ODDS AND ENDS | This didn't belong under a baseball heading, but this was an editorial from the well-respected LAJ's George Watson who wrote this:

For the past 14 months, we’ve seen the diplomatic side of Kirby Hocutt. Tech’s athletic director has been well out in front, waving the school flag, smiling, shaking hands, meeting people, encouraging fans and donors that the future of Texas Tech athletics is a bright one.

On Monday, we saw a different side of Hocutt. Raw, stern, disappointed yet still just as determined as ever to make every Red Raider athletic program a successful one in terms of NCAA postseason.

And by relieving Dan Spencer of his duties as head coach of the baseball program, Hocutt sent a clear message to every other head coach that wears the red and black — if your team doesn’t perform, you’re next.

Because mediocrity will no longer be tolerated.

Let's preface this by saying that there will be things that Hocutt will do that will not make people happy. He might give coaches longer leashes than they should, but a coach will most likely make it incredibly easy for an athletic director to make the decision as to whether or not to hire or fire a coach. Go read the whole thing. I think that Watson captures a lot of things that a lot of you have been thinking would happen, but I've always thought that Hocutt wasn't going to be afraid to pull the trigger. He did it at Miami, so it is not a surprise to see Hocutt doing this now.

CONFERENCE REALIGNMENT | I have stopped putting stock into just about any site that claims that they know what is happening, but @gswaim (radio host in Oklahoma) is tweeting that all sports other than football for Notre Dame as well as Florida St. and Clemson are set to join the Big 12. Kansas St. blog, Jug of Snyder says that Clemson and Florida St. will notify the ACC that they are leaving for the Big 12 and ChuckOliver.net says that Florida St. and Clemson is inevitable. I'm not as passionate about this round because conference realignment is not affecting Texas Tech directly and it is tiresome to follow all of the rumors. (Forgot to add a hat-tip to SB Nation's TCU blog, Frogs O' War for the links. Make sure and check out our new Big 12 neighbors.)

GOLF | Gabby Dominguez and Kim Kaufman are set to start a run for NCAA individual title. Good luck!

FOOTBALL | Per the LAJ, head coach Tommy Tuberville has apparently re-filed a motion to dismiss (I'm guessing it is a motion to dismiss) in the securities lawsuit. This will be denied as well, so don't be surprised if the judge doesn't permit this going forward.

Athletic Director Kirby Hocutt made it official and terminated baseball head coach Dan Spencer. Here is the official statement from Hocutt:

"Texas Tech has had a very strong tradition in baseball exemplified by our nine NCAA regional tournament appearances and our four conference championships," Hocutt said. "I expect all of our teams to compete nationally and win in every aspect. We will find the best man to lead our baseball program to Omaha."

Associate head coach Tim Tadlock has been named as the interim head coach and that a nationwide search would begin immediately to hire his replacement. Perfect Game's Kendall Rogers speculated that Tadlock could be the leading candidate considering the fact that Tadlock is one of the more highly respected assistant coaches in the nation and is known to be a dogged recruiter. Baseball America's John Manuel also thinks that Tadlock and New Mexico's head coach Ray Birmingham:

The most logical replacements are assistant coach Tim Tadlock and New Mexico head coach Ray Birmingham. Tadlock was lured away from league rival Oklahoma in November, played at Texas Tech for Spencer's predecessor, Larry Hays, and has head coaching experience in the junior-college ranks, having spent nine seasons leading Grayson (Texas) County JC. He led Grayson to back-to-back NJCAA national championships in 1999-2000 and posted a .774 winning percentage overall.

I still really wish that it had worked out for Spencer here at Texas Tech. I hate seeing people get fired so this isn't a day for celebrating for me, but I also want this program to win so I'm conflicted. I hope we can thank Spencer for his hard work and dedication because I can guarantee that one of the biggest reasons why Dan Law Field saw renovations over the last year was because of Dan Spencer motivating donors to see it through. Spencer had a huge part in that entire process.

[Note by Seth C, 05/21/12 12:17 PM CDT ] Earlier this morning, Rogers tweeted a blog post ($) that Texas Tech was attempting to put together a "super staff". I don't have a subscription to Perfect Game, but I also wanted to note that RRS.com's Chris Level tweeted the following:

Keep an eye on UT pitching coach Skip Johnson, a name to watch in the #TexasTech coaching search. Known Tadlock since they were kids.

— Chris Level (@ChrisLevel) May 21, 2012

If this does happen, then I'd be pretty darned happy and I guess this is a situation where Tadlock would be the head coach and Skip Johnson would be a co-head coach with Tadlock. Here's Johnson's UT bio and sure enough, Johnson and Tadlock both attended Denton High School.

