DALLAS — Scanning the list of the nation’s top-25 recruiting classes unearths few surprises. The list is mostly national powers like Texas, Alabama, Notre Dame, LSU or USC. That, or growing programs at the height of recent success, like Stanford. Every single team, though, won enough games to qualify for a bowl game, save sleeping giant Tennessee trying to rebuild under Derek Dooley. One team sticks out. Despite a 5-7 season, Texas Tech still signed the nation’s No.
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Tech recruiting strong, despite struggles
Filed under Football by on Feb 3rd, 2012. Comment. 
The No. 15 Texas women’s tennis team dropped the doubles point but rallied with four singles victories to claim a 4-3 victory over No. 23 Alabama in the opening round of the ITA Kick-Off Weekend in Nashville, Tenn. The
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Women’s tennis team edges Alabama
Filed under News by on Jan 29th, 2012. Comment.
As much as any FBS programs in the country, Alabama and Auburn have traditionally relied on homegrown prospects to lead their football teams. Over the past 25 seasons, 10 of the 15 players who have started more than one game at quarterback for the Crimson Tide were from Alabama high schools. Auburn has had five Alabama natives start at quarterback during the past 15 seasons. For a state with a much smaller population (4.8 million) than recruiting hotbeds like California, Texas, Florida and Ohio, Alabama has produced its share of great quarterbacks.
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Schlabach: Tide roll with in-state QBs
Filed under Football by on Jan 17th, 2012. Comment.
The Tide rolled over the LSU Tigers on the football field Monday. Tonight it may happen on the basketball court.
With a slate of mostly underwhelming matchups, the most intriguing tilt of the evening involves the same two schools that squared off in the BCS title game. It may not be as convincing as Monday’s 21-0 win, but the guess here is that Alabama will get past LSU on the hardwood, too.
Alabama was ranked as high as No. 12 earlier this season before a trio of mid-December losses (to Georgetown, Dayton and Kansas State) evoked some doubts.
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Midweek Watch: Bama-LSU face off again
Filed under Basketball, Football, Lets Talk Texas by on Jan 11th, 2012. Comment.
It wasn’t billed as a sequel to that de facto SEC championship game between LSU and Alabama, but this one bore some of the same earmarks of that one.
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UT coordinator Manny Diaz, take a bow
Filed under News by on Dec 29th, 2011. Comment.
Forbes magazine put together a list of the top 20 most valuable college football programs, and the team at the top is no surprise. Everything’s bigger in (Austin) Texas. Especially football budgets. The Longhorns topped the list with a value of $129 million, producing $96 million in revenue and $71 million in total profit, far ahead of its nearest competitors. The program’s value is $17 million more than No. 2, Notre Dame. Its produced $19 million more in revenue than Alabama, second in that category.
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Big 12 teams showing their off-field value
Filed under Football by on Dec 26th, 2011. Comment.
Here’s a look at the junior college players signing with SEC schools. The junior college signing period opened on Wednesday: ALABAMA CB Travell Dixon, Eastern Arizona College, chose Alabama over Florida State, Miami and Mississippi State ARKANSAS DE Austin Flynn, Los Angeles Harbor College, chose Arkansas over Oregon State FLORIDA DT Damien Jacobs, East Mississippi Community College, chose Florida over Tennessee, Mississippi State, Texas A&M and Texas Tech GEORGIA OT Mark Beard, Coffeyville (Kan.
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SEC junior college signees
Filed under Football by on Dec 22nd, 2011. Comment.
Before we begin a new week of games, here are five thoughts from the past seven days: 1. Time to drop Illinois, Alabama, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt from the polls. There’s certainly no shame in losing, but getting absolutely shellacked is something totally different. Illinois was embarrassed in a 64-48 loss to UNLV in Chicago. Ugly as the game was, the score could be even more lopsided when Bruce Weber’s squad takes on unbeaten Missouri this week in St.
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King’s five observations from the week
Filed under Basketball by on Dec 19th, 2011. Comment.
The Big 12 didn’t see much change in ESPN Stats and Info conference rankings after a week when three ranked teams won and another, Texas, lost. There were big upsets across the college landscape, but both Alabama, LSU and Arkansas all held strong, as did Oklahoma State and Kansas State for the Big 12. Oklahoma was idle. Barring upsets and slides, don’t look for much movement until the bowl season, but the SEC and Big 12 may come down to the wire as the top conference by season’s end.
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Big 12 holds as No. 2 conference, behind SEC
Filed under Football by on Nov 15th, 2011. Comment.
Every week, your humble college basketball hoops blogger (er, me) will respond to your questions, comments and nonsensical rants in this here Hoopsbag. To submit a query, visit this page by clicking the link under my name in the upper right-hand corner of the blog. You can also email me or send me your entries via Twitter . (Honestly, the best way to get me is Twitter.) Per the usual, we begin with video. @ Purdidit writes : Each year has one or two: Which preseason top 10 team is most likely to fail to live up to expectations? Eamonn Brennan : This one’s actually pretty easy. It’s Memphis. For much of the summer, I thought the Tigers’ preseason ranking was going to be too high; with all this young talent, it’s easy to forget that Memphis was basically a so-so C-USA team for much of the 2010-11 season. Sure, the Tigers finished strong, and there’s reason to expect scaled improvements from a team that features so many sophomores that played big minutes as freshmen. The addition of highly-touted recruit Adonis Thomas helps, too. But top 10? Didn’t that seem just a little optimistic? What was I missing? I put Memphis at No. 17 in my preseason top-25 ballot . I thought that seemed fair. Then Ken Pomeroy released his preseason rankings (Memphis is ranked No. 20) and ESPN Insider and Basketball Prospectus maven John Gasaway broke things down in this Monday piece for Insider , and I’m more convinced than ever that Memphis isn’t a top-10 team. As John wrote, that doesn’t mean they won’t be a top-10 team by the end of the season. It may even be earlier than that. But the team with the worst offense in Conference USA — the only team to score less than a point per possession in C-USA last season — can’t possibly be the ninth-best team in the country. It may happen at some point, but I’d be shocked if the Tigers didn’t struggle at times, especially early in the season. People will say they were overrated. But whose fault is that? (Speaking of Memphis, by the way: Josh Pastner just keeps snatching up elite recruits . The present was already bright, but jeez, that future! Look out.) @ LakeRosenberg writes : In honor of The Mid-Majority , what team from below The Red Line can go the furthest in the NCAA Tournament? Brennan : It’s a new season with (hopefully) new readers, so I won’t assume everyone knows what The Red Line is. You can get up to speed right here . The short version: The Mid-Majority’s Kyle Whelliston wanted to define what, exactly, a mid-major is. He cut through the usual nonsense about tournament bids and school enrollments (people used to come up with some really wacky mid-major arguments) and instead created an intuitive, simple mechanism: The Red Line. If your conference’s average athletics department spends more than X number of dollars, you’re a high-major league.
Filed under Basketball, Football, News by on Nov 9th, 2011. Comment.
