Jeff Howe

Needless to say, I’m looking forward to the THSCA Convention this year!

After the way Texas was treated when Chris Beard took his team to Lubbock, after the Big 12 commissioner was openly cheering for Tech to beat Texas and after Kirby Hocutt teased a long-term non-conference series that was never close to a done deal (from what I was told), if I were CDC, I’d tell Tech to kick rocks for eternity.

At this point, we’re in it up to our knees!

It was the propane tanks on HWY 138 in Florence, Texas!

Ted DiBiase as the “Million Dollar Man”

What world do we live in where the Aggies are making sense?

I actually feel bad for the Tech fans who’ve fallen hook, line and sinker for the wrestling promo.

Joey knows this won’t happen, Cody Campbell knows this won’t happen and anybody with two brain cells knows this just big talk with no consequences for what’s said. That won’t stop a portion of the Tech fan base from thinking they got one over on Texas and that the Longhorns “are too scared to play them.” Texas has never and will never view Tech as a rival. The first truly noteworthy season since Tech fired the best coach in its history doesn’t make you elite. It doesn’t mean you get to dictate terms to anyone outside the Mickey Mouse league you couldn’t wait for Texas and OU to vacate. It makes you obnoxious. Best case scenario for Tech’s season is they’ll roll through the Big 12, get a bye into the CFP quarterfinals and then soundly lose to a team with as much or more talent. Wash, rinse and repeat.

The number of Tech folks who truly believe this could happen or view it as anything other than posturing is staggering.

I’ve yet to hear one person on the Texas Tech side say Sark was wrong about Tech’s garbage schedule. Also, as I said after Sark’s comments in Houston, it’s not Texas’ responsibility to improve Tech’s non-conference schedule. Play a big-boy opponent out of conference and you can have a seat at the table with the other adults.

This technically isn't a Yacht Rock track, but it's Steely Dan, so it kinda counts. Regardless, Craig Way used this song to intro his old radio show with Bill Schoening. When I co-hosted with Craig on The Horn, I convinced him to bring it back to intro the second hour of our show.

I completely misread Eli Drinkwitz. I like the cut of his jib.

@Blake Munroe hinted at this initially during our livestream in conjunction with the selection show on Monday. We knew Dylan Volantis wouldn’t start against Holy Cross. The only question was whether Schloss and Max Weiner would go with Harrison or make it a bullpen game. The Longhorns are going with the veteran lefty, who has been better at Disch-Falk than he has on the road.

From the article: “Per sources in the room, one league coach whose team was in the playoff mix but did not make the field said he felt worse after hearing the presentation than he did when his team was excluded on Selection Sunday.”

