Nebraska and Colorado Leave Big 12: This seems somewhat swept under the rug here at DTN, but Nebraska and Colorado will no longer be with the Big 12 after this year (those links are to Big 12 official releases). The Big 12 will withhold $6,863,000 from Colorado and the conference will withhold $9.255 million from Nebraska. This is much less than the $30 million than was threatened and for guys like myself that don't do math, these figures are less than $20 million, which TAMU is still saying that they are owed $20 million for staying. I'm sure this will all work out just fine.
Notes, Notes and More Notes: LAJ's Don Williams has some news that Texas Tech will have a new video board by the Oklahoma St. game:
On Tuesday, workers began tearing out the old screen and advertising panels.
"It’s not going to be any higher," Myers said. "I think it’ll be about 10 to 12 feet wider."
The current video board, installed in 1998, is a Mitsubishi Diamond Vision Mark III that’s 21 feet tall and 27 feet wide.
Myers said the upgrade is a $760,000 project being done by Daktronics. He said the cost is relatively low because there’s no need to replace framework that’s already in place.
"To build those big frames in there cost about as much as the video screen," he said. "We already have the frame, so we’re not going to be out that cost. It’ll be the same frame, except taking the advertising panels out and making the video screen a lot bigger. It’ll be a lot clearer, too."
Look at me trying to distract you with scoreboard talk (me waving my hands and jumping around).
Also, Tuberville had some comments on the breakdown of the passing game:
"It all works together when you throw the ball. You’ve got to be able to protect. (Receivers) have got to be able to get off, be able to read zone (coverage), read man (coverage). There’s a lot to it."
Tuberville faulted quarterback Taylor Potts for his two interceptions, but said Potts "made a lot of good decisions."
"It’d been pretty tough for anybody to stand and have about a second to get the ball off in that game. You can’t judge him on that. He made a couple of bad throws, but he made some good throws. You’ve got to have a lot better opportunity to throw more passes and a little bit more time in a game like that."
This is pretty much what we've been saying for the past three days, except for the part about Potts making a lot of good decisions. I don't think that Potts made a lot of good decisions, unless you consider the first read on what seemed like every pass a good decision. Of course, he's got to have a little more time, any quarterback needs more time, but generally speaking, I disagree and I'll have more on this later this morning.
Douglas to Go Both Ways: See what I did here, well it was a partial quote from Tuberville and yes, I'm still 12 years old. LAJ's Don Williams writes that Tuberville will start playing IR Cornelius Douglas on both offense and defense:
"No. 1, he’s offense," Tuberville said Tuesday, "but the other thing is, what we put him at is a pretty simple position on defense. It’s not rocket science. He’ll play a couple of coverages, but he’s a very good athlete, so he has no problem going both ways. He’s got a lot of instincts."
Miscellaneous: FWST's Dwain Price has a notebooky Texas Tech article . . . RB Baron Batch continues his weekly diary (I was interested to see what he would write after a loss) . . . LAJ's Don Williams with three positive and three negative Tuberville's Takes . . . thanks to Btech, here's some of the stats from TE commit Jace Amaro from MacArthur in San Antonio . . .
Big 12 and National Links: Rock M Nation's Bill C. with lots of links from this past week's Big 12 games (this is really good if you want to follow the Big 12) . . . Cowboys Ride For Free's Royal John with thoughts about all of the Big 12 teams and he actually came away impressed with Texas Tech as the Red Raiders in the Underrated category:
1. Texas Tech: Had this article been written a week ago, the Red Raiders may not have landed in this category. However, watching their game against Texas made me realize that Tech has something it usually never has: a defense. Texas Tech may have lost the game but I was still impressed with how they fought throughout the game. Nobody left on their schedule will have the defense that Texas has. Tech will score points on most every team they face. The difference is now they have a legitimate defense to go with it.
Sometimes it's good to know that the sky isn't falling . . . Coaches Hot Seat continues to make fun of Texas A&M for their soft schedule and I had forgotten to mention this earlier this month:
Cupcake Wins
2008 – New Mexico, Army (Lost to Cupcake Arkansas State!)
2009 – New Mexico, Utah State, UAB
2010 – Stephen F. Austin, La. Tech, FIU
Mike Sherman has 13 total wins at A&M
8 of those wins came against CUPCAKES!
That's right, one of Sherman's 13 wins came last year at Texas Tech and the rest was against these teams (although to be fair, this would probably be the case for a lot of coaches since non-conference is usually 3 or 4 games) . . .