The UT football coaching staff goes back to school. Mack Brown has invited BCS pundits to explain the "system":
"As a staff we're planning to bring in BCS gurus and the computer guys and talking to them," Brown said. "We want to find out where we fell short in those areas. Is it margin of victory? Was it not scoring more because if it doesn't matter to the computers it does to the human vote? We're looking at all those things now."
That lingering disappointment is serving as a motivation for the Longhorns as they begin spring practice Friday, Brown said.
Barking Carnival has the offensive depth chart with some added commentary.
Oklahoma's Blake Griffin is still recovering from a concussion. Head coach Jeff Capel isn't sure when he will return to play.
OU junior forward Juan Pattillo has been suspended for Saturday's game against Texas Tech.
Oklahoma's Blake Griffin and Kansas' Sherron Collins are the two Big 12 players named to the Oscar Robertson Trophy watch list.
ESPN's Tim Griffin has the players to watch during spring football practice.
Texas RB Tre' Newton -- The son of former Dallas Cowboys offensive lineman Nate Newton didn't fall too far from the tree as far as his blocking skills, even if he is more than 100 pounds lighter than his father was during his playing career. Texas coaches visualize him as the ideal replacement for Chris Ogbonnaya as a third-down specialist because of his receiving and pass-blocking skills.
And finally...
This was just too good not to pass along. The Corps at A&M have picked their candidates for Yell leader. From Casey Schaefer, 2008-2009 Yell Leader:
Schaefer said one of the coolest things he experienced as a Yell Leader was getting carried off the football field by the freshmen after winning a football game.
"I also remember one time we did a Girl Scout event and we were at Sully hanging out with around 100 girls, anywhere from 7 to 15 years old," Schaefer said.
He said the girls would come up and want a hug or want them to sign their hand or name-tag or take a picture.
"Not that its anything that we do, but just the fact that a Yell Leader at A&M would come up to them, because it's not us," he said. "It's either the overalls or the white suit, but just making their day in so small of a way and getting the girls excited about A&M… Just being there and taking the awkward hugs, it was great. Those are rewarding because there are smaller events like that that the people are so appreciative about you just being there."
Wilcox agreed with Schaefer, saying moments like the ones shared with the Girl Scouts make all of the other events worth it.
0 recs | 19 comments
oh those aggies
Displaced Longhorn - February 27, 2009
Huh
Does Mack really not recognize that scheduling patsies OOC every year might have a deleterious effect on the BCS ranking? Or does he not want to mention it out loud lest the fans figure it out and harp on it? Oh wait…
Kahuna - February 27, 2009
He has to be using it as motivation for the team.
Having them believe it was the computer’s fault tells them to leave nothing to chance this year. He knows the patsies in OOC are the problem and wants the team to give every game everything they have.
I really like what he’s doing with this.
HornPossessed - February 27, 2009
You mean pasties like the citadel, chattanooga, washington, or hawaii?… Oh, wait. WE didn’t play those pasties…
UT_BKC - February 27, 2009
Patsies, dude, not pasties.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasties
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patsy
TXinDC - February 27, 2009
I was more speaking forward to our OOC for this next season.
HornPossessed - February 27, 2009
I don't see what the big mystery here is either
If Tech hadn’t laid such an egg in Norman and played a much more competitive game, then all 3 (11-1) Big XII South Teams would have remained ranked close together (maybe like 2, 3, and 5) at the end of the season. At that point, Mack and everyone else would have been forced to take a much closer look at OOC scheduling and overall SOS. Instead, we dismissed Tech and it became all about the head to head.
I’ll always believe Texas was the best team in the Big XII in 2008 (can’t change my mind on that), but if I’d been forced to be honest about breaking the tie given the current tie-breaker format, sadly I would have had to go with OU, they had the toughest SOS of the three 11-1 teams. It just is what it is. What’s realy frustrating is we’re talking about fractions of a point here. If Arkansas had been better, if Mizzou doesn’t lose to KU, and that kicker from Nebraska doesn’t nail that FG, then we probably would have remained ahead even with OU scoring all those points.
The voters can be swayed and are often favor the team who’s the flavor of the week, but in the end, I think it really came down to SOS. You don’t need to fill your non-con up with all world-beaters, but IMO, there needs to be at least one or two solid opponents in there.
54b - February 27, 2009
So before the season started you thought the schedules compared like this:
Chattanooga > Rice
Washington > UTEP
Cincinnati > FAU
TCU > Arkansas
Really, the only one that I would have given them at the start of the season was that Cincinnati was better than FAU. The way Arkansas has been playing (they did make it to the Cotton Bowl last year), I would have thought they’d been in the same league as TCU at the very least. FAU was a 10 win team the year before. The way it ended up, Rice was our best OOC opponent with 10 wins on the season.
UT_BKC - February 27, 2009
Sadly...
It isn’t the BCS’s fault that Texas was left out, it was the Big XII’s.
If the Big XII had a system like the SEC’s then it would have went to the national championship.
And I would have picked TCU over Arkansas because of all the turnover Arkansas had and the fact that they play in a much more difficult conference.
