Welcome back to the weekly RedRaiderSports.com staff mailbag. Another excellent round of questions this week, definitely continue to send them in for next week ITT or in the new thread in the coming days. Let’s dive in…
Why didn’t Lamar get more minutes against Texas? - @batmantt
Think it circles back to what it’s been all year with him, just hasn’t had many consistent stretches lately. It is a bit curious, especially when they went to that guard lineup in the second half which helped the run get going but I just don’t know how much they trust him to consistently make an impact, similarly to Lindsay or anyone else. - @J. Apodaca
What led to Kye Lindsey’s benching during the UCF game? Body language? Did he say something? I just can’t figure out his minutes. - @CowtownRedRaider
The mystery continues after we had maybe thought we saw some resolve against TCU for KyeRon Lindsay. I’m going to point to a quote from Grant McCasland postgame interview that really stuck out to me, he said “And then there’s these individual moments where you see things that people are trying to do that aren’t characteristic to what your team needs. And those, we’ve gotta eliminate.”
If you think back to the UCF game, KyeRon fumbled an easy pass when he checked in and was not seen again. Same thing against Texas, he subs in in the first half, gets bullied down low by Disu (who was bullying everybody, mind you) and he’s subbed out 45 seconds later.
It’s very odd to me the way Lindsay has been handled this season. I hate to say it, because McCasland far exceeds this, but it’s very Mark Adams-esque the way Kye’s minutes are handled. His leash is very short, obviously, and it’s reasonable to wonder what really Lindsay's act is like in practice on a day-to-day that Grant still doesn’t at least let him try to play through his mistakes. We’ve seen the good and the ugly from KyeRon and the necessity is there without a doubt. This is something I fear we may never get a straight answer on. - @J. Ramirez
Curious on your thoughts for the QB battle this year. Morton is the starter but do we think that Strong will be a lock for #2 or will Hammond make a big push? - @kreed07
I actually think your virtual “lock” for the No. 2 at signal caller is Cameran Brown, the West Georgia transfer. From the outside looking in, it might seem odd for the Red Raiders to have brought in a QB in the transfer class, but a PWO transfer will likely do the trick for what the staff is looking for. Brown has legitimate starting experience and was the Freshman of the Year in his conference. He’s a year older than Jake Strong and what it ultimately boiled down to was the staff not wanting to throw a wildly inexperienced QB on the field if Morton gets hurt.
Tech has used three starting QBs in both of the last two seasons. If Morton got sidelined for any chunk of time next season would you be comfortable throwing Strong out there? What if Strong got hurt, then you’re throwing Will Hammond on the field.
The staff is trying their best to play it safe with health, and adding a guy who scored 10 touchdowns through the air and six on the ground will add a dual threat dynamic to that room. - @J. Ramirez
Any idea/hunch who may be a sleeper coming out of Spring Ball? - @wreckem88
We talked a bit about this last week but the name you’re going to hear is Johncarlos (JC) Miller, the Elon transfer tight end. He is one of the best athletes on this team. On the offensive side, I’m also curious to see how Caleb Douglas looks, I think he’s been under the radar a bit.
Have heard some good things about Maurion Horn, Jalon Peoples and Macho Stevenson at corner, so we will see if that continues.
Also, it sounds like De’Braylon Carroll is legit, excited to get eyes on him in a couple short weeks. - @J. Apodaca
Do we win another regular season game in basketball? - @BeeMack3130
Yes, they’ll find a way to win at least one of @ West Virginia, @ Oklahoma State or vs Baylor. Look, this team has not been playing well and nobody wants to hear it but it’s due to injuries. Some teams have depth and can withstand a key loss or two - Texas Tech doesn’t.
The Red Raiders were already a thin team before the loss of Devan Cambridge, they continued fighting. Throw in Warren Washington missing the last few games and they have not been effective in replacing those minutes.
