NCAA Football oklahoma state Cowboys

Apparently, athletic departments aren't immune to the whims of the stock market.

Both Oklahoma State and Texas A&M are feeling the crunch, according to a couple stories this week.

Oklahoma State had to drastically reduce plans for a state-of-the-art Athletic Village it was planning after a facilities fund being managed by the T. Boone Pickens BP Capital Investment Fund lost $282 million during the last year, leaving just $125 million in the fund, according to story in the Tulsa World.

Just maybe the Big 12 football coaches thought they had seen the South Division at its most competitive in 2008 when they voted this spring not to change the league's three-way tie-breaker guidelines.

They might want to re-think that one.

The ultra-competitive Big 12 South could again have as many as three teams in a logjam for first place if the best teams take turns beating up on each other as they did last season. Oklahoma, Texas and Texas Tech all swapped wins and finished tied for first in the South with 7-1 league records at the end of 2008. They Big 12 had to sift through four tie-breaker stipulations before coming up on the fifth that named the Sooners the South champs by virtue of their BCS poll standing.
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Christmas decorations begin in late August, and now the ClayNation Hypesman Watch (CHW) is here in the first week of May. It's part of a new term, I just coined: Heisman Creep. (And it has nothing to do with Maurice Clarett). We're going to try something radical here, every other week or so we'll drop in and give you a top 10 list for Heisman candidates. Even though most of them are finishing their spring finals right about now. The goal is to ridicule the Heisman obsession, keep us entertained, and write about the Heisman in a way no one else is.

And, plainly, it's never too early to start debating the most over-hyped award this side of a kindergarten valedictorian.

With the recent passing of Doc "Mr. Inside" Blanchard, FanHouse takes a stab at naming the five greatest living Heisman Trophy winners

In a game that spans many eras, any task like this is exceedingly difficult and fraught with contradiction. With all the nostalgia built into the Heisman Trophy and the game of college football, we're buying into it with a less clinical, more emotional effort at ranking players. There's a bias towards the modern, towards a player being associated with the trophy and towards those that most captured peoples' imaginations.

College Football Spring Storylines 2009 looks at the key developments and big news from spring ball.

The Big 12 stood up and challenged the SEC for the title of One Conference to Rule Them All in 2008. They didn't exactly succeed, but the conference gave us a lot of great football last season.

However, that was then and this is now. The postseason was not entirely successful for the conference, with a 4-3 overall record in bowl games. How will that carry over into this fall? Who's on the rise? Who's hitting the skids? We'll talk about the big stories after the jump.

FanHouse gathers around the TV to bring you insights from Bowl Season '08.

Purely ridiculous stuff here. Leading Oklahoma State just 35-31 with three minutes remaining, Oregon lined up at the Cowboys' 29-yard-line. What happened next was the stuff of legend.

From shotgun on first down, Oregon handed the ball off to six-foot-two, 230-pound tailback LeGarrette Blount. Oklahoma State's defense got tremendous penetration but Blount evaded the initial surge, made a cut to surge into open field and then strung together three great elements that will make this a famous run for many years.

First, he completely hurdled a defender at the 20-yard-line. We're talking soared right over him. Awesome stuff but we've seen that this year out of Beanie Wells and Knowshon Moreno.

Next, he maintained enough of a head of steam to power through a bloc of five defenders in front of, underneath and to the side of him.

Finally, the clincher. At the ten yard line, a final defender met him from the side, but Blount stuck out his left arm and held him off, stiff-arm style, the final ten yards while running diagonally. Brilliant stuff mixing so many great running elements from speed to power to stiff-arms to unteachable leaps. What great timing, as that run was the clincher that put the game away at 42-31. If you can't enjoy this you have no soul. Video after the jump.

FanHouse gathers around the TV to bring you insights from Bowl Season '08.

