1 for 3 only getting Texas right.
Aggies lose straight up and Tech doesn't get close to covering...
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Friday, August 29, 2008
Eastern Washington Preview and game picks
Tip of the cap to Mr. John Baucum.
Each week this season I will pick against the spread for Tech, A&M, and Texas.
Spread: Tech -35 at home against Eastern Washington
My prediction:
Tech 62
EWU 7
Texas A&M -19.5 at home against Arkansas State
My prediction:
A&M 24
Arkansas State 10
Texas -24 at home against Florida Atlantic
My Prediction:
Texas 50
FAU 17
Each week this season I will pick against the spread for Tech, A&M, and Texas.
Spread: Tech -35 at home against Eastern Washington
My prediction:
Tech 62
EWU 7
Texas A&M -19.5 at home against Arkansas State
My prediction:
A&M 24
Arkansas State 10
Texas -24 at home against Florida Atlantic
My Prediction:
Texas 50
FAU 17
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Westin's first baseball game
I am a little late posting this, but on August 16th I took Westin to his first Major League game. The Texas Rangers against the Tampa Bay Rays. Final score was 3-0, but I think I came out the winner. I remember my dad and Uncle John taking me to my first baseball game and it made me a Houston Astros fan for life. I just remember my dad chanting Jooooosssssseeeeee Cruuuuuuuuuzzzzz every time he came up to bat. Another time I went to an Astros game, Glenn Davis hit a home run 6 seats from me. Needless to say, Astro fan for life.
Anyway, Westin and I lucked out in that practically the only day in August under 90 degrees we got to go to the game. Westin had to have cotton candy and peanuts so that was good. We sat behind home plate on the highest deck. Not too bad of seats. Westin had a ton of questions about the game and everything that was going on. I kept asking him if he wanted to go, but he said is it over? I told him no and then he said he wanted to stay until its over. His favorite part was the bus ride from the car to the stadium and then back. Oh, and he loves Josh Hamilton too.
Anyway, Westin and I lucked out in that practically the only day in August under 90 degrees we got to go to the game. Westin had to have cotton candy and peanuts so that was good. We sat behind home plate on the highest deck. Not too bad of seats. Westin had a ton of questions about the game and everything that was going on. I kept asking him if he wanted to go, but he said is it over? I told him no and then he said he wanted to stay until its over. His favorite part was the bus ride from the car to the stadium and then back. Oh, and he loves Josh Hamilton too.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Presidential...Race?
Came across a good article today in the Wall Street Journal. I must confess as a person who always has voted primarily republican in the past, I did vote in the Democratic primary this past spring and I am intrigued by Barack Obama. I am not a big fan of John McCain either, so I am basically still undecided at this point before the November election. Throughout this whole process I could see things like this coming:
I hate racism and I hate the fact that even more that people think racism does not know color. Racism works every which way you can think. Look up the definition in the dictionary. I don't see a color listed.
Part of what makes this country great is the opportunity to disagree with your fellow citizen. I fear the repercussions if people will not be able to disagree with a President Obama.
By saying if Obama drops in the polls, Americans are racist is dumb. What if Obama wins? Does every white person in America have to agree with every decision he makes lest the be called a racist? I for see some bad times ahead if that turns out to be true.
"Call me crazy, but isn't it possible, just possible, that Obama's lead is being inhibited by the fact that he is, you know, black?" wrote John Heilemann in New York magazine earlier this month. "What makes Obama's task of scoring white votes at Kerry-Gore levels so formidable is, to put it bluntly, racial prejudice."
I hate racism and I hate the fact that even more that people think racism does not know color. Racism works every which way you can think. Look up the definition in the dictionary. I don't see a color listed.
Part of what makes this country great is the opportunity to disagree with your fellow citizen. I fear the repercussions if people will not be able to disagree with a President Obama.
College Football is almost here
Good article I came across today on RedRaiderSports.com by Joe Yeager. Pretty much sums up how I feel about the coming season:
For a great many Americans, this is the best time of the year. True, most of us love Thanksgiving, and some of us persevere through the hurly and the burly of December with our love of Christmas intact. And the young and the superhuman may even revel in the coming of the New Year.
