Last time we checked in with University of Texas at El Paso head football coach Mike Price, the former University of Alabama head coach (for about five minutes) was settling his $20 million libel lawsuit against Time, Inc.
Well, as you might have heard, Time backed off of that settlement a few days after its announcement. Time contended indignantly that Coach Price and his attorney had breached the settlement agreement by making public comments about the settlement and the litigation. Coach Price and his lawyer denied that any of their statements breached the agreement, Time went ahead and filed a motion with the Alabama state court requesting that the settlement be set aside, anyway.
Enter Dow Jones, Inc., venerable publisher of The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones filed a motion with the court in the Price v. Time lawsuit requesting that the court unseal the terms of the defunct settlement and other records in the case, which included information regarding the identity of Time’s sources for what went on in Coach Price’s hotel room that summer evening in Pensacola. Time apparently said “Oops!” and promptly opposed Dow Jones’ request.
Regaining its senses, Time announced today that it had once again settled with Coach Price, which apparently moots the Dow Jones motion in the court’s view. This time, Coach Price and his attorney could not be reached for comment on the settlement, thank goodness.
However, Coach Price has arranged for a several sideline passes to UTEP’s next game to be held at the will-call window for Dow Jones. ;^)

Chronicle sportswriter Richard Justice says some of the darndest things. Take the following quotes from today’s column on the current state of the hapless Houston Texans:

“The Texans are respectable. They’re coming close. They’ve got four 2-7 teams left on their schedule. They almost won in Jacksonville, and they made a run at the Indianapolis Colts before losing 31-17 Sunday.”

The Texans are respectable? In nine games this season, the Texans have been in only three games that they had a reasonable chance to win, albeit two of those have been in the last three games. As for making “a run” against the Colts, when the Texans closed to 21-14 in the third quarter, Peyton Manning and the Colts offense reeled off a five play, 75 yard march for a touchdown that made the Texans defense look as if it would have a difficult time stopping a hard-chargin’ marching band. If that’s respectable, then I would hate to see what Justice considers just plain bad.

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Rice 42 Tulane 34

The Owls (1-8) get the top spot on the local football review this week as they finally broke their 14 game losing streak (the longest in major college football) in beating Tulane at Rice Stadium. The win was a relief for the Rice program, which could attract a “crowd” of less than 10,000 for homecoming on a mild Texas autumn afternoon. Rumors continue to swirl that this will be head coach Ken Hatfield’s last season, and — despite the problems that the program has endured over the past two seasons — he is going to be a tough act to replace. While Rice’s new affiliation with Conference USA renews its traditional rivalries with Houston, SMU, and Tulane, it’s reasonably clear that those rivalries will not be enough to revive the lagging Owl football program. The Owls have a tough game next Saturday at Central Florida before ending the season on the Saturday after Thanksgiving against Houston.

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As we hope that the next installment of Texas A&M football coach Dennis Franchione‘s Friday with Fran will be as entertaining as last week’s installment, the following are ways in which more than a few Aggie fans are getting up for this Saturday’s clash in Norman, Oklahoma between the Aggies and the Oklahoma Sooners:

FireDennisFranchione.com
FireFranPetition.com
FranUnderFire.com, which includes this handy list of embarrassments.

The Houston Texans face a vexing decision with regard to quarterback David Carr, the team’s first draft pick in its existence — whether to pick up an $8 million option to retain Carr’s services over the next four seasons?
In what has become his typically superficial manner, the Chronicle’s main NFL beat writer, John McClain (previous posts on McClain here), weighs in with this column in which he contends that the Texans will and should pick up the option to retain Carr’s services. McClain reasons that the Texans should retain Carr because “every team in the NFL that needed a quarterback would line up to give him a signing bonus of a lot more than $8 million,” although McClain provides no supporting analysis for that conclusion.

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Chronicle sportswriter John Lopez has a good column today regarding the poor personnel moves of Texans’ general manager Charlie Casserly that have been primarily responsible for the Texans’ disastrous season this year. Included in the article was the following quote from Casserly:

“We’re 1-7, but we’re not a 1-7 team,” Casserly said. “This isn’t a sinking ship deal. I’m not trying to blame coaching or anything like that. Sometimes these things just happen. If we make a couple of good moves, boom, we’re back to where we should be next year.”

H’mm. Of their eight games this season, the Texans have been competitive in precisely three. QB David Carr continues to be sacked more than any other quarterback in the NFL, and the defense is one of the worst in the league in terms of stopping the run and in sacking the opposing team’s quarterback. Sounds precisely like a 1-7 team to me.
Oh well, at least Casserly doesn’t blog.

