According to Adam Wexler of SportsTalk 790 in Houston, Tuberville confirmed on a radio interview this morning that DE Scott Smith is suspended for the rest of the season. 

Adam Wexler (@awexler) 10/11/10 7:41 AM RT @MJ4Sports: Tx Tech HC @TTuberville just told us on @SportsTalk790 that DE Scott Smith is suspended for the season #TexasTech #CFB #Big12

 

Shock the monkey!

Is there any other confirmation of said penalty by other, more reliable sources?

When will individual football game tickets go on sale?  I'm especially interested in away game tickets, A&M in particular.  I couldn't find any information other than season ticket sales on either website.  Any help would be appreciated.  Not sure if this is the right forum, but seemed like a slow news day.  I am not looking to purchase anyone else's tickets, just curious as to the date they will be made available to the public.  

No doubt Texas Tech has the worst bowl opponent of any top 10 team.  They are already one of the lowest ranked one-loss teams, so a win over Ole Miss(25) may not keep them ahead of a couple of two-loss teams.  A win over Ole Miss in and of itself won't move the Red Raiders up in the polls.  Considering Tech beats Ole Miss, what are their chances of moving into the top 5 at the end of the season?

If nothing else, Tech should jump the Utah/Alabama loser.  But they could also be jumped by Boise State.  Penn State could move ahead of us as well, but that would be coupled with USC falling behind Tech.  And there's no guarantee that the NC game loser would fall behind Tech, especially if it's OU. 

Probably the best scenario is for the following:

OU beats Florida by a lot

Texas loses to Ohio State

Alabama/Utah doesn't matter -- winner stays ahead of Tech, loser drops behind

Penn St./USC (see Alabama/Utah)

So the best rankings may look like:

1. Oklahoma

2. Utah/Alabama

3. USC

4. Texas Tech

5. Florida

Worst scenario, assuming Tech wins the Cotton Bowl, might be:

Florida squeaks by OU

Texas beats OSU

Utah/Bama--no matter

USC/Penn State--no matter

Boise St. whips TCU

...then:

1. Florida

2. Texas

3. Utah

4. USC

5. Boise State

6. Oklahoma

7. Texas Tech

Just saying....

Proponents say that the amount of College Football discussion generated by the BCS justifies the system.  I find that to be ridiculous.  Most of that discussion is negative, and none of it gets us any closer to a true National Champion or any more comfortable with the ultimate National Champion decision.  I’m not advocating a college football playoff, but let’s at least take a realistic look at what the BCS has done to college football. 

Every team goes into the season with a common goal --- to be one of the two teams playing for the National Championship.  A very nice consolation prize for a fine season is an invite to one of four high profile, high dollar BCS bowls.  Landing in any of these BCS games helps a program to sustain it’s success through $$ and recruiting exposure, perpetuating the fan interest into the next season.  The ‘Thanks for Participating’ award is an invite to one of the other 2 dozen or so bowl games.  Some of these are better than others and for some schools, depending on size and level of competition, it’s a nice feather in the cap.

One’s logical assumption would be that once the season is complete, pollsters and computers will sort through and compare and rank the teams.  Rankings will take into account the won-lost record of a team as well as who they beat and who they lost to, and maybe where they played.  After all, isn’t that what teams are trying to do week to week?  Outscore the team they’re playing?  Not so fast.  Case in point.  Three teams, one loss each.  Florida beat a single current top 20 team, #16, and lost to an unranked team at home.  They’re ranked #4.  USC beat a #10 and #19, losing to an unranked team on the road.  They’re ranked #5.  Texas Tech beat a #3 and #14, losing to #2 on the road.  They’re ranked #7.  Logical assumption dismissed. 

A team’s record and who they beat and lost to is obviously NOT the determining factor.  Style points and timing play a bigger role than most would think.  The BCS rewards total team domination of opponents.  Even if its just the second team getting some mop-up time, if they can continue the steamroll, more power to ‘em, so to speak.  Pollsters dig the points.  They also like a team to hit their stride late in the season.  Schedules are for sissies.  The goal is to be that team no one wants to play at Thanksgiving.  Timely and convincing victories trump consistency and sportsmanship on our college campuses (as well as neutral sites).

At the end of the season, some teams feel left out, robbed, screwed, or whatever, by the voters’ or computers’ perception of their on-the-field performance, their body of work.  As hard as coaches, players, fans, analysts and university presidents try, it is impossible to compare one team’s losses or wins to another’s.  There are others, like Texas Tech, who are not invited to participate due solely to their conference affiliation.  Oh, and on-the-field performance?  What’s odd about that is that the pollsters can’t possibly watch every game and computers don’t watch any.  What a system. 

And what about the BCS involvement in the Big XII Championship?  What about the UT logic revolving around head-to-head being the most important factor in the relative ranking of two teams?  Sounds reasonable, and I don’t want to demean UT for their logic --- many analysts have jumped on that bandwagon in decrying OU over UT as unfair.  Let’s look at it.  Three way tie in the Big XII South, winner to be determined by highest ranked BCS team.  OU supporters say it’s a three-way tie, you can’t exclude the Red Raiders from the tiebreaker, therefore, H2H shouldn’t matter.  And that’s true.  H2H is not the tiebreaker; the BCS rankings are.  But why can’t you consider H2H when ranking teams in the BCS relative to one another?  If Florida beats Alabama this weekend, what order will those two be ranked?  Why?

Texas Tech left the BCS-ranked neighborhood of OU & UT once they were dismantled by the Sooners in Norman, about the same time the National Championship bus gassed up and pulled out of Lubbock for good.  So by BCS ranking standards, it IS a 2 team race.  Tech doesn’t belong in front of UT anymore than Iowa should jump Penn State.  Remember, style points did in Tech.  Between OU and UT, all things equal (who’s to say what’s equal, what, with schedules, home/away games, margin of victory, time of the season, etc.) H2H is a pretty darn good indicator of the two teams’ relative strength. 

But just look at how it turned into a two team race.  OU has only themselves to blame for beating Tech so badly as to drop them out of ranking proximity with the other tri-champions and putting themselves at H2H risk.  IF H2H was the determining factor, OU would have been better served by beating Tech, but only barely beating them, with the result being that both teams ended up ahead of UT in the polls.  And imagine the strategy going into that game if you had adopted the SEC tie breaker rules.  Boys, go out and win, but not by too much.  What a system. 

And finally, I must applaud the public face put on by the Texas Tech players, taking full responsibility for their predicament by not winning in Norman when they had their chance.  In fact, about half a dozen teams can lament the fact that they were not able to eliminate the pollster and computer analysis of their seasons by losing that single game on the field.  Big 12 commish Dan Beebe said, “If you win all of your games you don’t have to worry about this scenario.”  Is that so? 

Only one team out of all the BCS conference schools was able to outscore their opponents in each and every game.  12-0.  A PERFECT season.  What coach doesn’t strive for that kind of perfection?  What coach wouldn’t take that result for their team?  Well, apparently there are three coaches who feel Alabama could have done better.  The two that voted OU #1 and one that voted Florida #1 ahead of them.  But why worry?  We have the BCS.  Alabama and their PERFECT season received a very respectable #3 ranking from the BCS computer this week. 

College football.  Where winning isn’t everything.