Two Wunderkinds Take on New Jobs, Great Challenges

(Composite photo.)



Last week, two rising stars in their respective fields both assumed new roles with tremendous opportunities following sudden, unexpected events.

On Monday, it was revealed that Baylor quarterback Seth Russell will undergo "season-ending" neck surgery. Russell, whose performance as starting QB this season for the 2nd-ranked Bears has been nothing short of amazing, suffered a fractured bone in his neck trying to run for a first down in the fourth quarter of Baylor's Homecoming game against Iowa State. BU won the game but lost Russell.

That means that what Yahoo! Sports columnist Pat Forde called "the most fun position in football" will now be filled by 19-year-old true freshman Jarrett Stidham, a highly-prized recruit from Stephenville High School. (Yes, the same Stephenville High School whose football team won four state championships under Coach Art Briles. They won a fifth state championship in 2012 when Stidham was a sophomore.) The FBS's top offense will be depending on young Stidham to deliver as they pursue a berth in the college-football playoff and, God willing, a national championship.

Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) was elected and sworn in as the new Speaker of the House on Thursday, succeeding the leathery, emotional John Boehner, who had held the post since January of 2011 and shocked the nation last month when he announced his sudden resignation.

Like Stidham, Ryan is taking on huge responsibility with the support of a team that is excited to have him but can't be certain how he'll fare in his new role. Fans of both (or either) have reason for confidence, however, as neither man is a neophyte. Ryan is currently serving his ninth term in Congress and has already chaired two important House committees: Budget and Ways & Means. Stidham has played in every game this season, thanks to Baylor's habit of building up runaway leads well before the end of regulation.

 

Actually, not only are Ryan and Stidham experienced, but both already have some exceptional accomplishments on their resumes. Stidham put up crazy numbers in his senior year at Stephenville, passing for 2,934 yards and 35 touchdowns and running for an additional 969 yards and 15 TDs, and Ryan took on the third rail of politics--entitlement reform--as a little-known congressman from a Democratic-leaning district when Republicans were the minority party. Sports writers, analysts and college coaches around the country took note of Stidham's prowess and achievements and dubbed him one of the top recruits in the country, just as Republicans recognized Ryan as the asset he was and moved him into position to take over as chairman of the House Budget Committee when they regained the majority in that chamber five years ago. Ryan saw his first bill become law as a freshman. Stidham's first-ever pass in a college game was a touchdown.

 

Similarly, both men will face tests early on in their new roles, as greater challenges loom large in the near future. Stidham will debut as Baylor's starting QB this Thursday against the Kansas State Wildcats, who are 0-4 in conference play this season. This is a game the Bears should win, and a decisive victory will probably be necessary to show that Stidham can handle the upcoming Big 12 tilts against Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and TCU, all of whom have defeated K-State this year. Ryan's first real test as speaker will likely be passing a long-term bill to fund highway programs. Beyond that, he will have to deal with his own fractious conference, troublemaking Democrats and a hostile White House on weightier necessities, such as an omnibus spending bill, as one of the most critical elections of our lifetimes draws nearer.

 

Both men also have the advantage/burden of taking the helm at a time when their party/team is enjoying historic success, with their sights set on even higher goals. Republicans started this year with their biggest congressional majority in 84 years, and they'd like to keep that majority and win the presidency next year to boot. Baylor's football team is gunning for their third consecutive Big 12 title and first-ever appearance in a national championship game. Their offense has led the FBS in both yards per game and points per game the past two seasons and is currently first in both categories this season.

 

The similarities are not endless, however. For example, Ryan never desired the position he now holds and only sought it after much cajoling and pressure from his party, whereas Stidham was already contemplating getting "the starting job" when he committed to Baylor last December. Then there are the stark differences between their predecessors. While John Boehner turned out to be a disappointment (and, some would argue, a traitor) to his own people as speaker, Seth Russell proved himself worthy of the position he inherited from Bryce Petty. As reported by Graham Watson (“Dr. Saturday”), “Russell leads the FBS in passing efficiency (189.7), passing touchdowns (29), passing yards per completion (17.68), points responsible for per game (30.0) and passing yards per attempt (10.52).” He threw for 2,104 yards and ran for 402 more for a total of 35 touchdowns this season, stats that are made all the more impressive when you consider that he did not even play all four quarters in any of his seven starts.

