Off to the Fair: The wife and I are headed to the Texas State Fair this evening, and as a result, you're not going to see the weekly matchups post today. Your regularly scheduled broadcasting will resume tomorrow with Five Reasons. I promise to bring each and every one of you some fried butter.
Thinly Veiled Guidelines: If you are new to DTN then I would encourage you to read last night's post about making sure that we as fans all stay on the same page.
Twitter-Gate: It didn't take a genius to figure out what Captain Mike Leach was going to do after Sunday night's news of RG Brandon Carter announcing his suspension on his Twitter account and then LB Marlon Williams openly wondering where Leach was for the Sunday night meeting (that meeting was canceled, I guess Marlon didn't get the memo). Yesterday I thought that Leach would ban all social media websites, but I was wrong, he only banned twitter and the athletic department will be monitoring Facebook.
LAJ's Adam Zuvanich and Don Williams, FWST's Dwain Price and DT's Alex Ybarra are the three places that I go for the news. Here's Leach on the new Twitter-Rule:
"The policy is nothing football related outside of football," Leach said Monday during his weekly news conference. "Any way you look at it, little Twitter things that relate to football is a violation of team rules. If somebody plays for us, they don’t have a Twitter account."
And Leach on Carter specifically:
"None of that stuff is privy to the media," Leach said. "[The suspension is] for violating team rules. "Anything that he needs to do to get back [on the field], that’s pretty much between me and him." Williams also has some issues with Tech’s 2-2 record.
And Leach and CB Jamar Wall on M. Williams:
Leach responded Monday to Williams’ tweet by saying: "Anybody that’s a malcontent doesn’t stay around here very long, because we’ve got a pretty good line of recruits that are fully willing to replace them. Interestingly enough, [Williams] doesn’t have a Twitter page anymore."
Cornerback Jamar Wall said he’s never had a Twitter account and believes players should always keep any negative comments they have about the team in-house.
"I personally think Twitter is dumb, especially putting out news like that," Wall said. "It was a dumb comment that shouldn’t have been made.
"Those are the type of things that we have to keep in as a family. You don’t tell on your family."
Personally, I'm fine with all of this. There's a reason why I would never follow a player on Twitter or be friends with a player on Facebook. Yes, I could probably break some news, but I have no reason to put myself in that moral decision (i.e. to post the information or not to post the information) and I think it's creepy for a 35 year old man (me) to be friends with a bunch of 18 to 22 year old men.
LAJ's Adam Zuvanich wonders if information is becoming scarce in sports and that it's the job of the news-writers to tell the whole story. It's the job of the athletic department to put the team in the best light. Public relations is not just now entering the fray of public perception when it comes to athletic departments and to say that things are changing seems to be a bit reactionary to yesterday's events. If anything, there's more information out there now than there ever has been and to even claim otherwise seems a bit much. Zuvanich seems to be complaining that the dictated statements by the players didn't contain certain comments, but the thing is that I'm sure they all had recorders going and video cameras to pick up the players' thoughts. I don't get what the problem is.
Red Raider Football Notebook: LAJ's Don Williams with some actual football news and notes, including Leach liking the idea of only having benches available for the starters . . . Leach talks again about going for it on 4th and 1 from the Houston 1 yard line:
He said, "After the timeout, I should have changed the set and I would have rethought some of the plays I did leading up to it. We should have made it. We didn’t. You’ve got to move them half a yard; move them half a yard, you know?’’
. . . Leach comments on the strength of the running game, including freshman RB Eric Stephens . . . Leach thinks the team has the potential, but lacks the confidence:
"Right now, we are a team that our potential is here,’’ Leach said, holding his hand high, "and our confidence is here (lower). We just have to raise the confidence level.
"We have a bunch of young guys playing that are better than they think they are, and their abilities are at a higher level than some of them think.’’
. . . and the Kansas St. Wildcats game will not be televised . . .
We're Going to Be Fine: TR's dedfischer with lots of good thoughts on the UH game and I'm in ded's corner on this:
This season is not over, Raider fans, I still believe this is a good football team that will be hard for anyone to beat as long as they keep putting forth the kind of effort they’ve put out the last two weeks. It’s hard to go undefeated in a season and you need a little luck to win every game. The bounces of the ball will start going our way, so long as we keep playing hard. Now, let’s look at what we did wrong.
Neglected Video: Fox34 with highlights from yesterday's press conference, including comments by Leach, CB Jamar Wall and C Shawn Byrnes on the twitter situation and losing Brandon Carter:
. . . KAMC with two short videos on Leach banning Twitter and the players' reactions to Brandon Carter's suspension . . .
New Mexico Lobo Links: Per Mountain West Connection head coach Mike Locksley seems to like trouble as he punched his own wide receivers coach and Mountain West Connection follows the story up with Locksley only receiving a verbal reprimand . . . even Dr. Saturday's Matt Hinton gets in on the action . . . the student newspaper, the New Mexico Daily Lobo, with a good look at the Lobos loss to the New Mexico State Aggies on Saturday . . .