40 Acres Sports

The Statesman’s Suzanne Halliburton just reported that Minnesota head coach Tim Brewster has announced an upcoming home and home match-up between the Gophers and the Longhorns. No dates specified yet.

I think this is the perfect out of conference game for Texas. Minnesota is a BCS conference opponent that will help the strength of schedule but is also a team Texas should beat 90% of the time. Of course, any opponent is better than the Arkansas States of the world.

Update: Halliburton’s UT sources say talk of series with Minnesota is “premature.” The first opening in the schedule is 2011.

The McAllen Monitor is reporting that former Horn Ramonce Taylor is headed to the Canadian Football League. Taylor will reportedly sign with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers after playing in only one game in arenafootball2 with the Rio Grande Valley Dorados. Excellent news for Taylor as the CFL is definitely a step up from afl2, and living in Winnipeg certainly sounds better than living in Hidalgo, Texas.

No other confirmation of the story is available at this time.

Larry Mac Duff’s office chair isn’t even cool yet (I didn’t even have time to post the news of him leaving) and already the rumors are flying fast and furious that we may have a replacement.

Orangebloods.com reported just before lunch that Auburn’s Will Muschamp was a possible candidate to be Texas’ next defensive coordinator and by five they were reporting he’d been interviewed and offered the job. We should be hearing more tomorrow already, with a final decision possibly being made as early as this evening.

Muschamp is a big name and would make big news around college football. At only 36 he’s already on the fast track to being a head coach. In fact, rumor on the Auburn message boards is that he wouldn’t be going anywhere as a defensive coordinator unless he was promised the head coaching position.

He’s young, fiery, and best of all has experience coaching linebackers. Oh, and like all smart men, he hates the Piggies:

Muschamp played safety at Georgia from 1991 - 1994 (yes Dad, you’re getting old) and has an impressive coaching resume. From Wikipedia:

Stay tuned… if news breaks, we’ll break in.

Update: It is being reported (again by Orangebloods, best $10/month you can spend) that Muschamp was offered a “Jimbo Fisher deal.” The Florida State offensive coordinator was lured away from LSU by the promise that he would be the coach to succeed the legendary Bobby Bowden. If this is true, Muschamp would likely have something in his contract that paid him a large buyout if he is let go or if someone other than himself is selected to follow Mack Brown as Texas coach. Biggest difference, Bowden is 78 and Mack is still a relatively young 56. (9:44 pm)

Update: It doesn’t look an official announcement will come tonight, but multiple sources at both Texas and Auburn are reporting that it’s a done deal. An agreement is reportedly in place between Texas and Muschamp but papers haven’t been signed yet. Don’t want to count chickens yet but it sure looks like Will Muschamp is going to be your next Texas defensive coordinator. (11:14 pm)

Update: The Huntsville Times is reporting the deal is done. Hook ‘em! (Friday, 5:09 pm)

Kirk Bohls of the Austin American-Statesman is reporting that SMU is possibly interested in Texas offensive coordinator Greg Davis for their recently vacated head coaching position. Though Texas Athletic Director DeLoss Dodds said no one from SMU had requested permission to speak to Davis a source did confirm that they had contacted him unofficially.

A surprising amount of coaching rumors today. Before the Davis to SMU rumor this afternoon there was some buzz on the Arkansas message boards that Davis was headed for retirement and former Arky offensive coordinator Guz Malzahn would be Texas’ next OC. When that rumor was brought up on Orangebloods.com, posters claiming to be “in the know” wouldn’t comment on particular coaches coming or going just that there was some smoke that one of the Texas coaches may be headed for retirement.

I’m certainly not going to claim that Davis has no faults (in fact he’s got tons of them), but he’s a solid offensive coordinator and an even better quarterbacks coach. The development of Vince Young and Colt McCoy as quarterbacks has been incredible and Davis deserves a huge amount of the credit. His gameplanning and playcalling often leave a lot to be desired but it won’t be easy to replace him if he leaves.