 

So, Stidham has some big shoes (or cleats) to fill, but I for one am confident he's capable of delivering for Baylor just as Russell was prepared to do. As for Paul Ryan, there is a reason—or two (or several)—that his image was one selected to grace the banner of this blog and our web site. His intellect, work product and passionate advocacy for conservative policies has earned him a place alongside the late, great Edmund Burke, Milton Friedman and William F. Buckley, Jr. Here's hoping these two white knights exceed expectations and that the best is yet to come for the Baylor Bears and the GOP.

Day of the Upset ... but not in Austin

I am admittedly a little late getting this post up, but then, I don't write about sports for a living. (To loyal readers and followers of this blog, sorry it has been so long since I've posted something. I've had ideas, believe me, but starting a law practice from scratch and keeping it afloat are very time-consuming.)

It's been a while since there's been so much upheaval in the NCAA football rankings in one week, or even in one day. On Saturday, 11th-ranked Mississipi ("Ole Miss") beat No. 3 Alabama, No. 4 Oklahoma lost to TCU, which had just made it into the AP Top 25 this season, and 12th-ranked Mississippi State battered some stupid cow college that was ranked No. 6. Add to that No. 2 Oregon's embarrassing home loss to unranked Arizona, and you had four of the top six teams losing this week, causing a scrambling of the rankings at the top of the AP poll. No. 17 Wisconsin and 18th-ranked Brigham Young University also lost to unranked teams, (Northwestern and Utah State, respectively).

Other top-ranked schools avoided being upset, most importantly No. 7 Baylor, which handed Texas its third loss at home this year. The Bears almost shut out the Longhorns, but two costly penalties against Baylor's defense on UT's last possession of the game allowed them to score a touchdown with 2:14 remaining.

The 'horns nearly scored twice in the first half, but Baylor defensive lineman Beau Blackshear successfully blocked a 52-yard field goal attempt, and safety Terrell Burt scooped up the ball and returned it 62 yards for his second career touchdown. Then, right before halftime, Texas quarterback Tyrone Swoopes fumbled the snap at the 1-yard line, and Blackshear was there to recover the ball.

The most spectacular drive of the game was easily the one kept alive by Baylor punter Spencer Roth’s faked punt and 19-yard run on fourth-and-5 in the third quarter. Three plays later, quarterback Bryce Petty completed a pass to Antwan Goodley, who ran it into the end zone for a 30-yard touchdown.

The 28-7 final score could easily have been more lopsided, but the referees took six points for Baylor off the scoreboard in the second quarter after an official review determined that Petty was stopped short of the goal line when he ran with the ball on 2nd & Goal from the 5. Texas's surprisingly strong defense managed to keep Baylor out of the end zone on its ensuing two attempts, resulting in a turnover on downs.

Much to my chagrin, the Bears chose to let our QB take a knee on the last play of the game, when Baylor had the ball on the Texas 7-yard line with one second remaining on the clock. The obvious call for me would have been to let Chris Callahan attempt a field goal. I know we didn't need the extra points, but our poor kicker could have used a confidence boost after missing five of his six field goal attempts so far this season, and to deny him that opportunity, when there was nothing on line, came across (to me, at least) as a slight at the young man.

For those of you not familiar with the history and dynamics of the Big Twelve, let me explain why this game was such a big deal. Texas used to be the big dog, the king of the conference. They're the most recent Big 12 team to win a national championship (in 2006). They are the school that produced Earl Campbell and Dallas Cowboys icons Tom Landry and Tex Schramm. Movies have been made about Texas football, even about their cheerleaders.

But, in recent years, the mighty have fallen. As mentioned earlier in this post, Texas has lost three home games already this season, putting them at 2-3 overall and 1-1 against conference opponents. They are 14½-point underdogs going in to this Saturday's game against Oklahoma, perenially played at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. Longtime coach Mack Brown, who led them to that national championship and another Big 12 conference title in 2009, stepped down at the end of the 2013 season, and the team has apparently not been doing well under his successor, Charlie Strong.

Even before Brown’s exit, the school's football program was clearly in decline. I'm told that that their 8-5 record last year made Brown the first coach in Texas history to have four straight seasons with at least four losses.

Texas's decline overlapped with Baylor's rapid ascent. In the past four years, my alma mater has played in four consecutive bowl games--a first in school history--turned out a Heisman trophy winner--another first--and won its first Big 12 title. Oh, and we've got a fancy new stadium on the north bank of the Brazos River now, too.

The unofficial passing of the torch may have come last December when Baylor defeated Texas 30-10 to win that conference title.

