TATE HIRED | The official site had the press release on the hiring of defensive line coach Fred Tate, although there is a footnote at the end of the release that says that Tate's hiring is pending a state mandated background check. So it's not officially official. Here's Tuberville on Tate:

"We are happy to welcome Fred Tate to our football family," said head coach Tommy Tuberville. "Fred is an excellent coach and Art Kaufman really spoke high of him from their time together at Southern Miss. He will bring a lot of experience to our defensive unit and we are thrilled to have him."

PRACTICE #3 | LAJ's Don Williams has the story on the third practice. Before getting to the practice, I did want to mention that there will be a scrimmage open to the public on Saturday morning at 10:45 am. Here are your notes: WR Marcus Kennard is out with a hamstring injury, and that's not good news for a guy looking to try and start. WR Eric Ward is also out with a shoulder injury and may not practice the rest of the spring. Perhaps the thought with Ward is that they know what they have with him and do not want to risk further injury . . . Tuberville also said that the team looks more athletic at linebacker:

"You look at that (linebacker) group without Chris Payne and Will Smith here," he said, "and we don’t have a lot of depth. So it’s really a blessing to have those two guys out here."

. . . IR Jakeem Grant has been mentioned in all three of Williams' notebooks, just something to watch . . .there's a lot more notes there so go check it out . . .

WESLEY SPEAKS AGAIN | I mentioned DT Dennell Wesley yesterday, but LAJ's Don Williams has a profile on Wesley this morning:

"It was kind of hard," Wesley said. "We managed and did what we had to do. It’s a new season coming up. We’ve got a new (defensive) coordinator. Hopefully, everything goes well from there."

Like several of his teammates, Wesley was pressed into service right away in his first year in the program. He’d redshirted in the first of his two years at Butler (Kan.) Community College, played for the Red Raiders as a sophomore last season and was credited with 21 tackles, two tackles for loss, a sack and a fumble recovery.

I guess I didn't realize that Wesley will be a junior this year, so that's good and I'm hopeful too.

A BIT ON BARROW | Just like with the commitments of WR Devin Lauderdale and CB Tavares Garner, I'm going to wait on preparing a profile on CB Will Barrow (5-10/160), but this is a big deal (Rivals | Scout | ESPN | 247 Sports | YouTube | Hudl) just as Lauderdale was a big deal. I don't know if Barrow is actually Barrow or Barrows as his name is spelled differently on a couple of places, although I think it's Barrow. Anyway, Barrow spoke with LAJ's Don Williams:

More after the jump.

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This is a summary of the practices that I haven't seen, but just read about and a lot of this information was burried in various DTN DD's. I thought a summary post would be better than just telling you to read the notebook or reference some other article.

OFFICIAL SITE STUFF | At the Texas Tech video page, they've posted the Red Raider Weekly segment on football practice. It's also on the Texas Tech athletics YouTube page. It's mainly Tuberville talking over some practice footage. I am sure that someone will find something to be upset about with what he said and I can't wait for that as sometimes I feel like the arguments on DTN are sometimes my version of Groundhog Day (indoor facility: "win moar and don't complain about the weather" vs. "the wind is windy need indoor facility").

Anyway, it was good to see some football. I do appreciate Tuberville acknowledging that this team needs to learn to stop the run and I couldn't agree more, this team has to stop the run and although Tuberville talks about running the ball, I think it's about running the ball more effectively as he and OC Neal Brown have run the ball at about a 40% rate for the past two years, which is fine with me.

The official site also has their first article on the spring practices and would just like to take the time to remind you how it takes time for freshmen to learn how things work and TE Jace Amaro affirms that:

"I think last year was a lot different just because I didn't really know many of the plays and how the system worked," Amaro said. "I feel a lot more comfortable and more relaxed now. I was a little uptight last year, and that kind of held me back from what I can really do. Just learning the whole system, that takes weeks and months of practice."

Amaro, who played in all 12 games his freshman season, finished with 57 total reception yards and averaged 4.8 yards a game. But that was not enough for the San Antonio-native. "A lot of people were really expecting a lot from me last year, and I didn't achieve my expectations at all," Amaro recalled. "This year is definitely going to be different."

It's not easy, but sometimes you have to be a bit patient.

