As long as we have all these t-shirts...the university sent 13,000 championship shirts and 1,000 hats to Haiti to clothe their people with the garb of the loser. I always think it's a good thing when programs and leagues send the merchandise of the losing teams to places where just having clothing is valuable but you have to admit there is a degree of irony.
Recruiting
Scouts Inc, for ESPN has the class ranking$ up with brief descriptions of the various classes. Most of you could probably have written the write-up on the Texas class but it's interesting to check up on the league competition. For those without insider they grade at Texas: A+, OU: A, Aggy: B, Pokes: B-, UM: B-, Briles: C+, NU:C+, TT: C+, CU: C-, ISU: C-, KU: C-, KSU: D.
Stoops brought in his usual strong class which pleases NateHeupel greatly.
Snyder loaded up on JUCO's like back in the good old days. I hope Texas smashes that squad by 50 points, I'm only a few more inexplicable KSU victories over Texas from developing an Aggy complex towards beating them...and that cannot happen.
I would argue that Nebraska is the strongest program in the North right now with Missouri as the closest competition with Mangino gone, however they don't have a "wow!" class coming in yet. I'm sure Pellini is assembling some workers to build that defense up and maybe they'll start drawing skill talent from the momentum of the Big 12 Championship appearance and bowl victory though I'm beginning to think they should run a "gimmick" offense that won't be so reliant on outstanding talent and put their better athletes on defense since it's hard to draw skill guys to Lincoln. For instance, who would want to play a Flexbone operating Nebraska with these Pellini defenses? That would force every defense in the Big 12 to add the triple option to their practices every fall and be especially difficult for the Big 12 south teams not playing them every year. Hopefully somebody from Better Off Red can comment.
The South has some obnoxiously solid classes coming in for OSU and A&M. It'll never be easy in the Big 12.
For a nice, more in-depth look at the classes you can check out the Big 12 blog wrap-up by Tim Griffin. Look especially for the quotes by Pelini about recruiting. He sounds like the Bill Parcells of the Big 12, he just doesn't care what you think, or at least that's what he wants you to believe.
Rivals, perhaps looking to compete with ESPN with noise, named USC the top recruiting class of 2010. That's right, not Texas, not Florida, but Lane Kiffin's USC. You knew Kiffin and Orgeron were good recruiters but that's a shocking achievement. It is somewhat dependent on USC escaping the NCAA's hearing later in February which will determine whether top OL and overall recruit Seantrel Henderson chooses to go there. You can see the whole class and their rivals rankings here.
After all the fanfare for Florida and our own excitement it's easy to be very skeptic of the validity of this. But I challenge you to check their class. They have 4 LOIs from 5 star recruits with another potentially coming from Henderson after the hearing. It's a typical USC class with 4.4 guys everywhere, tons of skill talent and 3 big time TEs. Overall four 5 stars (1 more pending), thirteen 4 stars (1 more pending) and one 3 star. Basically Kiffin just locked down Pete Carroll's class and threw in a few more big splashes. Credit to USC for hiring that snake who was able to immediately assemble a Pete Carroll era dream team and bring along one of the best D-Coordinators in the country. Incredible.
They are off to a fast start for 2015, already locking up their quarterback. Once you get the quarterback the rest will follow. I suspect this primarily as an attention grabber and a means of selling Kiffin's long-term commitment after his short stay at Tennessee. We can probably look forward to stupid quotes like, "We knew with David Sills on board that Kiffin was committed to excellence for the next decade and we wanted to be a part of that." On the other hand, that's one deep well of potential comedy to draw from.
Basketball:
Talk along the Red River has been quiet recently. NorthDallasSooner chimes in on the disappointing outcomes of their season over at Boomer & Sooner.
Apparently they have three McDonalds All-Americans. Wouldn't have guessed. Last year after being punished on the road, Texas managed to knock Blake Griffin out of the game and overcome a 27 point game by Warren to win by five. You may remember it as one of the games where Abrams managed to hit enough shots for Texas to win (he was 8-17 for 23). Really we are going back to the day when Barnes should have realized that Dogus Balbay setting screens should be a foundational part of the offense because it was Turkish Delight who knocked Griffin woozy with a screen early in the game. Looking back I notice he put up a 10, 8, 9 in that game as well, very nice.
At any rate, Pittman was starting to come into his own and giving Griffin a great deal of trouble down low. Also of note from that game, Connor Atchley played last season? I forgot his final year was so recent...what a dismal end to such an impressive career.