44 days (give or take a few hours).
Bad pun alert. Garrett Gilbert is the real McCoy.
"I was really energized and excited by our work in the spring," he says. "The other guys helped me feel comfortable. I feel great about our receiving corps. The spring gave us a chance to get our timing down, and we'll be working more on that during the summer, and that will be big for us."
Coming so close to a national title is a motivation for 2010. "Nobody," he says, "wants to be let down and have that feeling again."
Dan Beebe doesn't like those super conferences.
Dan Beebe has made his opinions clear about a world with four 16-team conferences, a scenario that looked like a real possibility with the looming departure of five of the six teams from the Big 12 South to form a theoretical Pac-16, the nation's first major superconference.
"I think it's a huge disservice to the student-athletes if it grows to a bigger number, where they have to go further and not have as much chance to win championships and have access to championships," Beebe said at June's Big 12 spring meetings.
That's just too bad. Nebraska fans will have to spend more money to see their team play.
The only thing that appears to be certain about Nebraska’s move to the Big Ten is that Husker fans who are accustomed to driving to away games will have to pony up more gas money. In the Big 12, the average distance to an away game is 485 miles. In the Big Ten, it’s 629 miles.
But Glenn sees a silver lining in that, and not just because it could mean more business. He said he’s currently working with the NU Alumni Association to organize packages for fans to travel to Big Ten games by train.
Tommy Tuberville is a world traveler.
Tuberville, hired as the Red Raiders new football coach in February, was a guest lecturer during the Texas High School Coaches Association’s annual convention at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center. He’d been back in America for less than a full day after returning Monday from attending the British Open at St. Andrews and playing with friends in Paris and Scotland.
The Aggies have a new theme this season.
Sherman's theme for the first season was "Get in the boat." He said some players fell by the wayside, while others were reeled back in during a turbulent 4-8 effort. Last year's theme was "Take it one step at a time, one play, one game." The program improved to 6-7 and the Aggies went to the Independence Bowl, but Sherman thought the team lacked maturity. This year's theme is "Take the next step."
Next step to where?
A&M AD Bill Byrne is getting nicer messages from alumni.
A&M athletic director Bill Byrne also told the gathering, "Season ticket sales are up, and e-mails (concerning realignment) are down."
The Aggie head coaching job is listed as one the top 20 positions in the country.
In a ranking of the top 120 coaching jobs in college football, Texas A&M's post came in 18th. Texas, with its winning tradition, location and name brand was ranked as the No. 1 coaching job. The two face off Nov. 25 in Austin.
Oklahoma and Nebraska are picked as preseason favorites of their respective divisions.
The internet has changed college recruiting.
The Internet has reshaped the football recruiting landscape in the last decade. College coaches, once limited by tight budgets and packed schedules, can cast a wider net for recruits. Players, once overlooked because of their school's location and size, can show the world their talents. Highlight videos and statistics, once difficult to retrieve, are a click away. A cottage industry of interactive recruiting sites has a potential customer base of 1.2 million high school football players.
"There is so much more information out there than there ever was before," said Randy Rogers, a former college coach who has run a scouting service in Austin the last 12 years. "And it's so much easier to find a kid."
Nick Saban comapres some sports agents to pimps.
Nick Saban didn’t pull punches Wednesday when discussing the improper contact with athletes by unscrupulous agents, comparing their behavior to that of a "pimp."The Alabama coach was upset about the rash of recent agent-related incidents that have resulted in NCAA investigations at several Southeastern Conference schools.
"I don’t think it’s anything but greed that’s creating it right now on behalf of the agents," Saban said in a rant at the SEC media days. "The agents that do this—and I hate to say this, but how are they any better than a pimp?"
SEC Commish Mike Slive blames the agent problems on the NCAA.
Southeastern Conference commissioner Mike Slive wants theNCAA to switch its focus on agent dealings from enforcement to assistingplayers. Alabama coach Nick Saban wants to take aim at the agents.
Slive opened the league media days with three schools—Florida, Alabama andSouth Carolina—facing investigations stemming from possible improper contactwith agents.
The SEC commissioner says the current rules "may be as much part of theproblem as they are the solution."
Here's your laugh of the day. The grassy knoll and now this. It is a conspiracy! (I do not list comments from any news site, but this is just too funny not to post.)
This would be fun to have.
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I'd TRY to get investigators onto the Texas campus. However, that could prove to be more difficult than getting spies into Russia. Perhaps that's why Mike and Baxter didn't chose this school - they're afraid to even broach the subject.
Texas operates pretty much as it's own country and doesn't cow-tow to any outsiders snooping around it's sports programs. Yes, USC and Alabama have their seedier sides, but Texas has had ties to the upper echelon of this countries government for a very long time. There's no better way to get an investigation scuttled than to have a certain someone make a call on your behalf.
Plus we all know that Texans are pretty astute at covert operations, i.e., Enron and Halliburton. There are over 100 Fortune 500 companies based in Texas. The NCAA would simply run out of investigators trying to guess which shell the pea is hid under.
As the signs say - "Don't Mess with Texas" - Football.