MORE COMPLICATED THAN IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE | I forgot to mention this on Sunday, but will mention it today, DMN's Mike Graham talked with DT Dennell Wesley, who I don't know if he ever gave a quote last year, had this to say about former defensive coordinator Chad Glasgow:

"No, not at all," Texas Tech defensive tackle Dennell Wesley said when asked if transitioning to yet another defense in new defensive coordinator Art Kaufman's 4-3 scheme was a challenge. "This coordinator makes things simpler than the last defensive coordinator. (Glasgow) just complicated things more than they were supposed to be."

Wesley then put down the 4-2-5 defense -- the scheme TCU will try to compete in the Big 12 with -- in favor of the 4-3 defense.

"(The 4-3 is) a much better defense to stop the run," Wesley said. "You've got more linebackers than cornerbacks on the field."

I'm not sure how to react to this other than the biggest thing that I read about the 4-2-5 last year was that it was supposed to be a simple defense to master because there weren't just that many moving parts. I don't know if this is one of those things where there's an aversion to wanting to learn something new, but most players are much more familiar with the 4-3 and are probably more comfortable playing in that type of defense as I'd guess that most players play the 4-3 in high school.

Still, there's part of me thinks that there's a difference between the idea that a defense is supposed to be easy to teach vs. a person being a good teacher to teach a simple concept. I don't know if Glasgow made things easy, but what I do know is that the defense continually looked absolutely awful almost from the get-go. Here's hoping for the best.

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DEFENSIVE LINE REPLACEMENT | I'll get to the news first, it appears that Marshall Thundering Herd defensive line coach Fred Tate will be the next defensive line coach at Texas Tech and will replace Terry Price.

Here's the somewhat funny back-story. I was poking around on the internets last night and I cruised on over to RRS.com and noticed that they had posted a story about a coach being named, and I have to assume that they had the information about Tate. I also checked Coaching Search to see if they had a name or any sort of update about Texas Tech, and they did not. There was no Texas Tech update. Then, this morning, I check Coaching Search, again, and the guy that runs the site has this:

I posted last night that Tommy Tuberville very well may turn to Marshall defensive line coach Fred Tate to fill the defensive line job at Texas Tech. I was notified that my information appeared on another website rather quickly thereafter. Keep your eyes open. Apparently, it's happening often.

I know for a fact that Coaching Search did not have the information first because I was on the internets checking both sites at the same time, literally within seconds of each other, assuming that RRS.com was posting about Tate and I'm almost 100% positive it was. Coaching Search is making it sound like RRS.com took his news, but I actually think it's the other way around and that's somewhat sad not to give credit where credit is due. Sometimes other sites beat you to a story and it's just fine to link to the site that does break the news. I'm not going to link to Coaching Search, you can go find it, but this ain't cool.

But even the RRS.com folks have a hard time linking to outside material as Mike Graham had Thursday links for the DMN, none of which included anything from DTN. This is expected and I don't really care, after four or five years of writing, the only folks that link to DTN are mostly other bloggers, I think the general thought is that you don't ever recognize your competition, but I'll link to just about anything and everything, so long as it's free.

Back to Tate, here is his Marshall bio and you'll note that it says he is coaching safeties, but apparently his Marshall bio wasn't updated as he moved to the defensive line. Tate played defensive line at Southern Miss and then took a 5 year hiatus to join the Army as a combat engineer in the U.S. Army Airborne. That's kinda cool. Then, as you can see his Rivals page, he went back to Southern Miss after getting out of the army, then to Chattanooga and then to Marshall. The only reason I think, or possibly know, that Tate is the defensive line coach is this article from April of 2011 from the Huntington Herald-Dispatch:

"He was like a fish out of water coaching the secondary because he's never done that," Marshall head coach Doc Holliday said. "His comfort zone has been the linebackers, the front seven and the defensive line. It didn't take long to watch him work with that defensive front to know that there is where he likes to be and he's at home there."

Tate's energy was realized early on Saturday as players lined up for the ever-popular Circle Drill, in which Marshall players form a ring and coaches call out individual players -- one from the offensive side, one from the defensive side -- to engage in a physical, mano y mano battle.

As excited as Tate was during the drill, it appeared that he wanted to get in the middle and line up himself.

Holliday noted that he wouldn't mind seeing that, either.

"He looks like a D-lineman. Hell, he looks better than the players," Holliday said. "That's where he played at Southern Miss, so I know he's enjoying it."

