40 Acres Sports

DJ Augustin interview by FanHouse at Vegas summer league. Discusses head tattoos, Larry Brown, and the status of his knee.

Kevin Durant will play for Oklahoma City Thunder in 2008-09. Awful name. I was hoping they’d go with the Durantulas.

ESPN.com’s Tim Griffin catches up with James Brown. He’s currently playing for the CenTex Barracudas in the IFL.

The Texas Rangers called up former Longhorns catcher [tag]Taylor Teagarden[/tag] earlier Friday and Sunday he had a game he won’t soon forget. Against the Twins Sunday he recorded his first big league hit by hitting a gamewinning home run and breaking up a perfect game in the process.

Taylor took a 3-2 pitch in the sixth inning out to deep left center and just over the centerfielder’s glove and the wall. He’s still got the great looking swing that brought him so much success at Texas and will soon make him an everyday catcher for some Major League team. I think he’ll end up a guy who plays good defense at catcher, plays a little first base, and hits .280 with 20 homers every year. A guy can have a nice long career with those numbers.

The Rangers have four good young catchers and three of them are up on the 25-man roster right now. One of those three will likely be sent down to the minors today (possibly Teagarden) and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the Rangers traded a catcher before the July 31st deadline.

Congrats Taylor on the great week!

• Game recap
• Video highlight

Five-star future Texas quarterback [tag]Garrett Gilbert[/tag] received another honor last week when he was named as one of the invitees to the prestigious Elite 11 quarterback camp. The invite-only camp is the top quarterback instructional camp in the country and only the best of the best attend. Previous Elite 11 QB’s include Vince Young, Matt Leinart, and JaMarcus Russell. Our own [tag]Colt McCoy[/tag] will be one of the counselors this year along with other top college players.

Here’s the writeup on Gilbert from the ESPN story:

A record-setting Texan with tremendous pocket-passing ability and deceptive athleticism. He emerged as a rising junior when he threw for 2,859 yards and 30 touchdowns and impressed on the Nike Camp and EA SPORTS Elite 11 regional tour. He’s showed not only great skill but also intangibles and toughness last fall, leading his team to a state title despite suffering a shoulder early in the season that required surgery in the off-season. Despite not even turning 17 yet, is a confident, versatile and productive performer who set Texas state records last fall and should only get better as he matures. Son of former NFL quarterback Gale Gilbert. Committed to Texas way back in February over Texas A&M, Nebraska and a host of others.

10 years of Mack from The Daily Texan. Brown has had many high points over the past 10 years at Texas.

Chip Brown is joining Rivals and Orangebloods. Best (only?) college football columnist is leaving the paper for the Interweb.

Video game website IGN.com reviews NCAA Football 09 and thinks this year’s version is pretty impressive. The game continues to increase the overall college atmosphere in the game every year and this season the additions of online 60-year dynasties with your friends/enemies makes the game definitely worth a purchase.

Watch the video below:

Go buy the game from Amazon.com and then add HookEm722 to your Xbox Live friends list if you want to take me on. We’ll be trying to organize an online dynasty on the site soon, stay tuned.

Has the Red River Shootout declined? Stewart Mandel believes so & thinks the Horns have something to prove.

Daniel Gibson signs five-year contract with Cleveland Cavaliers. Great news for the former Horn. Congrats.