40 Acres Sports

The Texas Longhorns continued to add to their fantastic recruiting class on Monday with a surprise commitment from defensive end [tag]Sam Acho[/tag]. The 6-foot-2 250 pounder from Dallas St. Mark’s exploded onto everyone’s recruiting radar with several big time camp performances this summer. He went from virtual unknown to holding offers from national powers such as Oklahoma, Texas, USC, and Virginia in just a handful of weeks. Texas made a strong impression on Acho during an unofficial visit to Austin in early August, but he was expected to take a little more time before making a decision.

Acho was rated as a 3-star prospect by Rivals before his meteoric rise and reportedly will be elevated to 4-star status during the current reshuffling of their 2007 prospect rankings. National top 100 status is a possibility for the young man who excels in the classroom as well as on the football field.

Acho is the 23rd member of the Longhorns’ 2007 recruiting class and the fourth defensive lineman to give the team a verbal pledge. He joins DE Russell Carter and defensive tackles Andre Jones and Michael Wilcoxon as future anchors of the defensive front line. The Horns are still strongly pursuing 5-star DT Joseph Barksdale out of Detroit’s Cass Tech High School. Acho’s commitment likely leaves just one or two more slots available in this class.

Selvin Young says Vince will be calling Colt regularly as well.

I sure hope so. Man that guy is a useless jerk.

Our Thoughts

Brian – The first and probably most wrong Bevo Sports Top 25 of the year. I went into detail on my top 10 last week, which is probably the only part of the poll I have any confidence in whatsoever. I have Oklahoma at number 12 to start off the season, and I don’t think I’d have had them much higher even if they had Rhett Bomar. I just don’t have any faith in their offensive line at all. LSU at 13 is a lot lower than most people have them, but I still don’t believe Les Miles is the right guy for a big time program. Other Big XII teams in my top 25 include Tech at 18 and Nebraska down at 21. The Cornhuskers are getting a lot of love as the North division favorite and though I think they’ve got a chance to do that while still being decidedly mediocre. They’re recruiting much better lately and seem to be back on their way up though.

Matt – It seems like so many teams are not returning keys players this year, that this Week 1 poll seems more difficult than ever. First off, teams I am not sold on are Notre Dame, West Virginia, LSU, and Cal, so if I see any slip-ups I will not be afraid to drop them down a few spots. Ohio State has a lot of question marks on defense, but with their offense laced with so much talent, I can see why some people would have them as #1. I have been really impressed with the video I have seen of the Texas scrimmages. Selvin Young looks almost as fast as Jamaal Charles. Texas vs. Ohio State is definitely going to be the match-up to watch, and don’t worry, I will be there to witness it. Other Big XII teams I have in the top 25 include Oklahoma at 16, Nebraska at 19, and Texas Tech at 22.

Related Links

• AP Top 25
• USA Today Coaches Top 25

College football season is officially upon us as Saturday morning ESPN’s College Gameday aired their preview special. I didn’t even know it would be on, luckily the TiVo caught it and I saw it on there this morning.

In the first ten minutes of the show, the Gameday crew talks about Vince Young leaving and the remarkable 2005 Longhorn season, the quarterback situation, the many returning studs, and who will step up to fill Vince’s leadership role. Probably the most interesting comment comes from Mark May, he essentially says a two-quarterback system can have some success but it won’t win anyone a national championship. Kirk Herbstreit also brings up the need for offensive consistency without the explosive ability of Vince Young. Texas is going to have to put together some longer scoring drives and not put themselves in 3rd and 27 situations. Both are valid points.

May definitely appears to still be on the Texas bandwagon again this year. It seems he was big on the Horns every year except last season until real late. Whoops.

Click here to watch the entire 4+ minute segment. (Note: Video playback requires Flash Player 8.)

It almost sounds like there will be no QB rotation at all, even against UNT.

Despite going to I-AA, the NCAA should force him to sit out the year.

Good article on Mack and his brother Watson Brown, the head coach at UAB.

It will be harder for UT students to get tickets this upcoming basketball season as the athletic department has announced they would be cutting 1,600 guaranteed seats. There will still be the same number of student tickets for the lower bowl (1,200) but only 840 in the upper mezzanine level. According to senior associate athletic director Doug Messner only twice in the last two seasons would students have used all 2,040 of the tickets still guaranteed for them.

I’m encouraged that the athletic department is taking steps to improve attendance and game atmosphere, but I’m not completely sure this is the answer. The reason student attendance is low for most games is because those upper mezzanine seats are terrible and even the majority of lower level seats are behind the basket and high off the court. If they designated more lower level seats for students then student attendance would increase. Put students behind the opponent’s bench and the Erwin Center is immediately a louder and rowdier place to play.

Source

In an effort to measure which college programs have been the most successful over the last five seasons, the Wall Street Journal has come up with The Dow Jones College-Football Success Index. I’m not sure why, but they have chosen to use a formula that calculates the success of college football teams using only NFL information. They use the number of players starting/contributing on NFL teams as one factor, which also includes how many games their NFL teams win. The other factor is a team’s “draft success” which attempts to determine whether a team’s players have lived up to their draft promise.

The Longhorns land at number sixteen, which isn’t too low except for the fact that teams like North Carolina and Texas A&M land ahead of the Horns. That’s a pretty tell-tale sign that your ranking logic is horribly skewed. They list only [tag]Derrick Dockery[/tag], [tag]Casey Hampton[/tag], and [tag]Derrick Johnson[/tag] as standout players. I guess Pro Bowlers [tag]Nathan Vasher[/tag] and [tag]Shaun Rogers[/tag], who might be the best defensive tackle in the league, don’t count as standouts.

Here’s their comment on Texas:

National champs sent only three players to the NFL this year from the nation’s top offense. One problem: Longhorns’ shotgun formation isn’t popular in the NFL.

Not a very good argument there. I’m guessing a better reason we only had three offensive player’s drafted is that the team has seven returning starters this year on that side of the football. It’s kind of hard to be drafted when you’re still in college. [tag]Vince Young[/tag] went third overall, tight end [tag]David Thomas[/tag] went in the third round to the Patriots, and tackle [tag]Jonathan Scott[/tag] was the Lions’ fifth round selection. Guard [tag]Will Allen[/tag] signed a free agent deal with the Saints and backups [tag]Matt Nordgren[/tag] and [tag]Ahmard Hall[/tag] also found teams despite not being starters at Texas. Actually seems like a pretty good success rate to me.

So basically they took a faulty premise and backed it up with terrible analysis. There’s a lot of ways to determine a successful college football program, but how many backups a school has in the NFL is probably one of the last things you should consider.

Via: The Wiz