Orangebloods.com's Geoff Ketchum lists five Longhorn football players flying under the radar ($) who you should know about: Buck Burnette, Billy Pittman, Peter Ullman, Erick Jackson, and Tweedle Dee Ryan Palmer.

The list is rather ad hoc, but I don't necessarily disagree with any of Geoff's assessments. Other players in my mind who haven't been talked about too much yet: Robert Joseph, Blaine Irby, Lamarr Houston, and Cedric Dockery. All could play big roles this year (with Irby supplanting Ullman as backup tight end).

Cedric Golden argues that it was a "bad year" for Longhorns athletics. You know what? He's right.

Alamo Bowl, Round of 32, no super regional? That's a subpar year for all three major sports. That's not to say I didn't enjoy each of this year's teams, but the final results weren't up to snuff.

Now that I look at this list, though, the bad year for Texas looks a lot like the good years for Texas A&M. So at least we got that.

Former Longhorn standout J.P. Howell had a dandy of an '07 debut against his former team, burying the Royals 5-1 with 8 dominant innings of work. Howell was acquired last year by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays from the Royals for outfielder Joey Gathright.

Speaking of former 'Horns, Taylor Teagarden was named the Rangers' Minor League Player of the Month for May, batting .388 with 8 home runs and 18 RBI.

I know this is being discussed in the diaries, but this Durant story is a non-event. This isn't the freaking NFL, where the combine results are reasonably predictive of a player's chances of succeeding at his position at the next level. If Durant somehow slipped out of the top two of this draft... well, it would be one more reason to tune out the NBA.

--PB--