40 Acres Sports

Really odd story but he sounds like he’s okay.

ESPN.com has a pretty cool special called “The Education of Vince Young” up right now featuring a good article from Michael Smith, a photo gallery with twelve great high-res photos, and a short video from Sean Salisbury. Photos look great and there’s some shots in there that might make for great desktop wallpapers. Salisbury is very complimentary of Vince and especially his intangibles.

Vince is also on the cover of this week’s ESPN The Magazine so he’s definitely starting to get the love from ESPN (the moron Merril Hoge excluded of course.)

Rivals.com is reporting that John Brantley has officially decommited from the University of Texas, and will now become a Florida Gator. This isn’t a huge surprise, as this rumors have been floating around lately, but it is still disappointing to lose such a highly rated recruit.

Honestly though, I really don’t understand this move by Brantley. Florida just doesn’t seem like a good fit for him. He isn’t the type of quarterback that Urban Meyer particularly likes, and with most of the fans down there on the Tim Tebow bandwagon, it may be hard for Brantley to see the field. Hopefully his girlfriend going to Florida didn’t play too much of a role in this decision, because I know for a fact that the girls at Texas are better looking.

But look on the bright side here folks, we still have Colt McCoy coming back, and we have the secret weapon in John Chiles. What to see what I am talking about with Chiles? Just check out this highlight video. Unreal! Things are looking good at the quarterback spot for Texas, and losing Brantley will soon be a distant memory.

The match-up in the Holiday Bowl against California should be a tough one for the Horns. DeSean Jackson is a badass and the Texas secondary has been…

Wait… isn’t Texas playing in the Alamo Bowl versus Iowa? Texas A&M is in the Holiday Bowl, right? Well someone might want to inform Desmond Howard of that:

It actually sounds like Howard did his research on this mythical game between Texas and Cal. He even knew the (relatively) breaking news that Jevan Snead had decided to transfer to Ole Miss. He had all week to prepare for his 30-second segment and he botched it big time. Doh. Brad from the 12th Manchild said that Desmond actually made the same mistake both before the game and then again at halftime, though they might just have reaired the same segment.

Just another in the long list of colossal mistakes by ESPN/ABC in their coverage of sports and college football specifically. I never thought I’d be saying this, but I miss Trev Alberts.

The 2006-2007 NCAA bowl season kicks of tonight in sunny San Diego, where TCU faces Northern Illinois in the Poinsettia Bowl. Nothing too exciting for the first week of bowl games, at least until Florida State faces off against UCLA. It will be interesting to see how UCLA bounces back after their big win against USC, and we could possibly be watching Bobby Bowden’s last game as the FSU head coach. And hey, maybe we will get to see those hideous Oregon helments.

Here’s our picks for the coming week’s bowl games both straight up and against the spread:

Related Links

• Complete 2006-2007 Bowl Schedule

The bowl season kicks off tonight with the classic San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl.

I guess this is pretty old, but this is the first I have seen these Interesting Vince Young facts from the Houston Texans message board. Pretty funny stuff. I have included my favorites:

• Vince Young can only get drunk from a combination of rattlesnake venom and hot sauce. And he’s sober again in six minutes.
• Vince Young can eat just one Lay’s potato chip.
• Vince Young once joined a Buddhist Monastery. The Buddhist leaders immediately kicked him out after the Monks began to worship him.
• Vince Young has already been to Mars; that’s why there are no signs of life there.
• Whenever Vince Young needs a new pair of boots he just goes out and kicks through a cow.

Remember this summer when the Oregon Ducks announced that they were going to sport diamond plate on their uniforms? Well apparently they have decided that they hadn’t gone far enough. Now Oregon is toying with the idea of donning new helmets that change color depending on the angle you look at them. This is what they will look like:

The hope is to have all of the helmets arrive before their Las Vegas Bowl match-up against BYU in a week. My hope is to not have to ever see these hideous things on TV. Players are going to have to start wearing tinted masks just to play Oregon. Seriously Oregon, what can you be thinking here?

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Oregon Helmets Even Worse Than I Thought

Oregon is getting whipped right now by BYU in the Las Vegas Bowl and their helmets are actually even worse than I thought they were going to be. They don’t look like they change colors like they claimed, they’re just incredibly shiny and obnoxious.

Yikes.

Not Longhorn related but pretty freaking cool.

Several members of the “Springdale 5” aren’t happy with the way Houston Nutt controlled the [tag]Arkansas[/tag] offense and they’re getting mommy and daddy to complain about it. Rumors of trouble in Fayettenam starting swirling last week on the message boards but now the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has a story on it as well. The parents of quarterback Mitch Mustain and WR’s Damian Williams and Ben Cleveland apparently thought the offense should be tailored around them as true freshmen so they went above head coach Houston Nutt’s head to athletic director Frank Broyles. There’s some pretty interesting quotes in the article:

“The reason for the meeting was very simple,�? Rick Cleveland said. “We wanted to know what is the direction of Arkansas’ football program ? Are we eventually going to get to Gus’ offense ? Or are we going to stay with the way we are at present?�?

The way you are at present? You mean in the SEC Championship Game and having a chance for a national title in the final weeks of the season?

“With our kids going to Arkansas, it’s basically like trying to fit a square peg into a round hole,�? Rick Cleveland said of the offense. “When Gus came onto the scene, the very first question we would ask was, ‘Do you have full control of the offense and do you have full control of the personnel ?’ Which we were told, ‘Yes.’

“I don’t believe Gus lied to us. But as the season has progressed, it’s very obvious that this is not Gus Malzahn’s offense and Gus does not have full control of the personnel or the play calling.

“From our perspective – and it’s only our perspective – it seems as if you’ve been sold a bill of goods.

“We never would have committed here knowing that this was the offense, because we knew our boys wouldn’t be happy.�?

I can’t believe they’re actually publicly complaining about an offense that resulted in one of Arkansas’ best seasons in many years, made running back Darren McFadden the Heisman Trophy runner-up, and is getting offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn national honors as a coach. This is an incredible display of immaturity and selfishness and I can’t believe these kids parents are supporting it. Clearly they think their stats are more important than the team winning.

Damien Williams has already asked for and been granted release from his scholarship and will be transferring from Arkansas. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mustain and Cleveland followed him, though they’re currently saying all the right things and that they’re going to be Razorbacks for three more years.

All this drama is definitely entertaining for Longhorn fans and I hope things only get worse.

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