But for raw anticipation and a sense of child-like giddiness, many of us find it is impossible to beat the onset of college football season. It brings about the same sensations we experienced as pre-teens toward Christmas. Christmas for full-grown men (well mostly full-grown, and mostly men), that is the ticket.
Why does the approach of college football quicken the pulse, enliven the senses, and stake a claim to the sinew of our soul like no other phenomenon? I think nostalgia, tradition, and memory are the kernel of it all. And for that reason, the passion for college football probably grows keener, if also more mellow in a sense, the older one gets.
College football, perhaps like no other institution in American society, is steeped in lore, tradition and history. From the first college football game, an immediately post-bellum contest between Princeton and Rutgers, to the present day, college football has cultivated its legends and kept alive its ghosts.
The names are legion and they evoke reverence from the initiates of the college football experience. Rockne, Red Grange, Glen Davis and Doc Blanchard, Parseghian, Bear Bryant, Ernie Davis, Staubach, Herschel Walker, Sammy Baugh, Doak Walker, Hayes and Schembechler. The ledger of the immortals is well nigh endless. Actually, it is endless because new names are added with each passing season.
And embedded within this pantheon are myriad smaller constellations of great ones who cohere around individual colleges and universities. For this reason, college football is not just vast and overawing, it is intimate and personal.
Each of us as, college football parishioners, know well the names of the luminaries who have flashed across our local gridiron. As Red Raiders, we can recite the names without effort. E.J. "Double Tough" Holub. Donny "The Golden Palomino" Anderson. Dave Parks. Gabriel "Senor Sack" Rivera. Zach Thomas. And Wes "The Natural" Welker. What's more, most of us have seen most, if not all of these players perform.
And the cycle does not end. It only grows richer. Names like Graham Harrell, Michael Crabtree and Mike Leach are eligible for enlistment in the shrines of our mind. Perhaps one or more of them will scale such heights that they will vault beyond the local firmament and find a place within the hearts and souls of college football fans in Happy Valley; Athens, Georgia; Knoxville, Tennessee; Madison, Wisconsin and Palo Alto, California.
But, of course, it's not just the individual players and coaches who bind us to college football's past, even as they enmesh us in its present. There are the great teams and the great games. And the great plays... the miraculous, the exuberating, and the heart-rending.
Where but college football is a game decided by a kickoff return on the last play, that features five laterals and the final returner weaving through a marching band and belting a trombone player?
Where, but in a college football game, does a pint-sized quarterback named Flutie slay the Goliath that was Miami with a last second Hail Mary to somebody named Gerard Phelan, and in the process, cement his name in American history?
Where, but in college football does a rag-tag team coached by Jerry Moore jump up and tie Eric Dickerson, Craig James and the No. 2 squad in the land, only to have it snatched away by a cross-field lateral on a kickoff return that goes 91 yards for the decisive score?
Moore, incidentally, would exact his revenge on the Fates by leading an afterthought of an Appalachian State team into the Big House of the Michigan Wolverines and authoring one of the greatest upsets in American sports history.
And it is that time again. The nights are getting cooler. The drumbeats and the brass of marching bands can be heard in college towns from the Pacific through the Heartland and on to the Atlantic. In preparation for the great autumnal rite, Americans of all walks of life are planning their tailgate parties, breaking out their football apparel, and anticipating the walk across the alma mater campus toward the kickoff that will plunge us all back into the frenzy. Back into history.
What memories will be etched, what new legends will we witness on the morrow?
For a great many Americans, this is the best time of the year. True, most of us love Thanksgiving, and some of us persevere through the hurly and the burly of December with our love of Christmas intact. And the young and the superhuman may even revel in the coming of the New Year.
 |  |
| |
| What Graham Harrell and the Red Raiders do this season, good or bad, will always be remembered. |
Why does the approach of college football quicken the pulse, enliven the senses, and stake a claim to the sinew of our soul like no other phenomenon? I think nostalgia, tradition, and memory are the kernel of it all. And for that reason, the passion for college football probably grows keener, if also more mellow in a sense, the older one gets.
