I’m learning that it is useless to speculate anything until the teams start the season. There are too many unknowns. However, I will say this: so much of our success as a team relies on the quarterback, offensive line, and defensive line. While this year definitely exposes some weaknesses in these areas, it could pay dividends in the future. Experience isn’t something that can be taught and is a crucial aspect to any player’s development. As far as QB’s go, I truly feel Leach is going to put the best man in the game. He will at least give them a chance to earn the job. If he listened to what the fans thought…he would put Potts in until he threw an interception, then put Sticks in until he went 4-and-out, then try Doege. Remember that this is a very complex offense to operate. Also, some QB’s are gamers while others do better in practice. I think Potts has more abilities, but Sticks is just an all-out gamer. The talent level has continued to go up each and every recruiting period, and it’s only a matter of time before we don’t have to do as much rebuilding. So basically, you never know who will step up at QB, you don’t know how much our linemen will improve over the spring, and you won’t know until we play next year. What we do know is that we have talented players coming in and a very good coaching staff waiting for them.

disagree.

After pulling the redshirt from Waddle, you’re going to be returning 6 offensive linemen who have started games for the Red Raiders (McDaniel, Okafor, Edwards, Keown, Olson, and Waddle). Carter will hurt the most. McDaniel and Waddle will hold down the Tackle spots quite nicely and I think Keown has played better than Byrnes this year and will be pushed for playing time by RS Fr Joel Gray (an experiment in tall centers).

Your other two issues are with WR and QB?

QB I think is settled for next year with Shef and Doege and Karam. We’ll see on Saturday what kind of potential we have in Doege, but remember that he’s also a Redshirt Freshman.

WR is an incredibly deep unit. We are only losing Eddy B from this year’s contributors. One of Eric Ward, Kadron Boone, and Shawn Corker should be able to fill that roll. Torres is incredibly dependable and I don’t think that you should just write him off as lacking talent, the kid can flat out play. After watching players like Danny Amendola and Wes Welker and Eric Morris be monsters in our offense, I can’t believe that ANY fan of Texas Tech should ever be able to justify writing off a receiver.

We’ll see, but I think that you’re off-base in your assumptions, especially since the units that you’re pointing at as having the most problems are probably the units that I have the least worries about.

Also, to your statement

how many Big XII champs or BCS contenders do so with their back-up, walk on?

I’d point to Paul Thompson, who, while not a walk-on, lost his starting job to freshman Rhett Bomar in the middle of his first game and only gained it back because Rhett was not opposed to taking handouts. Team still managed to win the Big XII.

Look, stars will develop on any team. Every year there’s one or two that no one expects who comes out and plays lights out. I’d say Zouzalik and Torres and Swindall are our best receivers right now. Who saw that coming? They’re getting looks and catches over “more talented” players. We don’t have people like Adrian Peterson on our team often, in fact, not even Oklahoma will have a player like Adrian Peterson on our team often. We had one of our few in Crabtree but have we already allowed ourselves to get spoiled with that, expecting it every year?

This clearly isn’t our year…unless we make what would be termed a fantastic turnaround. Tech has not looked in synch all season except for KSU and UNM. There will be lull’s in every game, no matter who is on the field or what team they play for. But Tech’s lull’s have seemed to stretch for very long periods this season. We’ll find a way to win one or two more games this year. Mayyyyybe three.

I think we’ll be fine in 2010. We’ll be a year older across the board (so many young guys and new starters this year), so I think it will play to our advantage. We do have a bit tougher non-conf schedule with TCU and Houston on the slate, to go along with SMU and UNM, so we’ll get another early test (thank goodness we are done with I-AA schools for at least one year…may add one in 2011 since we have an opening).

Sheffield clearly fits the system and could be just as good as Harrell was at it. Karam, Young, or Doege may or may not fit the system too, but their performance at its best won’t be much different from what SS will give you. I guess what I’m saying is that the system is proving again and again to be the star of the show and not the QB playing in it.

