College Confidential

Fort Hood soliders attend Nebraska-Baylor game

Some 100 soliders from Fort Hood with direct ties to Nebraska will attend Saturday's game in Waco beween Baylor and Nebraska.

The North Texas Nebraskans, a group of alumni from Nebraska who live in the Fort Worth/Dallas area, raised the money collected to treat the soldiers. The outing will start with a 9 a.m. tailgate party at the northwest corner of Floyd Casey Stadium (parking Lot H).

The Baylor-Nebraska game kicks off at 11:30 a.m.

-- Dwain Price 

Mike Leach will go through ESPN's "car wash''

Instead of chillin' out during his team's bye week, Texas Tech coach Mike Leach will fly to ESPN's headquarters in Bristol, Conn., and wash a few cars.

Well, Leach won't exactly be washing cars at ESPN.

"That's just the term ESPN uses,'' Tech spokesman Chris Cook said. "He'll hit all of the ESPN talks shows -- the TV and radio shows _ in one day. So he'll be live on every ESPN radio show, College Football Live, First Take.

"He'll just kind of go from studio to studio. Just kind of go up and down the studios, do the shows, break for lunch and keep going.''

Leach will perform all this "Car Wash'' action on Monday, because after hosting Kansas on Saturday, the Red Raiders won't play again until a Nov. 14 game at Oklahoma State.

"It's a pretty neat deal,'' said Cook, noting that former Tech wide receiver Michael Crabtree experienced ESPN's car wash last spring after he declared for the NFL Draft. "They do it with different people each week.

"It's a good opportunity for Coach Leach and for Tech.''

Pro golfer Rocco Mediate, former New York Yankee great Bernie Williams, Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco, actor Drew Carey, pro boxer Bernard Hopkins, New York Giants defensive end Justin Tuck, rapper Lil' Wayne, WWE champion John Cena and the Harlem Globetrotters are some of the folks who have beeen through ESPN's car wash.

With so many shows, what's the over-and-under on how many times Leach's "fat little girfriends'' remarks comes up? Stay tuned.

_ Dwain Price

"Fat little girlfriends'' comment makes it to Jimmy Kimmel

That "fat ltitle girlfriends'' comment Texas Tech coach Mike Leach made after last week's 52-30 loss to Texas A&M is sweeping the country.

In case you've been hiding under a rock lately, after his team was embarrassed at home last Saturday by the Aggies, Leach said part of the reason his players couldn't perform well was because they were distracted by their "fat little girlfriends.'' Asked this past Monday if he regretted making the comment and wanted to apologize, Leach went on another tirade.

"No, I am not apologizing to any of them,'' Leach said. "Absolutely not, you know we went and closed up that little room over there as coaches, and as coaches we failed to get through to them. It was a failure on the part of coaches and players.

"As coaches we failed to get through to them and as coaches we failed to make our coaching points and our points more compelling than their fat little girlfriends. Now their fat little girlfriends have some obvious advantages. For one thing, their fat little girlfriends are telling them what they want to hear, which is ‘how great you are’ and ‘how easy it's going to be.''

And there's more.

"We had a bunch of people who wanted to win the football game, but nobody wanted to play the football game,'' Leach said. "That defies every level of work ethic that exists with regard to football. As coaches, we have to solve our failure on reaching them and the players have to listen.

"I am willing to go to fairly amazing lengths to make that happen. I don’t know if I will be successful this week or not, but I am going to try. And there will be some people inconvenienced, and if it happens to be their fat little girlfriends, too bad.''

Well, some of Leach's scathing remarks were shown and talked about several times on ESPN. SI.com had it on its website, and so did many others. And before I went to bed late Thursday night, TV talk show host Jimmy Kimmel played part of the clip in his monologue and used a subsequent skit to poke fun at Leach's comments.

After playing what Leach said, a laughing Kimmel said: "He'd make a really good spokesman for Jenny Craig. I've never heard of a coach say anything like that.''

It's evident Kimmel doesn't know Mike Leach.

Anyway, Kimmel made up a skit poking fun at Leach. One of Kimmel's male staff members, Guillermo Rodriguez, dressed up in a woman's outfit complete with a wig.

Since Rodriguez is a bit on the heavy side, I'm going to assume he was a "fat little girlfriend.''

Rodriguez sat in a chair as if he was giving a press conference and expressed how much he/she didn't appreciate Leach's comments. They even had the Texas Tech banner as a backdrop.

