Bob Bowlsby at Big 12 Media Days. (Justin Wells/IT)
DALLAS – Even when Baylor’s media portion is tomorrow, they were the subject of Day 1 at the Big 12 Media Days at The Omni on Monday.
Our Justin Wells, Ian Boyd, and Joe Cook were on the scene. Here are the notes from Dallas.
From: JW
Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby probably woke up this morning and didn’t see this coming.
Of course there would be questions about Baylor’s athletic department. But not like this. After he mentioned BU’s new coach, “Al Groh”, it got crazy. (hint: It’s Jim Grobe, Bobby)
Cook will go more into detail, but at one point, Baylor OC Kendall Briles and RB coach Jeff Lebby’s names were mentioned in connection with the Pepper Hamilton Report and why they were still employed by the University. Bowlsby’s reaction was that of dismay and disbelief.
At the end of the day, BU introduced its new Athletic Director, Mack Rhoades, in a small room here at the Omni. He’s tasked with cleaning up the mess in Waco, a tall task indeed. One quote stood out.
“If you ask what’s your motivation, there’s my motivation,” as he points toward his daughters.”
PATTERSON
Gary was Gary. He slipped in that RB Varshaun Nixon would be out for the year with an injury, that the QB position wasn’t set, that he’s not worried about what’s happening in Waco, rather in Fort Worth, and that keeping Sonny Cumbie out of Austin was a good idea.
BEATY
The former TX HS football coach and son of a Dallas Police Officer was once again likeable and well-spoken. Too bad he’s stuck in Lawrence, KS. He says his Jayhawks will be bigger, faster, and stronger in 2016, and that after the Baylor scandal, coaches will have to be more careful taking second chances on players with past transgressions.
Patrick Mahomes. (Justin Wells/IT)
KINGSBURY
Kliffy was decked out in a beige suit with the confidence that only comes when you own one of the nation’s top quarterbacks. When Patrick Mahomes decided to hang up his baseball cleats to become a full-time football star, the program reaped the rewards. Kingsbury noted Mahomes is now more polished, refined, and added needed muscle to prepare him for a big 2016. He also said incoming freshman, Jett Duffey, could also be the backup QB.
Mahomes noted he enjoys playing for Kingsbury, “one of the first Air Raid quarterbacks.” He told me it’s the first time since he was five years old that he didn’t play baseball, his childhood love. He grew learning how to play the game with Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez. He said the best players in their sport were also the hardest workers. That always stuck with him. I’ve heard the NFL desires Patrick and is likely a 1st round pick in next April’s draft. Enjoy him now, Red Raider fans, he’ll probably be playing on Sundays this time next fall.
CAMPBELL
Iowa State’s new coach, Matt Campbell, comes to Ames from Toledo, and is the newcomer of the group. He asks his players to improve “at least 2% better everyday,” feels good with Joel Lanning at QB, and might have the league’s most underrated offensive threat, Mike Warren. I don’t have much on Iowa State. Then again, nobody does.
GUNDY
Gundy might be well over 40 years old, but his mullet was majestic and in full effect. He talked about transfer Barry Sanders Jr. making his mark, his DBs and DEs needed tons of help, and commented on how Mack Brown and Mike Sherman were the reason his Cowboys could no longer setup camps in Texas, until the satellite camp ban was lifted three months ago. His QB, Mason Rudolph is big, but without JW Walsh picking up the slack in the red zone, they’ll have to find different ways to win. Again, the only thing impressive about Oklahoma State was the haircuts. They caught lightning in a bottle last year, I don’t see that happening again.
QUOTE OF THE DAY:
“Coming of the mud. We grow up in football. It’s in our blood.” – Travin Howard, LB, TCU (Longview, TX)
From: IAN
The main story of the day was Mike Gundy’s mullet, which is apparently known to the team as “the Arkansas Waterfall.” But I have my own notes from media days that I was able to cull from wandering around and asking the tough questions like, “who’s the hardest guy to tackle in the Big 12.”
Some of this will be notes will be quotes and others will be impressions by yours truly that may or may not be accurate but probably are ;).
Oklahoma State will be a tricky team to handle
You hear opposing coaches mention DC Glenn Spencer all the time as being a trickster that’s hard to account for and while he has glaring holes at corner and defensive end, the ‘Pokes have tons of tough and wily veterans in the middle of their defense.
