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Conferences with the Best QB's. Fox Sport ranks the best quarterbacks by conference and the Pac-12 reigns at the top of the list, the Big Ten ranks second and the Big 12 ranks third, largely based on the quarterbacking prowess of Bryce Petty, Davis Webb and Trevor Knight:
Right behind him should be Texas Tech's Davis Webb, who is ready to become a star as a sophomore. The 6-foot-4, 215-pounder is coming off a fantastic spring and has coach Kliff Kingsbury very fired up: "He has a chance to be very special," Kingsbury said. "He has one of the quickest releases and strongest arms I've been around. Very smart, intellectual thinker. Processes things very quickly. Sees the field. Great at checking to the right place. He probably had the best spring I've ever been around as far as protecting the football and making plays in our scrimmages. In our live scrimmages, [he had] 13 touchdowns and zero interceptions, which was a huge step from where he was last year."
If given the choice between the two, I'd take the Big 12 over the Big Ten without much thought going into my thought process.
Dallas All-Area in Baseball. The DMN released their all-area baseball team and a few Red Raiders made the first team, including Plano OF Cody Farhat:
The Texas Tech pledge earned 10-5A MVP honors, helping Plano advance to the Class 5A Region II final. A centerfielder and lead-off hitter for Plano, Farhat terrorized opponents with his speed, posting team highs in runs (47) and steals (34). He hit .395, with three home runs, three triples, 12 doubles and 31 RBIs.
And then Berkner P Jacob Patterson:
No one struck out batters with the same frequency as Patterson - but he didn't do it by overpowering the opposition. Instead, the Texas Tech signee used pin-point control. Named 9-5A MVP, Patterson averaged nearly two strikeouts per inning (139 K in 71 IP), while walking only 10 batters. He finished the season at 6-3 with a sub-1.00 ERA.
Gotta Lobby Up. I try to keep this place as political-free as possible, but wanted to drop the note that apparently the Big 12 has hired a lobbying firm. You know, because, you never know when you might need some legislation passed.
Port Arthur Brotherhood. Pretty cool how former Port Arthur players, like Jamal Charles, go back home to help out the current players and one of those players is Corey Dauphine. Charles wants Dauphine to be even better than he was:
"There's no competition, I want them to be better than us," Charles said of Dauphine and Gorrer. "All the stuff we did is set for someone to come in and break it. It's making history so I want them to do better and make history."
Texas Football on Texas Tech Football. Well, the LAJ has an article about what Dave Campbell's Texas Football thinks about Texas Tech, which is that the Red Raiders will finish 6th in the Big 12.
Baseball Returns Home. The baseball team returned home yesterday and some folks greeted them at the airport.
More on the "Mutual Interest". AggieSports' long-time writer Robert Cessna writes that Texas Tech and Texas A&M renewing their rivalry would be good, but that the Aggies wouldn't agree to returning to Lubbock (or maybe he is saying that the Aggies shouldn't) even if Texas Tech agreed to play two games in College Station, but maybe a neutral site would work. Eh, I think I'd be good with a neutral game situation.
Rooting for Dana. Pretty good look at West Virginia head coach Dana Holgorsen from Sports on Earth and how the Mountaineers struggled to do much on offense or defense last year. I've already written my WVU 5 things and this is the thing that stands out to me that's the most troublesome:
And so Holgorsen is tinkering on defense, too. He promoted Tony Gibson, a longtime Rich Rodriguez assistant, to be his fourth defensive coordinator in four years, and he hired Tom Bradley, the longtime defensive coordinator under Joe Paterno at Penn State, to work with the defensive line and serve as a "senior associate head coach."