The feelings of resentment among other teams, especially Texas, are stark, as Jordan Garrettson reported for the AP last week:

"They're still Baylor," said John Harris, who leads Texas with 336 receiving yards. "Just because they started playing better, that's good for them. We're still Texas."

Those remarks came about six months after Longhorns linebacker Steve Edmond was reprimanded by the Big 12 for his disrespectful comments toward the Bears after spring practice.

"I really don't like Baylor. I still feel they're trash," Edmond said. "Y'all think it's funny, but I'm dead serious. They've had some good players. But I don't understand how we lost to Baylor."

These players' jeers at the new king of the Big 12 underscore what is becoming an undeniable fact: the upper echelon of the NCAA bowl subdivision (the FBS) is, to many schools, an elite club of historically dominant teams, and they don't like it when schools they used to beat the tar out of improve themselves and break into that upper echelon. I'm sure it hasn't been fun for Texas, Oklahoma or Baylor's old archrival, Texas A&M, to hear sportscasters gush over Baylor this season and last and how we're now the stars of the Big 12 and had the No. 1 offense in the FBS last season after years of ridicule and derision.

Baylor's upcoming game against TCU is also significant for many reasons, including some of the same. See, no matter what they say now, TCU was grateful to be a part of the Big 12 after the conference reshuffling in 2011-12. For years, the Horned Frogs felt that their football team was underrated and underranked. A 13-0 record and a Rose Bowl victory in 2011 brought them national renown on a level they had not enjoyed since the days of Abe Martin. (I'm sure former Horned Frog LaDainian Tomlinson's star power helped as well.) It's fair to say that a lot of TCU students, alums and other fans expected them to be the talk of the Big 12 when they joined the conference in 2012.

But it was not to be. Roughly eleven months after the Horned Frogs capped their undefeated season with their first Rose Bowl win, Robert Griffin III won the Heisman Trophy, a high honor in a remarkable season for Baylor. RG3 proved to be not only a stellar quarterback but a recruiting boon like nothing Baylor's football program had ever had before. Although they had some adjustments to make in its first season post-RG3, the Bears still managed to finish a respectable 8-5, including a stunning upset of then No. 1-ranked Kansas State and a Holiday Bowl victory over UCLA. Meanwhile, despite a 49-21 rout of Baylor in October, TCU finished their debut season as a Big 12 team with a bowl game loss to Michigan State and a 7-6 record overall (4-5 in conference games). They ended the year unranked for the first time since 2007. More importantly, Baylor was picking up a lot of high school talent that would otherwise have gone to other schools, such as TCU. One of BU's most potent weapons this year and last, running back Shock Linwood, was once a commit to TCU. So was current Baylor defensive lineman Andrew Billings.

 

The long-running Baylor-TCU rivalry (which I've just learned has been nicknamed "The Revivalry") got even hotter last year, when Baylor defeated the Horned Frogs 41-38 in Fort Worth on their way to that Big 12 title. After the game, TCU coach Gary Patterson unloaded on his Baylor counterpart. Sports columnist Gil LeBreton wrote for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

“The bottom line,” Patterson said, “is he’s picking on the wrong guy.”

It was one of a steamy series of Patterson-issued “bottom lines” Saturday. His voice shook with anger, even though Patterson claimed he wasn’t mad.

He professed, more than once, that he had “respect for him” and “respect for his program,” even as he questioned the Bears’ class.

At the root of it, Patterson tried to explain, was Baylor senior safety Ahmad Dixon’s targeting penalty on Frogs receiver Trevone Boykin and what Briles did or didn’t do in the wake of it.

“Here’s the bottom line to it,” Patterson said, “No. 6 [Dixon] beats a guy up at the beginning of the season and he didn’t get suspended. He takes a shot today, and I want him kicked out.

 And the head coach comes across the field at me.”

Patterson contended that while officials were discussing the penalty, Briles came onto the field and yelled something at him.

Their postgame handshake later, Patterson reported, was brief, but went right to the sore spot at hand.

“I didn’t say anything,” the TCU coach said. “He said, ‘Leave it on the field.’

 I said not. You come across the field at me and later you want me to leave it on the field? No.”

Dixon was arrested on a misdemeanor assault charge in a September incident. He was not suspended from the team, leading Patterson to say Saturday, “They didn’t correct the problem a long time ago.”

Instead of Briles admonishing Dixon for Saturday’s illegal third-quarter hit, Patterson became further agitated that TV cameras spotted the ejected player still sitting on the Baylor bench.