ODDS AND ENDS | I was in Johntown this weekend. No, not Jonestown, but Johntown. And the commercial where the guys go camping and don't have any cell service, well that's where this is at. Middle of no where. So I'm most likely not going to catch all links from all of the news this weekend, but you can post anything that I've missed in the comments.

Totally Texas Tech's TTURed tried to take some photos of the eclipse, but the clouds ruined the party. Still a bunch of good photos.

CONFERENCE REALIGNMENT | DMN's Chuck Carlton wrote over the weekend that things might be moving to four super-conferences, including the Big 12. There is also talk that a move from Florida St. and Clemson to the Big 12 are imminent. You can find those links just about everywhere. BON's Hopkins Horn has a look at what super-conferences means that's worth a read.

BASEBALL | This is from LAJ's George Watson:

Texas Tech has scheduled a press conference for this morning at which it is expected to announce that Dan Spencer has been fired as the Red Raiders’ head baseball coach.

A source close to the athletic department, on the condition of anonymity, confirmed to the Avalanche-Journal late Sunday night that Spencer has been fired.

There is a press conference scheduled for 10:30 this morning to announce Spencer's termination. If anyone was concerned about Athletic Director Kirby Hocutt firing an under-performing coach, well, here you go. I really wish that it had worked out with Spencer as I do like what he is about.

FOOTBALL | Chris Level and Aaron Dickens on Double-T 104.3 interviewed offensive coordinator Neal Brown and it's worth your time. I listened to it as I worked on this morning's DTN DD and the thing that I liked the most his Brown's acknowledgement that this team did not play good late in the season and that football is about results. Brown discusses just about every facet of the offense from quarterback, to running back, to receiver to offensive line. Give it a listen.

Congratulations to our May 2012 student-athlete graduates!GO TECH! twitter.com/RedRaiderClub/…

— Red Raider Club (@RedRaiderClub) May 18, 2012

I'll be away from the computer for the weekend, so consider this your open thread to cuss and discuss any and all of the fantastic spring sports that are finishing up their final games, NCAA Tournament Regional tournaments, etc.

I'd also add that this weekend, Texas Tech will have a handful of new graduates, including thirty-four student athletes. Congrats to all those Texas Tech students receiving their diploma this weekend.

And thanks to @RedRaiderClub for the photo of some of those student athletes.

As an aside, I added the table to the right to catch everyone up on what happened on DTN this week, starting from Monday until today. That looks like a busy week so make sure and read anything that you didn't get to read during the week, read the comments and have a great weekend.

We've already covered the commitment of fellow teammate S/CB Stormy Butler, and now we're onto CB Darren Dotson. This is a bit interesting, and this one thing alone assures me that I might never understand recruiting, is that Dotson did not play for the College of Sequoias last year, but he is on their roster this year.

Dotson didn't play football the year before that as he was at Dean College. Now, we're going on two years without playing football and Dotson has a handful of offers from various colleges, while his teammate Butler, had one other offer besides Texas Tech, actually played last year and has good film and seems to me to make a pretty good prospect. Dotson hasn't played football in two years from what I can tell and has a full list of offers. That doesn't make any sense and this is why I cannot fully understand recruiting.

As the LAJ story will detail, Dotson did not have the grades to receive an offer coming out of high school, went to a Massachusetts junior college, Dean College in 2010, sat out in 2011 in transferring to the College of Sequoias and will play this next year. Don't get me wrong, both Dotson and Butler have really nice measurables, and maybe teams already knew that Dotson was a Division I player, but maybe Dotson was always on the radar of colleges, but because of his grade issues, it wasn't worth a coach or college's time until that actually happened.

Stats

Again, Dotson didn't play last year and I can't find any statistics for Dean College.

More after the jump.

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Sometimes commitments come out of thin air and sometimes you have a good feeling about players that will eventually commit. The commitments of S/CB Stormy Butler and CB Darren Dotson were out of thin air for me. I've been trying to do a better job of tracking these players that have offers and may eventually commit, but neither were on my radar.

Butler's commitment is a bit strange in the sense that he's taken an interesting road to where he is today. From what I can tell Butler was originally part of the 2006 recruiting class for Connecticut and the story below alludes to the fact that there were NCAA clearinghouse issues with Butler. The thing that I find strange is that this was 6 years ago. That's a long time to wait.

Butler's brother, Darius Butler, plays for the Carolina Panthers and so the thought is that they might have similar athletic ability, but I don't know.

Stats

For the College of Sequoias, Butler finished the year last year with 22 tackles, but his highlight film seems to indicate that he had a few tackles for loss so I don't know how accurate those stats are.

More after the jump.

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