AirforceBat - February 27, 2009
Hindsight
I agree that they looked more even on paper going into the season, but I was commenting on how it ended up.
But I also know that OU had a better team scheduled than Chatanooga (i think Memphis or Middle Tenn) that backed out. Plus, Washington was absolutely horrible last year, but they weren’t when OU scheduled them. Just depends how far you want your hindsight back.
I think the bigger picture issue is that OU and Texas have different OOC scheduling philosophies…OU seems to lean to slant tougher (Miami, LSU, Flo. State, Tennessee in the next few years) and we seem to slant easier (UCLA and Ole Miss). Of course if UCLA under Neuheisel and Ole Miss under Nutt turn out to be world beaters by the time we play them, then there you go. But if you look at all these teams and what they’ve done over the last 5 or 10 years, there’s no argument that OU’s OOC is more challenging, at least on paper.
54b - February 27, 2009
OU was scheduled to play Clemson, but they (Clemson) backed out to play Bama in the Georgia Dome instead.
hodad - February 27, 2009
OOC
We were actually scheduled to play Utah last year, which would have easily trumped anything OU had on their schedule, but the last year that Urban Meyer was at Utah he decided to pull us off of the schedule in order to make their schedule a lot easier.
10isgod - February 27, 2009
ou passed Texas last year
because too many of the voting ignorants out there actually bought into Bob Stoops’ smoke and mirrors. Too many voters actually believed that “OMFG! OU scored 60 points in their last 5 games of the year! They have to be the best Big 12 team!”
Texas was trying to rely on the computers to overcome a deficiency in the human polls, when we should have been trying to impress the human voters. When the majority of the ranking points come from the human voters, that was where we should have concentrated our efforts.
I hate style points. I hate blowing out inferior opponents by 60 points by leaving in your starters. That behavior reeks of the Miami teams of the late 80s. But, that is the game that the national voters are playing. Stoops is willing to ante his soul for this game, and that is why ou went to Miami.
Brandon 97 - February 27, 2009
we actually won the human polls overall big 12 champ week… the computers had OU jump us when they stomped OSU.
Displaced Longhorn - February 27, 2009
I think our soft OOC was overblown
Like you said, if certain thinks went our way that really have absolutely nothing to do with our teams, we’re going to Kansas City and most likely Miami. It’s more absurdity of the system that a game between two mediocre teams (Nebraska and Colorado) can decide the fate of two national title contenders.
OU lucked out because TCU had such a great year, a year they DIDN’T have when we played them. They also lucked out that Cincy won the Big East; you can bet if Petrino and Rodriguez were still there, that ain’t happening. We lucked out that Rice had a much better season than expected, but we didn’t get the luck because Arkansas was just starting with Petrino. I’m not saying we shouldn’t try to schedule better teams, but if Arkansas was a 9 win team in the SEC, which wouldn’t have been a stretch when we made this schedule, and Cincy was as bad as people would have thought when these schedules were made, we are instead BRAGGING we had a tougher OOC schedule. Unfortunately, an absurd system is just going to spew out absurd consequences.
TheElusiveShadow - February 27, 2009
Agreed
And that’s why I’m not going to fall on my sword for in regards to OOC debate…end of the year, i finally just through my hands up and said “it just wasn’t meant to be.” Just too many damn factors that didn’t go our way.
54b - February 27, 2009
Yep.
That’s what I told my wife when the last polls were coming out.
It is what it is. I live in OKC so it was even worse for me, but I’ve found that simply turning and saying “It’s all good, I like seeing bowl wins.” turns things silent pretty quickly.
You can only brag about winning the Big 12 for so long.
AirforceBat - February 27, 2009
Nebraska over CU
Had as much if not more to do with our SoS and losing ground in the computers than any OOC disparities, and that game came down to a record setting field goal as time expired.
In the Colley (the only one you can accurately predict other outcomes in) OU came up #1 to Texas’ #3, if CU had beaten Nebraska, then Texas would have been #1, and OU been #2 or #3 based on the outcome of Hawaii Cincy (Cincy ended up winning, but think, that game as well determined a whole ranking spot in a computer poll, and if it did in the Colley, maybe it did in other polls as well).
Due to the resolution of the polls, an issue I talked about before, it really came down to the slightest of details to determine the rankings, which is where you’d expect the formulas to most likely be inaccurate. Its easy to say that the 0.954 team is better than the 0.822 team, but is the 0.888 better than the 0.892 ? I guess so…
We lost the big 12 by hundreths of a point if I remember right, everything possible could have, and did affect that.
BoddickerIsClutch - February 27, 2009
Come on BONers, don't hijack DC's thread!
Too much talk about last year’s BCS rankings, OU, Big XII tie-breakers, the MNC selection…
…and not not nearly enough about Fightin’ Texas Aggie Yell Leaders!
I wonder how many Girl Scouts Grant has hugged?
horndude - February 27, 2009
You must Login with your SB Nation account and be a member of Burnt Orange Nation to post a comment.