Media Days Malaise

Big 12 media days have begun. Check out the following blogs in the coming days for coverage of the Fourth Estate's binge in San Antonio, as well as our own takes on various issues.

Burnt Orange Nation--The visionary of Big 12 bloggers
The 12th Manchild--Solid coverage of one of the most interesting South teams this year.
Corn Nation--Excellent Husker coverage. Like the addition of occasional Husker Mike posts recently.
Clone Chronicles--CrossCyed will keep you up-to-date on Gene Chizik's first year.
Rock Chalk Talk--Great coverage of that school to the east.
Double T Nation--Seth C keeps a watchful eye on Crazy Mike Leach's team from the South Plains.

I'll begin my preseason coverage by reiterating my predicted finish in each division:
North
1. Missouri
2. Nebraska
3. K-State
4. KU
5. Iowa State
6. Colorado
***I will stick with these predictions even though they were made in May. CU should be better than last year, but I'm not sold that they'll be much better.

I think Chizik knows his X's and O's (esp. on defense) and will get Iowa State to play hard, which could be worth a slight improvement.

I question KU's offense a little bit after losing Cornish, but they do have a pretty good defense.

Some others think I'm picking K-State too low. I would consider us the darkhorse for the North right now, with Mizzou and Nebraska being the pick of the pundits. The questions are at offensive line and linebacker (and maybe wide receiver). If we see improvement there, we have a chance.

Nebraska has some defense questions, particularly with the defensive line and secondary. The offense should be pretty good. The key will be the defense's improvement and how well Sam Keller (or whomever the QB is) plays. No earth-shattering news there.

Mizzou has, on paper, the best offense in the North. They also have the most questions on defense. I think they'll score a lot of points, enough to win some games their defense might lose them if the offense was only average.

South
1. Texas
2. Oklahoma
3. Oklahoma State
4. Texas Tech
5. Texas A&M
6. Baylor

Baylor lost a lot and is going to have a really tough year.

I probably picked A&M too low. I think they'll probably finish above Tech, and could possibly be better than one of the three of Okie State, OU and UT. We'll see how they deal with a brutal schedule.

Tech has a quarterback returning for the first time in probably my lifetime. But they lost a lot of good players (especially Filani) on offense and defense. Can the Mad Scientist reload, or will he have to rebuild?

Oklahoma State is my surprise team this year. I think they could very well win the South, maybe the conference, but I just don't have the cojones to make that pick. Love the offense, reminds me of Snyder's offense in the late 90s.

Oklahoma has to replace Paul Thompson, but other than that they're in pretty good shape. Could very well win the division.

The Horns' pass defense was pitiful last year, and they lost several of their best secondary players. Will it be addition by subtraction? Or will the newcomers fail to step it up?

Check back in the coming days for more of TB's preseason prognostications and other astounding alliterations.

***

I want to lay to rest one thing that still pops up occasionally, although I know I'll never convince the haterade drinkers otherwise. Big 12 media days started today, and even though The Prince and His Court aren't up until tomorrow, I figured I'd be an informed blogger by reading the comments from Oklahoma, KU, Nebraska and Baylor.

I started off with KU. Not much exciting there. Mangino used his favorite phrase, "hard-nosed", to describe a few of his players. Good to know we won't be seeing any broken noses keeping KU players out of football games this fall.

Then I moved on to Nebraska. And while I was reading, I realized I just couldn't let some of these Callahan Classics go without commenting. The man from Oakland described his staff's recruitment of Terrence Nunn as such...

We had an opportunity to recruit Terrence, who at that point was committed to Wisconsin. And first off...Turner Gill and myself went down. And he was initially going to be committed to Nebraska. Then there was a coaching change. He decided to go to Wisconsin. So we went back down there. I told Turner, I said, 'Let's go down there and get this guy.' There's no way we're going to let this guy go to Wisconsin where he can be in a pro passing system.

If I had a dollar for every time a Nebraska fan/friend/family member of mine told me Ron Prince was a dirty recruiter for "stealing" Josh Freeman from big red, I'd have enough money to join River Oaks Country Club.

We need to put to rest one major myth of recruiting that is poorly understood by the average fan. When a recruit is "committed" to a certain school, it usually means he's orally committed, which is non-binding. Is it questionable to recruit an oral commitment? Maybe. Is it ethically indefensible? Despite what Jim Rose may have told you (listen to it, it's comical), no, it is not. Is it at least ethically questionable to hope another player gets hurt? And congrats to your coach for handling the situation really well.

The Josh Freeman situation was pretty much identical to the Terrence Nunn situation. Ron Prince recruited Josh Freeman while he was at Virginia. Nebraska had recruited Nunn before Callahan got there. Freeman orally committed to another school; Nunn committed to another school. Prince reopened recruitment of Freeman; Callahan reopened Nebraska's recruitment of Nunn.

This happens every year at a lot of different schools. Every school has benefitted from it, and every school has been jilted by it. It happens. Get over it.

I bet I didn't change anyone's mind. But it sure made me feel better.

I'll be at Minute Maid watching the Dodgers slaughter the Astros tomorrow, but I'll be back Wednesday with more preseason media days rants.