More on Tate and so many additional football links that you'll go cray-cray.

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The offseason is filled with questions, especially this year. Rather than ask those questions and not offer any solutions, I thought it would be interesting to offer theorems, i.e. all right angles are congruent, and you tell me if you think they're true or not. Here are your previous Texas Tech Football Offseason Theorems:

• All Players Need to Contribute | Finding a Tight End and Utilizing Roster Spots
• Do Not Expect a True Freshman to Make an Immediate Impact | Reworking the Defensive Line
• Dynamic Offensive Playmakers Make a Difference, Part I

Returning Bright Spots

I do want to make it clear that I'm not absolutely certain that WR Darrin Moore, WR Alex Torres, WR Marcus Kennard, IR Austin Zouzalik or anyone else that's returning isn't going to make a significant leap. I tend to lean on the idea those players may just be incredibly solid role players and not much else and there's nothing wrong with that. And I don't mean to say that Torres and his 51 catches or Moore and his 49 catches are just role players, that's significant production, but not elite. For the purpose of this exercise, I wanted to focus on players that would have at least two years to make a significant impact, so my list of returning receivers consists of Eric Ward, Bradley Marquez, Aaron Fisher and Jace Amaro.

I do want to add a couple of things about Moore and Kennard. Moore was terrific in the non-conference part of the year, but caught his legs up in a reception in the Nevada game and we never really saw that type of production for the rest of the season. I think Moore is good, but for me, I don't think he has enough speed to really be playing the outside spot. I don't know where you put him, but Moore doesn't stretch the field with his speed, but he will stretch the field with his strength. As to Kennard, the staff wanted to redshirt him this year and the reason why is that he might be the most one-dimensional player on the team and most inconsistent. I'm going to do a full write-up on the catch rate, but Kennard caught only 57% of his passes last year, and although he averaged 15 yards per catch, that's not good enough. I'm guessing that Kennard told the staff that he didn't need to be redshirted and the staff relented, but against their better judgment. Kennard has tools that not many on this team have, but he could use a year of refinement. I doubt he does that, but it would make him a better player. Now, back to the other players.

There is a reason why you should hold out hope for players to improve significantly.

Eric Ward went from 6 catches as a redshirt freshman to 84 his sophomore year and to think that he started the year against Texas St. with just 2 catches for 6 yards. Ward was, by far, this team's most consistent receiver, despite the slow start, and he also proved to be the most dynamic. For the year, he finished with 84 catches, 800 yards and 10 touchdowns. I think that the best option to be an elite receiver for this team is Ward. He knows what it is like to compete in the Big 12 and he knows what it takes to be productive in this conference. That's an advantage that really no other player has. And it should also point to the idea that despite a player not making hardly any contributions, remember, just 6 catches, he absolutely exploded. That playing time as little as it was in 2010, perhaps, meant the difference between him knowing what he needed to do to be a better player and being just average in 2011.

More after the jump.

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ROSTER MOVES | First things first, the official site had a press release yesterday which included the updated roster (PDF) and a spring prospectus (PDF). LAJ's Don Williams was the first to note that a handful of players have left the program:

DE Aundrey Barr, DE Cooper Washington, OLB Dion Chidozie, S Giorgio Durham, S Desmond Martin and S Russell Polk

Williams notes that Barr is having to end his career due to knee injuries, as is Martin, who never saw the field and apparently had injury issues since 2010. Williams also notes that Washington just stopped working out with the team about two-thirds of the way through the season. That's weird. I know that Durham, Chidozie and Polk were not likely going to play considering how the roster was shaking out, so I'm not surprised that they left. This is also the reason why when I do position previews and reviews, it's good to wait until after the spring because there are almost invariable situations where players leave due to lack of playing time. I'm not discouraged with the players leaving because most likely they were not going to break the rotation, so I don't consider them leaving to be a reason for success or failure in 2012.

GEEZ, INSERT CLEVER SUBJECT LINE ABOUT A COACH LEAVING HERE | Per the TAMU Scout site and Coaching Search, it appears that defensive line coach has accepted the same position with Texas A&M. If you are at all curious about a possible replacement, Coaching Search has this:

Texas Tech: With the departure of Terry Price to Texas A&M, don't be surprised if Tuberville turns to former Ole Miss defensive coordinator Tyrone Nix or former Tulane defensive line / special teams coordinator John Hendrick.