“I’ve got coaches up in the box saying he’s laughing on TV underneath his towel,” Patterson said. “Well, I didn’t think it was that funny.”

Patterson continued, “The bottom line is, we’re not going to do that. Gary Patterson lives in Fort Worth. If he’s got a problem with me, here’s where I live.”

Read

“No, I just told him his kids did a great job and good luck during the rest of the year and then in recruiting,” Briles said.

But Patterson took the brief interchange more personally.

“He comes across the field at me?” Patterson said. “Nuh-uh.

“I didn’t build this program to back down to anybody, and I’m not going to do it to him. Not in recruiting or in anything we do.”

Briles, expectedly, responded to Patterson's rant with customary Baylor class:

“No, I just told him his kids did a great job and good luck during the rest of the year and then in recruiting,” Briles said.

But Patterson took the brief interchange more personally.

“He comes across the field at me?” Patterson said. “Nuh-uh.

 I didn’t build this program to back down to anybody, and I’m not going to do it to him. Not in recruiting or in anything we do.”

Perhaps Patterson, who deserves credit for what he's done as TCU head coach, was truly upset about what Dixon did (BTW, Gary, football is called a "contact sport" for a reason.) and what he perceived as Baylor's failure to "correct the problem" sooner, but methinks it was a column by the very popular and respected Randy Galloway in the Star-Telegram earlier that month that really got the notoriously hot-tempered coach's goat. Under the biting headline "Gary Patterson is no longer the flavor of the fall," the doyen of Texas sports writers described the recent (and sudden) reversal of fortune for the Horned Frogs' football program and its illustrious coach thusly:

What the heck happened to Gary in Fort Worth?

Just one year ago, after taking a backup quarterback into Austin on Thanksgiving night and beating Texas, there were columns being written on why Gary Patterson should NOT be the leading candidate to replace Mack Brown.

Those columns were in response to Austin stories that the UT money boys wanted to hire GP, hire him like right now. But with all the outside crap involved with that particular job, a dug-in Patterson didn’t seem to be a guy who would tolerate the program’s built-in distractions.

Even in a somewhat disappointing first season (2012) in the Big 12, Patterson’s reputation didn’t lose luster. In August, in a conference poll of players, the question was what coach would you like to play for other than your own?

Patterson was the players’ choice.

But at the moment, with TCU struggling, GP has dropped off the hot list of college coaches. He’s not even lukewarm.

Guess who Randy called "the new football flavor of the fall"?

I'll give you three guesses, and the first two don't count. But you can see him and his team in action Saturday afternoon against TCU.

Richard Nixon at 100

(AP Photo)

 

My apologies to our readers for not posting anything in a while. For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been spending between 90 and 95% of my waking hours either studying for the bar exam or searching for a full-time job in the Obama economy. sportsfan is recovering from watching his beloved Fighting Irish get their asses handed to them in the BCS Championship, and the rest of our contributors have various excuses (some very compelling) for not wasting their time on blogging.

 

Still, I couldn't let such a significant occasion pass without acknowledging the man who would have been 100 years old today.

 

Perhaps no U.S. president has had a more mixed record than Richard Milhous Nixon. His achievements included re-opening relations with China, France and Egypt, ending U.S. involvement in Vietnam (and the draft), and lowering the federal voting age to 18. But then there were the scandals. Oh, the scandals.

 

Nixon fit the classic definition of a Greek tragic hero: a great man with a tragic character flaw that brought about his downfall. In his case, it was paranoia. That paranoia drove him to plant listening devices around the White House during his presidency and five members of his re-election campaign to break into the DNC headquarters at the Watergate complex on an apparently ham-handed investigatory mission. What the White House originally dismissed as a "third-rate burglary" ultimately led to an unprecedented (and, to date, unrepeated) event: our president's term cut short, not by death, but by his own resignation.

The Watergate scandal alone would have been enough to indelibly tarnish Nixon's legacy, but his administration also suffered the taint of corruption from the activities of his vice president, Spiro Agnew, who turned out to have been on the take since his days as Baltimore County Executive. in October of 1973, less than a year prior to Nixon's departure, Agnew pled nolo contendere (no contest) to a charge of federal income tax evasion and resigned his office.

Even as scandal brought down his second-in-command and other scandals threatened to prematurely end his presidency, Nixon never let up in his efforts to further American interests abroad. After making good on his promise to withdraw all U.S. troops from Vietnam, he met repeatedly with then-Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev, their last meeting taking place while former White House counsel and unabashed weasel John Dean was spinning tales as fast as he could to the Watergate Committee in a desperate attempt to save his own skin. Negotiations between the two leaders (known as the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, or SALT) led to the signing of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 1972.

