Burnt Orange Nation

All the Big 12-2 Conference news that is and isn't fit to read...
And some other stuff.

The Horns beat the Pokes, 58-49. [AAS]

The women's basketball team lost to OSU. [AAS]

Blake Gideon will play in the East-West Shrine Game. [MBTF]

Mack Brown will be inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame. [Texas Sports]

Todd McShay weighs in on the Horns' draft prospects. [AAS]

Your laugh of the day. We're doomed! [Bleacher Report]

Oh, that Twitter-sphere. [Kansas City Star]

(Kansas basketball player) Tyshawn Taylor engaged in a Twitter snit on Friday night.

On Friday night, Taylor tweeted:

"If half that talk about ball could actually ball … I’d appreciate y’all comments and criticism more but y’all can’t do stuck to being a fan."

And…

"Once again I repeat … If you can’t go out there and lace ‘em up.. I’ll accept the constructive criticism .. but since y’all can’t well .. yeah."

Taylor said he often reads critical tweets of his performances and Friday decided to fire back.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/01/07/3357935/taylor-self-respond-to-twitter.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/01/07/3357935/taylor-self-respond-to-twitter.html#storylink=cpy

K-State coach Frank Martin made a change and it made all the difference. [Topeka Capital-Journal]

Kansas State coach Frank Martin made one change but got double the benefit from it.

For the first time all season, Martin chose not to start freshman Thomas Gipson on Saturday, replacing him instead with junior Jordan Henriquez.

The move worked out well for both Wildcats.

West Virginia is kinda good at basketball, too. [The Smoking Musket]

Some Football

There is absolutely no chance that the Pokes will get that No. 1 spot. [NewsOK]

The coaches poll is preordained. The Big Bowl winner is the champ. Even if you hate the BCS, give it this much credit. The BCS hands over the trophy right after the game.

It was a good year for the Big 12. [Tulsa World]

The Big 12 needed something special to happen in 2011 to counterbalance two years of relentless predictions about its eventual demise.

It got it. And the fact that the boost of positive publicity came from some unlikely sources made it even better. It validated Big 12 officials' claims that the league has the type of quality depth needed for long-term survival.

You can learn some serious football stuff from the Colorado School of Mines. [Business of College Sports]

After the game, a reporter commented to WVU head coach Dana Halgorsen, "The guys are still trying to figure out that one play that was successful for multiple touchdowns. It’s recorded as a pass, but it kind of looks like a volleyball tap-toss. What is that?"

Halgorsen, smiling, responded, "Well, my good friend Bob Stitt at the Colorado School of Mines, gave me that."

There seem to be some issues in Norman. [The Norman Transcript]

"We’ve got a huge recruiting class to come that will virtually make up a third of your team," OU coach Bob Stoops said. "That’s good."

The 2012 recruiting class is going to be one of the largest of the Bob Stoops era because of the attrition this season.

Schools are allotted 25 scholarships and can sign up to 25 players a year. The Sooners will ink more next month because of the attrition they had this year due to transfers.

That's not an image I want in my head. Bob Stoops dancing? [NewsOK]

He'd never do it in public, but Bob Stoops probably went home and danced a jig when he found out his quarterback is returning in 2012.

Is Stoops make room for his little brother? [NewsOK]

Thinking ahead to the RRS in 2012. [NewsOK]

The Pokes went from an old guy as QB to a guy that looks like he is still in elementary school. [NewsOK]

Mike Gundy received a well-deserved raise. [NewsOK]

Kansas State has big plans for the future. [Kansas City Star]

The excitement is mounting in Lawrence. [KU Sports]

"Without sending the (renewal) form out yet, we’ve sold 2,500 season tickets and half of them are people who didn’t have them before," KU associate athletic director Jim Marchiony said. "And we’ve had at least one person just walk into the Williams Fund and hand us a $5,000 check and say, ‘This is for hiring Charlie Weis.’ And the fact that he was able to recruit the players he’s recruited already, I think that’s definitely added to the excitement."