Safety Jordan Sterns confirmed to me that they’ll have a package for Auburn transfer safety Derrick Moncrief, a 6-foot-2, 220 redshirt senior. I’m guessing it’ll look something like this.
The question for them will be whether they have the types of players that allow you to overwhelm opponents. Great pass-rushers, lockdown corners, and physical O-line make winning football games much easier and those areas are major question marks. Gundy indicated Palestine DE Jarell Owens could become such a player perhaps midway through the year. Mason Rudolph is strangely controversial amongst fans and writers but if you ask players or coaches about him there’s major respect.
The toughest players to tackle
Travin Howard. (Justin Wells/IT)
Multiple players gave the nod to Jakeem Grant, the departing holder of the “Darren Sproles water bug trophy for most outstanding tiny person” award. Amongst current players there’s a lot of respect for Samaje Perine, who repeatedly came up when I asked defenders which players are either hard to tackle or unpleasant to tackle.
Kavontae Turpin got some attention as well, with up and coming linebacker Joe Dineen of Kansas eagerly conceding “I swear if you dive to tackle that man, you’re going to get straight air…You need to leverage the tackle and send him to the sideline or to a teammate, the first person there probably isn’t going to make the tackle.”
The respect around the league for Perine and Oklahoma is obvious.
Still the class of the league
It’s obvious that most of the other players around the league regard Oklahoma as the biggest, strongest, most physical and most fearsome team in the league. Much like most every other year.
That said, Kingsbury listed the TCU defense as being the most difficult to attack schematically, “I have a tremendous amount of respect for Gary’s [defense] at TCU. If you don’t do new wrinkles and new things when you’re playing him he will lock it down. He studies a lot of film, he’s a great communicator to his defense of pre-snap tips…every year we know when we play TCU we’d better have a heck of a game plan cause they’re gonna be on it.”
The Frogs have a lot of experience and speed back on defense, I can’t emphasize enough how likely this is to be a major determining factor on the upcoming season.
I’m sure Justin has more on his boy Pat Mahomes but that kid and the Tech offense is rearing to go and will quite possibly be the class of the league on that side of the ball.
Opposing impressions of Texas
Texas Tech DB Justis Nelson listed Warren with Perine as the toughest big backs to handle in the league. Nelson would know as one of the only defenders in the league who’s actually faced both.
“He’s big…he’s abnormally big for a running back. He can have as great a season as he wants to have and I’m sure he will.”
Kingsbury also had some thoughts on the young Texas defense saying, “We left that game saying, ‘hey when those young corners grow up they’re gonna be something,’ because they stepped out there as true freshmen and went toe to toe. They’re out there getting in people’s faces and talking trash and you like that.”
Tech left tackle Baylen Brown said of Texas, “I think they’re going to have some breakout years soon. They have a lot of talent, they always do they get whoever they want…I think they’re starting to come around.”
From: PJC
Bowlsby discusses Baylor, conference championship at Media Days
In the opening statement issued by Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby at the Big 12 Media Days in Dallas, the commissioner touched on satellite camps, new head coaching additions to the conference, rules regarding transfers and the overall athletic competitiveness of the conference. However, most of the questions the commissioner had to answer focused around two topics; the handling of the sexual assault situation at Baylor University, and the addition of a conference championship game in 2017.
In response to the events at Baylor, the conference adopted rules requiring member institutions to extensively research all athletes entering their athletic programs.
“We also adopted a serious misconduct policy and the policy details due diligence that needs to be undertaken on each campus,” Bowlsby said. “It pertains to incoming freshmen as well as transfers and I think it requires that each institution make decisions about young people that have things in their past that may be questionable and it requires each institution to make sure that due diligence goes beyond the staff of the sport involved, goes beyond the athletics department and all the way to the highest levels of the university.”
Bowlsby maintained that Baylor has been very forthcoming with the conference’s requests for information and that they met with the NCAA Infractions committee early in the process. Bowlsbywas asked how he felt about Baylor coaches Kendal Briles, Phil Bennett and Jeff Lebby still being on staff at Baylor, but he stated he did not know everything about those three.
