It was a good week. The Texas baseball beat Missouri 20-11 and Chance Ruffin was named the Big 12 Pitcher of the Week.
The Legislature may not have the power over Texas' decision.
In the early ‘90s, the legislature had significant financial power over UT and TAMU. The flagship schools of this great state have billions in PUF resources, but very strong constraints on spending that money. For example, defined PUF money can only be spent on construction (this rule has been stretched to allow the purchase of land and expensive equipment for those building projects). Note- UT and TAMU never use PUF money to build athletics facilities.
There isn't good news about Brandon Loy. His left scapula showed a contusion and he could miss the Big 12 Tournament.
Longhorn recruit Reggie Wilson has a great story.
He was born in Africa's Ivory Coast to parents who were refugees of a bloody civil war in the neighboring nation of Liberia. He lived for a time in a refugee camp, at a compound built by his father, Henry, a former building contractor in Liberia hired by the United Nations to help construct refugee camps.
As a first-grader, Reggie Wilson was separated from his parents after his dad suffered a stroke. To get the treatment he needed, Henry Wilson had to come to the United States with his wife, Catherine.
The parents couldn't afford to bring the entire family. Consequently, Reggie Wilson and his siblings weren't reunited with them until they arrived in the U.S. when Reggie was a sixth-grader in 2003.
Only a few can afford to be independent.
• Texas. If you were picking any program in the country to stand by itself right now – including Notre Dame – from a pure resource perspective, obviously Texas is it. The Longhorns are the most valuable program in the country according to Forbes, and were the most profitable overall athletic department with $138.5 million in revenue in 2008-09 (a stunning $37.3 million of which came from private contributions). It also happens to operate in a fast-growing, football-obsessed, recruiting-rich state with a certain historical tradition for standing on its own, all of seems to alienate the 'Horns from their Big 12 brethren – conference payouts account from a smaller percentage of Texas' overall revenue (less than 10 percent on 2008-09) than any other major program.
Where does the Big 12 rank?
But the Big 12 is second to only those in the Southeast..
Look, you might get a nice, pretty football made of crystal when you win a national title, but you also get respect. Both for your program and your conference. Win four in a row, and you won't hear an argument from me that you don't have the best teams in the country -- especially when those four titles are split between three teams in two different divisions.
In short, the SEC is king.
Fuzzy numbers. NCAA rules limit the numbers of players who can be signed in a recruiting class to 25. Some coaches can't count.
"There are varying degrees of oversigning, some not quite as bad as others," according to Oversigning. "Regardless, we believe any time you sign more players than you have room for and you have to depend on either the player you signed to not be academically eligible or for a current player to be cut from a team in order to stay under the 85 scholarship limit and bring in the newly signed commitments that it hurts the kids involved and the sport as a whole."
Was OU's recruiting success worth it?
By the start of Taliaferro's third year at OU, it appeared the Sooners were reaping his benefits. Taliaferro helped land two of the three McDonald's All-Americans who had joined the program since his hiring. One, Willie Warren, helped take OU to the 2009 Elite Eight. The other, Tiny Gallon, was expected to partner with Warren to keep the Sooners in national contention in 2009-10.
Now, 2 1/2 months after the end of Taliaferro's third season, it's worth asking: Was that success worth the price OU could pay?
It's also worth asking: What else was happening on Taliaferro's recruiting trail?
Barry Tramel answers a reader's email about Bob Stoops vs. Mack Brown:
Kent: “I’ve enjoyed the old Switzer stories, a lot of funny things that wouldn’t happen today. Do you think Bob Stoops knows how important it is to beat Texas? Think about this. Royal ran Bud out, Barry ran out Darrell. I thought Bob would run Mack out, but it may be the other way!”
I have to believe that Stoops knows exactly how important it is to beat Texas. And sure, Brown could run Stoops off, same as Stoops could have run off Brown. But I see Stoops and Brown more like Switzer and Osborne, or Royal and Broyles. Long-time rivals who push each other.
The House Judiciary Committee is hearing testimony about the Mike Leach-Adam James case.
Breaking up is very hard to do.
The news broke one month ago today: Dana Altman to Oregon.
Done deal.
"There used to be a proper way to do things, but that's kind of been taken away," Altman said by phone. "You would like to sit down with your team and explain it to them before everybody else has an opinion on it. But because of the age we live in, everybody is a reporter. Everything gets out much more quickly than it used to. It makes it tough."