College football, perhaps like no other institution in American society, is steeped in lore, tradition and history. From the first college football game, an immediately post-bellum contest between Princeton and Rutgers, to the present day, college football has cultivated its legends and kept alive its ghosts.
The names are legion and they evoke reverence from the initiates of the college football experience. Rockne, Red Grange, Glen Davis and Doc Blanchard, Parseghian, Bear Bryant, Ernie Davis, Staubach, Herschel Walker, Sammy Baugh, Doak Walker, Hayes and Schembechler. The ledger of the immortals is well nigh endless. Actually, it is endless because new names are added with each passing season.
And embedded within this pantheon are myriad smaller constellations of great ones who cohere around individual colleges and universities. For this reason, college football is not just vast and overawing, it is intimate and personal.
Each of us as, college football parishioners, know well the names of the luminaries who have flashed across our local gridiron. As Red Raiders, we can recite the names without effort. E.J. "Double Tough" Holub. Donny "The Golden Palomino" Anderson. Dave Parks. Gabriel "Senor Sack" Rivera. Zach Thomas. And Wes "The Natural" Welker. What's more, most of us have seen most, if not all of these players perform.
And the cycle does not end. It only grows richer. Names like Graham Harrell, Michael Crabtree and Mike Leach are eligible for enlistment in the shrines of our mind. Perhaps one or more of them will scale such heights that they will vault beyond the local firmament and find a place within the hearts and souls of college football fans in Happy Valley; Athens, Georgia; Knoxville, Tennessee; Madison, Wisconsin and Palo Alto, California.
But, of course, it's not just the individual players and coaches who bind us to college football's past, even as they enmesh us in its present. There are the great teams and the great games. And the great plays... the miraculous, the exuberating, and the heart-rending.
Where but college football is a game decided by a kickoff return on the last play, that features five laterals and the final returner weaving through a marching band and belting a trombone player?
Where, but in a college football game, does a pint-sized quarterback named Flutie slay the Goliath that was Miami with a last second Hail Mary to somebody named Gerard Phelan, and in the process, cement his name in American history?
Where, but in college football does a rag-tag team coached by Jerry Moore jump up and tie Eric Dickerson, Craig James and the No. 2 squad in the land, only to have it snatched away by a cross-field lateral on a kickoff return that goes 91 yards for the decisive score?
Moore, incidentally, would exact his revenge on the Fates by leading an afterthought of an Appalachian State team into the Big House of the Michigan Wolverines and authoring one of the greatest upsets in American sports history.
And it is that time again. The nights are getting cooler. The drumbeats and the brass of marching bands can be heard in college towns from the Pacific through the Heartland and on to the Atlantic. In preparation for the great autumnal rite, Americans of all walks of life are planning their tailgate parties, breaking out their football apparel, and anticipating the walk across the alma mater campus toward the kickoff that will plunge us all back into the frenzy. Back into history.
What memories will be etched, what new legends will we witness on the morrow?
Sunday, August 24, 2008
you must protect this house
So I am in Dick's sporting goods last night and I just loved their selection of Under Armour gear. I am a huge fan of everything that they put out. Clothing, shoes, backpacks, hoodies, you name it. It doesn't hurt that they are the official outfitter of Texas Tech either.
Everything I have from Under Armour right now is probably my favorite article of clothing that I have. Work out shorts, Golf polo's, its all good stuff. Anyway, if I had some spare change I would invest in them as well. In a short amount of time, they have made a great penetration into the athletic clothing market especially to young athletes at the high school and college level.
Everything I have from Under Armour right now is probably my favorite article of clothing that I have. Work out shorts, Golf polo's, its all good stuff. Anyway, if I had some spare change I would invest in them as well. In a short amount of time, they have made a great penetration into the athletic clothing market especially to young athletes at the high school and college level.
less than a week away
I have been looking forward to the 2008 Texas Tech football season since the day Graham Harrell committed to Tech in the fall of 2003. All signs pointed then that this was to be the season that everything came together. A highly recruited quarterback who would be a senior sets the stage for high hopes when Mike Leach is your QB coach. Anyway, I went and saw Graham play in the Texas HS football playoffs for Ennis the day after Thanksgiving 2003. Ennis played Highland Park at Texas Stadium that day. HP was QB'ed by someone you may have heard of, Matthew Stafford who was a sophomore that season. Anyway, I left that game impressed with Graham but thinking with should be recruiting that guy.
