40 Acres Sports

After several big hits this weekend left him with tingling in his extremities, [tag]Priest Holmes[/tag] has been forced to retire from the Kansas City Chiefs and the NFL. Holmes had played in four games this season after missing two years with a neck injury, but the recurrence of symptoms Sunday made him rethink his comeback.

Video from today’s press conference is below:

Sad to see him have to hang them up after working so hard to come back, but I’m glad Priest is walking away before it’s too late. Neck and brain injuries are nothing to mess around with and his quality of life is much more important than football.

Priest came back again and again and was always the underdog, but he had a heck of an NFL career and for a while was one of the top running backs in the league. He represented the University of Texas well and I enjoyed watching him play for the Horns and for the Chiefs. Thanks for the memories Priest.

Kirk Bohls of the Austin American-Statesman is reporting that SMU is possibly interested in Texas offensive coordinator [tag]Greg Davis[/tag] 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.

Priest Holmes’ career in jeopardy again. Another neck injury looks like it will end his comeback attempt and his career. Update.

Texas leads Big 12 with 23 all-academic selections. Not only are we better but we’re smarter than everyone else too.

Maturation has been a key for Texas during 5-game winning streak. Plus other notes for Texas-Texas A&M game.

There’s a bit of confusion over the issue but it appears that Texas will win the Big 12 South if [tag]Oklahoma[/tag] falls to in-state rival Oklahoma State this Saturday. Even if the Longhorns lose to the Aggies on T+1 the three-way tiebreaker rules in the Big 12 seem to indicate that Texas would represent the south if the Horns, Sooners, and Cowboys all end conference play with identical records. Or at least that’s one interpretation.

Here’s the confusing explanation from the Statesman:

1. The records of the three teams will be compared against each other. (If Texas, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State are tied with 5-3 records, this tiebreaker would not decide things. The teams would all be 1-1 against each other.)

2. The records of the three teams will be compared within their division. (Again, no decision here. All three would be 3-2 in the division.)

3. The records of the three teams will be compared against the next highest placed teams in their division in order of finish — 4, 5 and 6. (Now it gets confusing, because at this point Texas Tech and Texas A&M would be tied for fourth in the South with 4-4 records. Big 12 officials say that they won’t implement a tiebreaker at this point to decide who’s fourth (if they did, Tech would be considered fourth, and Oklahoma ultimately would be eliminated from the championship game mix). Instead, that fourth-place tie would mean that this criteria wouldn’t settle anything.)

4. The records of the three teams will be compared against all common conference opponents. (Again, this doesn’t settle anything.)

5. The highest ranked team in the first Bowl Championship Series Poll following the completion of Big 12 regular-season (intra-) conference play shall be the representative. (This, then, should settle it, but it’s up to the human voters and the BCS computers, which will produce new standings when all the dust has settled next Sunday.)

6. The team with the best overall winning percentage shall be the representative.

7. The representative will be chosen by draw.

Every explanation I’ve seen other than this one has Texas winning the thing because of the 4th tiebreaker. I’m not sure why you would ignore the other tiebreakers when calculating this one. If there’s a tie for fourth place it seems to be common sense that you would break that one before figuring out who wins the division. If that tiebreaker doesn’t fall Texas’ way I think OU wins the thing because they likely have the highest BCS ranking if both teams lose.

Of course all this is a moot point if the Longhorns win against the Aggies on Friday. With a win the only possible outcomes would be a two-way tie which favors the Sooners or with an OU loss Texas would win the South outright. The Horns need to take care of business on the field and let us dorks figure the rest of this out.

DKR renovations are now only two weeks behind schedule. Rain this spring and early summer slowed things down but they’re catching back up.

AJ Abrams leads in easy win against Arkansas-Monticello. Abrams scores 30 in 100-52 victory over the Boll Weevils.

UT women’s soccer advances to NCAA third round with win over Texas A&M. Three second half goals to move past the 2nd seeded Aggies.

Oklahoma 27, Texas Tech 34.

Because of the Oklahoma loss the Horns are still in the hunt for the Big 12 crown and the Sooners are knocked out of the national title discussion. Not that the team needed it, but now the team has a little something extra to play for next Friday against the Aggies.

Go Raiders!!! (Your quarterback is still a punk and your coach is still whiny and wrong. And your fans suck too.)