Odds and Ends

New Texas Tech Blog

I was pleasantly surprised to see The Broadcast Booth is following Double-T Nation on Twitter. The Broadcast Booth consists of the radio broadcast for your Red Raiders and the crew is as follows: John Harris, Brian Jensen, Sonny Cumbie (maybe not for long), Steve Pitts, Bryan Mudd, David Sanderson, and Mitchell Fish.

Go give these guys a warm welcome to the blogosphere.

Texas Tech Football

Big 12 Tiebreaker Remains

I guess in a move that surprised no one, although I'm a little disappointed that we don't get to see TB go ballistic, the Big 12 will keep the current tiebreaker format (stories here, here and here):

One reason the proposed tiebreaker was rejected was because there could be a scenario where a team with a shot at the national championship does not advance to the Conference championship game. For instance, a team ranked in the BCS top 10 but with no shot at playing for the national title could earn a tiebreaker edge over a Big 12 team ranked in the BCS top two.

"The motive is to give the best chance for a team to play in the national championship," Beebe said. "Obviously, we had a scenario (in 2008), hopefully we’ll never have that again."

Now that the coaches have figured this out, I'm sure they'll now be able to get back to playing golf or rollerblading.

Sonny Cumbie to Coach at Texas Tech?

The San Angelo's Standard-Times' Bill Nance may be accepting a position at Texas Tech, as it was announced that Sonny Cumbie, current coach of the San Angelo Stampede Express, would be stepping down as head coach of the Indoor Football League team, begin playing quarterback, and would be accepting a coaching position in the fall at a certain Texas university. Here's Cumbie on the move:

"About a month ago, I received a call from a school here in Texas about a coaching opportunity that would open up in the fall," Cumbie said.

"I thought that coaching's something I want to do, so that's what I decided to do in the fall. I felt that I owed it to Miss Darlene (Stampede Express co-owner Darlene Jones), who gave me this opportunity, to give them a chance to bring someone in here to kind of get their feet wet, hit the ground running and build on what we have this year, move into next year and be ready to go, so I decided to step down as head coach.

"I accepted a contract to play quarterback for the Stampede. That's going to be the last roster move I make as coach."

KAMC has some video of Mike Leach on Cumbie as well as some quotes from Cumbie himself.

Texas Tech Free Agents Update

LAJ's Don Williams writes that QB Graham Harrell is still looking for a job and Graham's dad had this to say:

"I guess it’s kind of frustrating," said Ennis coach Sam Harrell, Graham’s father. "It’s more bewildering as much as anything. There’s not a single spot anywhere for a guy that not only threw for a lot of yards and led tremendous comebacks, but has a good, clean background and his character is good."

Meanwhile, S Daniel Charbonnet and C Stephen Hamby are keeping their options open and hoping to catch on somewhere.

Texas Tech Baseball

Red Raiders Down Patriots

Outfield:
LF - Michael Reed (Jr.); CF - Taylor Ashby (Jr.); RF - Garrett Totten (Fr.)
Infield:
SS - Joey Kenworthy (Jr.)     2ND - Willie Rueda (Sr.);
3RD - Justin Berry (Fr.)                                  1ST - Chris Richburg (Sr.)
C - Jeremy Mayo (Fr.)
DH - Scott LeJeune (Fr.)

A mid-week win against a quality opponent. Yea! The Red Raiders took down the Dallas Baptist Patriots 9-6 (recap). Starting pitcher Lorenzo Douglas (1.2 IP; 1 H; 4 ER; 5 BB; 0 SO) looked to be a tad bit off -- 5 walks in less than 2 innings -- and was quickly replaced by Cory Large (2.2 IP; 4 H; 2 ER; 0 BB; 3 SO) and it was a collective bullpen effort from there. Louis Head, Robert Kilcrease, Brian Cloud and Chad Bettis all contributed to the win with Bettis earning his 7th save of the season. I like head coach Dan Spencer's move to get Bettis an inning of work, especially since the last time he was out he allowed 11 runs. We need Bettis to be sharp.

At the plate, the Red Raiders pounded out 21 hits, led by CF Taylor Ashby (4-5; 3 RBI) and Scott LeJeune (3-4; 3 RBI). Chris Richburg (3 hits), Joey Kenworthy (2 hits), Michael Reed (3 hits), Justin Berry (2 hits) and Jeremy Mayo (2 hits) all had multi-hit games. Again, 21 hits is exceptional and I hope this bodes well for this weekend's series in Manhattan against Kansas State.

LAJ's George Watson previews the Kansas State Jayhawks Wildcats who have surprised many to be a top 10 program in 2009:

Picked to finish ninth in the Big 12 Conference, the Wildcats have been one of the biggest surprises in college baseball in 2009, riding the sudden emergence of one of the top pitchers in the nation and a veteran offense onto the precipice of a Big 12 regular-season championship. The 10th-ranked Wildcats enter this weekend’s action against Texas Tech having already clinched a spot in the Big 12 Championships, trail first-place Texas by just .021 of a percentage point and have set a school record for victories (37) with six games remaining.