Miscellaneous
Boren Doesn’t Expect Big 12 to Completely Fall Apart. NewsOK’s Jason Kersey talked with Oklahoma president David Boren, and he said that he doesn’t expect the Big 12 to vote on the conference championship game, but he also doesn’t the Big 12 collapse and he wants Oklahoma to remain part of the Big 12. He does want to see an end to the Longhorn Netowrk, which I think won’t ever happen:
“I’m not out to embarrass Texas,” Boren said. “I’m not out to make them financially worse off. I’m not out to do any of those things. This isn’t any kind of motivation to do anything to Texas that makes them worse off.
“I just think we’ve got to think about ways to transition away from that, that will keep them whole, and be fair with them.”
Also this from the Tulsa World:
Boren is hopeful LHN — the brainchild of athletic director DeLoss Dodds and president Bill Powers, whose roles have since been filled by Mike Perrin and Greg Fenves, respectively — can be viewed a little differently in Austin under new leadership.
“There’s been a transition,” he said. “When you create something yourself, there’s a lot less willingness to change it.
“If I was sitting there at the University of Texas and I was getting $15 million a year, and I could draw that for another eight or nine or 10 years, do I want to give that up? Not without some compensation,” Boren said. “But if … there are nine more schools and you’d earn $5 million more each year, that’s $45 million, you could virtually make sure that Texas, for a certain period of years, you can make them whole. You just change your distribution formula and make them whole financially.”
And I found this interesting as well, from John Shinn, beat writer for the Norman Transcript:
Boren said any conference network partner will 12 members to provide enough content. Boren said 10 is not enough.
— John Shinn (@john_shinn) January 28, 2016
You could tell from today's discussion, that Boren is for adding BYU.
— John Shinn (@john_shinn) January 28, 2016
Tennis
Tennis Matches Start Today. Via the official site, the men will play #75 Clemson today at 2:00 pm, admission is free. The ladies will play two matches tomorrow.
The Red Raiders (8-0) are coming off an impressive 4-3 comeback win over then No. 21 Florida and a 4-0 victory over then No. 17 Ole Miss at the ITA Kickoff event last weekend. Hugo Dojas started the rally during the Florida match with a 6-2, 6-4 victory over No. 49 Elliott Orkin, while Felipe Soares provided the clinching point and emerged with a 6-2, 3-6, 7-5 triumph over No. 31 Diego Hidalgo.
“We had a good talk after last weekend’s matches about what we can improve on,” Texas Tech head coach Brett Masi said. “As a team, we need to continue to move forward and get better each week. I liked the intensity level that we played with last weekend, but our players recognized that we can improve on that aspect of our game as well. We have an opportunity over these next two weeks to get ourselves ready for ITA Indoors and get better individually and collectively as a team. We’re looking to taking advantage of that chance and to play well in front of our home crowd.”
Baseball
#TexasTech has recorded 22 victories over ranked opponents in @TimTadlockTTU's three seasons. #22Days #WreckEm pic.twitter.com/ssElP5Umq9
— Texas Tech Baseball (@TTU_Baseball) January 28, 2016
Football
Armstrong Decommits. 2016 CB Neiman Armstrong decommitted last night on Twitter, but he ended up deleting that tweet. Essentially said that the Texas Tech coaches had not contacted him in 5 months, so he decommitted. As previously mentioned, this may have been something to do with grades more than anything else so we wish you well. Here’s a screenshot.
Big 12 Recruiting Worse Than Ever. CBS Sports John Solomon writes that the waay that the Big 12 is recruting Texas, it’s the worst it has been in a long time:
As more outsiders compete for recruits in Texas — we’re looking at you, SEC — the Big 12 talent drain is happening again in this year’s recruiting classes. Currently, the highest-ranked Big 12 school in 247Sports Composite rankings is No. 13 Baylor, followed by No. 18 TCU, No. 26 Oklahoma and No. 37 Texas.
The Longhorns and Sooners are still in play for several high-profile recruits that could boost their rankings before National Signing Day on Feb. 3. But these are programs that traditionally hover around the top 10 one week out, not trying to crack the top 25. From 2002-10, Texas and Oklahoma both had top-10 classes at the same time in seven of those nine years. Next week could mark the third time in four years they are both outside the top 10.
For the first time on record in 247Sports’ rankings (dating to 2000), someone other than Texas or Oklahoma could be ranked as the Big 12’s best class. The Big 12 talent could certainly return if those programs consistently win big again. But this talent drain is something to consider when examining Big 12 expansion. Getting into new states opens the door to access for new recruits.
Re-Grading 2012 Recruiting Class. ESPN’s Max Olson went back and re-graded the 2012 recruiting class, which received a B at the time, and Olson re-graded it as a D+ due to the total lack of productivity:
Easy to figure out how Texas Tech went 4-8 a year ago when you review this group. Tommy Tuberville’s last class at Tech, ranked 20th nationally by ESPN, was a disaster. ESPN 150 signees Dominique Wheeler and Michael Starts were among the 13 busts in this 27-man class. Only a couple of Tuberville’s nine junior college transfers made a meaningful impact, and so far just four high school signees have become multiyear starters.
So here we sit at the opposite end of the spectrum, where we have a class that’s not rated as high right now, but could turn out to be good to quite good or it could be absolutely terrible. Player evaluation is so important.
Miscellaneous. Carlos Silva, Jr. and Michael LaBarre from Wreck’Em 24/7 has their weekly recruiting show this week . . .
Football Updates.
DeAndre Washington showing out.
Man I don’t care what drill I’m watching in this Sr. Bowl coverage when Texas Tech’s DeAndre Washington is on the field, that kid sticks OUT
— Josh McCuistion (@Josh_Scoop) January 28, 2016
Hard to see the Bills drafting another RB, but who knows. They always do. DeAndre Washington gains the corner here. pic.twitter.com/6jSKQMPdl9
— Tyler Dunne (@TyDunne) January 28, 2016
Texas Tech RB DeAndre Washington's had a great week in Mobile. Who does he remind talent evaluators of? Gio Bernard's name comes up often.
— Rand Getlin (@RandGetlin) January 28, 2016
https://twitter.com/JC1053/status/692802895436058628
Recruiting Updates.
https://twitter.com/bdenley5/status/692871683410014208
Thank you @LT_21 and everyone for choosing me as a #FirstDownClub Defensive MVP finalist & for everyone who came! 💯 pic.twitter.com/zUlQW7vTil
— Houston Miller 🇺🇸 (@HoustonMiller88) January 29, 2016
https://twitter.com/jordynbrooks25/status/692873191979511808