Per Nixon's directive, the U.S. provided vital support to Israel during the Yom Kippur War in 1973. He visited Cairo in June of 1974 and agreed to provide Egypt with nuclear technology. Not long after that, the House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment related to the Watergate cover-up. Before the House of Representatives could vote to impeach him, Nixon released transcripts of tape recordings that implicated him in the cover-up and announced his resignation.

Even after leaving office, he remained an authoritative voice on international affairs. President Clinton even reportedly sought his advice, and the New York Times (which seemed to never have a kind word for Nixon when he was alive) acknowledged, "The former President was always strongest writing about foreign policy." He continued to visit foreign countries and meet with world leaders, and he wrote prolifically. (His memoir RN was okay, but if you really want to get a handle on the man's world view and/or mental processes, then Six Crises and The Real War are both worth a read, and I've read good things about Beyond Peace.)

I can remember learning of his death in 1994. I was in first grade; as I left school, I stood under the flagpole gazing at Old Glory. It's my earliest memory of seeing a flag flown at half-mast.

One day not long after that, while rooting through my parents’ closet looking for a box of monies (you know, like every kid does at one point or another), I found a shoebox full of political memorabilia. My father and grandmother had collected it over the years. There were buttons from every presidential campaign from 1900 to 1972, many of them bearing Nixon’s name. It turns out the '68 campaign was the first one my father had been involved in. He told me how he and his best friend David would stand out in front of my grandmother’s house, near the road, with a big NIXON sign, and passing motorists would honk or smile or shout at them (Every once in a while, someone would stick his head out the window and shout, “Vote for George!”—i.e., George Wallace, the Alabama governor and defender of segregation who ran for president in '68 on a states’ rights platform.) Nixon, of course, won the 1968 election but narrowly lost Texas. We still have the issue of the Star-Telegram from the morning after Election Day with the headline “NIXON IS ELECTED PRESIDENT.”

Dad wasn't the only active Nixon supporter in my lineage. Years before my folks ever met, my other grandmother served as precinct chair for Nixon's re-election campaign in 1972. Like many Nixon supporters, she was bemused by the scandals that unfolded so soon after an incredible victory she and thousands of others had worked fervently to ensure.

"All I got out of it was a red face and a letter from John Wayne," she later told me. (The Duke had supported Nixon in all three of his presidential bids and apparently sent letters to those who worked on the campaign, thanking them for their work.)

As a child, I idolized Nixon. Not because of my family, but because of what I learned about the man through my own research. Certainly, Nixon did a lot of things to warrant admiration, even by those who never knew him personally. His ascendancy to the vice-presidency was one of the fastest in U.S. history; after returning home from World War II, during which he had served in the Navy, Nixon was elected to Congress in 1946. While his role in the Alger Hiss investigation arguably stood out as the most salient highlight of his time in the House of Representatives, he also helped write the Taft-Hartley Act (a.k.a. The Labor Management Relations Act of 1947), which passed over President Truman's veto. During his second term in the House, he was elected to the U.S. Senate. His support for civil rights and opposition to price controls, illegal immigration and public power, along with his erudite speeches warning of the threat of "global Communism" endeared him to many conservatives, and in 1952, the Republican National Convention nominated the 39-year-old freshman senator to run for vice president on the ticket with Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eisenhower and Nixon won in a landslide--twice--even carrying several states in the "solid South" (including Texas, Tennessee, Florida and Virginia). 

 

As vice president, Nixon honed his already keen foreign policy credentials, touring dozens of countries and chairing National Security Council meetings in the president's absence. On a trip to Moscow in 1959, he challenged Khrushchev during their infamous "kitchen debate," bluntly telling the Communist leader, "You don't know everything." 

 

Nixon held the distinction of losing the closest presidential election in U.S. history and winning a presidential election by the biggest landslide in U.S. history. His successful 1968 campaign, waged eight years after a devastatingly close loss to JFK and six years after losing his bid for governor of California, remains one of the great political comebacks of all time. He's the only person to be twice elected vice president and twice elected president of the United States.