That said, Grant McCasland is too good of a coach and this team still has enough pieces to steal one of the road games or hold it down at home vs the Bears. - @B. Golan
What should expectations of Crawford be this year? Still a year away coming off injury? The 3 freshmen WR started getting mentioned at the end of the year, how do the transfers affect their expectations for this season? Are they considered all on the same level or has one separated from the pack for one reason or the other? @txranger64
Tough to tell on Crawford to be honest, I’m really unaware of how severe his injury was. Judging by the rest of the personnel in that room though, I don’t think he’ll be needed unless injury happens but we all know Tech’s history in the training room across all sports.
As far as the receivers go, the kind of talent coming in definitely doesn’t do them any favors for their playing time prospects. However, I do think it’s likely that we see them in some capacity this season and the spring will be telling of where the three of them are in comparison to each other.
Joey would mention Kelby Valsin the most when he was asked about them, but the other rumor floating around was TJ West was the best of the three. I would like to say speed could be a big factor in winning over the eyes of the coaches, and West ran 10.74 in the 100m in high school. If that translated then he could be special. - @J. Ramirez
How much of a step back (if at all) will the defense take after having multiple players graduate/graduate go to the combine? @CactusOnTheBrazos
This is a conversation I have been waiting to have because I think my perception of this topic is not something I see very often.
While I do believe a regression is possible, and honestly will likely show up at some points, I’m a big believer that the talent ceiling of this team moving forward with the pieces on defense is significantly higher.
It’s not a knock on the players who are out the door, some of those guys are legendary to the program. But they were not recruited off the current model and I have a lot of belief that the guys recruited now will be different.
In particular, I think the secondary has the chance to be worlds better in the coming seasons. It is incredibly young, aside from CJ Baskerville and Bralyn Lux, so the struggles are inevitable. But I think the potential is through the roof. At linebacker we already saw the kind of monster season Ben Roberts had and Jacob Rodriguez would have been insane if he got the whole season.
The only spot on the field where I’m concerned is at defensive tackle because the combo of Jaylon Hutchings and Tony Bradford will be hard to replicate for anybody. If the defense can play at the 2023 level with how young it is going to be, I’ll consider it a success. - @J. Ramirez
Why didn’t Lamar get more minutes against Texas? - @batmantt
Think it circles back to what it’s been all year with him, just hasn’t had many consistent stretches lately. It is a bit curious, especially when they went to that guard lineup in the second half which helped the run get going but I just don’t know how much they trust him to consistently make an impact, similarly to Lindsay or anyone else. - @J. Apodaca
What led to Kye Lindsey’s benching during the UCF game? Body language? Did he say something? I just can’t figure out his minutes. - @CowtownRedRaider
The mystery continues after we had maybe thought we saw some resolve against TCU for KyeRon Lindsay. I’m going to point to a quote from Grant McCasland postgame interview that really stuck out to me, he said “And then there’s these individual moments where you see things that people are trying to do that aren’t characteristic to what your team needs. And those, we’ve gotta eliminate.”
If you think back to the UCF game, KyeRon fumbled an easy pass when he checked in and was not seen again. Same thing against Texas, he subs in in the first half, gets bullied down low by Disu (who was bullying everybody, mind you) and he’s subbed out 45 seconds later.
It’s very odd to me the way Lindsay has been handled this season. I hate to say it, because McCasland far exceeds this, but it’s very Mark Adams-esque the way Kye’s minutes are handled. His leash is very short, obviously, and it’s reasonable to wonder what really Lindsay's act is like in practice on a day-to-day that Grant still doesn’t at least let him try to play through his mistakes. We’ve seen the good and the ugly from KyeRon and the necessity is there without a doubt. This is something I fear we may never get a straight answer on. - @J. Ramirez
Curious on your thoughts for the QB battle this year. Morton is the starter but do we think that Strong will be a lock for #2 or will Hammond make a big push? - @kreed07
I actually think your virtual “lock” for the No. 2 at signal caller is Cameran Brown, the West Georgia transfer. From the outside looking in, it might seem odd for the Red Raiders to have brought in a QB in the transfer class, but a PWO transfer will likely do the trick for what the staff is looking for. Brown has legitimate starting experience and was the Freshman of the Year in his conference. He’s a year older than Jake Strong and what it ultimately boiled down to was the staff not wanting to throw a wildly inexperienced QB on the field if Morton gets hurt.
