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Recapping Colorado Buffaloes Athletics, and Pac-12/College Football News, Links, and Stories
University of Colorado Cross Country coach Mark Wetmore has been named the 2011 Pac-12 Men's Coach of the Year, announced by the conference on Tuesday afternoon. CU also placed eight Buffs, four men and four women, on the All-Pac-12 First and Second Teams.
"Unless you know you're signing Player X in case so-and-so doesn't qualify or is hurt or is a candidate to gray shirt . . . I'm all for it," he said. "The other way, I don't know. If you sign a kid and then sign someone else you think is better and put that (first) kid out, I'm not for that."
CU's priorities in the 2012 class will be tight ends, cornerbacks and defensive linemen. Embree expects to sign at least three tight ends, five defensive linemen and three or four corners.
Thorburn: Bowl game goal marks start of clock on Embree - Buffzone
"When we got here we weren't a team. We were fractured. I think that was my biggest challenge," Embree reflected Tuesday during a season-ending press conference at the Dal Ward Center. "There wasn't a lot of trust in that locker room, and I feel like we made a huge step towards that."
Embree understands his love for his alma mater and passion for the CU football program helped get him hired, and that those attributes won't keep him from getting fired some day. The only way to create job security in major college football these days is to win big. And quickly.
Speaking of attrition among College Football coaches... Has Mike Leach been hired by Washington State? I found three articles on the internet that say so...If it's good enough for Wikipedia, it's good enough for me...
Mike Leach To Be Hired As Washington State Football Coach, According To Report - SBNation.com
The Washington St. Cougars have reportedly done it: Mike Leach, former Texas Tech Red Raiders coach, will make Pullman his next port, a source tells Seattle Times' columnist Steve Kelley. The report was revealed on Twitter by Kelley's son and Seattle Times colleague, Mason Kelley. Wazzu fired four-year coach Paul Wulff on Tuesday amid speculation that they were going after Leach. Adding fuel to the fire that something is in the works, Leach reportedly did not make his regularly-scheduled appearance Wednesday on XM Radio.
MIKE LEACH PERUSES THE PALOUSE - Every Day Should Be Saturday
Suck it Craig James: even if the current worst-kept-secret-on-Earth "Mike Leach to Washington State" boomlet falls through, the man himself is at least getting interviews at D-1 programs, and most likely getting one before too long. (FACT: There are currently 83 head coaching vacancies in college football. Or that's what it feels like, anyway.) (See, it's not that Mike Leach isn't conventional. He just had to find a place with the right conventions, that's all.)
Mike Leach Has Been Offered WSU Job, Expected To Accept, According To Report - CougCenter
And finally, we have some clarity. According to Vince Grippi, Washington State has offered the head coaching job to Mike Leach, and he is expected to accept it. The courtship has been fast, but not unexpected, all things considered.
...it's a blanket ad requesting seat fillers. While not mentioned by name, the B1G Championship is the only event in Indianapolis on Saturday night involving a Lucas Oil Field and fans showing up in green and red clothing. The pay: $75 for the event. (The link is still live, but in case it's yanked, hello screenshot.)
Texas And Texas A&M: A Strange Divorce In The Church Of Football - SBNation.com
Texas and Texas A&M played their final conference game on Thanksgiving and signed their divorce papers. Spencer Hall bore witness as everything got sort of sad and weird all at once. The show begins. They march with precision and decided slowness, like an old screensaver of brick tunnels leading into brick tunnels.
They play the same songs they always have, and march in the same formations they always use: meshing lines, interlocking diagonals, and in a finale an "X" that rotates like a conveyor belt, turning in on itself.
It is the marching band equivalent of running the Notre Dame Box Offense against Pete Carroll's 4-3 Over defense.
Meyer's credibility takes another hit - College Football - Rivals.com
When Meyer stepped down last December, I caught a lot of heat from Florida fans for writing the following:
"So you’re Urban Meyer. … And maybe you really are filled with middle-aged regret about living an unbalanced life that leaves too little time for your wife and kids. So you do this. You listen to the family this time around. You walk away from one of the two best jobs in your profession (Texas is the other) at somewhere near the peak of your career. … You’re Dick Vermeil of the college game, and the pursuit of glory no longer justifies the grind of getting there. "If those things are true, and Meyer is ready to enter a rewarding new phase of life as a paternal bleacher creature, watching his three kids play sports, so be it. Wish him godspeed and good health.
