Senior writer/Texpert,
@TheAthletic
, covering college football in Texas
@UHouston
alumnus
RIP
@AschoffESPN
🌸
Links to my work, IG, Threads, email, etc in bio ⬇️
Why did Baylor bring Dave Aranda back for a fifth year?
Inside the meeting where he sold leadership, pledged a return to his defensive coordinator roots, his plans to overhaul their NIL and much more.
A huge 2024 ahead for the Bears.
✍🏽
@TheAthletic
:
Iowa State coach Matt Campbell on why he hasn't left the Cyclones for another job: "I didn't get into this profession to be somebody. I got into this profession to do something."
Flight attendant on my plane, in thanking customers for their patronage, noted that they are a Dallas-based flight crew and they hoped that they served passengers with a smile.
“But if we didn’t, please send all your complaints to Jason Garrett.”
💀💀
#Cowboys
Texas state senator Charles Perry to UT president Jay Hartzell: "If you're as big and great as you think you are, you should have made the Big 12 equal or better than the SEC. You didn't do it."
🚨 🚨 🚨 WE HAVE THE RECORD🚨 🚨 🚨
Houston scores a touchdown to trim SMU’s lead to 77-63 with 3:37 left.
140 total points is the most in an FBS regulation game in the AP poll era (since 1936).
Now aiming for 146 (7-OT A&M-LSU game in 2018)
Texas state senator Lois Kolkhorst asks what UT's athletic budget is
Jay Hartzell says it's $220-225 million.
Kolkhorst: That's without a winning football team
Hartzell: We've been winning, just not like we like to win.
Kolkhorst: 3-7 against the Horned Frogs
Friday news dump: After 8 1/2 years, today is my last day at ESPN.
I got the call this morning that my soon-to-be expiring contract will not be renewed. Unfortunate, certainly, but I'm more than grateful for the time I had at the company.
Texas A&M signed more 5-star recruits in 2022 (8) than App State has signed top-1000 recruits in the last four years (6).
The Aggies have every talent and resource advantage and it mattered none on Saturday. That's on coaching.
Column
@TheAthleticCFB
:
Some news: I'm back!
Thrilled to announce I've joined
@TheAthletic
as a senior writer for college football. I'll serve as their "Texpert" covering CFB and recruiting across Texas.
What to expect from me:
Subscribe ($1/mo promo!):
Jimbo Fisher said the defensive players were coming over to Zach Calzada and telling him "we'll hold (Colorado). You just give us one (scoring) drive."
Fisher said he was pleased with how his players interacted during the struggles of Saturday's win.
Texas Tech Coach Joey McGuire, asked about the future of the Texas series, which is up in the air once Texas leaves for the SEC:
“We should (continue it). There’s a reason they don’t want to, and it happened today. … We want to play that game.”
5-star CB Denver Harris says he will not announce today. He plans to sign in the early period but will announce after North Shore’s state championship game on Saturday
Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher on the persistent rumors of him being courted to LSU:
"We're gonna recruit an unbelievable class this year. So I'm the dumbest human being on God's earth to recruit all these guys to A&M so I can go across over there and go play against them."
July 12, 2015: Manvel High senior QB Kyle Trask at the
#tx7on7
championships. Had offers from Lamar, McNeese State and Houston Baptist.
Dec. 24, 2020: Florida QB Kyle Trask is a Heisman Trophy finalist.
Pretty remarkable.
I’m probably in the minority here but one of my least favorite developments in CFB TV coverage are halftime shows that offer little or no discussion of the game being broadcast. I see it w/G5 games where they toss to studio and go straight to discussing/promoting CFP or P5 games.
Barring an upset, A&M will have one win over a ranked opponent -- 8-3 Florida.
Their other seven wins will be vs. opponents that today are a combined 20-46.
That is not a Playoff resume.
5⭐️ WR Micah Hudson could go anywhere, with an offer list matching his top-10 recruit status.
But it's Texas Tech that’s ideally positioned in the race at the moment. That says a lot about the direction of the program under Joey McGuire.