Some people simply should not blog. Let me put this in context.
Two weekends ago, Iowa State hammered Texas A&M 42-14 in front of the fifth largest crowd in the history of Kyle Field. Then, last Saturday night, Texas Tech blistered the Aggies 56-17 in Lubbock.
In between those two debacles, Texas A&M head coach Dennis Franchione published this post on his Coach Fran website, which included the following:

From appearances at a press luncheon, and a Big 12 phone conference, and at the local Quarterback Club, and at our radio show, the most-asked question of the past week about our game was, “Why didn’t you run Jorvorskie Lane on third-and-one?”
Some people asked that question and really didn’t care about the answer. In fact, some people right now don’t care about anything we say, which is why in our camp we are working hard on doing instead of talking. Other than a few coaches who look at recruiting news, our staff does not spend time on the Internet and this week we didn’t spend time with emails or letters, either.

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Texas Longhorns 62 Baylor 0.

The Longhorns (9-0; 6-0 Big 12) relentless march to the BCS National Championship Game against USC continued on Saturday as the Horns barely broke a sweat in racing past undermanned Baylor and Miami took care of Virginia Tech‘s dream of sneaking past the Horns in the BCS standings. The Horns face a scrimmage against Kansas at home, a rivalry game against a demoralized Aggie team in College Station, and a reasonably competitive game against Colorado in the Big 12 Championship game in in early December at Reliant Stadium. But make no mistake about it — this Texas team is making its reservations for Pasadena in the first week of January and only a huge upset could scuttle those plans.

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Texans 19 Browns 16.

That’s a huge sigh of relief that you are hearing from the South Main area as the Texans (1-6) avoided the real possibility of a 0-16 season with their win over the equally hapless Cleveland Browns (2-5). Amazingly, the Texans were able to pull out this field goal battle with only 237 yards of total offense, including 120 yards passing on David Carr’s 10 completions on 20 attempts. Let’s just say that I don’t think that’s a prescription for another victory next week in Jacksonville against the 4-3 Jaguars.

Cowboys 34 Cardinals 13.

The Cowboys (5-3) continued to get stellar defensive play as they held the Cardinals (2-5) to just over 200 yards total offense in cruising to an easy victory. The Pokes needed a win in this one as they head into their bye week, after which they have to play three games in 11 days, including tough ones at Philadelphia against the Eagles (4-3) and at home against the Broncos (6-2).

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On Saturday, I spent a beautiful Texas fall afternoon on the sidelines of Kyle Field in College Station to watch the Texas A&M Aggies host the Iowa State Cyclones in a Big 12 Conference football game.

Iowa State head football coach Dan McCarney and I grew up together in Iowa City, Iowa, where we were teammates on a championship high school football team at City High in 1970. We have remained close friends over the years, and so I have tried to attend each game in Texas that Iowa State plays since Coach Mac became head coach at Iowa State in 1994, and Coach Mac always comes through with a sideline pass for me to each of the games.

The following are a few photos that I took Saturday afternoon as the 10.5 point underdog Cyclones steamrolled the Aggies 42-14 in front of over 86,000 rather disheartened Aggie fans.

The Corps “Steps Out”. One of many fabulous traditions at A&M on gameday is when the A&M Corps of Cadets “Steps Out” of the Corps’ dorm about two blocks away from Kyle Field. Precisely one hour and 45 minutes before kick-off, a cannon blast signals that the outstanding Fightin’ Aggie Marching Band is beginning to lead the various Corps squadrons out of the dorm area as they parade down a boulevard to Kyle Field. Thousands of Aggie fans stand along the parade route and cheer the Band and the Corps members as they march toward Kyle Field. When they reach Kyle Field, the band and the Corps march into the stadium before the watchful eye of visiting dignitaries on a reviewing stand, which yesterday included former President Bush and Texas Governor Rick Perry. “Step Out,” the parade, and “March In” are truly among the great college gameday traditions in all of college football.

Coach Mac chats with Coach Fran. Coach Mac and Texas Aggie Coach Fran (Dennis Franchione) engage in the traditional head coach pre-game chat at mid-field as both teams go through their pre-game warmups.