Texas’ offense might be more exciting with someone like Malzahn calling the shots, but I’m not sure it would be better.

We’ll keep you updated on any other juicy rumors or actual news as we hear it.

As you know from reading this site, we like to talk trash just as much as the next fan. But I think Texas Tech fans might have gone a little too far with this one.

It has been reported that a student at Texas Tech has designed a t-shirt that says “Vick ‘em” on the front, and the back shows an image of a football player (Vick) hanging Reveille. While I guess you could call this “clever”, it will no doubt cause an uproar in the public.

I am thinking this won’t help with the perception that Tech has a bunch of classless fans. It’s also kind of funny that this comes just a few months after Texas Tech announced Raider Power, a campaign the university start to help promote “Honor, Respect, Pride, Tradition.”

Original Rivals Thread

Chris Stewart transferring from Notre Dame. He was interested in Texas during recruiting, with OL depth issues might be worth a shot.

Honestly, I am not all that surprised at this move, it is just unfortunate that it comes at a time where we have some uncertainty with the health of our quarterback.

Nothing is official yet, but Coach Mack Brown has confirmed that they are aware of Jevan Snead’s plans, and will not make an official announcement until after the bowl game. What does this mean for his availability in the bowl game? No one knows, and Texas still hasn’t been picked for a bowl game.

Snead currently has yet to decide where he will continue his college career, though it is said he is looking at TCU, Houston, and Louisville. People I have talked to say TCU is currently at the top of the list.

If Colt McCoy cannot go for the bowl game, it gets pretty dicey on who will replace him. Do you throw away the red-shirt of Sherrod Harris? Do you put 3rd stringer Matt McCoy into the mix? Or do you just play a full option offense and put receiver Quan Cosby at the helm? I don’t know the answer, but they all sure sound like scary choices.

Maybe we need to just make a quick phone call down to Florida and see if Brantley wants to get his career started early. Ha.

Source

WOI-TV out of Des Moines is reporting that Gene Chizik will be announced as the new head coach of the Iowa State Cyclones at a press conference tonight in Ames.

The Iowa State Cyclones have a new Head Football Coach. ABC5 Sports Director John Walters has confirmed the Cyclones have hired University of Texas Defensive Coordinator Gene Chizik. Chizik will officially introduced at a news conference tonight at 6 p.m. at Hilton Coliseum. ABC5 Sports is in Ames, and will be there all day getting you the latest information. You can see the news conference live on ABC5 Television.

Surprising news on many fronts. Central Michigan’s Brian Kelly was thought to be the front runner for the job lately. I also thought Chizik would hold out for a more high profile position than ISU, but possibly thanks to his defense’s below expectations performance this year he had to lower his aspirations.

If the news turns out to be true, it’ll be interesting to see who the Longhorns pursue to replace Chizik. Would Mack Brown simply promote co-defensive coordinator Duana Akina? His secondary this season certainly didn’t play up to their ability so I’m not sure that would happen. If it is Akina and not some other big name hire, there will probably be some pretty angry Longhorn fans.

Some interesting and amusing stories coming from the Aggie message boards after their loss to Oklahoma this weekend. Sounds like Jorvorskie Lane is throwing his weight around (and it sure is a lot of weight) and isn’t happy with the job coach Dennis Franchione is doing. And it sounds like some of the team and most of the fan base agrees with him.

Here’s one of many posts that were quickly deleted by the fascist TexAgs moderators:

AggieSPMT05

I do not know everything that has been discussed on the subject but this alleged situation could not be worse for this team.

For those who have not heard the story, after the game last night, Jorvorskie allegedly threw objects and berated Franchione for not giving him the ball on 3rd and goal from the 2.5 late in the game with the team trailing by 7. Following Lane’s emotional outburst, apparently, another team leader told Franchione that he had lost the respect of Jorvorskie and thus the entire team. Additionally, Lane now faces an impending suspension from Franchione.

