Big 12 to concede all future titles to Kansas after it signed nation's top player

Baylor, nice try.
Same for Oklahoma State.

Just when the Big 12 was ready to crown a new men's basketball champion for the first time since 1934, Kansas just had to step in and go all Kansas on the conference yet again.

In a highly, highly anticipated decision, top prep basketball prospect Andrew Wiggins said he will attend the University of Kansas to play basketball beginning in the fall.

Wiggins is listed as a 6-foot-7 small forward; he has been called one of the top recruits in the past decade.

HOORAY FOR KANSAS, and specifically the institution of higher learning and edumicashion.

This has to be KU's biggest name recruit since Larry Brown hired assistant coach Ed Manning so his son, Danny, would play basketball in Lawrence. Ed apparently was a dynamite coach.

Wiggins is the best prep player in the country, and he was attracting interest from every blue blood program in the nation. He picked KU over Kentucky, North Carolina and Florida State to play college basketball.

He may even attend class, although I don't why.

(* It should be noted that I am a KU undergrad alum, class of ... just very recently.)

This guy is so gone to the NBA this time a year from now the only classes he should be taking are How to Change My Cell Phone Number Every 15 Minutes, The History of Groupies and Entourage Studies.

KU could potentially have the No. 1 pick in the 2013 NBA draft - Ben McLemore - and '14 draft, Wiggins.

Both Baylor and Oklahoma State should have an edge in terms of preseason conference ranking because of the number of quality returning players, but the addition of a talent like Wiggins to Kansas changes everything.

Just prepare now for another KU Big 12 title.

@MacEngelProf
tengel@star-telegram.com
Facebook Mac Engel

Red Raiders already announcing plans for football game against Horned Frogs

It's never too early to start planning for anything, and the good people at The Texas Tech University have already unveiled its plans for the home football game between the Red Raiders and TCU Horned Frogs.

Today is May 13, 2013.
That game is scheduled for Thursday, September 12, 2013.

This will be the first home Big 12 game for new head coach Kliff Kingsbury, so it's kind of a big deal. So big that you should probably find your parking spot soon, today preferably.

Of note:
* Potential game times range between 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. If this game starts at 8 p.m., we're looking at an 11:30 p.m. finish. Hopefully. The safe bet is midnight.

* Individual tickets will go on sale for this game on August 1. It should be noted that today is May 13.

* Classes at Tech will remain as scheduled for both Thursday and Friday. The university's "top priority is getting students/faculty to their classes and researchers to their labs while transitioning to host the football game later in the day."

What fell on the cutting room floor was, "The university's top priority is to squeeze as much cash from this game as possible. If studies/research can fit into that priority, all the better. Please don't be too drunk before kickoff."

@MacEngelProf
tengel@star-telegram.com
Facebook Mac Engel

The position in football that is no longer worth it

IRVING, Texas - Looking at Dallas Cowboys rookie running back Joseph Randle my first thought was, "Switch positions."

It is not his fault, or even any kind of indictment on his ability. Looking at any NFL running back these days is like the tired "dead man walking" cliche.

Randle is a fifth round pick out of Oklahoma State, which is just about the right place to draft a running back these days. 

With the way running backs "die" these days, why would any kid willingly want to play the position? 

"I like to run the rock," Randle told me.

Without any prompting he continued, "All of them (defensive backs) that were taken in the draft early. I thought about it. I was like, 'Man, I should have played defense.' I did think about that."

I don't have a son, but if I did and he wanted to play football I would tell him to play any position but running back.

With the pounding running backs take these days, and the way more teams both in college and in the pros rotate at least two of them, the "safer" long term plays seems to be something other than this position. Punter, perhaps.

Randle said he played running back, cornerback and safety in high school.

This draft was not running back heavy - the highest taken was North Carolina's Giovani Bernard. A total of six running backs were selected in the first three rounds. Sixteen cornerbacks were selected in the first three rounds.

