DTN's Community Projections:

The Facts:

There's absolutely nothing to base the play of Cody Davis this year, because he will be a redshirt freshman starting at free safety with no game experience.  We did see Davis play in the Red-Black scrimmage where he had 5 tackles and one interception that he returned for a 100 touchdown. 

What I Think:

You'll note that I've got a wide range of possibilities for Davis and I don't think it's unfair to have high expectations for Davis as I'm expecting him to be pretty darn good.  He obviously won't be as good as Darcel McBath was as a senior, but I think he's going to surprise a lot of people.

There's been a lot of questions about the number of starters returning and thought that it would be a great idea to ask you if you think the new 2009 starter will be an upgrade or a downgrade from the 2008 starter. Click on the player names for a comparison of statistics, but the big question is if you think that Daniel Howard is an upgrade over McKinner Dixon (As an aside, I realize that Jake Ratliff was the starter last year, but I think it's fair to say that Dixon was the better player and because of that, he's being included rather than Ratliff.  I'm also assuming - perhaps wrongly - that Dixon will not be able to pull himself back into the coaching staff's good graces.  I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think I will be).

Last Year:

This Year:

Five Things is a handful (i.e., five) of thoughts about a single topic. Hopefully, discussion ensues.

Improving the Special Teams

To say that special teams has largely been ignored by the Captain would be an understatement. Clay McGuire was the special teams coach last year and did so without any sort of experience. When running backs coach Seth Littrell left for Arizona, Leach moved McGuire to running backs coach, the position he played at Texas Tech, and hired Louisiana Tech's special teams coach Eric Russell.

The point of this exercise is to take a look at where the special teams was last year and Russell's La. Tech teams from 2008 and 2007 as well as 2006, the year before he arrived at La. Tech (Russell was previously at North Texas).

Since I haven't seen a lick of La. Tech football in the last two years, I would think the argument could be made as to whether La. Tech's success at special teams is based on scheme or the players, and for the sake of this post, we'll give credit to Russell for the scheme since I do not have an opinion as to the types of players at La. Tech.

1: Punt Returns

	2008	2008	2007	2006
Punt Return	9.90 (1 TD)	12.97 (3 TD)	13.92 (0 TD)	5.00 (0 TD)
Punt Return Allowed	11.93 (2 TD)	6.00 (1 TD)	7.53 (0 TD)	9.25 (0 TD)

This is fairly significant and it doesn't take any type of specialized degree to note that prior to Russell's arrival in 2006, La. Tech was simply woeful at both punt return and punt returns allowed. Things changed fairly quickly, and if there's one thing that I'm hoping with Russell's arrival, is that the Red Raiders can and will improve in both of these categories.

The key here in punt returns is who will actually be returning those punts for Texas Tech. In previous years, Leach has opted for the safe and reliable option, in Eric Morris and Danny Amendola. Both guys weren't necessarily game-breakers, but were incredibly reliable. It will be interesting to see if Russell opts for a similar player. Perhaps Austin Zouzalik or Cornelius Douglas are a couple of options.

Additionally, I'm interested to see what Russell does in terms of coverage, and I think all of these stats are something that I'm going to want to watch all season long, but this appears to be something that Russell can remedy fairly quickly. How happy would you guys be to see the allowed yards to dip under 10 and hover closer to Russell's marks at La. Tech of 6.00 and 7.53 per return?

Continue reading this post »

It really can't get any better than this, but per the official site, Mike Leach will be hosting a Women's Football Clinic on Wednesday August 5th:

Head Football Coach Mike Leach and former Lady Raiders Coach Marsha Sharp have teamed up to present an enhanced evening of fun, football and style as the 2009 Mike Leach/ASCO Women's Football Clinic will now also feature a style show and dinner with some of the proceeds benefiting the Marsha Sharp Leadership Circle. The popular clinic will be held Wednesday, August 5, with a vendor sale beginning at 4 p.m. at the Frazier Alumni Pavilion.

Let's break this down. 

Football clinic. Sounds like fun.

Style show with Mike Leach?  The internets win. 

I'll say this, if Leach is involved in some sort of runway extravaganza and there are photos, I think the internets might explode. 

I know what you're thinking, that Leach doesn't know anything about fashion, and I'd say that you're absolutely wrong.  Does this suit display a lack of fashion sense?

Texas Tech's Leach Shows Philly Love at Maxwell Football Club (via footballuniversity)

That's what I thought.  And the jokes are a bonus for those of you on the fence about attending.

But this gets even better as Cagle Steaks will be sponsoring the event, which makes this even more perfect as the Captain previously recommended Cagle Steaks for those of you looking for love:

Mike Leach's Tips on Dating (via shelby359)

On a serious note, the Captain lets on that the first annual Red Raider Style Show might involve the unveiling of new Texas Tech uniforms:

"Marsha and I had talked for a few years about combining a style show with the Women's Football Clinic as everyone always got a kick out of the unveiling of our uniforms as part of the clinic. We decided a meal and a style show would be a natural addition to a great evening clinic," Coach Leach said.

For all of you ladies 18 and over, this appears to be the can't-miss event of the year.  I would love (and I mean love) if any of DTN's female readers could send me photos of this event.  You would make my day.

