a TTech grad in AZ started drawing cartoons in the style of Dirk West.  The LA-J is publishing them this season, and just started putting them on-line.  I don't know if they will go back and post the SMU cartoon but the UNM one can be found at the link I included.  His name is Scott Hall and had several last season on his Facebook page.  For those that remember Dirk West's work, the resemblance will be uncanny.

www.redraiders.com/texas-tech-vs-new-mexico/

'When the subject turns to technology, no Big 12 coach matches Colorado's Dan Hawkins in his willingness to embrace the cutting edge.

Hawkins had cameras installed in the helmets of three quarterbacks this spring.

"You just get an interesting view in what they're seeing and where they're really looking," Hawkins said. "It's one thing to sit up on the 50-yard line in the second row and say, 'Look at this coverage. Look at where this guy is dropping. Look at that route.' That's not the view they get."

Hawkins has also joined Oprah, Larry King and Ashton Kutcher among those on Twitter as "an experiment," as he put it."

From DMN's Chuck Carlton's Big 12 Spring Roundup

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Sounds kitzchy at first but it seems to me, especially in TTech's offense where reading the defense is paramount, it would be a great teaching tool.

O' Hagan article

Even if you haven't heard of O'Hagan, you probably have heard of some of his clients, such as legendary college basketball coaches John Wooden and Bobby Knight, former Minnesota Vikings head coach Dennis Green and Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Jack Del Rio, a former Vikings linebacker.

The NFL offseason has been busy for O'Hagan, whose clients Wade Phillips and Cam Cameron each landed multimillion-dollar head coaching jobs (with the Dallas Cowboys and Miami Dolphins, respectively).

From Dwain Price's FWST article:

This year’s group of 19 Tech seniors will leave school with some fond memories.

They have already played in a pair of New Year’s Day bowl games, and may be rewarded with another one when this year’s bowl matchups are announced Dec. 7. They also won 37 games over the past four years, becoming the winningest class in Tech history, and tied the school record for the most wins in a season at 11-1 with one game remaining.

"I know when we came in here we wanted to be one of the best classes to ever come through here and do things that hadn’t been done, and I think we accomplished a lot of things that we wanted to accomplish this year," senior free safety Darcel McBath said. "I’m just proud of the fellas for sticking with it."

This year’s Tech seniors set an NCAA record as sophomores when they rallied from a 31-point deficit to defeat Minnesota 44-41 in overtime in the 2006 Insight Bowl, posting the largest comeback in NCAA bowl history.

Last season, the Raiders rallied to score 17 points in the final four minutes to edge 20th-ranked Virginia in the Gator Bowl 31-28 on New Year’s Day.

As freshmen, the group lost to Alabama 13-10 in the Cotton Bowl.

"This senior class showed great leadership and great character," defensive coordinator Ruffin McNeill said. "It was a group that ever since they’ve been here have done everything that we’ve asked them as coaches, and they’ve done everything in the off-season to make sure they became better as a team and individually.

"They were a group that when faced with any kind of adversity — whether on the field or off the field — were able to handle it with class and character."

McNeill said all 19 seniors will have their degrees by May. That’s why Mike Leach wanted the BCS to use graduation rates to determine who would represent the South against Missouri in the Big 12 championship game.

"All of them will go on to be successful in life, whether as friends in the NFL or in the business world," McNeill said. "They set the blueprint for the rest of the classes."

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What more can you ask - they averaged 9+ wins a season and everyone will graduate.  I'd say we have they most successful football program in the nation.

[note from djollie111 - bumped to the FP, I just had to.  Thanks Dub Parks 88]

Originally posted by ElCapitan on the RaiderPower.com Football bbs

Life gives you stories that resonant within.  Stories like a young shepherd boy picking up five smooth stones and slaying a giant with a simple sling and a faith in God.  Stories like a band of brothers completely encircled by German troops in WWII and when rescued by Gen. Patton claiming that they didn’t need rescuing, they were holding their own just fine.  Stories about a rag tag bunch of colonies winning a war against the greatest world power of their time because they believed they could.  Stories about a 6 seed Villanova defeating Georgetown for the NCAA championship, not because anyone else thought they could but because they thought they could.   A runner survives 26 miles to warn his countrymen.  A black woman refuses to move to the back of the bus.  Stories like these inspire and bring hope because everyone of us is weaker than someone, smaller than someone and faces obstacles of our own.

[Note by Seth C, 11/19/08 10:12 PM CST ]  Make sure and visit RP.com for the rest of the post, it's an awesome read and well worth your time.  Want to keep the good karma going and link back to the orignal source and not completely copy and paste someone else's work.  I'm an English major, that's my excuse.  Carry on and Wreck 'Em!

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/news?slug=rivals-250335&prov=rivals&type=lgns

We’ve been close, oh so close. Who in the name of Pete Cawthon hasn’t invoked the name of Rodney Allison at least once this week?

Rodney is one of us. Down 27-5 to Houston? No problem for Rodney. Some people around me were upset, they booed, and they wanted some type of change. But not us, we still believed. We didn’t get there that day…that year but it didn’t stop us from believing.

It hurt back in those days but we knew it was a matter of time that the hurt would heal. Who knew then it would take at least 32 years?

Rodney told me he thinks about it every day. But again, he’s a Red Raider.

Truth be told, I might think of it that often myself.

About more than TTech, but here is the TTech excerpt:

http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/big_12/Across_Texas_opportunities_are_fleeting.html 

Few things in sports can be quite so cruel as time, and examples of this run rampant across Texas. As Duncan's body wears down, so does Terrell Owens' patience. And in Lubbock, the legacy of an offensive mastermind 47 years in the making could come down to four hours this Saturday night.

Leach, the head coach of the sixth-ranked Texas Tech Red Raiders, never has had a team as good as the one he has now, and there's a decent chance he'll never have another to match it. His best two players — Graham Harrell and Michael Crabtree — likely will be gone next year, along with at least seven other starters. And in a playoff-less college football world, in which whimsical outside forces can affect who gets an opportunity to play for a championship, there's no telling when the stars will align for Tech like they do now.

If the Red Raiders beat No. 1 Texas on Saturday, follow that up with a victory over a Top-10 Oklahoma State team, then knock off Oklahoma on the road and Missouri in the Big 12 championship game, they will play for the national title. Having climbed through their first window like the Spurs did a decade ago, they will find others — ones with increased exposure and recruiting cache and real national respect — awaiting them.

But if Tech loses? Unfairly or not, some will portray it as Leach's defining moment, and it won't be flattering. A loss will confirm a skeptical contingent of poll voters' doubts about his system, and it might take years to win them back.