Texas Tech’s spring practice session has come to an end with Thursday serving as the Red Raiders’ final day of prep ahead of Saturday’s spring game. Following the run-through, coordinators Zach Kittley and Tim DeRuyter spoke to the media. Here are the takeaways:

Texas Tech’s spring practice session has come to an end with Thursday serving as the Red Raiders’ final day of prep ahead of Saturday’s spring game. Following the run-through, coordinators Zach Kittley and Tim DeRuyter spoke to the media. Here are the takeaways:

Zach Kittley - Offensive Coordinator

On what position has had most competition, in regards to making a depth chart:

“I’d probably say the receiver room, overall, we got a lot of great wide outs. You had a couple guys that didn’t get to do a whole lot this spring, they’ll come back. But there’s competition across the board, there’s gonna be a lot of those two-deep questions that won’t get answered until fall camp. That’s what it’s all about. You’re trying to compete everyday and make the best man win. It makes everybody better too, especially with what we’re trying to go in and find.”

On how much run Jake Strong will get Saturday:

“It just depends. Right now, it looks like he’ll get about a quarter, but depending on a few things between now and then it may be even a little less for everyone involved. Again, it’s not going to be crazy schematics and all that stuff, but right now he’s on paper to get about a quarter.”

On what his schedule looks like after the spring game:

“Well just everyone’s a little bit different. I gotta play in a golf tournament on Monday for charity and then we have some exit meetings on Tuesday and then we hit the road recruiting Wednesday. So then it’ll be about three and a half straight weeks on the road recruiting and seeing our top targets, evaluating kids, all that stuff. It’ll kind of shift from an X’s and O’s and developing your own guys to recruiting guys for the future… A lot of windshield time. Luckily we have a great budget and all that stuff here that gets us on airplanes and sends up from here in Lubbock to wherever we need to go.”

Tim DeRuyter - Defensive Coordinator

On defensive schemes for Saturday:

“Well we’re gonna be pretty simple. So I want our guys to play hard and fast. Coach McGuire talks about all the time, it’s not about the calls, it’s about how we run them. And I think we set a good standard last fall on how we played. We weren’t as clean as we wanted to be. We gave up way too many big plays. But in the moments when we needed to make stops on third down, fourth down, in the red zone, our guys stepped up and I want that mentality on every single snap.”

On excitement for the atmosphere on Saturday:

“Not having been there, I’m gonna be curious. I’m hoping we have a great crowd, we did last spring. I know there’s a lot of buzz in town over what our players have done last fall and the excitement going into this year. I think it’s a great opportunity for our guys to show what the 2023 version of the Red Raiders are going to be. Obviously every year is different. You know, we’re losing Tyree (Wilson), we’re losing (Marquis Waters), we’re losing Adrian Frye. There’s a lot of guys that did some really good things for us, Krishon (Merriweather) and Kosi (Eldridge), that we miss. But it’s ‘What’s Next’ and these guys are gonna have their opportunity to find out and show to our fans what’s happening next.”

On what he has noticed improved from the offense:

“I think our offense is a lot better, which has forced us to be a lot better on our end of it. We’re going against two quarterbacks now that have experience in our system and really test us. Tyler (Shough), in particular, has had a great spring. Behren (Morton’s) really talented and our younger quarterback Jake has come in and when he’s going against the threes, he can make them look silly. So the future on that side’s really good. I think our offensive line has made a dramatic improvement, as have our receivers. Having to go against those guys everyday, if we’re not on they’re going to embarrass us. And our guys know that, so the competition has been good back and forth.”

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