✍🏽
@TheAthletic
:
What’s the worst/wildest in-home recruiting visit you’ve ever experienced?
Fights, wild animals, explosions (of multiple kinds) and so much questionable food.
A collection of coaches’ best tales from the road.
I started occasionally wearing flower lapel pins a few years ago after I saw the dapper
@AschoffESPN
sporting them on air.
Honored to do it again today while covering the Cotton Bowl in honor of my dear friend Ed.
Thanks
@BruceFeldmanCFB
for spearheading this effort.
When the
@CFBPlayoff
announced that 6+ years ago that Houston would host the national championship game, I was just hopeful that I’d still be in this industry so I could cover the title game in my hometown.
Mission accomplished. Let’s do this.
We FOIA'd receipts and itineraries to see what it was like when Texas hosted Arch Manning and 8 others on an official visit.
From a 5-star hotel, to an upscale steakhouse, to a cruise on the lake, the Longhorns rolled out the red carpet.
✍🏽
@TheAthletic
:
Former Texas safety Tyler Owens is transferring to Texas Tech, a source told
@TheAthletic
. Owens, a former 4-star prospect who signed in 2019, entered the transfer portal in October.
Owens played 27 games for the Longhorns in three seasons. Expected to play nickel at Texas Tech.
Cincinnati is one of six remaining undefeated teams in the FBS, but even at 13-0, its playoff resume would be worse than any of the CFP teams in the first 6 yrs of the CFP, according to
@ESPNStatsInfo
9 FBS teams would have a better resume even w/ 1 loss.
Through four rounds of the 2022
#NFLDraft
, incoming Big 12 members Cincinnati and Houston have combined to have nine players drafted.
Outgoing Big 12 members Oklahoma and Texas have combined to have three.
Someone in the crowd at Steve Sarkisian’s
@HoustonTDClub
luncheon asked: “Do they ever go to class at Alabama?”
Sark: Well, yeah. All they have in Tuscaloosa is football and class and there ain’t shit else to do.
Payton Turner was a two-star recruit coming out of Houston's Westside High. Tore his ACL as a senior and schools backed off.
@UHCougarFB
stuck with him.
He was 6-5, 220 when he signed. Bulked up to 270 and is now a first-round pick in the
#NFLdraft
With a strong finish, Texas A&M has a shot at signing the No. 1 class in the country.
From hammering the Houston area early, to Jimbo Fisher's stiff arm of LSU and a flurry of 5⭐️with a few still possibly to come, a look at the Aggies' historic class:
After three decades in the college basketball wilderness, Houston is enjoying its best stretch since Texas’ Tallest Fraternity was roaming Hofheinz Pavilion.
My story on how the Cougars went from Phi Slama Jama to the abyss and back:
Texas A&M’s No. 1 recruiting class just got even better when it added 5⭐️CB Denver Harris, who announced his signing fresh off a Texas 6A state championship.
Story
@TheAthletic
:
Texas A&M TE Jace Sternberger has five catches in the first half tonight, including 2 TDs.
Only three times in the last six seasons have
#TAMU
TEs combined for more than five catches for the *entire season*
Baylor coach Matt Rhule said he believes the Big 12 champion should go to the
@CFBPlayoff
year-in, year-out.
Cites playing 9 league games and the rematch in the title game as worthy of a chance.
“What good is it to have a national championship if it’s not national?” he said.
The Cotton Bowl was mostly offense, but Penn State LB Micah Parsons was the star.
Did the All-American launch a 2020 Heisman campaign?
“You're going to have to show me a defensive player that's better than Micah Parsons going into the next season.”
Texas A&M coach Mike Elko said trying to keep DL coach/interim head coach Elijah Robinson "is a huge priority," and the process to try to keep him is already underway.
Texas WR Devin Duvernay is quiet (��he charges by the word”), speedy (once a Texas HS 100m champion) and stronger than you think (ask Grant Delpit).
“I want to punish players.”
Oh, and he has the best hands in college football.
