NCAA Football texas a&m Aggies

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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Every Monday during college football's endless offseason, The FanHouse Walk will put last week's stories to bed and deliver the essentials to bridge that agonizing space between now and September.

Mr. BCS Goes To Washington -- Except I have a feeling Jimmy Stewart would find some way to rail against the BCS, however wrongheadedly. You see, the big word in the halls of Congress on Friday was "fair" but don't let that confuse you. While the Mountain West and certain members of Congress are using the fairness term to stoke public support, their real concern is about money.

There are usually a few surprises over the course of the NFL Draft. Maybe I watch too much college football, but I was stunned during the fourth round Sunday.

That was when the Dallas Cowboys selected Texas A&M quarterback Stephen McGee with the 101st overall pick. I understand that college stats don't mean much when it comes to having NFL-caliber talent, but this seemed quite odd to me.

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.

Each week, FanHouse's Rollercoaster Report will take a look at several NFL Draft prospects to find out which players' stocks are on the rise, and who's stuck in freefall.

More than 300 prospects begin workouts at the NFL scouting combine on Saturday in hopes of improving their draft stock. But what about the guys that didn't get the invitation to Indianapolis? The event features the best of the best, of course, but that does not mean there's no value to be found in the players staying home this weekend.

After the jump, a breakdown of five college stars that could hear their names called in April, despite being left off the Indianapolis invite list, and another handful who missed out on the combine for a reason.

FanHouse's lead-up to college football's signing day makes like Charles Dickens and looks at the Ghosts of Recruiting -- past, present and future. In the Ghosts of Recruiting Past we note 10 recruiting powers who have hit a dry spell

Big 12 also-rans Colorado and Texas A&M get first draw in this series. Both programs are not longstanding national powers, but did find tremendous success in the '80s and '90s, recruiting and producing great athletes. That success is now long gone, however. Let's look at their recruiting decline after the jump.

Texas doesn't need any sort of coaching genius from Mack Brown Thursday night against Texas A&M. It doesn't need defensive coordinator Will Muschamp to make Buddy Ryan feel a little blue. It couldn't even be helped if the spirit of Vince Lombardi gave the pre-game speech and rode Bevo out to challenge the Aggies at midfield.

Texas doesn't need any of that.

Texas needs Brooke Burke.

With an edge in the BCS polls so thin it probably wears pants with one belt loop, the Longhorns need style and they need to win the popular vote.

So who better than the stylish winner of America's other favorite popularity contest?

Texas needs the Dancing With the Stars champion.

The Longhorns got their wish last weekend when Oklahoma knocked off undefeated Texas Tech to turn the race for the Big 12 South title and the inside track to the BCS title into a three-way photo finish. But the Sooners did the job all too well, burying the Red Raiders upright in the ground and then using them to vault over Texas into the status of favorites for the Big 12 South title.

So, what was simple math before Week 13 has now become calculus with no eraser.

Here's how it stands:

If only Texas loses to Texas A&M, the Big 12 South is decided between Oklahoma and Texas Tech with the Sooners advancing by virtue of their head-to-head win. If only Oklahoma loses, the Red Raiders advance over the Longhorns. If only Texas Tech loses, Texas advances. If all three win, the decision comes down to the highest BCS standing, which is itself two-thirds influenced by the voters, and, we think, the head of household deduction is then multiplied by two and subtracted from Bob Stoops' gross adjusted income.

Leave it to college football to need an owner's manual to figure out a championship game.

But fortunately for the Longhorns, they've got a whole night to make their argument, assuming the Aggies or tryptohan overload don't topple the apple cart. And with no other competition for eyeballs, it'll be less an argument and more a four-hour monologue.

So here's what we need to see out of Texas unless they want their Thanksgiving to be more awkward than the Bowdens'.

Because college football is what it is, because we have bowl games and unclear resolutions of conference championships, there is much to discuss with every passing week. Things seem so unclear, so hazy. Outside of the ACC, no conference has more uncertainty than the Big 12.

Oklahoma's submarining of S.S. Texas Tech last weekend adds to the mess. If the Red Raiders had won they were all but assured a berth in the Big 12 Championship Game. Now, there's a three-way tie between them, Texas and Oklahoma for a spot in the title game and a showing against early season darling Missouri, champions of the Big 12 North.

We'll take a stab at sorting out the mess and relaying the state of the conference after the jump.

scha·den·freu·de

–noun

satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else's misfortune.

[Origin: 1890–95; < G, equiv. to Schaden harm + Freude joy]

On This Week In Schadenfreude we explore the sputtering rage, gibbering condemnation, and resigned ennui of the college football fan who has recently undergone humiliating defeat. Because even in your darkest hour, someone else is suffering too, and probably worse than you. Unless you are a Michigan fan who has just finished watching the Appalachian State game.

I don't think a winning team has ever pulled down the Tears of Unfathomable Sadness award, but we have history this week. LSU fell behind against the Troy Trojans of Troy (We're From Troy!) 31-3, causing a mass exodus from Death Valley and a truly epic message board war. This is the nuclear bomb:

At this point LSU fans just need to STFU. We are largely irrelevant, living off past glory, full of self-congratulatory bluster. Even now, some tard (sorry PJ) is on my radio talking about Nick Saban. Saban ? We don't believe in our team, we don't believe in our coaches, it's not important to us anymore to even stay at the stadium. We have made second-guessing an art form and have a juvenile view of reality. We bitched our way through a National Freaking Championship and now we are sniveling through a 9/10 win season. THAT IS WHO WE ARE. Snivelers. Whiners. Crybabies. With a ridiculous sense of entitlement.

I'm not blaming us or even asking for change, I'm just acknowleding the Truth.

Uh. Wow. And then you've got the first response:

It was either leave or kill the wife to stop the whining and there were too many witnesses to do the right thing.

Yes, what they say about LSU fans is true: they smell like corndogs and are complete lunatics. (Just kidding LSU fans! Please don't dip me in batter and fry me!) The rest of the week in spleen after the jump.