The Big 12 Media Days kicked off on Monday and safety was at the forefront of this year’s meeting. “Gary Patterson, one of the finest defensive minds in the country, one of the best head coaches in the country, cares truly about kids”.
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He said college football in general needed to work on these areas “the recruiting environment, signing day, contact windows, oversigning and transfers”. The Big XII replaced those teams with West Virginia and TCU.
To combat this, Patterson brought in Doug Meacham and Sonny Cumbie, “Air Raid” disciples who took former receiver Trevone Boykin (3,901 passing yards, 707 rushing yards, 41 total touchdowns) and turned him into a preseason Heisman candidate at quarterback. In light of that victory, TCU finished No. 3 in the final AP and Coaches’ poll.
“I favor a 12-team conference”. “I know that previous year we didn’t have any linebackers, we didn’t have a quarterback”.
“That’s about the amount of applause I get when I make a call”. “And obviously, Gary’s got it rolling”. It didn’t help that at last July’s Media Days that the league had unveiled the slogan, “One True Champion”, while trying to push its round robin schedule as a positive.
“I would hope he would be, and he has every right to be, and should be”, Kansas State coach Bill Snyder said.
“I don’t think he’s just the biggest guy in college football”.
So does the Big 12.
“I don’t think that that is going to be something that’s going to change the way that we do business”, Kansas coach David Beaty said. They’ve gotten to the top of our league, but they didn’t start at the bottom. So that’s why I really stuck with them.
The Horned Frogs were not caught by surprise. It doesn’t guarantee Texas or Oklahoma getting poached but 12 teams and it could open the conversation for a Grant of Rights, which would effectively built a massive wall around the conference for years.
“It’s humbling to be in this situation”, Boykin said. “I’m sure he feels better”. It’s another way in which we’re a little different, but our ADs have felt strongly about it and our coaches have supported.
On Monday, that meant handling questions. Two weeks ago, he threw out the first pitch at a Rangers game.
“What we determined was our guys weren’t using them anyway”, he said. “It’s all about playing ball”.
“It comes with the territory”.
With Texas, Oklahoma and Baylor all slated for the event’s second day, Tuesday promises to be more newsworthy than Monday. I’m not a big believer that you have to have a conference championship. “On the other hand, kids that have histories don’t seem to have too much problem finding a place that they can go and play college sports”, he said. “That’s our rule moving forward”.
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This week, the brain trust at Football.com wanted me to provide my take at this expansion article on the FoxSports.com “Outkick the Coverage” blog. “This summer has been a very businesslike manner in how they’ve gone about it”. “It’s all about what we make of ourselves”.