I've got nothing. It's cray-cray how this is going down and I somewhat understood offensive line coach Jim Turner leaving Texas Tech to go to the Dolphins, but this seems like poor form on Price, but this, again, makes head coach Tommy Tuberville look not so good. TAMU is Price's alma mater so I guess that's part of the equation, but still, this is a bit discouraging. I wasn't going to mention it, but I wonder if this is something that happens often with other schools and as an example, former Red Raider Mike Smith was set to take the West Virginia defensive coordinator job and I think he ended up going back to the NY Jets (he flip-flopped a couple of times, but eventually went back to NYJ). At this point I don't know if WVU has a defensive coordinator so in my mind, I have to tell myself that this happens at other schools, but I don't know if it makes me feel any better.

More after the jump.

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It's been one of those mornings so I apologize for not being around when the schedule was released. You can find the official Texas Tech release as well as super-fancy PDF version if you want to make sure I've got everything correct. Looks like 12-0 from where I sit.

September 1, 2012: Northwestern St. Demons
September 8, 2012: @ Texas St. Bobcats
September 15, 2012: New Mexico Lobos
September 22, 2012: BYE
September 29, 2012: @ Iowa St. Cyclones
October 6, 2012: Oklahoma Sooners
October 13, 2012: West Virginia Mountaineers
October 20, 2012: @ TCU Horned Frogs
October 27, 2012: @ Kansas St. Wildcats
November 3, 2012: Texas Longhorns
November 10, 2012: Kansas Jayhawks
November 17, 2012: @ Oklahoma St. Cowboys
November 24, 2012: Baylor Bears

The offseason is filled with questions, especially this year. Rather than ask those questions and not offer any solutions, I thought it would be interesting to offer theorems, i.e. all right angles are congruent, and you tell me if you think they're true or not. Here are your previous Texas Tech Football Offseason Theorems:

• All Players Need to Contribute | Finding a Tight End and Utilizing Roster Spots
• Do Not Expect a True Freshman to Make an Immediate Impact | Reworking the Defensive Line

Theorem: Dynamic Offensive Playmakers Make a Difference, Part I

This is truly the definition of a working theorem, so it's something that I don't think is an absolute, but rather something that's been kicking around in my mind for a while. The thought is that dynamic playmakers on offense can elevate a team to significantly higher rankings even though the rest of the team may be somewhat mediocre. The best examples that come to mind is Texas Tech from 2008, where Crabtree and Harrell led an incredible offensive attack, and you can see similar results in the Big 12 this year with Baylor and QB Robert Griffin, III and WR Kendall Wright as well as Oklahoma St. and QB Brandon Weeden and WR Justin Blackmon. You could also thinkt that Oklahoma was a dynamic offensive team until the injury to WR Ryan Broyles, who made QB Landry Jones a better player. You can find a lot of examples all over the place, and again, this is a working theorem, but it seems to hold some water.

My thought with this current team is that they may have thought the same thing and made attempts to secure players that might be able to make a difference. Granted, the book hasn't been written about guys like Bradley Marquez, Eric Ward, Kenny Williams DeAndre Washington, Ben McRoy, Derek Edwards, Ronnie Daniels (hopefully), Jace Amaro or any other player that still has at least two years in front of them to develop as a player.

But I think that there was a thought that this offense needed the injection of a player that could force opposing defenses to a double-team. I wonder if the staff thought that Alex Torres may be perpetually dinged, or Darrin Moore may be able to put up numbers against bad competition, or Austin Zouzalik may continue to level off, or Marcus Kennard may be good for an occasional catch, but isn't consistent enough to be a significant threat? Again, I don't know that they're thinking this, but what if the thought is that this team needed players who might be able to make a difference, while the other players may be good, they may also just be what they are.

And I go back to the thought that in 2007, Crabtree and Danny Amendola were two players that produced incredibly well, Crabs had over 1,900 receiving yards and Amendola had almost 1,250 yards. Crabtree's 1,100 yards in 2008 was incredible for most receivers, but Texas Tech hasn't had a 1,000 yard receiver since 2008. I think that some of that is that the talent was somewhat maximized. Detron Lewis, Ed Britton and Lyle Leong were all good, but not dynamic receivers and that's what I'm getting at, which is that the offense was good, but not great, and some of that can be and should be attributed to the thought that an offense, really any offense, that wants to be great and an offense that can truly cause a defense to have coverage problems must have some playmakers and there must be some options.