ME: Running backs just seem to die out so fast.
Joseph Randle: Not my kind.

ME: What is your kind?
Joseph Randle: "I can do a lot. If you have more than one good back, like we do, that will help us. I'm a running back and that is the position I wanted to play. I wanted to score touchdown. It's more fun defense. I liked to tackle and hit people, but you can do that on defense. This is what I chose and I'm sticking with it."

 

Godspeed.

@MacEngelProf
tengel@star-telegram.com
Facebook Mac Engel

Gary Patterson has mastered the art of the non-conference schedule

Show of hands who knew Minnesota has a football team?

TCU has announced it will play a home and home football series against the University of Minnesota beginning in 2014. 

Call it the Jim Wacker Series. The much-beloved deceased was the head coach at TCU from 1983 to '91, and then went to Minnesota where he was from 1992 to 1996.

This photo is from Wacker's days at TCU where he was asking this handsome young kicker why he kicked the ball out of bounds to start the game. I think.

TCU will host the Golden Gophers on Sept. 13, 2014. It will play at Minny on Sept. 3, 2015. 

(BTW - The Twin Cities are a perfect place to visit in the summer months. U of M is a great campus. There is a lot to do up there, and the weather is usually fantastic in September - the snow doesn't fall until around September 23rd.)

This series is another example of TCU head coach Gary Patterson doing what he does as well as anyone in the country - scheduling the fake "hard" game. All good coaches do it. At least the ones who want to keep their jobs.

Minnesota is an ideal non-conference opponent. The Gophers are not some MAC, Sun Belt or FCS dog. Season ticket holders won't complain that TCU is bringing in a bad non-conference opponent that they won't even leave the parking lot to enter the stadium to watch.

The Gophers can will be spun as a Big 10 opponent who have appeared in a bowl game nine times since the start of the century. All true.

The fine print won't include that this team has not won a bowl game in its last five appearances, and has been in a grand total of 15 bowl games since 1961.
The fine print on the Gophers won't include that they are 67-87 since 2000. They are 26-49 since 2007 and have one winning season in that stretch.

The way college football works for the BCS affiliated schools, there is minimal incentive to load up the non-conference schedule with challenges any greater than this.

Basically, this is like adding another Kansas to the schedule. 

As any good coach knows, you can never play Kansas enough.

@MacEngelProf
tengel@star-telegram.com
Facebook Mac Engel

Tommy Tuberville is honest about the support he had at Texas Tech

Tommy Tuberville may leave recruits at the dinner table for a different job, but there are few better friends to the media than the new Cincinnati head football coach.

Tubberville recently sat down for a long chat with Dennis Dobbs of CBSSports.com for this interview where he covered a variety of topics from the state of the Big 12, the invtitation of TCU and West Virginia to his replacement in Lubbock - Kliff Kingsbury.

Tuberville told Dobbs: "It's a perfect fit for them, native son, played for Leach. Not that I didn't have support but I didn't have 100 percent support. It just wasn't going to happen."

Nope, which is one of the reasons he left. It may have been the biggest reason he left a Big 12 job for a school that is in something called the American Athletic Conference.

There may not have been a coach alive who could have replaced Mike Leach and would have had the full support of that fan base. That type of support was certainly not going to exist for a guy with Tuberville's background.

Despite his ability to play nice with the media and the alums, Tuberville was not able to win enough games to make people forget about The Pirate. 

As a former Tech player, Kingsbury is going to not only have the full support of all things Tech, but he should be allowed to grow into the job.

@MacEngelProf
tengel@star-telegram.com
Facebook Mac Engel

Baylor lands huge "recruit" in men's basketball

Not sure how Baylor men's basketball coach Scott Drew pulled this off, but his team should contend with Oklahoma State for the Big 12 title next season.

Center Isaiah Austin is returning to Waco for his sophomore year rather than declare for the NBA draft. Most mock drafts had Austin being selected in the first round. By sticking around this should give Austin the chance to gain some weight. He's 7-foot-1, and approximately 123 pounds. He is listed as 220 pounds but that appears to be about 50 pounds wrong.

