On the Diamond
Texas Tech softball downed Ole Miss 1-0 in their first game of the Women’s College World Series. NiJaree Canady had 10 strikeouts in a complete game win. The only run came on an Alana Johnson double that scored Lauren Allred on an Ole Miss outfielder error misplaying the ball. Texas Tech will face UCLA Saturday night at 6:00 p.m., the Bruins walked it off against Oregon, 4-2.
On the Gridiron
CBS Sports’ Shehan Jeyarajah on the news that the College Football Hall of Fame will amend their rules to allow coaches with a winning percentage of 59.5% to enter the Hall, which would include Mike Leach. Jeyarajah notes that this solves the problem of the rules not allowing Leach in, but given how college football can be shaped by individuals who don’t meet certain metrics, this change misses the point.
While Leach’s case is resolved, the random nature of Hall of Fame eligibility still remains. Howard Schnellenberger, for example, helped set the stage for the Miami dynasty and shape Louisville and FAU. In 2021, he won the Paul “Bear” Bryant Lifetime Achievement Award. Still, he is not Hall of Fame eligible because building up struggling programs meant a number of early losses.
Think about it. Schnellenberger did enough that he captured a national lifetime achievement award. Because of arbitrary criteria, he is the only individual to win the award who is not a member of the College Football Hall of Fame. Like Leach, if it’s ever rectified, it will only be posthumously as he died in 2021.
What kind of message does that send for coaches? Sean Lewis led Kent State to an unbelievable run of success with three straight years of bowl eligibility. By Hall of Fame criteria, he’s nothing more than his 24-31 record at the worst legacy program in college football history.
On paper, Matt Campbell barely hits the .600 plateau after 14 seasons at Iowa State and Toledo. That kind of simplicity ignores that Campbell has the best winning percentage of any Cyclones coach since Charles Mayser in 1919. Not acknowledging that context is truly not seeing college football.
Texas Tech football announced kickoff times for the first 3 games of the 2025 season:
- August 30th vs. Arkansas-Pine Bluff @ 6:30 pm on ESPN+
- September 6th vs. Kent State @ 11:00 am on TNT & HBO Max
- September 13th vs. Oregon State @ 2:30 pm on FOX
Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger on the latest from the SEC meetings, who said that the SEC coaches didn’t support 9 conference games, but the coaches do generally support the 5+11 CFP model. SEC commish Greg Sankey tried to convince the media that the SEC is just so hard and better than all the other things and wants to take the decision making from the committee:
Take Thursday’s news conference, for example. While Sankey spoke, SEC officials distributed to media members a seven-page packet of data highlighting the conference’s strength of schedule — part of Sankey’s weeklong agenda to lay groundwork for a change to the CFP selection committee’s criteria. He and his league administrators and coaches want more value placed upon the strength-of-schedule metric.
In flipping through the packet, Sankey identified certain data points and described his conference as “not like any other.” His regular-season schedule is “unique” and “stands alone,” he said.
Now I can say that I am in agreement of taking decisions away from committees, basketball or football, because we have advanced metrics and maths that are better at choosing the best teams rather than opinions.