It was a tale of two halves Wednesday night in beautiful -- and for college football, magical -- San Diego. Oklahoma State dominated the first half in taking a 17-7 lead that could have been much larger. Particularly potent was receiver Dez Bryant, who hauled in nine first-half receptions and 13 overall before several leg injuries left him hobbled and eventually on the bench.

Oklahoma State's fate seemed to fade the moment Bryant found the pine. Riding behind an energizing kickoff return and some powerful runs from stocky quarterback Jeremiah Masoli, Oregon surged to a trio of third-quarter touchdowns -- all by Masoli -- to go ahead 28-24. Bryant was scuttled soon thereafter, and battered quarterback Zac Robinson slowly lost his effectiveness as Oregon dominated the rest of the way for a 42-31 victory.

Jumbo Oregon tailback LeGarrette Blount made the play of the game, and the game-winner, hurdling a defender and then stiff-arming another for several yards on a 29-yard touchdown. It was ridiculous, and the kind of man among boys stuff you feel fortunate to witness.

So there's some company that's producing sporting events in 3D, and they've picked the BCS championship game for one of their first major test runs. Should be interesting. The halftime feature on Tim Tebow's adventures in Filipino circumscision will be worth the price of admission by itself, and maybe they'll play Captain EO in the pregame.

Awful Announcing has a list of all the places you can catch this novelty for the low price of twenty bucks. Ironically, this is the only place in Oklahoma you can get the full Tebow:

STILLWATER
Carmike 10
(405) 372-0349

This... is not the best planning.

Turkey Legs to Go is FanHouse's complete travel guide for all of the 2008-2009 college bowl games. Here, we cover the Holiday Bowl (San Diego, California), which pits Oregon against Oklahoma State.

Overview / Matchup: San Diego gets a pair of upper-midweights for the feature game of December 30, as Oregon and Oklahoma State head out west. Or south, I suppose, in the case of the Ducks. Both teams had strong seasons but experienced some tough stretches. Oregon lost the requisite games against USC and Cal (wins needed for BCS contention) and then coughed one up to Boise as well. The 'Boys coughed up three losses -- Texas, Oklahoma and Texas Tech -- that are pretty indicative of their standing in the Big 12.

Hotels: The Grand Del Mar is the best and newest hotel in San Diego, it has great Southern California architecture gorgeous canyon views... unfortunately it's 20 minutes North of town & the stadium. In town stay at the Hilton San Diego Gaslamp Quarter (which is pricey but they should have rooms under 200) or for a cheaper rate and better proximity to the stadium try the Courtyard by Marriott San Diego.

Restaurants: Spend time in the gas lamp district downtown, good shops and restaurants. If you're willing to drive, head for Silver Strand Blvd and eat at Mistral. The restaurant has great seafood and the best views in town. Lou & Mickey's is known for steaks, but our recommendation is the iced shellfish platter. Trophy's is a historic sports bar with plenty of fans, plenty of televisions and plenty of sports memorabilia.

Miss any of Saturday's action? Get the storylines and implications every Sunday morning with a shot of humor, two of vermouth and a pot full of what's suspected to be either coffee or the pureed remnants of the Georgia's hype.

And so, like any good championship fight, after 12 rounds of haymakers in helmets and point totals higher than stock market losses, we turn to the scorecards.

Three Big 12 South teams needed a win in Week 14 to keep their title hopes alive, and unlike Plaxico Burress, this trio managed not to shoot themselves in the thigh.

There's Oklahoma, which scores in the 60s more than Tiger Woods. There's Texas, which slowed the Sooners on a neutral field and held Oklahoma to an Auburn-like moment of 35 points. And then there's Texas Tech, the unlikely team led by the kooky coach with permanent bed-head that shocked the No. 2 Longhorns in Lubbock before becoming road kill in Norman, Okla.

And after a series of tiebreakers including head-to-head, record against lower-ranked division teams, and, we think, a swimsuit competition, this is what we come to: A knot tied so inexorably tied MacGyver couldn't untangle it with a blowtorch.

But the question is, do we even want to?