What a weekend! Started off with a double-header of basektball action from Prather Colesium in Natchitoches as Northwestern St. was hosting Nicholls in Southland Conference play. Did you know that Prather Colesium was the last place Jim Croce played? He died in a plane crash leaving after a concert there on September 20th, 1973. That is not relevant to the games but it does make Prather a landmark of musical history as far as I am concerned.

As for the game...saw the best Southland Conference basketball game yet on the Network with a 99-98 double-time victory for the Demons over the Colonels. Anatoly Bose scored 46 for the Colonels but the Demons hit some clutch shots down the stretch and just out fought the Colonels for their first conference win of the season and snapped a six game losing streak. We will be in San Marcos next Saturday as an interesting Texas State club plays host to UTA and the SLC's leading scorer Marquez Haynes.

Obviously the biggest game in Louisiana this weekend was not in Natchitoches but rather in New Orleans on Sunday. What a game. Saints beat the Vikings 31-28 in overtime. Every coach in the world says football games come down to two things, turnovers and penalties, Minnesota had way too many of both. Two Texans Austin Westlake's Drew Brees and Southlake Carroll alum Garrett Hartley send the Saints to their first Super Bowl. Hartley seals it with a 40 yard boot in ot...couple of things, good for Hartley, the young man was suspended at the beginning of the year but has done all the right things since to earn his job back and live up to his massive potential...secondly, pretty sure Joe Buck does not know much about Southlake Carroll football because he would not have gone on and on about Hartley's lack of experience if he did. Playing at Carroll you get used to the pressure, the games don't get bigger, only the crowd.

New Orleans needed this...the State of Louisiana needed it...It was wonderful to see the scene on Bourbon street after the game even if I personally would have stayed a million miles away from it. Guess I am getting old.

Be True to your School

Signing Day is less than a month away and at least three prominent college football programs are in major shake-up mode. Pete Carroll leaves USC, Lane Kiffin leaves Tennessee to take over the Trojans, and Tommy Tuberville is trying to stabilize the situation in Lubbock while Mike Leach brings litigation against Texas Tech. There is a lesson to be learned here, and it is not a lesson for you or for me, unless you are a high school football star being recruited by an FBS University.

The lesson is this, college football coaches, no matter how much integity they may appear to have, are liars. By nature they must be, they may not like it, or even be very good at it, but make no mistake, they do it, each and every one of them.

Pete Carroll was telling USC recruits a month ago about the Trojan tradition, sitting in some stud linebackers living room telling his parents that they could trust him with their baby boy for four years...and then Hello Seattle! Kiffin, who was not exactly a Supreme Court Justice before showing up in Knoxville, now has blazed a trail of betrayal on his way back to the west coast, causing near riots on the Tennessee campus. In Texas a four-star quarterback from Denton, Scotty Young, wonders what his future holds now that none of the coaches who recruited him to Texas Tech are staying on.

If you are among the few who are gifted enough to trade your football talents for a four year education at a major university, let me offer this little bit of advice...choose a University for the school itself, the campus, the curriculum, the ability to expand your mind and your prospects as a future pro, be it in football or some other occupation. Do not marry yourself to a coach because coaches will leave, it is what coaches do. You must ask yourself, will I be happy here four years from now no matter who is coaching the football team? If you can say yes to that question, then you will have found your school. Be true to it.

Good Season Frogs!

I was driving through the beautiful TCU campus today and reflecting on last nights Fiesta Bowl. Proud of the Horned Frogs program, realizing that this little campus in south Fort Worth is still home to one of the top ten football teams in the country despite the loss to Boise State. In my mind the Broncos victory over the Frogs can be attributed to one significant factor: experience.

TCU was playing in their first BCS game and they played like it, especially through the first half. Boise State, having tasted BCS success two years ago in their unforgettable victory over Oklahoma, learned lessons and gained a swagger that was evident on the field on Monday night. The fake punt in the fourth quarter was vintage Boise State but the game was won on the balance that the Broncos showed during the course of the game. Kellen Moore and Titus Young are studs, the defense completely vanquished a high octane TCU offense and of course there was the special play by the special teams that led to the go ahead touchdown. The Broncos have earned the right to start next year ranked in the top 5 in the country and probably will.

As for TCU, Gary Patterson has the Frogs going in the right direction, they should start the year ranked in the Top 15 and with the number of returning starters and talented redshirts coming back, they should have a chance to get back to a BCS bowl.

Now I can't wait to see what the BCS Championship game holds on Thursday. Two quarterbacks I had the chance to see in high school going head to head for a National Championship, pretty cool stuff. More coming on the Horns and Alabama tomorrow.

Doug

Mike Leach: At World's End

A great former Dallas Talk Show host was fond of saying "follow the money" when you wanted to know the motivation behind a mysterious move or series of events. As we disect the Mike Leach firing in Lubbock, that phrase keeps coming to mind.

