40 Acres Sports

Tarell Brown is making a strong first impression in San Francisco. Couple of mistakes, but always seemed like a good kid. (via)

Vince Young is Peter King’s #7 quarterback. “Young’s the most feared young player in football right now.”

Gatorsports.com has the Longhorns #1 in their preseason top 25. Nebraska at #4? (via)

Athlon has released their preseason All-Big 12 team and there’s of course several Longhorns on it. Not too many complaints, though I do think receiver [tag]Quan Cosby[/tag] deserves some third team love especially since Nebraska’s Maurice Purify might not even be on the team next year.

I hope they’re right about [tag]Tony Hills[/tag] and [tag]Roddrick Muckelroy[/tag]. Hills gets a lot of hype but didn’t perform consistently last year, he has a lot to prove to me before he’s mentioned in the same breath as other recent Texas linemen. If Muck and the other linebackers can step up their game this year the defense will be vastly improved.

Check out all the Longhorns on their list below:

First Team Offense

QB Colt McCoy 6-foot-3 205 So.
RB Jamaal Charles 6-foot-1 200 Jr.
OL Tony Hills 6-foot-6 305 Sr.

First Team Defense

DL Derek Lokey 6-foot-2 280 Sr.
DL Frank Okam 6-foot-5 320 Sr.

Second Team Offense

WR Limas Sweed 6-foot-5 219 Sr.

Second Team Defense

LB Roddrick Muckelroy 6-foot-2 230 So.
S Marcus Griffin 6-foot-0 202 Sr.

Third Team Defense

DL Brian Orakpo 6-foot-4 248 Jr.
LB Robert Killebrew 6-foot-2 230 Sr.

Big 12 commish resigns, is Texas AD DeLoss Dodds a candidate? Orangebloods dismissed the rumor.

Major Applewhite is quickly moving up coaching ranks. I hope he doesn’t get any slime on him from standing too close to Nick Saban.

NCAA ejects reporter for liveblogging game. Sounds like yet another case of old people scared of the interwebs.

Oklahoma football admits to using banned supplements. Bunch of cheaters.

Adam Dunn to the Astros? Love to see him back home hitting homers (and striking out a ton) for Houston.

[tag]Augie Garrido[/tag] appeared on KVET 1300 this morning and had plenty to say. Among the highlights:

• He agrees that Texas should be the best college baseball team in America and that, at times, this team was that this year. We did have a very good team that did a very good job. He’s not offering excuses. Accepting not getting to the CWS is very difficult. He was bitterly surprised at the role that fate played in the Regionals.
• The team GPA was 2.9 in the Fall and over 3.0 (the highest ever) in the Spring.
• He gave full credit to UCI for the series they had and noted that UCI hasn’t lost a championship game yet and he won’t be surprised to see them do well at the CWS because they are fundamentally extremely sound.
• When asked about his exit interviews with the team, he said the three comments he got most about what impacted the team going into the Regional were: (1) The players really felt the impact of losing Preston Clark behind the plate before the Regional tourney…more than Coach Garrido would’ve imagined. Brett Lewis is very capable and the players had confidence in his ability. But, Preston’s leadership and interactions with the team all year provided more of the glue that held the team’s spirit together than Coach Garrido had imagined. (2) Losing Nick Peoples was also huge. (3) He was surprised to hear that the players were disappointed that they didn’t play at Disch-Falk and that they felt they would’ve won if they’d been playing at home. He thought that since they’d played 11 games at Dell Diamond early in the year, it wouldn’t have as much of an affect as it seemed to have. He thought they were past all that so that was surprising to him.
• Regarding the draft, he thinks there’s a decent possibility that Kyle Russell will be back (he wants 1st round money but was drafted in the 4th), no clear idea about Bradley Suttle (also wanting 1st round money and drafted in the 4th; but the drafting team was the Yankees and you never know what they’ll do), and a good chance that both James Russell and Preston Clark will return.
• Asked about Coach Johnson’s contribution in his first year and as they look forward: he thinks Coach Johnson is absolutely the right man at the right time for this job. He knows Texas baseball at every level inside and out.
• He thinks we’ll have a real good team next year but added that he hesitates and stutters a little bit making that statement because he was so surprised to lose the Regional.
• Regarding the construction at Disch-Falk: they’re not on schedule but they’re not behind, either. He explained that the team doesn’t need to be back out on the field until September and they should be able to do that. Prior to the first game on February 22nd, everything’s supposed to be completely finished. So, they’re behind schedule due to the recent rains but the delay won’t cause problems because things will still be completed before the team and fans actually need access.
• He made a comment about ESPN being the only entity that has the power to force the changes that would bring a higher level of consistency and quality to college baseball. The implication, clearly, was that the best way to influence the NCAA was with money and ESPN holds the purse strings.

For more detail, please check out the report I filed on my site.