One last thing before we get into the options, who on the current roster do you think is a game-changing receiver on a game-to-game basis? Not your occasional good game, but a player that causes defenses to adjust and perhaps require some double-team coverage? Is it just Ward that has that potential? Do you think that Moore is a player that requires a double-team from opposing defenses? If you are an opposing defensive coordinator, who on this team scares you?

One other item, which is that this theorem just focuses on receivers as dynamic playmakers and blame and/or credit goes to the quarterback, the running back, the offensive line, the play-calling, etc., but I was trying to limit this discussion to the receivers. We'll get to other positions later in the offseason.

Transfer and JUCO possibilities are after the jump.

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THOMSEN BEING WATCHED | The subject line actually sounds creepy, but head coach Tommy Tuberville was at the The Big Country Celebrity Ultimate Hunt in Abilene on Friday night and had this to say about new offensive line coach Chris Thomsen, who was the former head coach at Abilene Christian. Per the Abilene Reporter-News:

"Chris was on our watchlist the last few years," Tuberville said. "Finally the opportunity came up, but unfortunately he had left and gone to Arizona State.

"He wanted to come home. He's a West Texas guy and he loves it out here."

And:

"He'll do a great job with our football program and be a great recruiter and a good ambassador for West Texas," Tuberville said. "He knows a lot of high school guys, so it's a perfect fit for him and me.

"He had a very good recruiting month for Arizona State in Texas. We didn't recruit against him (for specific players), but he got a couple for Arizona State from the Dallas area. He's going to be a huge help by name recognition, the high school coaches knowing who he is."

INJURIES, COACHING AND TALENT | The topic of injuries has come up a couple of times the last couple of days, the question being to what effect did the injuries on this team in particular late in the season where Texas Tech suffered some of their worst losses. And of course, the topic of injuries isn't being discussed in a vacuum, but rather, this is a question of injuries and coaching and I still think that talent should be part of the equation, but I think I'm in the minority here. I think last year's 5-7 mark is a combination of all three things, poor coaching, what seems like a bunch of injuries and young or not very good talent on the field.

The LAJ's Don Williams has in the title of his article that says that there were 24 long-term injuries. These are just the players mentioned in the article:

RB Eric Stephens (knee), RB DeAndre Washington (knee), WR Alex Torres (knee), CB Happiness Osunde (knee), S Chris Yeakey (knee), S/LB Terrance Bullitt (shoulder), CB Shawn Corker (shoulder), S Desmond Martin (knee), LB Zach Winbush (broken foot), WR Darrin Moore (ankle, knee), IR Aaron Fisher (knee), IR Austin Zouzalik (concussion), S/LB Pete Robertson (shoulder), S Tre Porter (concussion), and C Tony Morales (shoulder).

I know there were others, like DE Leon Mackey, who missed 4 games, and C Justin Keown, who I don't think missed any games, but that still seems like an inordinate amount. I don't know how to quantify how important a player like Stephens is to a team, but I think it's safe to say that he was most likely the best player on the offensive side of the ball last year, with runner-ups being WR Eric Ward and QB Seth Doege with apologies to the entire offensive line.

I'd also say that the coaching regressed as well otherwise there wouldn't be a turnover of just about the entire defensive staff, save Robert Prunty. The offensive side of the ball regressed, but overall didn't perform at near the level that the defense performed. There is no doubt in my mind that the coaching could have been better in all facets of the game.

And I know that I tend to be dismissed when I argue that I just didn't think that last year's team had all that much talent and I've made a connection between how the NFL isn't knocking down the door to draft any of the seniors in 2011 other than Baron Batch and that no player has been invited to the 2012 draft. And before anyone brings up what Texas A&M did or didn't do with all of their top recruiting talent, that's irrelevant to this argument. If you want to discuss the success and failure of TAMU, then that's a separate discussion about the Aggies and you can have that all day long with Beergut. I don't want to have talented players that aren't developed either, but that's not the discussion right now.

And for me, this isn't a discussion about which players have caught on with other teams (i.e. Bront Bird), it's about what the NFL views as being part of the talent pool.

More after the jump.

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