I could say a lot on the subject. Pictures being worth 1,000 words --
GO
Beat the Sooners! Beat 'em! Beat 'em! Beat 'em!
On to other matters.
So as is often the case, money is more important in the final result than integrity, courage, dedication, commitment, or the quality and tenaciousness of a team, a player, a performance, a season. OU has a bigger 'rep' than TTU (or Texas? Well, thanks to weeks of hype from ESPN and the AP, maybe so) and is thought to be able to draw more ratings, travel money and souvenir spending out of its alumni base (admittedly, there's a bigger population to draw from). So it's OU vs Missouri this Saturday for the Big XII championship. Chase Daniel's a Texan, but he plays ball for Missouri: they recruited him, and at the beginning of the last two seasons, touted him for the Heismann.
Graham Harrell spent four and a half hours in surgery Sunday morning to fix his hand; Harrell, Tech standout receiver Michael Crabtree, and McCoy, legitimate Heismann contenders, being dismissed by the ESPN/AP/BCS 'ratings' in favor of a second award for last year's winner, Florida field general Tim Tebow (whose performances early this season were a distraction as well as a disappointment, and whose team is not unbeaten -- indeed, does not have as good a record as UT-Austin or Texas Tech this year -- and OU quarterback Bob Sanderson; the FITH
decision the BCS used to send OU to the Big XII championship game despite a head-to-head 45-35 loss to U-Texas-Austin earlier in the year ...
If Obama can get us a legitimate playoff system I might join the OFB.
Meanwhile -- take a look at some guys who are far more deserving of the annual award for the year's best player in major college football than is Tim Tebow of Florida, whose position will probably actually get him a second Heismann.
Chase Daniel, of the Mizzou Tigers:
Colt McCoy, of the Texas Longhorns:
Texas Tech's Michael Crabtree:
Graham Harrell, after Saturday's game in which his hand was broken in 9 places:
Of them all it is the OU quarterback, named to first-team all-Big XII but not to the All-
America selection, who is most likely to unseat Tebow in the Heismann race.
That's a shame, really. There are far more deserving players out there.
And lest you think my bias is too much toward my alma mater, why in the hell isn't either Ball State or Boise State being noised about for a national championship? All those two major college teams did was go undefeated this year -- something that has eluded not just OU and U-Texas-Austin, but also every BCS team except Alabama.
Every single stinking one of them, regardless of ballyhoo and alumni bucks, has been beaten -- except Bama, home of the Crimson Tide, ranked no. 1 in the country, and two-score-plus underdogs going into their conference championship game against Tebow's squad Saturday.
My Red Raiders are done for the year, except for a bowl game somewhere (but it won't be a BCS championship game, even though TTU only lost once this year).
Need I add this? Yes, yes I do need to add this.
Come Saturday I will be hoping that Alabama smashes Florida. But the game I really care about will be at Arrowhead Stadium.
The FITH BCS system may be the death of the Big XII conference. To play twelve conference games a season is not feasible, the league hath ruled; so half the teams in the South play each other annually, and half the teams in the north, for 8 conference games.
The half of the conference you're not in rotates every other year. That way (theoretically) no athlete goes through a career in a league sport without competing against every other athlete in that sport in the league.
But this is football. Crabtree may declare for the draft this year (at the end of his sophomore season, he already owns TTU's all-time catch record). He should thank Harrell. Graham, if his hand does heal, might be the exception that proves the rule; the NFL doesn't look at Tech for backfield stars.
I want to wish him and the other Big XII seniors luck in their future endeavors.
He and coach Mike Leach and his receiver corps, and coach Ruffin McNeill's defense, have led the Red Raiders to their best year ever.
Thanks, guys.
- Sarah's blog
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Comments
Well, as a
Longhorns die-hard, I'm with ya on cheering for the Tigers. It may be a lost cause and OU may just have the magic bean this year. If it makes you feel any better it sucks on an epic scale to have two teams playing for your conference championship that your team beat soundly. Ah, if only Texas hadn't gotten stuck playing TTU after three consecutive games against top-ranked teams.