Austin averaged 13 points, 8.3 rebounds and 1.7 blocks as a freshman last season for a Bears team that won the National Intramural Tournament in New York City.

"We're extremely excited to have an opportunity to work with Isaiah for another year," Drew said in a statement. "I think it's a compliment to Baylor Nation, the university and the team that Isaiah wants to return, and I know Baylor Nation is really excited to have him back for another year."

Somewhere Drew had to be high-fiving anybody with a hand at this news. His job just got a lot easier since the season ended.

The team does lose Pierre Jackson to graduation, but will not only return Austin but senior forward Cory Jefferson (13. ppg., 8.0 rpg.), guard Brady Heslip and Rico Gathers. The Bears are going to be loaded.

If the Bears or Oklahoma State do not end Kansas' run of nine consecutive Big 12 titles the rest of the conference schools should no longer play basketball.

Twitter @MacEngelProf

tengel@star-telegram.com

Facebook Mac Engel

Good news for North Texas football coach

This has not been the easiest last year or so for North Texas head football coach Dan McCarney. The man deserves a break.

He suffered a stroke last year, and now recently was in the hospital for another surgery.

North Texas said that McCarney had successful surgery last Friday, and is OK. A source said this procedure has nothing to do with the stroke and that McCarney, 59, is fine and back to work. McCarney does not want to be specific about the procedure.

McCarney not being able to work would be a hard blow for a program that recently opened a new stadium, and was enjoying a little bit of momentum after two seasons with the former Iowa State head coach running things in Denton.

He inherited a team that wasn't exactly loaded, and is 9-15 in his two seasons at UNT. The Mean Green were 4-4 in the Sun Belt in his first season, and 3-5 last year. 

This has the makings to be a winning season for UNT. God knows McCarney could use it.

 

 

Twitter @MacEngelProf

tengel@star-telegram.com

Facebook Mac Engel

The one thing Jerry Jones has made good on

Jerry Jones may not be able to deliver a Super Bowl in the next 50 lifetimes, but the man can deliver others things as promised.

The crooks that run college football have not only decided on a College Football Playoff but that the first title game in the "playoff era" will be at Cowboys Stadium. The game will be Jan. 12 2015.

The Cotton Bowl will also be a part of the rotation for the semifinal games as well with the other rich-kid bowls such as the Rose, Fiesta, Sugar, Orange, and Chick-fil-A.

(BTW - Hats off to the people that devised this playoff to name it just that - College Football Playoff. This name is not some post-modernistic art of simplicity. By not including tag 'NCAA' or anything else it can easily sell the naming rights to a corporate sponsor without having to share a dime with the organization based in Indianapolis.)

Now let's just hope that Fort Worth/dallas is not buried in snow and ice the way this region was when the Super Bowl came to town in 2011. While we're at it, let's hope that every paying customer actually has a seat to sit in to watch the game. And that nobody dies, either.

This will essentially give the people at Cowboys Stadium, and North Texas organizers, the chance to correct the many screwups that happened when the Super Bowl came to town. By the time the Unnamed Corporate Sponsor College Football Playoff Title game comes to Cowboys Stadium it will have hosted a Super Bowl, NBA All-Star game, NCAA Final Four, Cotton Bowls, among many others high-profile events.

All of these have gone well with the exception of that one Super Bowl, which was a horror show for event planners.

North Texas is not on the schedule to host another Super Bowl. Those already in the books are:
2014: New York/New Jersey
2015: Phoenix

The Super Bowl in 2016 will be the 50th, and that will likely be in an area that has a tradition of hosting the big game at the end. Think South Florida.

If the College Football Playoff title game goes well, enough time will have passed since that fiasco in '11 that Jerry should enough street cred' to host the Super Bowl again.

