40 Acres Sports

Kicker Ryan Bailey is no longer a walk-on, he was awarded a scholarship Friday after practice in front of his teammates.

Mack Brown says we’re going to like what we see out of John Chiles. Hope to see some special stuff with him and Colt on the field at the same time.

With the recent injuries to Limas Sweed and Billy Pittman, the Texas coaching staff has moved senior safety Tyrell Gatewood to the other side of the football.

From AAS’ Bevo Beat:

While the Longhorns’ coaches have been using freshmen to fill holes at receiver left by injuries, they also have moved over a veteran defender.

“We’ve also worked [tag]Tyrell Gatewood[/tag] some,” Brown said of the senior safety. “He’s been a receiver so we worked him back in that position where he’s playing both ways. He’s playing safety, he’s on just about every kick team and he also played a little bit of receiver. In fact he jumped up and made a great catch in the rain.”

In his five years on campus Gatewood has now been a wide receiver, tight end, linebacker, safety, and now receiver again. His name has come up a lot over the years and he’s seemed on the verge of making an impact at all those positions, but he’s yet to make news on the field. Even if it’s only on special teams, hopefully he can find a way to contribute in his last season in burnt orange.

This isn’t an earth shattering move since Gatewood was not expected to start on defense but it’s interesting news nonetheless. Depending on your outlook, this could be a good sign on our depth at safety or it could be an indication that Sweed and Pittman may be out a lot longer than the university has let on. Or it could be both.

SI.com ranks the top 10 Big 12 players. Sweed, Okam, and McCoy make their list.

Frank Okam and Derek Lokey hit backs & books. A pair of healthy DT’s would be huge for our defense this season.

ESPN to air 25-hour college football pregame show, which will allow them to air 18+ hours of Notre Dame and USC coverage.

ESPN is again running their ESPNU Championship Series where their “experts” go week by week predicting who will win all the big games and ranking the teams. Check out the video below of Rece Davis, Lou Holtz, and Mark May discussing week six, including the Red River Rivalry:

I’m not sure why Holtz and May think Texas winning would be an upset. If Texas and [tag]Oklahoma[/tag] both reach October undefeated as they expect, since Texas is ranked higher in both the preseason AP and Coaches poll Texas would likely be favored to win this game. The idea that it would be an upset bothers me more than May and Davis picking the Sooners. Of course earlier this week Davis predicted Texas would win the Big 12 and appear in the BCS title game. I’m not sure how that would work. Stuff like this is why I have to put “experts” in quotes.

The main reason I posted this is to point out ESPN’s new video site. It’s a surprisingly nice, YouTube-y embeddable flash site that is still in beta. They’re putting a ton of quality videos up there featuring highlights from SportsCenter and obviously their features as well. You can even comment on and rate videos. Looks like a nice start from their new editor-in-chief.

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More than 3 guys will play as Longhorns will rotate linebackers this season. Horns need young guys to step up and be playmakers.

TCU defensive star Tommy Blake returns to team after week at home. Strange situation.

Colt McCoy has the team’s full backing. No quarterback controversy this year, the Longhorns are his team.