Pretty good stuff. If there’s any truth to this than Lane has to be suspended for the next game. Franchione is close to losing that team if they drop the next two games against Nebraska and at Texas, which is very possible. Fran’s call late in the game not to give Lane the ball is pretty baffling, I love to make fun of the guy but he’s an incredible short yardage runner once he gets his weight moving forward. Maybe run the option or give the ball to Michael Goodson to the outside, but a Stephen McGee pass?? Bad call.

I think the unforgivable mistake though was to kick a field goal with only two and a half minutes to go in the game. The Sooners had run all over them during the game, what gave Fran the idea they could stop OU from getting the single first down that would end the game? He’s made a ton of strange coaching decisions this year and this one finally bit him in the ass.

Hopefully this gets much worse and more public, because it should be very entertaining to watch.

Just randomly naming names not based on first-hand knowledge.

Apparently attending the Ramonce Taylor School of Idiocy, initial reports coming out of Austin are saying Tarell Brown, starting cornerback for the Texas Longhorns, has been arrested along with former Longhorn Aaron Harris on charges of possession of marijuana and unlawfully carrying a gun. Could the timing be anyway worse for the Longhorns? Probably not.

Brown and former teammate Aaron Harris, a linebacker on last year’s national championship team, were booked into Travis County Central Booking Facility at 4:55 a.m. Monday.

Brown was charged with a Class A misdemeanor of unlawfully carrying a weapon. He and Harris were both charged with Class B misdemeanors of possession of 2 ounces or less of marijuana.

Longhorn football coach Mack Brown has been informed of the situation but has not yet spoken to Brown, a team official said.

This is about the worst thing that could happen to the Longhorns right now. Not only is Tarell expected to cover Ohio State’s deep threat Ted Ginn, Jr., but now the Longhorns have to deal with all of the distractions that are sure to come about from this. It is just a matter of time before the national media pick up on this story and ESPN will be blasting this all over their air waves. Hopefully the coaching staff can keep the players under control this week and maybe even move everybody into a controlled hotel environment.

Update: More details coming out show that three players are involved. Aaron Harris, Tarell Brown, and Tyrell Gatewood. Aaron Harris was driving when they were pulled over and Tarell and Tyrell were asleep in the back. Hopefully Harris can take the fall for this and Tarell can play this weekend.

Update #2: The gun is reported to belong to Tyrell Gatewood. The story is that the gun was used earlier in the day at a shooting range. Then later while driving around the gun came out from under the front seat and Tarell grabbed it, put it in his lap and fell asleep. The cops came up to the car when Aaron Harris was pulled over and saw the gun in Tarell’s lap. According to Tarell’s lawyer, Tarell will be able to play in this weekend’s game against OSU. Thank goodness.

Update #3: It looks like Mack Brown is sitting out both Tarell Brown and Tyrell Gatewood for Saturday’s game against Ohio State.

Update #4: Now Brown and Gatewood’s attorney Jamie Balagio is saying that the two players were unnecessarily TASERED during their arrest. Man, this situation is getting weirder and weirder.

Update #5: The drug charges on both Tarell Brown and Tyrell Gatewood have been dropped. The gun charges still remain on Brown.

Read more to check out the arrest affidavit from Travis County.

(more …)

Rumor has it that Texas Tech senior and preseason All-American Jarrett Hicks could be in jeopardy of missing the season. Both he and top WR recruit Michael Crabtree are both appealing issues to the NCAA related to academic issues. Hicks has already lost one appeal on his case and Coach Mike Leach didn’t sound to positive about the issue. Both players will likely miss this weekend’s game against SMU. Losing an All-American and another member of the two-deep would obviously be a big problem for Tech’s pass happy offense.

Deadspin brings up a good point. Baby due in November. Leinart spotted leaving Paris Hilton’s in May. Hmm…

Apparently no one likes him over at ASU. Seems like a good pick-up for Nebraska though.

Fox 4 in Dallas is reporting that former Texas defensive tackle Marco Martin has been arrested on charges he molested a six-year-old boy. Martin would have been 15 or 16 at the time of the alleged assault in 1999. Martin turned himself in to Dallas police this morning.

