Texas Tech Football:
I think DMN's Kevin Sherrington misses the point this morning as he believes the attention that Coach Leach has brought to the program has negatively impacted the school. Sherrington thinks that Leach was complaining about the events of last week, which he was, but I think Coach Leach was trying to say is that there is a problem with how officiating crews are assigned games. It's a global problem. If anything, I think that game officials will be more self-aware about the calls that they are making during those high-profile games. It's funny how we can dismiss both Coach Leach and Coach Mangino for making similar complaints, but these are two smart coaches who live this situation every day and for Sherrington to think that Leach's comments were intended to give his players excuses then Sherrington is just wrong. I have yet to run across a statement or a quote from any player who blamed the officials for Saturday's loss against Texas.
The two items that I did find amusing in Sherrington's article is that Sherrington notes that officiating crews come as a package deal and there's no way that officials could be separated from their crew. Really? It would be impossible to segregate the officials so that there's no potential for bias? Well, damn. I understand the concept of having a crew call a game together, but to completely dismiss the possibility, (heaven forbid we separate the crews - they must be like a pack of wolves and you can never leave the pack) is ridiculous. The second item of note was that officials have too much integrity to cheat. Sherrington dismisses the "Tim Donaghy" argument because he did it for money. I'm such an idiot to think that an official would actually miss a call to help his alma mater win a game. School pride is overrated.
DMN's Chip Brown along with Brandon George also point out that there have been no past complaints about this issue regarding the official. When asked whether an official can work a game where he attended Beebe had this to say:
"We didn't specify the amount of time [an official has to be removed from his school]. We just try to judge whether we think there's been enough time that it would make it at least be appearing that there wasn't any kind of conflict."
Personally, I find that odd that this is the conference policy and just doesn't seem ethical that an official can call a game where he attended the school. Who thinks that this policy is changed by the start of football season next year?
LAJ's Don Williams notes that Coach Leach intends to appeal the fine.
Concerning the game, DMN's Brandon George reports that Oklahoma defensive end Auston English will miss Saturday's game, which is great news for Marlon Winn and Rylan Reed. English had 9.5 sacks for the year before the injury. Wow.
I'm going to have to let you guys run with this article for the most part, but Daily Toreador's Eric Quisenberry thinks that Coach Leach should be fired. Yeah, let's fire Leach and hire a big name coach, like Texas A&M and Notre Dame. It's easy. Better yet, let's hire a coach who is on the rise, like Art Briles, who was demolished by Tulsa (my law school alma mater) last week. The grass is always greener, Eric.
Texas Tech Basketball:
LAJ's has his game story on Texas Tech's pitiful performance against Sam Houston State. Coach Knight:
"I think we saw a couple of kids that can play and maybe a couple that can't play. You never find that out unless you play somebody pretty good."
I've got some real thoughts about last night's game that I won't have a chance to get to until later tonight. I think it's safe to say that this will be a "rebuilding year", unless things change dramatically.