I am an avid reader and normally I wouldn't come on here and share what I read but I felt since this book is UT centric and there are several readers here who probably were at UT during that era or were following the Longhorns during their 69' championship season that some of you might find this useful when looking for a new book to read or just nice to revisit that time in history. Now that my incredibly long sentence is complete, follow me after the jump for the review.

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In the spirit of what is now going to be a long off season, and inspired by the crew over a Windy City Gridiron, the excellent SBN Chicago Bears blog, I thought it would be a great idea to get an idea of what everyone's music interests are. I figured this would be a cool way to find out about new bands that we may like and not know about. I will kick start with mine

Josh Weathers and True Endeavors (great band out of Ft Worth that travels all around Texas. Check them out)

Bob Schneider

Jonathan Tyler and the Northern Lights

Modest Mouse

Stevie Ray Vaughan

Pearl Jam

Ray Lamontagne

Old 97's

Ryan Bingham

Bleu Edmondson

Bone Thugs N Harmony

Jack Johnson

Dave Matthews Band

Ben Harper

Matisyahu

MGMT

Counting Crows

Tom Petty

As PB noted on the front page, 2010 has been a rough year for the Longhorn faithful. With going 5-7 during the year came the staff changes most Longhorn fans had been waiting to see. GD is gone, McWhorter retired, Kennedy is going to leave for another program and Tolleson (bittersweet) is out as well. However, in everything that happened not many worried that Texas would lose Coach Boom, especially considering it now looked as he was getting a say in the new hires for the coaching staff and how the program should/could be run. Well, the day has passed and now Longhorn fans have gone from overflowing hope to utter despair. Make no mistake, Texas is in a difficult situation. Yes, Texas is still Texas and the appeal and draw to prospective coaches along with the necessary funds to pay the for the best coaches is still there. However, the events of late cut deeper than we may think. Follow after the jump to find out why.

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Though this game had no UT commits it was still one of the best playoff match ups in the state for this weekend. The game did not disappoint. More following the jump.

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Being that the school I coach at is still enjoying its first year and just wrapped up its first football season, it is a little bittersweet to go watch playoff games on the weekend and not be coaching in them. However, since we only opened with freshman and sophomores and will not be in a district for another year, I guess it is something I will have to accept for the near future. So, with the metroplex  having a plethora of games to go see I tried to pick the one with the greatest star power and came up with Arlington vs Abiline.

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Since it is the Spring, there is no football (come on NFL draft), and my Cubbies are sucking it up I figured I would piggy back off of Kriess' thread and see if I could start one about sports movies. Here is my list. Feel free to dissect and throw your own in there as well.

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I know we had discussed this before but I though since Gerry Hamilton was now reporting it you might be interested in considering it now. haha. JK, buddy ;). In all seriousness, though, DeSoto is a great school and community and I am glad Texas has created a pipeline there as of late. Bringing in White and Terrell from last year and Hutchins this year will certainly pay dividends down the line with the other talent they will surely produce.

DeSoto top stop for recruiters

So I was watching the combine late last night and after Gerald McCoy finished his workout he was interview by Rich Eisen, Mike Mayock, and Brian Billick. One of the final questions they asked him was who was the best lineman he ever faced. He was very torn for a while because he didn't want to alienate any teammates but he said the best lineman he faced bar none was Charlie Tanner. He said tanner was the best he faced because he was just a scrapper and never gave up on the play and gave him fits. Just found that to be an interesting comment for our beleagured offensive line.

I just finished reading Meat Market: Inside the Smash Mouth World of College Football Recruiting by Bruce Feldman. In the book, Feldman follows Ole Miss for a a full year recruiting period from post signing day 2006 to signing day 2007. While it is obviously completely different the way Coach Orgeron recruits compared to Mack and Co. it was an interesting look in to some of the things the other schools will do and say to get commitments.  There were two Longhorn references, though.

One had to do with Jevan Snead leaving Texas. It didn't really say anything we didn't already know but it did state that he was not comfortable with Austin and how big it was.

Second was this:

"A trio of Texas Longhorns recruits were so enamored with McKnight's skills that they dialed up UT coach Mack Brown as they rode the team bus back to the hotel and told him he had to get the New Orleans star. "Coach Mack offered him right over the phone," said John Chiles, a future Longhorns receiver, citing the Texas coach's no-brainer move after the UT recruits handed their cell to McKnight."

I remember Texas jumping in late on McKnight but I certainly did not know that. Just thought that was interesting.