the tindog coffeehouse

Good news, people of Waco. Baylor’s not screwed after all!

In what can only be explained as a miracle (by football-loving Baptists, at least), the Big 12 has been saved from destruction, with the ten remaining members swearing allegiance to Dan Beebe and the unnamed sports network (*cough*FoxSports*cough*) that bribed them to stay.

Who would’ve guessed that at the end of the day all of this realignment mess was really just about money? Huh.

So for now, there are no 16-team superconferences. No realignmentpocalypse. No ripping of the very fabric of the time-space continuum. Heck, not even a single punch thrown (unless you count Vince Young’s pummeling of an irate OU fan outside a Dallas strip club). In fact, Big 12 ADs would be singing “Kum Ba Yah” right now if it weren’t for the fact that they were too busy counting their enormous stacks of cash.

Where, then, does that leave us?

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The cover of the September issue of Texas Monthly proclaims of Texas Tech coach Mike Leach: “This crazy pirate may be the best college football coach in the country.” They got the “crazy” part right, but I definitely wouldn’t say he’s the best coach in the country.

Granted, he’s very good at what he does, and he deserves a certain amount of recognition for that. If nothing else, his ability to recruit virtually unknown players and turn them into one of the most dominant passing offenses in the nation is worthy of admiration.

But NCAA records are one thing; results are quite another. At some point, those billions of passing yards have to translate to meaningful wins, and that’s where Leach has so far come up short. Sure, they beat Texas last year in what was arguably one of the biggest games in the country, but at the end of the season, all they had to show for it was a shared Big 12 South title and a loss to Ole Miss in the Cotton Bowl. In fact, in the nine seasons Leach has coached at Tech, they’ve never outright won the Big 12 South division or played in a BCS bowl game.

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When comparing Texas and California, this cartoon from The Economist tells you everything you need to know:

Never mind the Economist’s statement that they are the “nation’s two biggest states” (I think Alaska might have something to say about that) or that the Dallas-Fort Worth area is made up of “flat, ugly countryside” (OK, that might not be too far off). The fact remains that CAHL-EE-FOR-NEE-A is old and busted, while the Lone Star State is the new hotness.

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What a sweet, sweet ending to the 2008 college football season. After a first half marred by interceptions, penalties, and defective play clocks, the Florida Gators emerged victorious over the Oklahoma Sooners in the BCS National Championship game last night. For the Sooners, it’s their fifth straight BCS bowl game loss and their third national championship loss under head coach “Big Game Bob” Stoops and his dandy white visor.

OU’s loss dropped them to No. 6 in the final AP poll behind No. 5 Texas and proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that the Gators were playing the wrong Big 12 team for the national title.

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