40 Acres Sports

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-[tag]Arkansas[/tag] 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 [tag]Vince Young[/tag] 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

The Miami Herald is reporting that former Longhorn [tag]Ricky Williams[/tag] has failed a fourth drug test and is facing a one-year suspension from the league. No word on why he failed the test, at this stage of the NFL substance abuse policy a missed test counts as failed test, and no official confirmation, but where’s there’s smoke there’s fire. (Pun intended.)

Ricky went a long way last year at winning back his fans and his teammates, if he did indeed a fail a drug test that would be gone instantly. I’ve been one of his biggest supporters throughout but this is pretty tough to take. When he didn’t want to play anymore I said Ricky had the right to be himself and do what made him happy. When he came back to football I rooted him on and knew he was still capable of doing incredible things. I thought this season he’d be back to old form and force the Dolphins to trade him so he could be a featured back again. This is so disappointing. I know it’s just marijuana, but when you’re in the situation he’s in you have to know the consequences and make smart decisions. Football or no football, I hope he figures his life out.

He deserved a second change and Nick Saban and the Dolphins gave him one. I’m not sure he’ll get a third, from them or from me.

Update

Some decent news today, Ricky is appealing the suspension. His agent, Leigh Steinberg, said, “Ricky Williams has been in outstanding behavioral mode for the past six months. No one should jump to any conclusions.” Echoes what teammate Jason Taylor said yesterday. Hopefully they know something we don’t. (2/21/2006)

Rumors are circulating that if Kirk Ferentz doesn’t take the Houston Texans job it’ll be offered to Denver Bronco offensive coordinator Gary Kubiak. If Kubiak gets the job then he would be interested in adding much maligned (pre-Vince) Texas coordinator Greg Davis to his staff. Davis coached Kubiak when he was the quarterback at Texas A&M in the early 80’s.

I’m actually a [tag]Greg Davis[/tag] supporter when it comes to his teaching and gameplanning, but it would certainly be interesting to see who Mack Brown could bring in to replace him. Greg Robinson and Gene Chizik have infused a lot of excitement into the defense, a hot young offensive coordinator that would stick around for a while could be a good thing. Though breaking in a new QB and offensive coordinator at the same time would be an awful lot of change for one offseason. We can’t however afford to be breaking in a new offensive coordinator/scheme every year, it’s a much bigger transition than on the other side of the ball.

David Carr for Ricky Williams?

In other Texans rumors… Are they trying to set up an opening at quarterback so they can draft Vince Young? Rumors are floating around of a possible David Carr to the Miami Dolphins for [tag]Ricky Williams[/tag] trade in the works. The Texans would get Houstonian Vince Young, Ricky Williams playing for the league minimum, and a third round pick out of the deal while the Dolphins would end up with another average QB.

If the Dolphins are willing to do that deal I pull the trigger in a second.