Details are sounding a little sketchy right now. The police say the victim came forward last year but somehow they are claiming they couldn’t find a person who was probably on TV (on the sidelines) every weekend. It also seems odd that the victim took so long to come forward with the allegations, though with a child that young it is more understandable. If the allegations are true, then this is a tragic and disgusting story. I have no tolerance for child molestors but the situation seems to warrant withholding judgement until we learn more. Let’s hope for the sake of everyone involved there’s nothing to this.

Martin was a top recruit who tore his ACL his senior year in high school and was never able to get back into football shape. The player nicknamed “Big Yummy” was reported to be up above 400 pounds. He left school early after last year without (I believe) ever playing a down for the Longhorns.

His fellow Ags promptly trashed him and called him a liar.

The University of Oklahoma issued a statement today that two players had been kicked off the football team for receiving “extra compensation above that to which they were entitled, related to their employment at a private business.” No names were cited in the release but numerous outlets are reporting that one of the two players was starting quarterback Rhett Bomar. The other player is reportedly Bomar’s roommate, starting right guard J.D. Quinn.

Bomar was working at an Oklahoma City car dealership, the same one that made news by letting Adrian Peterson “borrow” a Lexus for several weeks, and reported $18,000 of income for the year despite only working about five hours per week. That would work out to about $70 per hour (if he was working 52 weeks a year) for whatever he was supposedly doing for the dealership. Like Al Capone and possibly Barry Bonds, I guess it was the IRS that finally did Bomar in.

This obviously has big Big 12 and national implications as the Sooners were being touted by many experts as national title contenders going into the season. They were also voted as Big 12 favorites by the media. Now they’ll head into next week’s practices without their starting quarterback and no clear answer as to who will take over the position. We’ll likely see QB-turned-WR Paul Thompson moved back to quarterback where he’ll battle with JUCO transfer Joey Halzle and a true freshman for the starting nod. The Sooners’ QB situation just became as murky as the Longhorns’.

I guess this brings new meaning to the term “Bomar’d.”

Update

Rumors are flying that this is just the beginning and that more suspensions will be coming soon. Adrian Peterson’s name has of course been mentioned due to his relationship with Big Red Sports/Imports. The other names are D.J. Wolfe, projected starting cornerback, and Garrett Hartley their starting placekicker. Now these are definitely just rumors, and I’m sure we’ll be hearing a lot more of this in the next couple of days. It is hard to believe that just two players were involved when we know that other OU players had relationships with this car dealership. (5:30 pm)

I’d rather have more parking than a condo, but “Gameday Centers” are rumored to be headed to UT.

I hope people don’t really believe crap on people’s Facebook or MySpace profiles.

Texas running back Ramonce Taylor was arrested early this morning when police discovered five pounds of marijuana in his car. Five pounds is a lot more weed than you can claim is for personal use so Taylor could be facing second-degree felony charges. A large fight had broken out at a party near his hometown of Belton, Texas and sometime during/after the fight Taylor had the window to his vehicle broken. Taylor contacted the police to report the vandalism. When talking with police about his broken window, Taylor gave the officers permission to search his car.

While interviewing Taylor at a convenience store, deputies were told by other officers at the fight scene that Taylor had been involved and had threatened to return with a gun. Taylor was placed in handcuffs. Taylor told deputies he didn’t have a gun and gave them permission to search his vehicle. Deputies reported finding the bullet and the backpack with the marijuana.

Taylor’s lawyer, Buck Harris, says the weed wasn’t his and for now I believe him. I can’t imagine Taylor would call the police if he knew he had more than $3,000 worth of marijuana in the back of his car. The fact that his window was broken out also leads me to believe someone could have chunked the weed into his car to hide it as the cops were showing up at the party. If you’ve got a felony’s worth of drugs in your car, you don’t call to report a misdemeanor and than let the cops search you car. You get the heck out of there and worry about the $100 window some other time.

