Odds and Ends

  Filling In:  With Seth out of town, I'm going to try to write a the diatribe today and Friday and maybe even on for Saturday. I hope I can live up to and not embarrass him while he's gone. I seem to have picked a very slow day to get started, though we have 2 very big events happen. We'll start with the good news.

Texas Tech Football

  Urell Johnson, Red Raider: That's right folks, 2 commitments this week! This time it's Urell Johnson, a CB from New Orleans. He's had a busy summer, first committing and decommitting to and from Southern Miss then tearing his ACL (good lord this is an injury filled Diatribe, more later).

The Measurables:

via vmedia.rivals.com

Urell Johnson Position: DB Rivals Profile Scout Profile ESPN Profile 76 Grade Ht: 6'0" Wt: 180 lbs Forty: 4.50(ish) High School: O. Perry Walker High School (New Orleans, LA)

This is the only public article about Johnson's commitment right now. He will be sitting out this season, sadly, but he should be ready to go once he's on Tech's campus.

 Johnson, who will not play this season due to a partial tear of an anterior cruciate ligament suffered this summer, said he delivered his commitment Wednesday night via telephone to Texas Tech Coach Mike Leach, Johnson’s pledge to the Red Raiders came approximately one month after making an initial commitment to Southern Mississippi that he retracted.

ESPN says, in short, that Johnson is a more natural safety, with good speed, better than average reaction time, and good cover skills. I'll let you guys wander over to his ESPN profile to read it all. Finally, no video anywhere yet, sorry.

  Baron Batch, Injured: Bad, Bad news guys. Baron Batch took a wicked hit and landed on his arm badly. As Mr Williams tells it:

 Batch was hit by defensive tackle Chris Perry and landed awkwardly on the arm. The injured arm was immobilized with an air cast. A few moments later, Batch was taken from the Tech football facility in a private vehicle, accompanied by Tech medical staff.

Batch appeared to be favoring his forearm or elbow.

Bad, bad news. We're currently 5 weeks from the UT game. I really hope that it's minor enough that we'll see him back in time. Speedy recovery Baron.

Few other good notes in there, including Eric Ward's switch to Split End (Behind Britton and Leong)

  Speedy Jeffers hopes to prove his worth in backfield: from Don Williams, a good article on Harrison Jeffers who we may need more than we thought. Rather candid interview.

... He might have just a little bit of insecurity about it all. "I just don’t want to disappoint people," he said. "I just want to show people what I have brought to the table. I’m just playing, really. All I’m doing is just what I was taught to do and what I live to do, just run the ball."

Highly suggest reading the full thing.

Quick hits: Free article series worth reading on Rivals: RedRaiderSports.com - Freshman Focus: S Terrance Bullitt. Also if you guys haven't been keeping up, there's a practice blog too, Letters Of Marque, up at the Texas Tech official site.