Shameless plug to fill the Drum during the holidays.
$20 Men's Basketball Holiday Plan
vs. Coppin State: Friday, Dec. 31 at 1 p.m.
vs. Arkansas: Tuesday, Jan. 4 at 8 p.m.
vs. Connecticut: Saturday, Jan. 8 at 2:30 p.m.
All seats are located in the end court mezzanine sections and are based on best available at time of purchase.
A Texas grad with perspective.
My father claims the three keys to life are laughter, music and ten-dollar Merlot. If you reduce life to a simple philosophy, this one is as good as any. The laughter is universal--lack of a sense of humor has always been its own punishment. The Merlot fills in for whatever your particular culture decides to ferment (potatoes? crafty Russians...). But the music sets us all apart. We all crave a different beat; none of us keep the same time. Some of us hit the notes and others of us like the spaces in between. Our music isn't always music, of course. For some it's running, or biking, or golf. Hunting, fly-fishing, hiking, exploring. Parenting, coaching, mentoring, teaching. Cooking, eating...now we're back to the Merlot. Knitting, sewing, stamp collecting...
College football. Especially when the song has a big finish.
This seems like a fitting end to Nebraska's run as a member of the Big 12.
The Big 12 should also count itself lucky. This is a genuine feel-good story in a conference season largely defined by all-too-predictable bickering and ill will associated with Nebraska’s final go-round before departing for the Big Ten.
If you bleed Husker red, Nebraska-Oklahoma feels perfect in terms of timing. It’s out with the bad air — much of it, anyway — and in with the good.
We can spend less time rehashing :01 and more time reminiscing about Johnny The Jet’s big punt return in 1971 and Billy’s big fumble in 1978 and Eric’s big catch in 2001, and on and on.
We can forget all about burnt orange and bask in a rivalry that lost steam in the Big 12’s twice-every-four-years scheduling, yet retained energy and nostalgia and more importantly, an overflow of mutual respect.
Well, this is just sad.
"You'd like to have that extra shot," Hodges said Sunday of the wistful idea of competing in an NCAA football playoff. "Because right now it feels like we could beat anybody."
The Aggies, of course, won't get that shot, and thanks primarily to an early setback in Big 12 play, they won't compete for the league title, either. Instead, they will sit by this Saturday and watch two teams they defeated - Oklahoma and Nebraska - vie for the Big 12 title this weekend in Arlington.
If that stalwart of journalistic excellence said it, it must be true. The Batt declares the Aggies relevant again.
This just makes your head hurt. Here we go again...
If you're asking why ESPN is close to finalizing a deal to link up with Texas as its broadcast partner for the new Longhorn television network, for exorbitant figures perhaps approaching $15 million a year, it's because the worldwide leader is hoping to use this platform as a way to leverage with Texas' help a deal to acquire all of the Big 12's television rights that will be negotiated next spring. And, yes, we all know Texas has clout. If the other nine members of the reconfigured Big 12 don't go along, Texas hasn't minded using its power before and could easily reopen talks with the Pac-12 or go independent. ESPN is positioning itself for the inside track with the Big 12 and squeezing out Fox.
One very highly placed Big 12 school official told me the other nine schools are holding preliminary discussions about their own networks. To avoid Texas threatening to leave again, the opinion here is the Big 12 must be aggressive and try to strengthen itself against other assaults. That means looking to expand. The Big 12 should go after Arkansas and LSU, Arizona and Arizona State, even Notre Dame.
Will Muschamp likes to mess with officials.
I was assigned to a UT preseason practice, working the sidelines for a short scrimmage.
When the defensive end on my side jumped offsides, I threw my flag.
"Are you going to talk to him? Are you going to talk to him?" Muschamp barked at me as the players formed up for another play.
I was confused. He wanted me to counsel his defensive player? Well, no. He was sure an offensive player had moved first.
Later I asked the guys on the first-down chains behind me if they'd seen the receiver move. Nah, they said, smiling, he's just messing with you.
Let them eat cake. The middle class is mutinying.
A Nebraska-less Big 12 would look like a "Red River and who else?" conference from a national perspective. Though a Nebraska championship is the last thing anyone in the Big 12 offices would like to see, 2010 has been the year of the rising middle class in the Big 12, and it looks like it might last.
Thanks to a handful of teams that never could quite get over the hump, you won't hear any criticisms of the Big 12 as top-heavy, at least not this year. Excluding the Huskers, four teams in the Big 12 rank in the top 20, and Texas isn't one of them.
Those Pelini boys. Better Off Red transcribed Bo Pelini's rant on the sideline of the A&M game. QB Taylor Martinez was the intended target.
"If you f****** call your dad on the f****** field during a game again it’ll be the last f****** thing you ever do.
Now get your f****** a** [out/down/out of?] here motherf*****."
Some thoughts on TCU's move to the Big East. According to SI's Luke Winn, this a big loser for college basketball and this move may not be all it is cracked up to be.
TCU can lose one, maybe two games a year in the Big East and still find itself playing in what we used to call New Year's Day bowls.
Certainly it's going to create new attention for TCU but I'm not sure it's exactly what the school administrators think it will be. The idea of "now everyone in the east will see us" -- well, not really. Big East football isn't generating much attention anywhere these days.
This is absolutely awesome. Lane Kiffin is Kato Kaelin.
Who is Lane Kiffin? He's just a guy with a loud whistle and a sassy strut.
Kiffin is basically Kato Kaelin with a headset; if his coaching father didn't gift him the keys to a football life, he'd be living in someone's guesthouse.
At age 31, Kiffin somehow became an NFL head coach, going 5-15 with the Oakland Raiders. That success led Tennessee to scoop him up, where, in one season, he went 7-6 with several NCAA violations. So, naturally, he now is head coach at Southern Cal, perhaps the nation's leading institution of higher football.
Kiffin, of course - like so many non-educators before him - has no business on college grounds. His only business is winning football games; he couldn't find the campus library if you put it in his playbook. Lane Kiffin and higher learning are mutually exclusive; on the other hand, Lane Kiffin and higher earning are fast friends - USC is paying him $4 million to run the show and his father Monte $2 million to run the defense.
Please don't act like Cornhuskers. Boise fans can be jerks, too.
We do love Bevo.
And finally...
I never thought I would say this...Boomer Sooner!