Nolan Ryan thought Colt McCoy did just fine.
Colt McCoy took a three-step drop, found the pitching rubber and fired the ceremonial first pitch before Monday's game.
Admittedly a little anxious, the Texas quarterback threw slightly high and right but found his target nonetheless.
"I can go out there and play in front of 100,000 and be just fine," he said. "It's a different place throwing a baseball instead of a football. It was a little nerve-racking."
Nolan Ryan, a boyhood idol of McCoy's, was kind in his critique of the quarterback's effort Monday. "He said it was all right," McCoy said.
Texassports.com has a photo gallery just for the occasion.
Mike Gundy is a man and does not schedule cream puffs. Oklahoma State opens their season at home with a game against Georgia.
The countdown began in the Oklahoma State football locker room months ago. And in case you’re scoring at home, it’s 103 days until OSU-Georgia at Boone Pickens Stadium.
The timing and effect of this game couldn’t have worked out better for OSU. With a 9-4 record and a respectable mid-season rise into the top 10 last season, the Pokes are drumming up all kinds of national press for the football program heading into the fall, and they’ll sustain that attention level throughout the summer months for two reasons.
It cannot get here soon enough. NewsOk has the Big 12 opening week schedule.
GoVols features Willie Mack Garza, Longhorn defensive back 1988-92, their new defensive backs coach.
Barking Carnival is not impressed with Bob Stoops.
Crimson and Cream Machine has the all the fun facts from the Red River Rivalry. Sooner style, of course.
I Am The 12th Man looks at the biggest challenges for each Big 12 football team this season.
tu: The sips took a big hit on the DL with Brian Orakpo and Roy Miller exahusting their eligibility. The biggest question to me, is who is going to replace the clutch plays that Quan Cosby made last year. The guy caught a TD pass against OU while laying flat on his back in the endzone. Malcolm WIlliams is a hell of an athlete, but I have never seen him do that (or anyone else for that matter). Boom MFer Muschamp will find a DL that will play to his standard. I just have a hard time seeing tu replace those 3-4 gamechanging plays that Cosby made last season.
We are shocked. Rep. Joe Barton thinks that Fox might have exaggerated the amount of money bowl games donated to charity.
A congressman said he plans to investigate testimony from Alamo Bowl executive director Derrick Fox at this month’s Bowl Championship Series subcommittee hearing after learning that Fox might have exaggerated by millions of dollars the amount bowl games donate to local charities.
Fox, while representing all 34 bowl games during his appearance on Capitol Hill on May 1, claimed in his argument against a playoff that "almost all the postseason bowl games are put on by charitable groups" and "local charities receive tens of millions of dollars every year."
In fact, 10 bowl games are privately owned and one is run by a branch of a local government. The remaining 23 games enjoy tax-exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service, but combined to give just $3.2 million to local charities on $186.3 million in revenue according to their most recent federal tax records and interviews with individual bowl executives.
Andy Staples, Sports Illustrated, is not in favor of keeping the coaches' poll vote secret.
When it comes to multimillion-dollar coaches whose jobs sometimes depend on their position in a poll that counts for one-third of the BCS formula, a little cynicism is healthy. So is a little transparency, especially when 103 of the 120 schools fielding Football Bowl Subdivision teams are supported by public dollars. Only a handful of those athletic departments are self-sufficient, so most of the coaches doing the voting -- 56 of 61 voters from 2008 work at public universities -- are getting paid at least partially with your tax dollars.
But according to the AFCA, we should just trust coaches to do the right thing even with millions of dollars at stake. While the AFCA press release trumpeted the vote as unanimous -- the 16 board of trustees members include two Football Championship Subdivision coaches, two Division II coaches, two Division III coaches and an NAIA coach -- not all coaches want the final poll kept secret. "I like that last one that you have to make public," said South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier, a 2008 voter.
Maybe Blake Griffin should just say no.
To put it simply, the LA Clippers just don’t do well in the first round of the draft.... So armed with the first pick in this year’s draft, the Clippers have set their sights on Oklahoma star Blake Griffin, whose only obstacle on the way to NBA stardom appears to be ... the Clippers. Maybe Griffin’s wisest move would be to refuse to play for Clips.
The PAC 10 - Big 12 challenge games have been announced.
The match ups for the third annual Big 12- PAC 10 Hardwood challenge have been announced. For my money this is the best series between all of the BCS Conferences. With all due respect to the Big 10-ACC showdown, those games have been pretty inconsequential. Since the ACC expanded and the Big 10 has only a couple of national caliber teams their games really mean nothing.
Dennis Dodds looks at athletic department budget cuts.
This is a group that isn't known for its shrewd downsizing. When the last financial pinch hit, ADs cried out to add a regular-season game to the football schedule. They defend a postseason that has stuffed an all-time high 34 bowl games.
Someone is still paying for something.
That someone is us and the something is college football and basketball. Everything else is filler. Athletic departments exist to squeeze as much money as possible out of their cash cows -- basketball and football.
They are constricted by having to follow the NCAA mandate of sponsoring 14 sports (at least seven must be women's sports). That's the NCAA minimum for Division I membership. They are burdened by academic, legal (Title IX) and ethical forces that try to balance big-budget quasi pro-sports with graduation rates.
They finance (at least) 12 money-losing propositions in hope that one or two others pan out to support the entire department. That kind of business model goes against every economic tenet ever taught.
It works at Ohio State and Texas. It doesn't at New Mexico State, Florida International and most everywhere else. Even when football teams are winning national championships, there are only a handful of athletic departments making money. The average Division I department lost $5.7 million in 2007, at least a year before the economy became an issue. That was up from an average $4.1 million loss in 2004.
Former Aggie coach Dennis Franchione is a now a sportswriter.