BDR will change the weekly format. While doing this post is a lot of fun, it can be overwhelming, especially during football season. Instead of the usual long daily post in the fall, there will a Morning Roundup with up to 10 stories. There will be at least two additional Big Roundups during the week which will be the expanded versions. Feel free to email with any comments, suggestions or complaints- dimecoverage@gmail.com.
Thanks again for reading. :-)
Big 12 Champions. Congratulations to the Men's Tennis team, the Texas Softball team and the Texas Rowing team.
Power rankings. ESPN blogger David Ubben has Texas at No. 1, Land Thieves No. 2, after spring practice.
The defending champs will have one of the nation’s best defenses again, and perhaps its best secondary. Garrett Gilbert spent the spring validating his performance in the national title game, showing some of his near-limitless potential. The Longhorns won’t be easy to unseat in 2010, especially if they finally discover a running game.
Mack Brown talks to ESPN about replacing Colt McCoy.
Baseball. Barking Carnival celebrates the 20 game streak. Is this year's team the best ever?
Conversations are picking up around town, with the premise that the 2010 team might be the best UT team ever, better than even the two national championship teams in 2002 and 2005. I'm going to stick with the balanced 1975 team, just ahead of a 1983 club that was so pitching-heavy that three of the four starters — including Roger Clemens and Calvin Schiraldi — pitched in the majors.
Little brother is growing up. The Aggies come in at No. 25 in Mark Schlabach's pre-season college football rankings.
Schlabach wrote about the Aggies: "It might be a leap of faith, but the Aggies could be one of the country's most improved teams this coming season. The offense will again be very explosive with quarterback Jerrod Johnson and running backs Christine Michael and Cyrus Gray coming back. Nine starters return on defense, including end Von Miller, who led the country in sacks with 17 last season. New defensive coordinator Tim DeRuyter installed an aggressive 3-4 scheme during the spring as he tries to improve a defense that surrendered too many big plays last season. Improving A&M's special teams also was a priority during the spring."
Spring football. Are spring games really necessary?
I've seen 90,000 crazed fans in brilliant sunshine. I've seen 2,500 lonely souls in the rain. I've seen celebrity coaches and I've seen scoring systems so complicated that BCS computers would go cross-eyed.
Now that they're done for another year, I've seen enough of spring games.
I'm done. Finished. Not only are the shams currently foisted upon us mostly meaningless, they're almost always boring. In terms of lasting memories, they're more disposable than a Bic lighter. Quick, name the leading rusher in Florida's 2009 spring game. Answer: Doesn't matter. Sixteen starters sat out for "precautionary reasons." Quarterback John Brantley accounted for five touchdowns (three passing) and then went back into the witness protection program behind Tim Tebow.
Creme puff. Texas' nonconference schedule fails to impress.
Plenty of warm-up time for Garrett Gilbert. Texas won’t have to do much Fighting to finish 4-0 outside of the Big 12, and finish with Florida Atlantic as a tune-up for a regular-season finale against Texas A&M.
No bacon, please. We're vegetarians. Dr. Saturday has his own version of a Big 12 expansion, which includes Arkansas.
A westward move would reunite the Razorbacks with a handful of their old Southwest Conference rivals, namely Texas, Texas A&M and Baylor, with whom Arkansas helped found the SWC in 1919, and Texas Tech, which joined in 1956 and remained until the league folded in 1996. The Razorbacks won 13 **SEC championships, seven outright, including five in nine years from 1960-68 and back-to-back titles in 1988-89 – at which point they decided to bolt for the greener pastures of the SEC, where their championship tally remains at zero 19 years later.
** I assume he means SW Conf. titles?
Political football. Should sports and politics collide?
Despite mounting support for boycotting the 2011 MLB All-Star Game in Phoenix, innumerable imminent federal lawsuits and dozens of rallies across the nation, all is seemingly quiet for the 120 member schools of the Football Bowl Subdivision that will crown their national champion in Glendale, Ariz., in January.
Bill Hancock, who runs the BCS, said Friday afternoon that he has not heard anything about the BCS Championship Game being played in Arizona.
The off-season sucks. Corn Nation posts recipes and now Rock M Nation has restaurant reviews. Dr. Saturday just wants everyone to hang in there.
Pathetic. The Miami Dolphins GM has not apologized to Dez Bryant's mother.
"No, he has not called,"' Angela Bryant said on Monday morning in a telephone interview from Dallas. "I think he should have. Why wouldn't you do that?''