why he chose Texas Tech:

"It's in Texas and I didn't really want to go out of state," Cobb said. "It's very traditioned. I know I'll go to a bowl game and there's a real good chance to start playing my freshman year."

Graham Harrell Senior Bowl Update

DraftGuys had this to say about Harrell's day three practice yesterday:

Graham Harrell (Texas Tech) put a little more zip on his passes, throwing tight spirals, but his arm still failed to wow us. His deep out floated, so he failed the litmus test for NFL arm strength. We aren’t writing him off because of the calm he showed in the pocket. He also looked very comfortable throwing on the move.

Seems a little contradictory and God bless you if you know you can write off a guy after watching three days of practices.

Texas Tech Hitting the Road

LAJ's Jeff Walker writes that Pat Knight is grooming his team for this two game road-trip. Junior Knight is working on getting quicker and better shots:

"I put three x’s on the floor during practice (Monday), one on each wing and one on top. You want to push it up the floor to one of those three spots," Knight said. "Whether they’re in zone or man, bust it up the floor and by the time you get up there, you’ll know if you can go all the way, get the shot, if somebody’s open, or if you don’t have anything, then you’re in perfect position to pass the ball when we get in our motion offense.

"Instead of walking the ball up, like we did against Texas, get it up there and get a good shot. We missed a lot of easy shots. We just haven’t shot well lately, about the last four or five games. When that happens, I think the offense will be better."

From the Other Side

Fellow blogger Kansas Jayhawks, It's Business Time previews the Red Raiders and in my opinion, I think comes to the right conclusion:

And frankly, that should be plenty on the Red Raiders. I’m not saying Pat Knight won’t get the job done eventually, but right now they couldn’t look worse. They don’t play much defense and really they aren’t very competent on offense either. Quite simply, they just don’t have the players and I can’t envision them winning more than 4 league games this season.