Tech has used three starting QBs in both of the last two seasons. If Morton got sidelined for any chunk of time next season would you be comfortable throwing Strong out there? What if Strong got hurt, then you’re throwing Will Hammond on the field.
The staff is trying their best to play it safe with health, and adding a guy who scored 10 touchdowns through the air and six on the ground will add a dual threat dynamic to that room. - @J. Ramirez
Any idea/hunch who may be a sleeper coming out of Spring Ball? - @wreckem88
We talked a bit about this last week but the name you’re going to hear is Johncarlos (JC) Miller, the Elon transfer tight end. He is one of the best athletes on this team. On the offensive side, I’m also curious to see how Caleb Douglas looks, I think he’s been under the radar a bit.
Have heard some good things about Maurion Horn, Jalon Peoples and Macho Stevenson at corner, so we will see if that continues.
Also, it sounds like De’Braylon Carroll is legit, excited to get eyes on him in a couple short weeks. - @J. Apodaca
Do we win another regular season game in basketball? - @BeeMack3130
Yes, they’ll find a way to win at least one of @ West Virginia, @ Oklahoma State or vs Baylor. Look, this team has not been playing well and nobody wants to hear it but it’s due to injuries. Some teams have depth and can withstand a key loss or two - Texas Tech doesn’t.
The Red Raiders were already a thin team before the loss of Devan Cambridge, they continued fighting. Throw in Warren Washington missing the last few games and they have not been effective in replacing those minutes.
That said, Grant McCasland is too good of a coach and this team still has enough pieces to steal one of the road games or hold it down at home vs the Bears. - @B. Golan
What should expectations of Crawford be this year? Still a year away coming off injury? The 3 freshmen WR started getting mentioned at the end of the year, how do the transfers affect their expectations for this season? Are they considered all on the same level or has one separated from the pack for one reason or the other? @txranger64
Tough to tell on Crawford to be honest, I’m really unaware of how severe his injury was. Judging by the rest of the personnel in that room though, I don’t think he’ll be needed unless injury happens but we all know Tech’s history in the training room across all sports.
As far as the receivers go, the kind of talent coming in definitely doesn’t do them any favors for their playing time prospects. However, I do think it’s likely that we see them in some capacity this season and the spring will be telling of where the three of them are in comparison to each other.
Joey would mention Kelby Valsin the most when he was asked about them, but the other rumor floating around was TJ West was the best of the three. I would like to say speed could be a big factor in winning over the eyes of the coaches, and West ran 10.74 in the 100m in high school. If that translated then he could be special. - @J. Ramirez
How much of a step back (if at all) will the defense take after having multiple players graduate/graduate go to the combine? @CactusOnTheBrazos
This is a conversation I have been waiting to have because I think my perception of this topic is not something I see very often.
While I do believe a regression is possible, and honestly will likely show up at some points, I’m a big believer that the talent ceiling of this team moving forward with the pieces on defense is significantly higher.
It’s not a knock on the players who are out the door, some of those guys are legendary to the program. But they were not recruited off the current model and I have a lot of belief that the guys recruited now will be different.
In particular, I think the secondary has the chance to be worlds better in the coming seasons. It is incredibly young, aside from CJ Baskerville and Bralyn Lux, so the struggles are inevitable. But I think the potential is through the roof. At linebacker we already saw the kind of monster season Ben Roberts had and Jacob Rodriguez would have been insane if he got the whole season.
The only spot on the field where I’m concerned is at defensive tackle because the combo of Jaylon Hutchings and Tony Bradford will be hard to replicate for anybody. If the defense can play at the 2023 level with how young it is going to be, I’ll consider it a success. - @J. Ramirez
