Double-T Nation Daily Diatribe :: 09.12.09

Odds and Ends

  Young vs. Lee:  I'm putting this at the top of the page because it's pretty amazing.  Last night, Texas Tech commit, QB Scotty Young, and his Denton-Ryan squad played LSU commit, QB Zac Lee, and his McKinney squad.  You could imagine that with two high profile quarterbacks this would be a shoot-out, but how about Denton-Ryan 70, McKinney 63.  Pedestrian stats to follow:

Young :: 27-41 / 541 yds / 0 Int / 8 TD's
Lee :: 20-37 / 360 yds / 0 Int / 4 TD's 

I wonder if Young will fit in well with this Texas Tech offense?

  This Week's DTN Rice Coverage:  The game day thread will go up at 5:00 p.m.  Because I'm on my way to the game this morning I thought I would link to all of DTN's coverage of this week's game against Rice: 

Crunching the Numbers
Position Matchups
Five Reasons Texas Tech Will Lose
Five Reasons Texas Tech Will Win
Big 12 Roundtable 
Prediction Time

Texas Tech Football

  Sharpe is Focused:  LAJ's Don Williams features DE Brandon Sharpe, who has fought his way through quite a bit of adversity to graduate early, is working on getting his teaching certificate and taking care of his family.  No blockquotes, go read the whole thing.

  Mirror Images:  LAJ's Don Williams asks Captain Mike Leach if Texas Tech and Rice are mirror images of each other (both teams lose a lot of offense):

"I hadn’t really thought of it,’’ Tech coach Mike Leach said of the team’s 2008 seasons and their less-than-perfect ’09 openers. "I think every team goes through that. Even teams with people back go through that. The speed’s different when you go out there and play. Even when you have people back, you still get (veterans and newcomers) kind of mixed together.

"It’s very hard to judge teams by their first game and, to a lesser degree, their second game. They should be getting pretty on track by their third.’’

Williams also notes that RB Harrison Jeffers is going to see time much earlier.

  Red Raiders Still Focused on Rice . . . Seriously:  FWST's Dwain Price talks with defensive coordinator Ruffin McNeill about UND last week and Rice this week: 

"We play them one game a week, that’s why it’s not that hard [to focus on Rice]," McNeill said. "[Coach] Mike [Leach] and all of us believe in that.

"We have our hands full with Rice, and we know that. We’re looking for a great game and we’re looking forward to the challenge and [to playing] a well-prepared and well-coached football team."

McNeill knows there's room for improvement:

"I thought it was a good start," McNeill said. "It was a game where there were some things that we did well in all three groups — the defensive line, linebackers and secondary. There were also some things that we left on the field that we could have done better in all three different groups as well."

  Quick Links:  LAJ's Tale of the Tape and RRS.com's positional matchups.

  Rice Links:  RiceFootball.net's Mark Anderson has an excellent preview of the game from a Rice perspective . . .  the Chron's Jeffrey Martin writes that the Owls expect more of the same offense from the Red Raiders . . . LAJ's Adam Zuvanich notes that the quarterback position at Rice is still unsettled . . .

  Big 12 Links:  In The Bleachers Big 12 week 2 predictions . . . the official Big 12 website previews this week's games . . . DMN's Kevin Sherrington ranks the top Texas teams and your Red Raiders are behind Texas (okay) and TCU (hmmm) . . .