Double-T Nation News:
First and foremost, I need to give a huge shout-out to my lovely wife for 3 blissful years of marriage. She allows me to do what I want to do, Double-T Nation, and I can't thank her enough.
Bash Riprock's has been nominated for the Wiz's Thirst and 10. Make sure and give the Wiz a review, I haven't been there since my school days (graduated in 1996), so I may not be the best person to ask.
Texas Tech Football:
ESPN's Tim Griffin and DMN's Chip Brown discuss the proposal by the Big 12 Commissioner to end the redshirt for football players and allow each player 5 years of eligibility. This is from the Griffin article:
Beebe said that college football differs than other sports because of the widespread practice of redshirting freshmen.
"The thought would be why we would give them an extra year in that sport," Beebe said. "But you're talking about a sport with more redshirts than any other sport. And it's a sport where youngsters play a physical, very tough game with a lot of hard practices."
Several coaches said the five-year eligibility plan would do away with "redshirt blues" that often affect young players who redshirt early in their careers but don't have a chance to compete in games.
"There's nothing to play for if you're a redshirt kid and there's a lot of disillusionment," Beebe said. "And [coaches] don't want to burn a year on a kid who looks promising by just playing him on the kickoff team."
Captain Leach is on board, again from Griffin:
I enjoyed this funny exchange with Captain Leach and Big 12 Commissioner, Don Beebe:
Leach was fined for making public comments about the league's officiating following a 59-43 loss to Texas last season. During the tirade, Leach said Tech was the victim of "atrociously bad calls" in a 35-31 loss to Texas in Lubbock last year. He called the league's review process "a sham" and suggested officials were biased toward Texas because the Longhorns are "higher bowl-wise."
Leach never apologized for the comments and aired more grievances during Tuesday's spring meetings.
Beebe, who wasn't surprised about the officiating comments, apologized for not having perfect officials.
"Really, in our basement, we're busy for all sports creating robots that can officiate without error," Beebe said. "So we'll have that probably rolling out in the next four or five years."
It's good to see that we can all have a sense of humor about the whole situation.
Texas Tech Basketball:
Big 12 basketball coaches have agreed to maintain the current 16 game conference schedule, rather than move to an 18 game schedule. And Pat Knight, who was the media liason for the Big 12 Coaches, confirmed that he would be surprised if RMK came back to coach.
Texas Tech Baseball:
Willie Rueda and Roger Keischnick received some post-season honors, as Keischnick was named to the All-Big 12 Second Team, while Rueda was named Honorable Mention. Keischnick was also named the Phillips 66 big 12 Player of the Week for the final week of the regular season. Congrats to Kieschnick and Rueda.
DMN's Brian Davis says that there's too much baseball in the new shortened season, as teams try and play 56 games in 78 days. I couldn't agree more. I don't see how those kids went to class in the spring semester or were able to get any work done.