While QB is an important position, I have come to believe that it is the second most important position on the field behind the Offensive Line. That is why I have such high hopes for this season in that we return all 5 starters from last year and 2 of them should be NFL draft picks in Rylan Reed and Louis Vasquez. Good story on Reed if you haven't read it.
Finally, offensively you need to have good receivers to catch if you throw the ball a lot. Which brings us to Michael Crabtree. I am an eternal Tech skeptic and often don't believe the hype until I see it on the scoreboard or the field. I had heard the reports about this kid who we redshirted in 2006 just dominating practice. I thought sure, our defense is not that great anyway, so whats the big deal. Also, Jarrett Hicks, Joel Filiani (6th round NFL pick), and Robert Johnson were all returning receivers for the 2006 season so he wouldn't get to play anyway. Labor Day 2007 made me a believer. 3 TDs in your college debut is pretty good, but the fact he made it look so easy. Then he did it the next week, and the next. Pretty amazing stuff. I am really bummed this will be his last year in a Tech uniform as thanks to that redshirt, he will be playing in the NFL in 2009.
Enough of my rambling on Tech football today. I am ready for the season can't you tell? I will try to write some of my opinions on the defense later this week. I think that will be the true test of can we break through or are we just going to have a good season?
While QB is an important position, I have come to believe that it is the second most important position on the field behind the Offensive Line. That is why I have such high hopes for this season in that we return all 5 starters from last year and 2 of them should be NFL draft picks in Rylan Reed and Louis Vasquez. Good story on Reed if you haven't read it.
Finally, offensively you need to have good receivers to catch if you throw the ball a lot. Which brings us to Michael Crabtree. I am an eternal Tech skeptic and often don't believe the hype until I see it on the scoreboard or the field. I had heard the reports about this kid who we redshirted in 2006 just dominating practice. I thought sure, our defense is not that great anyway, so whats the big deal. Also, Jarrett Hicks, Joel Filiani (6th round NFL pick), and Robert Johnson were all returning receivers for the 2006 season so he wouldn't get to play anyway. Labor Day 2007 made me a believer. 3 TDs in your college debut is pretty good, but the fact he made it look so easy. Then he did it the next week, and the next. Pretty amazing stuff. I am really bummed this will be his last year in a Tech uniform as thanks to that redshirt, he will be playing in the NFL in 2009.
Enough of my rambling on Tech football today. I am ready for the season can't you tell? I will try to write some of my opinions on the defense later this week. I think that will be the true test of can we break through or are we just going to have a good season?
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Please organize these steps in the correct order:
Step 1: Get college scholarship by being pretty darn good wide receiver.
Step 2: Sign with college of choice, in this case the University of Oklahoma.
Step 3: Carry gun to high school.
Step 4: Get kicked out of high school but still graduate by obtaining GED.
Step 5: Rap about guns and post on youtube.
Step 6: Lose College Scholarship.
If you answered they are already in the correct order, you win!
Then tell me this. Why did Dusty Dvoracek get back on the team after putting a guy in a coma? Why is DeMarcus Granger still on the team after his arrest? Why did Phil Loadholt stay on the team? Something ain't right in sooner land...
Step 2: Sign with college of choice, in this case the University of Oklahoma.
Step 3: Carry gun to high school.
Step 4: Get kicked out of high school but still graduate by obtaining GED.
Step 5: Rap about guns and post on youtube.
Step 6: Lose College Scholarship.
If you answered they are already in the correct order, you win!
Then tell me this. Why did Dusty Dvoracek get back on the team after putting a guy in a coma? Why is DeMarcus Granger still on the team after his arrest? Why did Phil Loadholt stay on the team? Something ain't right in sooner land...
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