General Information

Statistics

Statistic	North Dakota	Texas Tech
Pass Offense	245.60	413.15 (1)
Rush Offense	145.80	117.84 (94)
Total Offense	391.40	531.00 (4)
Scoring Offense	32.10	43.77 (3)
Pass Efficiency	-	158.76 (9)
Sacks Allowed	2.70	1.00 (4)
Pass Defense	267.50	242.23 (94)
Rush Defense	113.20	140.38 (61)
Total Defense	380.70	382.62 (79)
Scoring Defense	26.30	27.85 (74)
Pass Efficiency Defense	-	130.56 (72)
Sacks	1.60	2.62 (18)
Tackles For Loss	-	4.85 (95)
Turnover Margin	0.82	0.62 (22)

Top Returners

A Few Things

I'm not sure that I need a disclaimer, but I'll go ahead and give it anyway. I've never seen a single play of NDU football, so all of these observations are based on the statistics above.

1. NDU vs. NDS:  When I first started this, I found the statistics for what I thought was North Dakota, but was actually were the statistics for North Dakota State, obviously an entirely different university.  Not noticing the difference I had typed it up quite a bit until I realized what I had done. I can only imagine the ire that I would have received from faithful Fighting Sioux and Bison had I continued with my mistake.
2. New Quarterback:  ND loses their starting quarterback and much like Texas Tech, the Fighting Sioux will be relying on a new signal caller. It's tough to tell from the limited action what type of success Landry will have, but he's got a great last name. Of course, Landry's biggest hurdle is being good enough to win on the road.
3. Murray Returns at Running Back:  The backbone of the NDU offense is led by RB Josh Murray with 114 yards a game and I could imagine that the NDU offense will rely heavily on Murray for the first game, in Lubbock.
4. Replacing Defense:  NDU loses 3 of their top 4 tacklers from 2008 and considering the defense gave up over 260 yards a game last year might mean that NDU is going to have a tough time with Texas Tech.
5. Hawkins the Ballhawk:  The Fighting Sioux's best defensive player appears to be Dominique Hawkins (6-0/180) and had a great redshirt freshman year in 2008 and would expect that to continue in 2009.
6. Catching On:  NDU also loses their top two receivers in Brady Trenbeath (69/859/8) and Alex Nichols (39/444/6), leaving Bamba as the top returning pass catcher. Josh Murray is also a pretty decent receiving threat, grabbing 21 catches for 187 yards.

There's been a lot of questions about the number of starters returning and thought that it would be a great idea to ask you if you think the new 2009 starter will be an upgrade or a downgrade from the 2008 starter. Click on the player names for a comparison of statistics and additional information, but the big question is if you think that LaRon Moore and/or Taylor Charbonnet is an upgrade over Brent Nickerson.

Last Year:

This Year:

Big hat-tip to Michigan State blog, The Only Colors, for inspiration for this post. I loved checking out the yards-per-point statistic (YPP), first fashioned by college football maven Phil Steele, I wanted to check out the what the YPP was for the Big 12. But first, a bit of an explanation of YPP from The Only Colors:

What does it mean though? Well, a team with lower yards per point is more efficient. Those teams typically have better red zone scoring percentages, field goal percentages, and commit less turnovers. The inverse is also true - teams with higher yards per point typically have lower red zone scoring and field goal percentage, and turn the ball over repeatedly. Think of it as a kind of luck factor - teams with a low YPP might have gotten luckier than teams with a high YPP. After the jump, you'll see the YPP for the Big Ten. Note - YPP for all BCS conference teams and Notre Dame (NBC will sue us if we don't include them) can be found in a FanPost on the right side of the front page.

The FanPost in question can be found here.

If nothing else, I was really curious about how YPP played out with recent Texas Tech teams as I'm generally fairly curious about how these statistics play out with a new quarterback.

*Honestly, I started kicking these numbers around before vacation, and so this is a half-ace attempt to get some new content on DTN.

Following the same methodology:

*2005 is the last year that these stats are available at College Football Stats, which is why there are "-" during Cumbie's 2004 year and Symons' 2003 year, not to mention I had already added the two rows, so you're stuck with incomplete numbers.

Perhaps the most striking year is Graham Harrell's 2006 year where he has the highest YPP, the lowest Red Zone percentage and the worst 4th down percentage. Not to mention the 71.40 field goal percentage, which ended up saving Texas Tech's ace in at least two games in 2006 (who remembers UTEP and Minnesota?). To say that having a clutch field goal kicker meant the difference in not losing at least two games is probably another reason why Leach hired Eric Russell in 2009, not to mention that finding a reliable field goal kicker would mean that you'll probably have a very grateful first-year quarterback.

Harrell certainly progressed from year to year and I think the relatively low YPP for Hodges perhaps speaks to his approach to the game at the quarterback position, not to mention the low number turnovers.  You also think that Hodges' legs had something to do with the fact that he helped that 2005 team to over 77.78% on 4th down?  And the Red Zone offense . . . he performed better than Harrell after Harrell had 2 years to learn the system.

But back to YPP, the exception to the rule was Hodges, at least when compared to Cumbie and Harrell.  I know that Hodges wasn't the absolute best quarterback ever, but when looking at these sort of efficiency statistics, it certainly makes me pause a bit as to what Taylor Potts needs to focus on in order quickly succeed.  Not to mention, I've always thought that Symons 2003 year was the year of years, but in terms of efficiency, Hodges' 2004 year was the best of the first-year starters.

DTN's Community Projections:

The Facts:

Jamar Wall is a two-year starter for Texas Tech, and is expected to start his third and final year for the Red Raiders.  Wall was 5th on the team in tackles with 61, 2 interceptions, and led the team with 11 pass break-ups.

What I Think:

If Texas Tech is going to have a solid secondary, I think it has to start with Wall, who may need to completely shut down his assigned receiver.  With essentially two brand new safeties and quite possibly a new cornerback opposite Wall (it could be LaRon Moore, Taylor Charbonnet or Brent Nickerson), Wall has to be one of the guys that leads this defense.