TCU has a verbal commitment from...[Frogs O War]

The Big 12's newest members make the conference stronger. [Tulsa World]

The Big 12 will also add TCU next fall. The Frogs (11-2) won the Poinsettia Bowl over Louisiana Tech last month and have played in two BCS bowls in the past three years, including a victory in the 2011 Rose Bowl.

In other words, the Big 12 is getting two high-level football programs to replace Missouri and Texas A&M.

The Mountaineers are already thinking about their new conference schedule. [SI]

West Virginia has asked Florida State about getting out of their Sept. 8 football game in Tallahassee.

West Virginia officials initiated talks a few months ago because of the school's pending move to the Big 12. Florida State wants to play the game and honor its commitment for a return date in 2013 at Morgantown.

Where in the world is Bo Wallce? Bo Wallace isn't in Waco, either. [Our Daily Bears]

The ones who used to be members of the Big 12

Mike Sherman was a class act and embodied every value Aggies profess to follow. [I Am The 12th Man]

So much for that Southwest Conference throwback game in Dallas. [The Eagle]

The annual "Southwest Classic" football match between Texas A&M and Arkansas at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington has not been as financially successful as originally projected and, as a result, its continued existence as a neutral-site game may be in jeopardy.

Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino said last week that the Aggies prefer a home-and-home conference match-up after A&M begins competition in the Southeastern Conference next season Both teams will be participating in the SEC West beginning in 2012.

An Aggie with an IQ higher than room temperature posted a comment on TexAgs. [TexAgs]

Why change when it works so well?

Here are some good arguments for a potential playoff system. [Indianapolis Star]

The SEC will continue to dominate the BCS scene for a long, long time. [Sporting News]

And the theme continues... [AAS]

There will come a day when the SEC won't rule the college football world.

Probably long after the Mayan calendar expires. Maybe even after Will Muschamp retires. Or when Mack Brown's last contract extension runs out.

Recruits de-committ from colleges, but schools do it, too. [Atlanta Journal-Constitution]

The dark side of recruiting is "de-committing," or when a football prospect commits to a college and one or both sides decide later on to go separate ways. There are many reasons for this to happen. With the state of Georgia projected to have between 175-185 high school seniors to sign FBS (formerly NCAA Div. I-A) scholarships, 12 prospects have already had their offer rescinded by a college or reneged on their original commitment.

LSU assistant coach Steve Kragthrope is an inspiration. [NOLA]

The Collegiate Licensing Company is serious about cracking down on counterfeiters. [ESPN]

At the 2011 SEC championship Game, CLC took possession of 1,012 pieces of unlicensed product with an estimated retail value of more than $15,000. That’s up from 2010, when 541 pieces of unlicensed produced were seized or voluntarily surrendered by vendors. More than twice that many products were seized last January at the Rose Bowl by CLC.

CLC officials said that on average, nearly 5,000 counterfeit items, from T-shirts to hats to bracelets, are seized outside the host stadium of the BCS title game each year.

The Good, The Bad, The Sanctioned

Sometimes the culture needs to be changed. [The Virginian-Pilot]

I heard Blackledge, who analyzes college games for ABC/ESPN, say he was concerned whether O'Brien understands Penn State and "its culture," which I had to double-check later to see if I actually heard him right.

And the stupid

The Google campaign against Craig James is working. [The Daily Caller]

"[O]ver time, through his associations with Southern Methodist University’s football program, his work at ESPN, and his involvement in the firing of football coach Mike Leach at Texas Tech University, James has attracted enough detractors — largely outside the political realm — with the time and energy on their hands to launch the ‘killed 5 hookers’ Google Bomb," reported the Texas Tribune.

And finally...

Insert Land Thief joke here. A former Sooner football player goes on to the WWE. [San Angelo Standard-Times]

BDR doesn't endorse any of the rubbish out there in the interwebs, we just link to it. For a lot more daily rubbish on a somewhat timely basis, follow me on Twitter.com/dimecoverage.