A bit of a conspiracy theory and orange-tinted glasses, but right now it actually seems more likely than the alternative.

As for Ramonce’s Longhorn football career it may be in trouble whether he’s guilty or not. This isn’t Taylor’s first time to make news for the wrong reasons and his return in the fall was already questionable. You can’t just lock yourself in your dorm room for four years, but if you’ve already got two strikes against you than you’ve got to be more careful where you party and who you hang out with. Reports had been leaking that he had gotten his grades in order, so if this incident turns out to be nothing then there’s still a chance he’ll be back. I imagine his status depends as much on what the Texas coaches think of him as a young man as it does on the outcome today’s events.

For Taylor’s sake I hope he gets things figured out. If he makes smart decisions (and stays away from poor decision making friends) he’ll have the chance to get a UT degree and set himself up for an NFL career

Despite rumors still surprising. He’d have seen serious minutes this year with Aldridge & Tucker gone.

The Dallas Morning News is reporting that the Texas Longhorns and Arkansas Razorbacks have an agreement for a home-and-home series beginning in 2008. No one has signed on the dotted line yet, but the two SWC rivals would meet in Austin in 2008 and in Fayettenam Fayetteville in 2009.

The two teams are also exploring the possibility of bringing the series to Dallas after the first two years if the Red River Rivalry between Texas and Oklahoma is turned into a home-and-home. According to Kirk Bohls, that is an increasingly likely situation. The new Texas-Arkansas series would likely take place in the new Cowboys stadium in Arlington.

I’m personally I’m not a huge fan of this decision. I love that we’re scheduling bigger name opponents from a power conference instead of more Sam Houston States, but there’s very little to gain from playing the Piggies. With the current state of their program, there’s absolutely nothing to gain from playing them. It’s a huge rivalry game that if we win it was a game we were supposed to win and if we lose it’s big news. All this does is help them recruit Texas better, especially if the game is played in Dallas every year.

I’d rather schedule opponents like Cal out of the Pac 10, Penn State or Wisconsin out of the Big 10, or Boston College out of the ACC. All those games would bring big national exposure, would be exciting to watch, and expose the program to new recruiting areas. They’re also teams that would usually be tougher opponents and bring more prestige than a win over a team like Arkansas. They’re also teams that I usually think are vastly overrated by the national media.

The Texas-Arkansas matchup should be an interesting game in 2008, we’ll see what kind of team Houston Nutt and Mitch Mustain bring to Austin and if the Horns can bring the kind of fire and hatred the Razorbacks had the last two times the teams met.

According to Dallas radio station 1310 The Ticket, LaMarcus Aldridge has recently met with coach Rick Barnes to discuss entering the NBA draft. And as a result of their conversation, Aldridge has decided to start the process of looking for agents.

Aldridge has previously said that he will stay for his junior year, but we all know the chance of that happening was about as good as when Vince Young said he was going to stay. It definitely is a shame though, since Aldridge really could have used another year in college to gain some strength and a better low-post presence.

Does this squash any Barnes to NC State rumors?

It is amazing to me how fast rumors spread and how so many versions of a story can come across in the meda. Did Vince Young really get a 6 on the Wonderlic Test. Did he re-take the test and then score a 16? Did the grader of test actually make a mistake in scoring, proving that he would probably score a 1 on the test? All of these questions are up in the are at this moment, and I think the NFL really needs to come out and clarify the situation.

It seems to me that the consensus of stories that I am hearing is that Vince Young did in fact get quite a low score on his first test on Saturday, and then on Sunday was allowed to retake the test and then scored a 16. Now I will admit that a 16 is not great, but to me football IQ is much different than book IQ. And I think I read somewhere that Dan Marino scored a 14, and his career turned out to be just a little bit ok.

So I think we should all just wait until the truth really comes out and hold our opinions until then.

Latest Updates:

• False score gives Young wrong kind of buzz
• Only a 6? No, Young did better on Wonderlic
• GM refutes reports Young scored poorly