One of the best things about college football is that you can't buy dynasties. OU's Bradford has had the benefit of some outstanding receivers and an experienced o-line. Next year, OU loses their entire o-line (except for one player), their top receiver and half their defensive secondary. Bob "Run up the score" Stoops may have a less satisfying experience next year seeing how he leaves starters in until the last moment to pad stats and run up scores. Unfortunately for you Sarah, TTU is losing more than half their o-line, QB, senior RB, several terrific defensive players and half their defensive secondary (I don't know if Crabtree can go pro if he hasn't been out of high school less than three years). I'm hoping McCoy comes to back for another year.
I disagree with you about Boise State and Ball State. Going undefeated is obviously an accomplishment for any program. That said, with the schedules that either of those schools played any other top team would be expected to go undefeated. If the Boise States of the world want serious consideration for BCS titles, then they need to join a BCS conference. They'd be a great fit with the Pac-10 or the Big XII North. If they went undefeated playing the teams from those conferences (yeah, Pac-10's been pretty lame overall but if you beat USC and whichever other two teams are any good that year, it's an accomplishment)then they'd rightly get talked about for a national championship.
Final thoughts: 1. Thanks for posting about football. Yay college football! 2. I now live up in the pacific NW. I hope that University of Washington does NOT hire Mike Leach. Can't stand him. As much as I would love to see him leave the Big XII, the Huskies have enough on their plate without him. I hope he goes to Auburn. and 3. Even if OU gets into the big enchilada, remember they've earned the name "Chokelahoma." As much as I dislike Boise State's ridiculous reliance on trick plays to win anything, it was unparalleled joy to see OU utterly humiliated in the Fiesta Bowl. We can hope, can't we?
My Heisman vote
if I had one, which I don't, would go to Chase Daniel. I'd love to see a QB like Daniel in the Pac 10, more specifically, at Oregon.
Mike Leach was, I thought back in 2000, the biggest
dud to hit Tech this side of Bob Knight.
Boy was I wrong, and I'll say that here and now in front of God and everybody.
Leach has taken TTU football places it had never been before.
The difference between "Run it up!" and "Play to the whistle" is an intangible, but Leach, I think, gets it right. Some of the pre-conference opponents who've taken whippings at Tech games in the last 8 years likely don't agree -- but he doesn't run it up ugly, the way Stoops does. (Remember: Leach was OC for Stoops, before he came to Tech.)
But my first love is WCBB, and so for me it's always going to be Coach Sharp; Spike Dykes is still Tech's winningest football coach (and you guys still got shafted when McWilliams lied and split for Austin, the year SMU got the death penalty; and we all got a dose of BOHICA when the SWC bit the dust because Arkansas bailed for the SEC).
So let Ball State and/or Boise State join a BCS conference (hard to blame them for not doing it -- the BCS fees are outrageous, and they've got smaller alumni populations to fleece than TTU has) -- but damn, realign the Big XII on sensible geography, eh? I'll swap the Big XII North OU for MU, and they can add Boise State and Ball State up there. We'll pick up Houston and Tulane (or LaTech, if Tulane's athletics do go down the drain in the wake of the hurricane cutbacks). They'll have Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Kansas State, and Iowa State to make patsies of, and we'll have ... Hmm. That seems a little out of balance, too. But it'd be better than having to travel so bloody far in the winter for b-ball, especially into the COLD.
I was right about Knight, though.
We can admit that we’re killers … but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes! Knowing that we’re not going to kill today! ~ Captain James T. Kirk, Stardate 3193.0
1 John 4:18
My Vote
My vote is for Shonn Greene of the University of Iowa. I know nobody knows who he is, but he is beyond good. We will probably lose him to the NFL before his time is up.
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/84356...
Greene has been over a hundred yards rushing every game. In those 11 games Greene is averaging 144.1 yards a game and has punched the ball into the end zone 15 times.