It got some laughs from the audience.

I find it amusing how far Leach's "fat little girlfriends'' comments has traveled. Is Oprah next?

-- Dwain Price

McCoy, Pawelek receive academic honors

Texas quarterback Colt McCoy and Baylor linebacker Joe Pawelek are among the 16 finalists for the 2009 William V. Campbell Trophy, which honors college football players for their athletic and academic achievements.

Formerly called the Draddy Trophy, the award is bestowed by the National Football Foundation. Each of the finalists, announced today, receives an $18,000 post-graduate scholarship and must carry a grade-point average of 3.2 or higher on a 4.0 scale. The winner, selected Dec. 8, will receive an additional $25,000 grant.

Kansas quarterback Todd Reesing is the third finalist from a Big 12 school. Hardin-Simmons receiver ZaVious Robbins joins McCoy and Pawelek as finalists from colleges in Texas.

Other finalists include Florida quarterback Tim Tebow, Illinois offensive guard Jon Asamoah, Brigham Young linebacker Matt Bauman, Minnesota receiver Eric Decker, Fresno State safety Moses Harris, Western Michigan quarterback Tim Hiller, Brown defensive tackle Paul Jasinowski, Morningside (Iowa) College receiver Beau Kildow, Northern Iowa linebacker Josh Mahoney, Tusculum (Tenn.) College tight end Jarrell NeSmith, Augustana (Ill.) College offensive tackle Blaine Westemeyer and West Virginia linebacker Reed Williams.

_ Jimmy Burch

Doege will start at quarterback for Texas Tech

For the third time this season, the Texas Tech Red Raiders will amazingly have a different quarterback in their starting lineup.

According to multiple sources, redshirt freshman Seth Doege will get the starting nod when the Raiders (5-3) host Kansas (5-2) at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at Jones AT&T Stadium. Doege replaces Taylor Potts, who was fairly ineffective and booed during last Saturday's 52-30 home loss to Texas A&M.

One source said: "I don't think (Doege starting against Kansas) is a surprise.''

Tech coach Mike Leach has been singing the praises of Doege since he completed 18 of 25 passes for 146 yards -- he also successfully completed passes on a pair of two-point conversions -- in less than a half against the Aggies.

"I thought he looked really good, I thought he played good,'' Leach said earlier this week. "I thought he made routime plays and I thought he didn't try to make too much happen.

"He has a good arm and he is a sharp guy. Just read the material in front of you and then don't add to it and read between the lines. I thought he did a good job of that.''

Other than fourth-quarter mop-up duty against Kansas State on Oct. 10, the game against A&M was the first regular season _ or postseason _ action for Doege since 2005 when he was a high school sophomore at Crane. He blew out his ACL in each knee prior to his high school junior and senior seasons and never played a down in either season. 

Thus, to put Doege in the starting lineup at this critical juncture of the season tells you how far out of favor Potts has slipped.

"I think he did a tremendous job,'' wide receiver Alex Torres said of Doege's performance against A&M. "He stepped up under pressure.

"We needed to get a drive going and he came out ready to play and did his job. He got the offense going and a tempo going. It was awesome seeing him go out there and really perform the way he did.''

Potts started the first five games this season, suffered a concussion against New Mexico on Oct. 3, then lost his starting job to Steven Sheffield.

Sheffield made two impressive starts before injurying his left foot against Nebraska on Oct. 17. Back came Potts to start last week against A&M.

However, against the Aggies, Potts was 25 of 36 for 310 yards, two touchdowns, and two back-breaking interceptions, and he also lost a crucial fumble. Fans started chanting "No More Potts, No More Potts,'' late in the second quarter, and Leach agreed and removed Potts from the game in the third period.

Sheffield is expected to return in time for the Nov. 14 game at Oklahoma State. In the meantime, Doege will start against Kansas and Potts will be his understudy.

So how does all this quarterback shuffling affect the Raiders and the offensive chemistry? It's obvious not a good thing to be making changes at such a key position, and the revolving door must stop in order for the Raiders to be successful.

Asked for his perference on who should be Tech's starting quarterback, Torres said:

"That's not under my control. I'm going to go out there and do what I can for the team, and that's doing my job for every play. That's as far as I can control.

"As far as the quarterbacks go, that's not in my hands. And I'm glad it isn't, because we've got a lot of guys back there that can do a great job.''

