It’s the lull before the onslaught of the college football bowl games, but football still permeates the culture of Texas as the high school playoffs move toward conclusion, the Cowboys contend for an NFL playoff berth and the Texans prepare for the 2007 NFL draft. The following are a few interesting football-related items that I noticed over the past week:
Dallas native and longtime Kansas City Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt died after a long bout with cancer. Chronicle NFL columnist John McClain recalls a funny story about a meeting between Hunt, Bud Adams and legendarily crusty Chicago Bears owner George Halas at the time that Hunt and Adams were starting the old American Football League in the early 1960’s.
Despite the Texans’ problems, it’s reassuring to know that owner Bob McNair does not panic.
Chronicle sportswriter Dale Robertson reports on the remarkable success story that is the Southlake Carroll Dragons football program (the cheerleading team is another matter, though).
In this interesting column ($), the Wall Street Journal’s resident stathead, Allen St. John, makes a stab at objectively evaluating the pass protection of NFL teams. In so doing, he comes up with a stat that he calls the Sack Factor, which takes the sack yardage a team allows and divides it by the number of pass attempts. The lower the number, the better the protection. Although he finds a correlation between good teams and a low Sack Factor, the statistic needs some refinement — the Texans pass protection, which is hideous, does not rate as one of the worst in the NFL, probably because the Texans’ passing game is based on short, ineffectual pass routes that limit sacks as much as possible.
The lovable Ida Mae Crimpton pens her latest column from her porch in Elgin on her beloved Texas Longhorns’ preparations for the Alamo Bowl against the Iowa Hawkeyes. As Ida Mae observes, “Boy, whoever said it isn’t far from the castle to the outhouse sure knew what they were talking about.”
And finally, don’t miss Matt Damon’s hilarious impersonation of Longhorn fan Matthew McConaughey on a recent Letterman show. As Clear Thinkers favorite Dan Jenkins might say, “Dead Solid Perfect!”

This NY Times article reports on the latest developments in the Auburn University academic scandal involving the school’s intercollegiate athletic program. The university’s report on its internal probe indicates that at least one scholarship athlete had his grade changed from an incomplete to an “A” in a course without the professor knowing about it in order to allow the athlete to fulfill eligibility requirements. And it’s not as if the course was even a real academic exercise — it was something called a “self-study” course. Earlier posts on the scandal and the tension between academic institutions financing and operating minor league professional sports franchises are here, here and here.
Is there really any question at this point that minor league professional football is more important than academic integrity at Auburn?

Titans 26 Texans 20
Unless you are a hardy soul, it would be a good idea to avoid sports talk radio this week in Houston.
It would have been bad enough given that jilted no. 1 draft choice Reggie Bush had another brilliant game in helping the Saints blast the Cowboys. However, Texas Longhorns hero Vince Young really turned the knife when he transformed a third and long situation in overtime into a 39 yard touchdown run to give the Titans their second win over the Texans this season. The Titans trailed 14-13 in the fourth quarter before Young led a 15-play, 88-yard drive that gave the Titans their first lead of the second half, 20-17. The Texans tied it up on a Kris Brown 36-yard field goal with a little under two minutes ago, and then Young’s TD run occurred on the first possession of the overtime period.
Rookie Young clearly outplayed embattled fifth-year Texans QB David Carr, who could generate only 133 net passing yards on a 17-23 day. Young was 19-28 for a net 200 yards with one interception, but tacked on an additional 86 yards rushing on just 7 carries. Given how close-to-the-vest Texans coach Gary Kubiak played this one on offense, it’s reasonably clear that Kubiak has little confidence in Carr and that the first draft choice in the Texans’ history is probably playing his final few games with the franchise.
The Texans (4-9) now go on the road to face the Patriots (9-4) and then return home to finish the season against the Colts (10-3) and the Browns (4-9). There may be one more win in those three games, but my pre-season prediction of six wins for the Texans now appears to be a pipe dream.

Let’s just say it’s been a bad week for Texans QB David Carr. First, he was horrible in the Texans’ win over the Raiders last Sunday, registering -5 passing yards. The local media has been all over him. To make matters worse, former University of Texas National Championship hero Vince Young — who thousands of UT fans thought the Texans should have drafted earlier this year — is returning to Houston on Sunday with his professional team, the Tennessee Titans. There is little question that Young will be more warmly received by the fans at Reliant Stadium than Carr.
Amidst this stressful week, the folks over at Wages of Wins have updated their weekly NFL quarterback ratings covering last Sunday’s games, which provides some solace for the beleaguered Texans’ QB — he wasn’t the worst QB in the league last Sunday!:

The Worst Performance, Times Three
Back in week six Rex Grossman of the Chicago Bears posted a QB Score per play of -7.12. Up until week 13 this was the worst performance by an NFL quarterback in 2006. The Bears defense apparently wished to take Grossman off the record books, forcing Brad Johnson of the Vikings into a QB Score per play of -7.28 in week thirteen.
Johnsonís performance, though, was not the worst performance of the week. David Carr of the Houston Texans finished his game on Sunday with 32 yards passing, 5 yards rushing, and 37 yards lost from sacks. In sum, Carr had zero yards at the end of the game. With a QB Score per play of -7.55, Carr was ranked even lower than Johnson.
Grossman, though, was not going to relinquish his crown of worst quarterback so easily. Grossman accumulated only 15 yards. Coupled with three turnovers, Grossman had a QB Score per play of -8.63. So despite a determined effort by Carr and Johnson, Grossman finished week thirteen where he started. Grossman has still offered the worst performance by a signal caller in the league this year.

By the way, although Carr ranks 9th in the league under the NFL’s antiquated QB ratings, the Wages of Win’s more credible QB rating puts Carr as 21st in the league, which sounds about right.

This article is dispositive proof that the University of Wisconsin attorneys — as with some Congressional investigators — do not have enough to do. University lawyers have demanded that Waukee High School, just outside Des Moines, Iowa, to stop using the “motion W” on the side of the school’s football helmets. The university claims a trademark for the “motion W” and, thus, the high school must cease and desist from infringing on the university’s intellectual property.
Beyond the utter absurdity that anyone would confuse a Des Moines high school football team with the Wisconsin Badgers, the Sports Law Professor is not impressed with the legal basis of the university’s demand.
By the way, I hope Arkansas kicks Wisconsin’s ass in the Cap One Bowl on New Year’s Day.

These previous posts passed along that the Aggies are having quite a bit of fun over their recent victory over the Texas Longhorns, and now it appears that fans of the Horns’ other primal rival — the Oklahoma Sooners — are getting in on the act.
During the Big 12 Championship game between the Sooners and Nebraska in Kansas City last weekend — which the Sooners were playing in only because of the Aggies’ upset win over the Horns — several OU fans were spotted by the television cameras holding up three sequential signs that read as follows:

“Cost of tickets to the Big 12 championship football game . . . $350”
“Cost of hotel rooms to attend the Big 12 championship football game . . . $700”
“Cost of taking Texas’ tickets and hotel rooms . . . PRICELESS!”

Previous posts here and here reported on the Oddsmakers Top 25 Football Poll, a poll developed by Las Vegas Sports Consultants based on the company’s profit motive-driven incentive to provide their sports betting customers the most accurate rating of college football teams. The following is LVSC’s final Oddsmaker’s Top 25, with the BCS ranking in parenthesis:
1. Ohio State (1)
2. Michigan (3)
3. Florida (2)
4. Southern Cal (5)
5. LSU (4)
6. Louisville (6)
7. Oklahoma (10)
8. Texas (19)
9. Notre Dame (11)
10. Wisconsin (7)
11t. West Virginia (13)
11t. California (18)
13. BYU (20)
14. Virginia Tech (15)
15. Arkansas (12)
16t. Boise State (8)
16t. South Carolina (NR)
18. Tennessee (17)
19t. Nebraska (23)
19t. UCLA (25)
21. TCU (NR)
22. Rutgers (16)
23t. Oregon (NR)
23t. Clemson (NR)
23t. Arizona State (NR)
Unranked by Vegas: Auburn (ninth in BCS), Wake Forest (14th), Texas A&M (21st), Oregon State (22nd), Boston College (24th)
In addition to picking Michigan rather than Florida as the proper opponent for Ohio State in the BCS National Championship Game, the Oddsmakers Top 25 raises a couple of interesting issues.
First, the credibility of the Vegas-based poll versus the BCS poll will have a lot riding on the Oklahoma-Boise State matchup in the Fiesta Bowl. The Oddsmakers Poll has Oklahoma 7th and Boise State 16th, while the BCS has Boise 8th and Oklahoma 10th. The initial line has the Sooners favored by a touchdown. My sense is that the Oddsmakers Poll has these two teams more accurtely aligned — Oklahoma and a bunch of other teams in the Top 25 would probably have gone unbeaten if they had played Boise’s schedule.
Despite LSU’s two early-season losses, the Oddsmakers Poll is looking prescient for not giving up on the Tigers. The first BCS Poll had LSU 18th while the Oddsmakers Poll had the Tigers fifth. This week, the Oddsmakers Poll still has LSU at fifth while the BCS has the Tigers fourth.
I say ditch the BCS rating system and let the purity of the profit-driven Oddsmakers Top 25 determine the rankings for the BCS bowl games. It’s all about the money anyway, isn’t it?