Twitter @MacEngelProf

tengel@star-telegram.com

Facebook Mac Engel

Casey Pachall better be TCU's starting QB

Had a good laugh at the Tweet by Fort Worth Star-Telegram TCU beat writer Stefan Stevenson; he said he would cover TCU's game against LSU naked if Casey Pachall isn't the starting quarterback.

Stefan (pictured) should do it anyway, just to liven up a dull pressbox.

Simple nudity by a beat writer ain't enough - if Casey Pachall is in good standing with the team and he is not the starting quarterback for TCU against LSU on 8/31 at Cowboys Stadium the head coach should be fired and replaced by Pat Sullivan.

All of this talk about the quarterback race between Casey Pachall and Trevone Boykin being tight is laughably stupid. Either that or Casey Pachall is suddenly terrible (he isn't), or Trevone is suddenly Dan Marino (he isn't).

On a conference call with Big 12 head coaches today, TCU head coach Gary Patterson said he will likely name the starting QB during two-a-day practices. He was not laughing when he said this.

"That race with the quarterback is very close. One beats you with his arm and one beats you with his legs," Patterson said.

If Casey Pachall didn't think he was going to be the starter he should have transferred to another school where he could start 11 or 12 games. He needs to play to have any shot at a real pro career.

"He's a little rough around the edges," GP said today of Pachall. "He always had a Josh Boyce as a go-to guy and he's not there. And establishing who he is throwing to and what he is doing and getting him more familiar with the young receivers on the team."

While there is not a soul around TCU's program who is not grateful for what Boykin did last season, and believes that he will be an effective QB, no one says he is better than Pachall. The QB who can beat you with his legs averaged 3.3 yards per carry last season; of note, the stats do not include how many sacks he avoided.

Pachall can make throws to places Boykin simply never demonstrated he could. Boykin never gained the trust of his head coach to make throws into crowded areas. 

That said, there is a level of expecation surrounding Pachall's return that may not be quite warranted.

As good as he is, he has not faced the level of competition that Boykin has. The only Big 12 team Pachall faced was Kansas, which is in the conference because of its basketball program. The only teams Boykin has faced are big ones.

Pachall hasn't done it against the "big people" yet. The safe bet is that he can, and the sure money is that he will be starting against LSU. If not, Stefan is going to be naked in the Cowboys press box and the head coach should be fired.

 

Twitter @MacEngelProf

tengel@star-telegram.com

Facebook Mac Engel

Bill Snyder drops the truth about college football

Kansas State head football coach Bill Snyder will forever retire the Boring Interview award, but perhaps in his advancing age he is less afraid to state his own opinion. Bravo.

In an interview with 610 Sports Radio KCSP, Snyder went off on the state of college football that it has become a giant money grab that has altered the priorities of what a university should stand for.

Snyder said: "I can only speak personally. I'm grossly overpaid for what I do. That's part of what creates the issue."

No one is disagreeing with Snyder, but who is going to stop this giant gravy train of cash? The coaches? No. The agents? Hell no.

Snyder is 73, and recently signed a five-year deal worth $14.75 million. I wonder if he said, "Heeeeeey, no thanks."

Snyder continued: "I think it's in a bad place right now. It's in a bad place for a variety of reasons. We've allowed it to become money driven. We've allowed it to become TV driven. We've allowed athletic programs or football programs to mean more to a university than what the university is really supposed to be all about.

“The last I heard, we were educational institutions. Certainly there is an education that takes place in football, and I understand all the parameters. But it's not driven by values; it's driven by dollars and cents."

All of the above is accurate.

When schools realized a visible football and men's basketball team could be major revenue producers and beacons for donations is when the model dramatically changed. It has since become a race between coaches inside their own programs for "we need this and we need that" and the spending is non stop. These things need money. This means school officials have to beg donors, or agree to whatever TV wants to cover costs, which also include coaches' salaries.

What will change this reality Snyder did not say.

Twitter @MacEngelProf

tengel@star-telegram.com

Facebook Mac Engel