… "But if Meyer suddenly shows up in Denver to coach Tebow, he’s a con man of the highest order. If he changes his mind and comes back to Florida before it hires someone else, he’s a diva even [Brett] Favre would disdain. If he takes another job a year from now, his family will know once and for all where it ranks in his personal hierarchy of needs.
"Guess we’ll wait and see who the real Urban Meyer is."
Notre Dame Football Recruiting 101 – A Blueprint for the Future - One Foot Down -
Since I have been tasked with following this ever-changing aspect to the Irish football program, I thought it might be best to start at the beginning. And by beginning, I mean an opinion filled discourse on what I would do if recruiting were up to me. I think this is an important first step, since my of my analysis will be based on the perceived needs in the program.
He goes on to describe as methodical an abstract recruiting breakdown as you could ask for. It may not have any bearing on reality, but it's still neat to read.
College Football Conference Championship Games: Ranking Them From Best To Worst - SBNation.com
Eight college football conference titles will be decided this coming weekend. Here's your completely arbitrary guide for which games to watch. While this coming weekend of games may or may not have much to do with the national title race -- it depends on how voters would view a potential loss for LSU or a blowout win for Oklahoma State -- there is still plenty at stake.
Eight of 11 conference titles will be determined between when the MAC title game kicks off early on Friday evening (7:00 p.m. ET) to when the Big Ten title game wraps up around midnight on Saturday night.
Best case-worst case: Colorado - Pac-12 Blog - ESPN - We may have struck the 'worst-case' Win/Loss right on the nose, but at least this didn't happen...
Nebraska loses the national championship game to Oklahoma, one of two BCS bowl teams from the nation's best football conference, the Big 12. "Well, at least we signed the top five prospects from the state of Colorado," Cornhuskers coach Bo Pelini says after the game.
Ndamukong Suh of Detroit Lions suspended two games without pay - ESPN - I hate Nebraska so g--d-- much that when their alumni live down to their cultural heritage I gotta post it
Ndamukong Suh's stomp will cost him two games without pay. The NFL suspended Detroit's All-Pro defensive tackle on Tuesday for roughing up a Green Bay Packers player in front of a national television audience during a loss on Thanksgiving Day. Suh will miss Sunday night's game at New Orleans and a Dec. 11 home game against Minnesota and he won't be paid until he is reinstated Dec. 12.
A recipe for UCLA triumph! - Pac-12 Blog - ESPN
So it's not much of a surprise that Oregon is a 31-point favorite against UCLA in the first Pac-12 championship game on Friday. The Bruins also, by the way, fired coach Rick Neuheisel this week, so the negative momentum with the program is fairly strong. Our point: If Oregon was to lose to UCLA, and yield a spot in the Rose Bowl to a 7-6 team, it would rate as an upset of monumental proportions.
Think Stanford over USC or Appalachian State over Michigan, both in 2007. But those were games where the Trojans and Wolverines obviously -- and not without justification -- overlooked their foe. Those were both early-season matchups without clear stakes and zero pregame buzz.
The Ducks, a team that celebrates the steadiness of its weekly preparation, believing every game is a Super Bowl, are surely aware that a win means Rose Bowl and a loss means Alamo Bowl. It's that simple. So there would be grounds to call a UCLA win, with Neuheisel on the sideline for the final time, one of the biggest in college football history.
We laid out that lengthy introduction because now we'll ask a simple but impossible question: How? How can UCLA win this game?
Senior Richard Medina raced to an eighth-place finish on the cross country course as the No. 6 University of Colorado men's team placed third overall at the 2011 NCAA Cross Country Championships on Monday. "Third is a very good run for the men," coach Mark Wetmore said. "I can't think of anyone who had a bad race. That is very nearly the highest we could have hoped for. We were just five points out of second, which is really just a blink of an eye in this race, so that was very good run for them."
Way to Run! Go Buffs!