Coach Mac and Coach Fran are about the same age, but Coach Mac has been coaching in the Big 12 far longer (11 seasons) than Coach Fran, who is in his third season at A&M. Inasmuch as Coach Fran and his squad are going through a tough season, he’s probably passing along his troubles to Coach Mac, who has plenty of experience in enduring tough seasons. By the way, that fellow below the two coaches is fixing something on the turf rather than tying Coach Mac’s shoe.

An old quarterback shows he can still throw the pigskin. One of Iowa State’s associate head coaches is Terry Allen, shown here throwing pregame warm-up tosses to the Iowa State receivers. Terry’s family lived across the street from my family while we grew up in Iowa City, although Terry is several years younger than Coach Mac and me, so he did not play ball with us in high school. However, Terry was quite a player, and he went on to be the starting quarterback for three seasons in the late 1970’s for the University of Northern Iowa, where he eventually became a successful head football coach. Terry parlayed that success into the head coaching job at the University of Kansas during the early part of this decade, but he — like many other coaches at that football coaching graveyard — was fired after just a few seasons. Coach Mac hired Terry immediately and he has become a key member of the Iowa State staff.

Kyle Field is a very intimidating place to play. This is a photo of one of Iowa State’s first plays during the game, which prompts me to comment on what it’s like on the sidelines of Kyle Field when the visiting team has the ball. To put it gently . . . IT IS VERY LOUD!
One of the A&M traditions is the 12th Man, which means that all students and many other Aggie fans stand during the entire game and make an incredible amount of noise while the visiting team is attempting to call its signals at the line of scrimmage. The effect of this din is disconcerting, to say the least, and most teams end up relying on hand signals to their wide receivers because of their inability to hear the signals that the quarterback is calling at the line of scrimmage. As a result, more illegal procedure penalties are generated from opponents at Kyle Field than any other venue in college football.

A key play in the game. Although I did not realize it when I was taking this picture, this play turned out to be a key one during the game. With A&M trailing 14-7 late in the first half, A&M’s talented quarterback Reggie McNeal is dropping back to pass on the play, but is flushed by the Iowa State defensive line. The fleet McNeal took off done the far sideline, then cut back across the field and raced 65 yards for an apparent touchdown, except for those dreaded words . . .

“There was a flag on the play.”

As you can see from this photo, directly in front of McNeal, an Aggie offensive lineman is holding Iowa State defensive lineman Nick Leaders, who has beaten the Aggie lineman badly on the play. That indiscretion cost A&M a game-tying touchdown and, frankly, the Ags never recovered.

The Fightin’ Aggie Marching Band lines up for its halftime performance. The Aggie Marching Band is one of the great bands in college football, and this picture shows the band lining up for their halftime performance directly under A&M’s “Zone” facility that looms over Kyle Field’s north end zone. When the opposing team has the ball and is near the “Zone,” the noise down on the field is absolutely deafening. A&M’s master facility plan projects that a similar facility will eventually be built in the south end zone of Kyle Field, which will raise the stadium’s capacity to 110-115,000.

The Aggie Band specializes in precision military marching drills and patriotic music (think John Phillip Sousa on steroids). My favorites — the theme to the movie Patton, Noble Men of Kyle and the Strategic Air Command March.

The Tuba Pivot. A favorite part of the Aggie precision marching drills is the pivot that the tuba players make while turning during the drills. You have to see the Tuba Pivot to appreciate it fully, but take it from me — the Aggie Tuba Corps is one precision outfit.

During the days of the now defunct Southwest Conference, the Aggie Band used to come to Houston each season when the Aggie football team played either Rice or the University of Houston. During those days, the Aggie Band and the Corps of Cadets used to parade down Main Street in downtown Houston the morning of their game against either Rice or UH, and the parade was always well-attended. That’s a part of Texas football culture that I miss.

The Final Score. The scoreboard tells the story as the Cyclones beat the Aggies for the first time in eight games between the two schools. Inasmuch as it’s highly unusual for Iowa State to beat A&M — and even more unusual to hammer them at Kyle Field — Coach Mac came over to me as the final seconds on the clock were winding down to commiserate for a moment before he had to rush off at the end of the game for the midfield handshake with Coach Fran, post-game interviews and his many other responsibilities.

It was a heartwarming moment as I embraced my old friend on the sidelines and congratulated him on his first win over the Aggies until . . . the Iowa State players decided to give Coach Mac the traditional celebratory ice-water dousing at that particular moment!

As we both got drenched, Coach Mac and I had a good laugh as we parted, and it was all-in-all a satisfying — albeit wet — post-game ride back home to The Woodlands.