_ Dwain Price

"

 

Texas-OU not at night, despite DMN report

The Oklahoma-Texas game is not moving to a Saturday night, contrary to Wednesday's report in the Dallas Morning News.

"I've been getting calls on this all morning," OU associate athletic director for media relations said this morning. "Absolutely not true."

The fact is the time has not been set for next year's game, but it has never been played at night.

The News' story concerned Dart Board members defending the agency's handling of the apparently unexpectd throng of an estimated 40,000 fairgoers who swamped the agency's new light-rail line to the Texas State Fair Grounds, stranding thousands through lengthy delays that caused some to miss the early part of the Longhorns' 16-13 victory.

Here's the pertinent part of the DMN's story:

""I think you and DART did a wonderful job," former board chairman Randall Chrisman of Carrollton told President Gary Thomas after he presented a lengthy report on what went wrong. "The staff did an incredible job."

Chrisman's support for Thomas was widely echoed by other board members. Several expressed doubt that the agency would ever be able to smoothly handle the size of the crowds that showed up Oct. 17, when about 40,000 fairgoers rode light rail.

"I think the staff did an excellent job," Dallas board member Jerry Christian said. "I honestly don't think you can rectify this situation in a way that is going to satisfy everybody."

Even packed full of riders, Dallas Area Rapid Transit trains can only reasonably handle about 5,000 passengers per hour.

Nevertheless, Thomas said the agency hopes to do better next year. He warned board members that the timing of the 2010 Texas-Oklahoma football game will make the crowds an even bigger challenge.

Next year, it's an evening game, with all 95,000 or so football fans letting out just about the time the final crowds from the State Fair will be seeking to leave."

Not to be overly critical--and I'm known on our editing desk as a guy who sometimes can't seem to spell names correctly that I've written many times before--but obviously somebody should have checked this before taking the guy's statement as fact. Probably asking someone in the sports department might have helped.--Mike Jones.

Aggies' game at Colorado selected for Nov. 7 telecast

Texas A&M’s game at Colorado on Nov. 7 will be televised by Fox College Sports, network officials announced today. The contest will kick off at 12:30 p.m. in Boulder, Colo.

A&M (4-3, 1-2) has one of the nation’s most unusual records in relation to TV appearances this season. The Aggies are winless in televised games but 4-0 when there is no live telecast.
There will be no telecast of Saturday’s 2:30 p.m. game in College Station against Iowa State (5-3, 2-2). But A&M officials are selling half-price tickets for the contest. For information, visit www.aggieathletics.com or call 888-99-AGGIE.

_ Jimmy Burch

Leach said more players need to be enthusiastic

Don't ask Texas Tech coach Mike Leach if the only way his team can survive this season is with the enthusiasm quarterback Steven Sheffield brings to the football field.

Sheffield missed last Saturday's 52-30 loss to Texas A&M with a left foot injury he sustained during the 31-10 win at Nebraska on Oct. 17.

The unispired loss to the Aggies cut deep with Leach, who, during his Monday weekly press conference, criticized his players for leaning so heavily on a player who may not have even played significant minutes if starting quarterback Taylor Potts hadn't suffered a concussion on Oct. 3 against New Mexico.

"That is just an excuse,'' said Leach, when asked if his team missed Sheffield's enthusiasm against the Aggies. "They can generate their own enthusiasm.

"They need Sheffield for enthusiasm and Sheffield does a great job of that, there is no question and that is an important role for a player to have. They need to have their own damn enthusiasm. What is the matter with you?''

Leach said his players must stop thinking Sheffield is the only player on this team who can generate enthusiasm. He also questioned his senior leadership during this most pressing time of the season.

"We travel 70 people to this game that can generate their own enthusiasm, and the fact that they have been at this for years and years and years should be reason for enthusiasm enough,'' Leach said. "Any mopey-whinyness, we will go roll around in some damn sand and see if that is enthusiasm.

"There are people we bring on the sideline because they do a great job of enthusiam. Like (redshirt senior defensive back) Trent Nickerson, like (freshman defensive tackle) Pearlie Graves, like (freshman quarterback) Jacob Karam. We are going to redshirt those guys, but those guys have great enthusiasm, and the notion that we are bringing underclassmen to generate enthusiasm and we have upperclassmen laying around here, that should tell you something right there.

"Those guys whining about enthusiasm can get off their (butts) and be enthusiastic.''