My appreciation of his work wasn't ideological, either. Domestically, Nixon could not be called a conservative, not in any sense of the word. He expanded the size of the federal government, signing into law legislation that created, inter alia, the EPA, EEOC, OSHA, CBO and FHLMC (better known as "Freddie Mac"). As part of his "New Federalism" agenda, he proposed a new welfare program that would have guaranteed a minimum payment to all needy American households, regardless of work ethic. He also put in place wage and price controls and took the U.S. off the gold standard. He cut some taxes but raised others, including the capital-gains rate. His administration commenced affirmative action, though arguably at a time when institutional racism was far more widespread in the U.S. than it is today. The federal revenue-sharing program, under which the federal government shares its tax revnues with local governments, also began under Nixon, so every time you see/hear some worthless politician wailing about how spending cuts will mean fewer teachers/police officers/firemen, they're probably lying, but their mendacity is facilitated by one of President Nixon's policies.

His policy mistakes aside, Nixon was a brilliant and hardworking man who made some bad choices. Nothing he is known to have done, however, is/was bad enough to justify ignoring all of his good deeds in damnatio memoriae. Count me as a fan who believes his accomplishments were far greater than his transgressions.

To some, Nixon will always be a villain, but he was certainly a hell of a lot better president than the one we have now.

One Week To Go...

Are you sick of hearing about the impending Iowa caucuses?

Me neither. One week from today, voters in the Hawkeye State will kick off the 2012 election cycle with their mystifying mêlée of...whatever. Anyway, before parsing the polls out of Iowa, I'd like to discuss an interesting development in the race for the 2012 Republican nomination.

It seems that neither Texas Gov. Rick Perry nor former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (who until recently the undisputed frontrunner in the GOP primary campaign) have been able to collect and submit the 10,000 signatures necessary to appear on the ballot in Virginia. For Perry, this is not that big a deal; he wasn't going to be the nominee anyway (thank God), and it will be pretty pathetic if he hasn't dropped out of the race by the time Va. holds its primary. But for Gingrich, not being on the ballot in Old Dominion is a pretty big embarrassment, not least because it's his home state.

Yes, the former Speaker spent twenty years representing an Atlanta-area district in Georgia, but he currently resides in the state that has already delivered us more presidents than any other (eight, to be exact). I recently made the acquaintance of one Bryan Eppstein, a legend in Texas politics. Bryan's reputation as a political shark is such that politicians here have been known to retain him, even if they have no need for his services; they just don't want him working for an opponent's campaign. He told me that Al Gore did not lose the 2000 presidential election because he lost Florida; he lost the election because he failed to carry his home state of Tennessee.

I can remember watching the returns roll in on Election Night 2000, and while the race was still up in the air, I remarked that Bush had won Tennessee. (For the record, Bill Clinton carried Tennessee twice.) I wasn't as politically astute back then as I am now, but I found it strange that the election was so close when one candidate couldn't even carry his home state.

Gingrich's failure to make it onto the Virginia primary ballot is all the more galling when you consider that he's been leading the polls there. In a protracted race for the nomination, every delegate counts, and if Newt and Mitt are still duking it out come February, then effectively conceding a state with more delegates than New Hampshire and Iowa combined before any votes are cast will go down as one of the greatest campaign blunders of all time.

The Gingrich campaign didn't do their candidate any favors with their apparent sour-grapes attitude yesterday. Campaign director Michael Krull:

Only a failed system excludes four out of the six major candidates seeking access to the ballot. Voters deserve the right to vote for any top contender, especially leading candidates.

I agree; voters should have the right to vote for any top contender, which is why Virginia, like all states, has certain requirements that candidates must meet in order for their names to appear on the ballot. Newt Gingrich failed to satisfy all the necessary requirements, so I don't think excluding him from the Virginia primary ballots evinces a "failed" system.