“I don’t know that I can adequately address [Briles, Lebby and Bennett still being on staff] because I know what you know,” Bowlsby said. “So if you know more about those three in specific, I guess people would be glad to know the information. I’ve asked questions about remaining members. I’ve asked questions about cultural aspects of the staff and football team.”
Bowlsby later would state that the Big 12 expected to learn more on Tuesday during the Big 12 Board of Directors meeting.
The other major topic, the conference championship game, was surrounded by uncertainty aside from its location. Bowlsby stated that the championship would “definitely” be at a neutral site, and that more details would be available in the coming months.
“I would like to have all those questions answered by first of November, middle of November, by the end of the football season for sure,” Bowlsby said. “I would like to know our site and date and we have some work to do with our TV partners.”
As far as the composition of the divisions, Bowlsby said the conference has a few ways to determine their makeup.
“We’ve talked about a number of different ways,” Bowlsby said. “We’ve talked about an equity base that would be on a rotational basis that would be responsive to how teams are finishing in the overall standings. There has some talk about staying with one division and going, you know, that route. I sense less enthusiasm for that.”
Kingsbury confident in his quarterback
Texas Tech head coach Kliff Kingsbury has a real talent at QB on his hands with junior Patrick Mahomes II. He was able to spend more time with his QB this spring than usual due to Mahomes’ decision to quit baseball. Kingsbury said that was important to his QB’s development.
“That was huge,” Kingsbury said. “His entire life he never had a football offseason where he just lifted and watched film and worked on his mechanics and footwork. We decided together if we’re going to give up baseball, we’re going to maximize this offseason. We did. If you walk by him, you can see how much bigger he has gotten. Watching him throw the football, he’s a lot more accurate. His mechanics are better. His footwork is better. He studied a lot more film. I think he’s a much improved player and I think everybody’s going to see that this fall.”
Kingsbury noted that Mahomes not only is bigger and stronger than he was last season, but also throws the ball farther than anyone he’s ever coached.
“Case [Keenum] and Johnny [Manziel] were real accurate passers and had good arms but he can throw it 80 to 85 yards,” Kingsbury said. “He has that ability to extend plays and keep his eyes down the field. He’s such a physical guy. He can shed tacklers. He can keep things alive. Overall, his talent is through the roof but I think his strength as a player and his arm strength are as good as I’ve seen.”
Kingsbury was asked about the new offensive system and offensive coordinator at Texas, Sterlin Gilbert, and how it affects how he prepares for the game against the Longhorns in Lubbock this season. Although he thought Gilbert would do well, he expressed doubt that the Horns would produce at levels similar to those seen under former Baylor head coach Art Briles.
“It takes time to get a high powered offense,” Kingsbury said. “That took Briles five or six years to get there and bring in some really, really good players before they were leading the country in points and yards. I don’t know if it will be an overnight deal. I really like the young quarterback that they have there. They have some great skill. I think Sterlin will do a good job, but as far as jumping right in and leading the country in points and all those things that Baylor was doing, that may be a process.
Beaty on Building
Kansas head coach David Beaty knows Texas high school football. He’s well respected, and even gave a shout out to Katy head coach Gary Joseph. He has relationships with hundreds of high school coaches in Texas, but Beaty is hours away from them and their players up in Lawrence.
Here’s what Beaty said about using his Texas ties for talent while building a program in Kansas: First of all, we’re going to recruit the planet. We are going to find the best players that we can find so we can ourselves win the league for our fans and for our university. We do believe that there is very talented kids in our state and in our region, and that we need to give them something that they want to stay home for. How do that? The number one thing is you have to create relationships with those coaches that you don’t already have. Here, it was instant. We’ve already got it. We’ve been there. We’ve grown up with these guys. They know how much I value them. They know that when they come to my place, we’re going to take care of them like our own. In Kansas, I had several relationships. I didn’t have all 365 some-odd schools that play high school football. That takes time. It’s a process of building relationships with those guys. We started last year. We hit every door that played high school football in Kansas. We did it again this year. We’re going to continue to do it because that’s how people believe that you are who you say you are. Do it once, you might be able to do it twice, but when you’re there year in and year out, that’s when people understand that’s who you really are. We’re doing it one year at a time and eventually, they’re going to say that these guys are the type of guys that we can trust. At the end of the day, it really comes down to trust and knowing that we’re going to take care of them and really getting to know us.
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