-- Dwain Price

 

Leach not apologizing for "fat little girlfriends'' comment

Texas Tech coach Mike Leach is taking some heat for making a remark about his players' significant other following last Saturday's shocking 52-30 loss to Texas A&M.

After the game, Leach wailed on about the distractions some of his players were under in the days leading up to the A&M game. He went on to say, as his team try to recover from the loss to the Aggies:

"We're going to fear no one. We're going to -- we're not going to compare scores and we're not going to listen to our fat little girlfriends.''

Leach also made another reference to the "fat little girlfriends'' in his postgame press conference, and apparently it didn't go over well with his players.

At his weekly press conference Monday, Leach acknowledged that he said what he meant and meant what he said. He also tossed some more fuel on the fire.

"No, I am not aplogizing to any of them,'' Leach said. "Absolutely not. You know we closed up that little room over there as coaches, and as coaches we failed to get through to (the players).

"It was a failure on the part of coaches and players. As coaches we failed to get through to them, and as coaches we failed to make our coaching points and our points more compelling than their fat little girlfriends.''

Leach went on to say: "Now their fat little girlfriends have some obvious advantages. For one thing, their fat little girlfriends are telling them what they want to hear, which is "how great you are,' and "how easy it's going to be.'' And we had a bunch of people who wanted to win the football game, but nobody wanted to play the football game.

"That defies every level of work ethic that exists with regard to football. As coaches we have to solve our failure on reaching them and the players have to listen. I am willing to go to fairly amazing lengths to make that happen.''

Leach, however, won't tolerate distractions. No matter who gets hurt in the process.

"I don't know if I will be successful this week or not,'' Leach said. "But I am going to try, and there will be some people inconvenienced.

"And if it happens to be their fat little girlfriends, too bad.''

-- Dwain Price

 

Taylor Potts must regain his confidence

In the wake of Texas Tech's disasterous and utterly embarrassing 52-30 home loss to Texas A&M last Saturday, the Red Raiders must be concerned about quarterback Taylor Potts' confidence.

When Potts tossed a key interception in the end zone before halftime after the Raiders reached the red zone, Tech fans immediately started chanting: "No More Potts, No More Potts.''

That kind of indignity just doesn't happen in Lubbock. Fans very rarely get on their players like that, and it must have stunned Potts, his teammates and the Tech coaches.

Coach Mike Leach tried to brush it aside, saying, during Monday morning's Big 12 teleconference, "I ignore that.'' Leach also said, "I guess it's free speech.''

But when a player like Potts -- he  was the nation's No. 1 quarterback before he suffered a conccussion Oct. 3 against New Mexico _ hear his own beloved fans razzing him, that's gotta sting.

Leach even admitted there could be a confidence issue with Potts. Particularly after he hurled two costly interceptions against the Aggies and looked, as Leach said, "slow and statue-like,'' in the pocket while being an easy target for the Aggie defenders.

"I think (a lack of confidence by Potts) is an issue,'' Leach said. "I thnik confidence is probably the most important aspect a quarterback has.

"But no matter who you are. . .you've got to fight through it. On an individual level, he needs to be true to his confidence.''

Potts also has to use that time clock in his head and realize that he can't hold onto the ball in the pocket forever. The offensive linemen can only hold off defenders for so long.

How many times have you seen Potts hold the ball _ like he's ordering a No. 1 at Burger King _ while waiting for a receiver to get open?

What Potts needs to do is watch with high interest some film of Tech's other quarterback, Steven Sheffield. Or better yet, watch some film of the game A&M quarterback Jerrod Johnson had against the Raiders.

Both Sheffield and Johnson have a feel for the game that all quarterbacks need. In other words, they use their legs as an added weapon.

When a bunch of receivers and running backs go out for a pass and the linebackers and secondary go with them, a lot of times there's a gaping hole in the middle begging for the quarterback to enter and gain 10-plus yards. Sheffield and Johnson take advanatge of it almost every time.

Potts does not. And until he does, he's always going to have some lingering issues.

If the defense know it can just rear back and tee off on a quarterback without worrying about that quarterback burning them with his legs, that defense is just going to rear back and tee off on the quarterback.

Potts must learn he can't be "slow and statue-like'' and be successful. If he continues to play that way, there's a good chance you'll probably hear those "No More Potts'' chants again.

_ Dwain Price