Back to Iowa: Gingrich's decline in the polls has not been matched by an equal surge in one candidate's numbers; instead, it appears that his loss is Mitt Romney's, Ron Paul's, Rick Santorum's and Michele Bachmann's gain. Every poll out of the state in the last two weeks has shown either romney or Paul leading; this has pundits buzzing about the prospect of the 76-year-old Congressman and cantankerous old coot winning (or even finishing a close 2nd in) the Iowa cacuses. Such a result would be in affront to the political narrative that the Iowa GOP caucuses are dominated by social conservatives. (Hence, the impressive performances of Mike Huckabee in '08, George W. Bush in 2000 and Pat Robertson in '88.) One interesting quirk in the run-up to the caucuses this year is the failure of any one candidate to lock in the evangelical vote; Michele Bachmann was the early favorite to win this group, then Rick Perry, then Herman Cain, and now it appears evangelical Christians are torn between Bachmann, Santorum, Perry and Gingrich. The latter two have had their moments as King of the Hill, and I highly doubt that either of them are coming back. Ditto Bachmann, but swap "Queen for a Day" for "King of the Hill." Santorum, however, has never topped the polls in any state and may just be the next candidate to surge. He's arguably devoted more time and energy to Iowa than anyone else, and his fervent appeal to church-going folk in middle America while running his campaign on a shoestring budget conjures up memories of Huckabee four years ago. (For the record, it was in December of 2007 that the former Arkansas governor surpassed Mitt Romney in the polls in Iowa, where Romney had held a steady lead for months.) My predictions: Ron Paul will soar no higher; he has reached his peak in Iowa, though his current poll position (22.7% in the RCP average) is probably pretty close to what he'll actually pull next week in the caucuses. Santorum will outperform Bachmann among evangelicals and finish well ahead of her in the final tallies. Romney looks good to win; he'll definitely be first or second. Perry and Gingrich will underwhelm but stay in the race, and Baylor will crush UW in the Alamo Bowl.

Not Your Typical Saturday

This was an emotionally draining day.

This afternoon we laid my grandmother to rest. She went to be with Jesus last Sunday, and I traveled to Arlington yesterday for the visitation and funeral. My mother wanted me to speak at the service. A series of her friends and relatives spoke; I opened and closed. It was my first formal eulogy. I was very pleased with the turnout; that little chapel was packed. It was also the first time I was a pallbearer. After the service, we held a reception at this nice place in southwest Arlington called the Ventana Grille. Nearly all of the relatives who came to the funeral showed up, which really meant a lot, especially since some of them had to drive all the way back to Houston that evening. I myself had to drive back to Waco, where I learned that Robert Griffin III had won the Heisman Trophy. Now that was exciting. No Baylor footballer had ever won the Heisman before. Naturally, I and the rest of the Baylor Nation were very excited.

There's a tie-in here: my maternal grandfather and his brother attended Baylor back in the '40s. I didn't learn this until I had started college, but I think that my grandparents came down here while I was an undergrad. I was glad to have the chance to walk around the campus with my grandfather, especially since after he succumbed to Alzheimer's disease and died in 2008. His deterioration and death were a terrible blow to my Grammy, who was already dealing with serious health problems of her own. They had been married for over 55 years. She was never the same after Papa died. That was three and a half years ago. Now they are together again.

It's always appropriate to grieve after the loss of a loved one, but in the case of both my maternal grandparents, the worst tragedy was watching them decline and not being able to do anything about it. While I mourn the loss of my Grammy, we are all happy that she has been reborn and will spend eternity with her sweetheart in the kingdom of God.

The Case for RG3

The five finalists for the 2011 Heisman Trophy were announced Monday. Not surprisingly, Baylor’s junior QB Robert Griffin III was among those selected.

It would certainly be a coup for my alma mater, whose football team has slowly gained national renown in recent years, after nearly a decade of ridicule, scorn and derision from other schools who questioned why we were still in the Big 12. Under the leadership of Coach Art Briles, the Bears have risen from a 3-9 team that lost every conference game in 2007 (the year before Briles took over) to a 9-3 team that is now headed to its second consecutive bowl game. (Yes, it's the Alamo Bowl, but still.) After Baylor's 48-24 rout of Texas on Saturday night, the characteristically humble and down-to-earth star of our football team told ESPN's Samantha Steele, “I could be wrong, but I think Baylor won its first Heisman tonight.”

Griffin was right: He could be wrong. I'll leave it to more learned sprots analysts to speculate on each finalist's odds of winning the trophy. Right now I just want to offer an argument why Griffin is the best choice of the five.

I'll start with the only other QB in the running. No doubt Andrew Luck is an impressive player. Anyone who's seen him in action should acknowledge that. I'm not going to try and compare the finesse displayed by him and RG3 on the field this season; you would need to see them perform to get the full picture. So let's compare their stats. Luck has passed for 3,170 yards and 35 touchdowns while completing 70% of his attempts this season.

Pretty good stuff. RG3, however, finished the regular season with 3,998 passing yards, 36 touchdowns and a 72.4% completion rate. He was intercepted six times to Luck's nine, and, while Luck ranks fifth nationally in passing efficiency, Griffin leads the nation in passing efficiency. He has also rushed for 644 yards and nine touchdowns. By almost every measure, Griffin has outperformed Luck on the field this year.