Can the same be said about the receivers? Crabtree proved that a truly elite receiver could separate himself in terms of production from others in the system. You can’t plug in a walk on and get Crabtree results.

With or without another elite WR I expect Tech’s offense to be consistently dominant. The system peaks, however, when the offensive line is full of veterans who have been in it for several years (see Vasquez led line last year).

My friends at the game said that the fans were incredibly rough on Potts (booing and chanting “No More Potts.” Was it as bad as they say? It’s not like he was playing defensive tackle (which from what I can tell is where A&M really dominated with their running game).

We are not to the point of going through a season without disappointment. If you are going to take a few bad losses from this year and project them onto next year also and write it off as a loss then what makes you think 2011 or 2012 will be any better? I would be willing to guarantee that we will lose a game or two in those years also. We have a ton of young talent this year that has stepped up and played very admirably (with exception to the atm game). If you sacrifice one or two years for a shot at being good every fourth year then recruiting still isn’t going to improve. During those sacrificed years you will not draw any great attention to yourself and if something happens like a QB injury during the fourth year you gambled on then you are up a creek.

I think coaches are obligated to play the best talent available at any given time. There is no need to take Scotty Young’s redshirt unless he comes in during the spring/fall and blows everyone else away. Sheffield is more than capable of leading this team to a great record next year. I would expect playing a true freshman QB to result in ~5 losses for TTU which obviously hurts recruiting. Why not put him in the system as a redshirt and learn the ropes.

I’ll be the first to admit that a star receiver is a great asset. I think it will be years, if ever, before TTU sees another Michael Crabtree. He is a truly special player. If Boone or Corker come in during the Spring and learn what they need to about their role in the offense I’d love to see them on the field next year. I don’t think playing time for them is required by any means though for us to win games.

As for the defense: I don’t see us making great strides there until we get rid of Ruff. I will be the first to admit he is an improvement over the previous DC. He is still prone to games where he makes terrible play calling decisions and/or refuses to adjust his game plan until half time if even then. I realize he needs time to get his recruits and coach them to his scheme, but he just fails to show up for some games. This showing against atm was worse than what got his predecessor fired. I respect what he has done for the team and he is great for recruiting apparently, but he is just not the caliber DC that playing in the Big 12 requires IMO.

That said, I would answer your question, ‘no’. If we resign ourselves to rebuilding next year then when will we ever not be rebuilding… this year was supposed to be a rebuilding year to set up an awesome 2010. It’s our place to support our current athletes and let them know we expect them to bring their A game and win regardless of whether most people see it as a rebuilding year.

I was there & the “No more Potts” was loud & clear from the south end zone.

got busy and wasn’t able to circle back on my post, but to be clear, I am in no way ready to give up on 2010, or on 2009 for that matter. Simply want to talk out points of view I consider in shaping where I think we are in the program. We all have seen here and elswhere the lofty predictions of a stellar 2010. But the reality is those predictions were based on the team being led by a 2 year starting, highly effective Taylor Potss, among other things. As good as Sheffield has been at being better than Potts, he is still not as good as we all hoped Potts would be before the season. Yes he has played well against bad teams (NM, KS) and has played mediocre against good teams (NU). But that is a far cry from the two years of our first prototypical, NFL Caliber QB.
-Another point made here many times was this notion that Leach reigned in the offense in the second half of the NU game to play “conservative”. I remember someone posting that as a possible reason for the lack of output after the game. But now it seems it has somehow become “fact”? I could very well have missed the article, but I have yet to hear Leach confirm that, nor has it ever been the case in any other game. Unless someone can confirm that unprecidented fact, it makes far more sense that what we saw that game was an offense struggling to put up points for 4 quaters, which carried right on over into A&M.
-Let’s beat the hell out of Kansas, and start getting this stuff cleaned up Raiders! AARRGGHH