On the rise of Duvernay:
Jimbo Fisher asked about Texas A&M's "tune up" vs. New Mexico this weekend.
"It ain't no tune-up, it's a game. Have you been following all the games across the country the last two weeks?"
Have confirmed with a source that Houston is finalizing a 5-year, $20 million deal to make Dana Holgorsen its next head coach, as
@38Godfrey
first reported. Contract could be signed as early as Tuesday. I'm told the assistant salary pool is going to be significant, as well.
Texas A&M’s 2018 recruiting class started the day ranked 24th. Is now up to No. 17 in the ESPN Class Rankings at the moment. The seven-spot jump is the biggest of any school so far today.
2 straight weeks, A&M — with multiple timeouts available — forced its opponent into obvious punting situations near midfield with 1:30 left in the 1st half.
Both times, A&M let the punting team run the clock down before punting, then took a knee with 0:45 and pocketed the TOs.
A young Kliff Kingsbury fired every bullet he had in last game as Houston’s OC.
“I don’t know if we’re gonna run it one time, but we’re gonna win.”
Case Keenum said the call sheet had “maybe one run…We were literally gonna throw it 80 times”
Texas A&M announces that Saturday night's game vs. Miami is a sellout.
As of 5 p.m. Thursday, more than 36,000 student tickets have been distributed. There will be an "extremely limited" amount of standing room only student tickets available 8 a.m. Friday.
Kickoff is 8 p.m. CT
What a great situation for former
#TAMU
QB Kellen Mond. With Kirk Cousins in Minnesota, he won't have to start right away and that's ideal for Mond. He can learn and develop.
Mond's growth over three years -- in an offense he wasn't originally recruited to play -- was impressive
Of course. Texas A&M left the Big 12 in part to get away from Texas (or, more specifically, a league in which Texas held much power and influence).
When you divorce someone, there's nothing preventing your ex from moving in next door, but you sure as hell ain't gonna like it.
@skhanjr
Is A&M really going to get bent out of shape over Texas and Oklahoma joining the SEC? I don't have a dog in the fight, but I like the possibility of the Texas-A&M rivalry coming back.
The press box shook aplenty. The noise level was deafening, even in the seventh overtime, nearly five hours in. The passion was unparalleled. The
@AggieFootball
student section was a no-brainer winner this week in the
#LiveMasStudentSectionChallenge
👇🏽
This dude did nothing but work from the day he stepped on the Texas A&M campus. The plays he made today are emblematic of that. Excited to see what’s next for Kellen Mond.
#Longhorns
QB Sam Ehlinger: "We have the talent; that's not the issue. We have the schemes; that's not the issue. We always seem to be tripping ourselves up, getting in our own way, making mistakes at crucial times and the best teams don't do that."
BYU, Cincinnati, Houston and UCF will apply for Big 12 membership early next week, sources tell
@TheAthletic
. They have the needed votes for admission and invites are considered a formality
Story, from me,
@max_olson
,
@Williams_Justin
&
@BruceFeldmanCFB
:
SEC commish Greg Sankey, in light of the recent Oklahoma-Georgia series being canceled, said the fact that Alabama-Texas is still scheduled for next year “is a pretty good sign that conference alignments are gonna stay that way next year.”
Houston is closing in on hiring Tulane coach Willie Fritz, a source told
@TheAthletic
.
A verbal agreement is in place and UH hopes to finalize the hire as early as Sunday morning.
@Joseph_Duarte
was first to report.
More on the move here:
5⭐️DL Shemar Stewart announces that he has committed to Texas A&M.
He is the 7th five-star prospect in the 247Sports Composite in the Aggies' 2022 class, which was already ranked No. 1 in the nation.
Meeting concluded.
Texas A&M’s board of regents has recommended to president Dr. M. Katherine Banks to support SEC expansion. Official statement coming soon.
To bring Texas back, Steve Sarkisian first had to change the program's mindset.
It started with Sark, who brings high energy and positivity every day.
“Any time you ask him, ‘How you doing today, Coach?’ He always said, ‘It’s the best f—ing day ever.'"