As to the two running backs still in contention, Trent Richardson of Alabama and Montee Ball of Wisconsin, I won't endeavor to declare one of them superior to the other; I'll only say that neither deserves the Heisman as much as RG3. Statistically, Ball has a more impressive record than Richardson this year: He leads the nation in rushing yards (1,759) and touchdowns (32 Rushing, 6 Receiving). Unfortunately, I'm out of time and have other things to do. Let's just say the Honey Badger is amazing, and it would be interesting for a cb to win a trophy that usually goes to offensive stars, but it's just not his time yet. I'll probably update this post later in the week.

Did a Blow to the Head Knock RG3 Out...of Contention for the Heisman Trophy?

My fellow Baylor Bears and I were privy to another exciting game this weekend (actually three, but I'm talking football here). Our 66-42 rout of Texas Tech was significant for many reasons. For one, it capped the Red Raiders' first losing season since 1992, and we knocked them out of Bowl contention. Probably the most exciting play of the game came late in the third quarter, when Joe Williams, our stocky, 5'10" sophomore cornerback, picked off Tech QB Seth Doege and ran the ball back 90 yards for Baylor’s seventh touchdown of the game.
What the Texas Farm Bureau Insurance Shootout (which apparently is what this game was called) will probably most be remembered for is Robert Griffin III's head injury and subsequent absence from the second half. As Stephen Hawkins of the AP put it:

Griffin had scrambled from one side of the field to the other and slid inside the 5 with a first down when defensive back Cornelius Douglas came in hard with an elbow that knocked Griffin’s head back to the turf. The quarterback remained flat on his back for a couple of moments before coming out of the game for a play. He then returned for his second touchdown run to make it 31-21.

What's missing from Hawkins's summary but probably obvious to anyone familiar with the rules of the game is that Douglas's blow was a late (and ergo illegal) hit. Had this occurred in the NFL, he would've been fined and probably ejected from the game. Instead, his team was penalized, and he was allowed to play the rest of the game.

In fairness, it's not clear whether Douglas intended to hit RG3. Often times, these guys already have their bodies or body parts in motion when the clock stops. The bigger story may be the stellar performance of backup Baylor QB Nick Florence, who was 9 of 12 for 151 yards, including a pair of long touchdowns. Here on the Baylor campus, however, there's much chatter about how this might effect Griffin's Heisman chances.
Last week, after his record-shatterring performance in Baylor's unprecedented defeat of OU, RG3 was the talk of the town. Y! Sports' Eddie George and Pat Forde both listed him as their No. 1 pick to win the Heisman Trophy. I even joined in the media hype. Now, people are wondering if he'll even play in our season finale vs. Texas. He insists he will, but I'm getting tired and would like to wrap up this post. Good night.

Not a Good Day to be an Oklahoman

If you follow NCAA Football, then you should be aware that yesterday was full of upsets. Oklahoma's two largest universities were on the losing end of two of them. Oklahoma State, ranked 2nd in the nation, was handed its first loss of the season by unranked Iowa State. More importantly, No. 5 Oklahoma rolled into Waco prepared to take on my beloved No. 22 Baylor Bears. Baylor had played OU 20 times prior to last night and lost every time. I can recall one particularly memorable game that went into double overtime back in 2005. I was a freshman at the time; the game was played in Norman, and it wasn't even supposed to be close. Now we have beaten the Sooners. Our mercurial WR Terrence Williams caught a touchdown pass from RG3 (Robert Griffin III, for those of you unfamiliar with the next Heisman Trophy winner) with eight seconds remaining in the fourth quarter. As if that weren't awesome enough, WR Trey Franks (a Texas native) fumbled the ball on the ensuing kickoff. His Baylor counterpart, WR Clay Fuller, recovered the fumble to avoid another OT showdown agaisnt the Sooners. Could there be a more exciting finish to game that got off to such a slow, error-riddled start?

As to the other upset in the Big 12 this weekend, I didn't watch the OSU-ISU game, but there is something I want to share that ties in with it. My paternal grandmother (who appeared in one of my first YouTube videos ever) went to OSU back when it was Oklahoma A & M. She's a big Cowboys fan. She called me repeatedly last night. (Unbeknownst to her, I was at a social event known as "Law Prom" and couldn't be disturbed.) When she finally got ahold of me this morning, she was still excited. She didn't even care about her alma mater's bruising loss. Perhaps there's some lesson in there for disheartened sooners/Cowboys fans. I'm not sure what it is, but maybe other OSU alums can take some solace in their teams 10-1 record and look forward to their upcoming showdown with the team we just sent crying back to Norman.