Chris Del Conte and Steve Sarkisian have been in lockstep regarding Texas’ non-conference football schedule. The Longhorns will honor their home-and-home agreements with Ohio State and Michigan, with the Buckeyes coming to Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium on Sept. 12 and the Wolverines heading to town on Sept. 11, 2027. Beyond those two return bouts from marquee non-conference games played during the 2024 (a resounding 31-12 victory over the reigning national champions at the Big House) and 2025 (a 14-7 loss in the Horseshoe) seasons, nothing is set in stone. That includes a scheduled home-and-home with Notre Dame. Texas is scheduled to travel to South Bend in 2028, while the Fighting Irish are scheduled to travel to Austin in 2029. At the SEC spring meetings in Destin on Wednesday, Del Conte indicated the Longhorns aren’t locked into what would be the 13th and 14th all-time meetings between two of college football’s most iconic brands. “They’re tentatively on the schedule right now,” Del Conte said. Given the uncertainty surrounding the future format and access into the College Football Playoff, Texas is in a tough spot regarding the two scheduled games with the Irish. The school’s television partners (ESPN and NBC) wouldn’t hesitate to put the Longhorns and Notre Dame in primetime. The 2015 meeting — a 38-3 loss for Texas during a Saturday night season opener in South Bend — was seen by 4.1 million viewers on NBC. The 2016 game in Austin — a memorable 50-47 double-overtime triumph played on Sunday night during Labor Day weekend — drew more than 10.9 million viewers on ABC, making it the fourth most-watched college football game of the season. Still, if CFP expansion doesn’t appropriately reward teams willing to schedule tough non-conference games, there’s no incentive for Texas to schedule Notre Dame or another high-level power conference opponent. CFP executive director Rich Clark went through the CFP selection process on Tuesday. The exercise didn’t significantly clear things up for Del Conte, who saw the Longhorns rewarded for scheduling Alabama and Michigan in 2023 and 2024, only to be excluded from the 12-team field last season due, in large part, to suffering a season-opening road loss at the hands of Ohio State. “It's hard to determine what the metrics are as a 9-3 and 10-2 schedule to say, these guys [won] 10 games, but they lost to these two teams. [Are they] better than a team that lost three games and didn't just schedule who they played?” Del Conte said. “I need more clarity on that. “It's part of the criteria,” he added. “It's hard to determine how it's being considered because you also have human nature in the room.” Del Conte didn’t make any not-so-thinly-veiled references to Texas Tech, like the one Sarkisian made last Thursday in Houston. What was missed amid Red Raider nation taking umbrage with Sarkisian’s comments to an audience of staunch Longhorn supporters, however, is what Del Conte echoed on Tuesday: the reality that the lack of equitable scheduling in college football eliminates the incentive to play non-conference games against the Big Ten and SEC opponents Texas has had on the schedule in each of Sarkisian’s five seasons as head coach. “One of the things that makes college football great is your non-conference schedule and what your regular season is,” Del Conte said. “When you play in games of that nature, you should get rewarded for that. When you have a really watered-down schedule — and the thing that gets college football so different is not every schedule is the same. In the NFL, you know exactly what it is — there's 32 teams, they play it all out correctly. In our sport, it's hard to judge one league from the next in terms of their strength of schedule and who you play. It was great for us to have our coaches hear what they look for, but you also left there murky as hell, too.” Although Greg Sankey said on Wednesday that a 16-team CFP is the format the SEC prefers, schools will continue to cancel future games against Power Four opponents until a new format is agreed upon. To that end, Del Conte didn’t commit to preferring the 12-team format, but he indicated he doesn’t want the powers that be to expand for the sake of expanding. “It’s changed so quickly,” Del Conte said, noting college football went from using the BCS to crown a national champion to a four-team playoff to the current 12-team format in the span of 12 seasons (2013-24). “We’re in our second year of that opportunity. I do think there needs to be some time to see how this plays out, but in the NFL, there’s 32 teams — 14 make it. In Major League Baseball, there’s 30 teams and 17 make it. The percentages — you look at the NBA (16 of 30 teams make the playoffs, with the last four spots in each conference determined by a series of play-in games). “I think it’s right for people to ask what the right number is, but at the end of the day, I’m also looking at it that we have young kids that, if you’re not playing in the playoff, they’re not playing in the bowl game,” he added. “They’re looking for different opportunities with how the transfer portal works now. We’ve had so much change in such a short amount of time that I do think we need a little bit of time to evaluate that. It’s not just, ‘Hey! Let’s jump to this!’” View full news story

Arkansas doesn't seem to be in a position to make demands. Regardless, Hunter Yurachek calling out ESPN is certainly a move. A fair number of folks, from fans to media members, are happily dunking on Yurachek over on the Twitter machine.

Not a huge card by any stretch, but I snagged this one from one of the value boxes at the grand opening of Tom Brady’s Austin store today:

Also, let the record show that @Hank South is a stand-up guy. I offered him a place in line next to me to get into the store, but he walked to the back of the line.

FWIW, Baylor is still playing Auburn this season, but the game was moved to a neutral site (Atlanta).

The worst part is @Joe Zura doesn't get access to Dan Lanning's hot tub at the Quality Inn in Waco:

Tom Brady wasn't there today (their Friends & Family event was yesterday). Still, I left pleasantly surprised with the store. Bought a few cards from the value boxes and a Topps Chrome football hanger box.