No, it was not sticking Adam James in an air conditioned garage that brought the wrath of Gerald Meyers and the rest of the Red Raider huffalumps. While that may be the convenient out the administration was looking for, Texas Tech and Mike Leach have been on divergent paths for quite some time. One can go back to at least February when the two sides engaged in an unbearably long contract negotiation that resulted in Leach "breaking the bank" because after the best season in Tech history, he held the Raider Nation by the tortillas.

Fast forward through an 8-4 season, comments about "fat little girlfriends", and other Leach idiosynchracies and you have the meltdown that occured today. Tech, or namely Meyers, unhappy with his coach and puckering at the idea of writing an $800,000 dollar check if Leach is

still the coach tomorrow, gives the best coach that TT has ever had the old "walk the plank matey. "

Today I am sad for the Red Raider nation...sad because Leach and Lubbock were a perfect combination, the renegade coach and the rebellious nature of the flatlanders seemed to go hand in hand, not to mention the winning, always the winning.

Leach will land on his feet....he may not have the white bread charisma of a Mack Brown or the kick-ass righteousness of an Urban Meyer, but his results speak for themselves.

As for the Red Raiders, if there is a brain left in anyone's head in the Tech athletic department, they are furiuosly courting Art Briles as we speak. Briles has the pedrigee, the track record and the diplomacy to succeed on the South Plains, now will AD Meyers fork over another big contract to land him? That remains to be seen.

doug

Teams of the Decade

Enough with the "this is not the end of the decade" technicalities. 2000 began the decade, 2010 begins a new decade, it just makes sense. So anyway, thinking about the best high school football teams of the decade.

5A: Southlake Carroll. No question the Dragons earned the honor despite strong showings from Katy and Euless Trinity. No team ever has or possibly ever will have a run like the Dragons did in playing in 5 consecutive state championship games and winning 4 of them...and that one loss was their only loss in that span...unbelieveable.

4A: Lake Travis. At the beginning of the decade it was a battle between Denton Ryan and Ennis as the Raiders played in four consecutive championship games and won two of them while the Lions won titles in 2000, 2001, and 2004. But the Lake Travis Cavaliers ended the Decade on a 46 game winning streak and three consecutive state championships.

3A: Liberty Hill. Probably the most wide open classification. Everman, and Carthage each won back-to-back championships as well but Liberty Hill did it with impressive victories over Celina and Gilmer. Jerry Vance's Panthers were as good as could be in 06-07.

2A: Celina. The Bobcats finished the decade as a 3A football team but won 2A state titles in 2000, 2001, and 2005 and a 3A title in 2007. G.A. Moore established the tradition, but Butch Ford kept it going for the program with more state championships than any other team in Texas.

1A: Stratford. The Elks won state championships at the beginning (2000), middle (2005), and end (2008) of the decade. No team in class A was as consistently good though teams like Alto and Windthorst certainly deserve mention.

No telling which teams will emerge as the best in the next ten years, but given the strong history of the above mentioned programs, we will likely see these teams contending for the title again.

doug

One more game

Down to the last high school football game of the year for me. I will be in Austin on Saturday for Aledo and Brenham in the 4A DII Championship Game. I have done play-by-play for 18 State Championship football games so this one will be number 19. In fact, I did play-by-play for Brenham's only other title game appearance when they lost to Denton Ryan in 2002. I was the color analyst for the TSN radio broadcast of Aledo's only state championship when they beat Cuero in 1998.

I think both teams are outstanding and it should be a great game. It will be on Fox Sports Southwest Plus live and on TXA 21 at 11pm after the Cowboy game. Watch for #32 for Aledo, Sophomore RB Jonathan Gray. He will be the best player on the field. How many sophomores make 1st Team All-State? This year only one did and it was Gray.

This has been a great year for Southland Conference and High School football. I have been blessed to be a part of both. Looking forward to Christmas and then basketball season starting for me on January 9th with the Southland Conference Television Network. Our first game is in Huntsville between Sam Houston State and Stephen F. Austin. Maybe the Bearkats will have a new football coach by then. Among the finalists for the job I have a fondness for former UNT head coach Darrell Dickey. Jason Phillips, the offensive coordinator at Houston, is also an interesting candidate.

Winning begets Winning

The Texas born quarterback is having a big year. Greg McElroy will face Colt McCoy in the National Championship game. Andy Dalton leads TCU to a BCS Bowl. Case Keenum at Houston and Kyle Padron at SMU have shifted the balance of power in Conference USA to the west. It got me thinking about these guys when they were mere high school boys making a name for themselves under the Friday night lights...

McElroy-led Southlake Carroll to a State Championship beating Andy Dalton and Katy in the 5A DII final in 2005.

McCoy-led the Jim Ned Indians to a State Final, losing to San Augustine in 2003.

Keenum-took Abilene Wylie to a 3A State Championship in 2004

Padron-Graduated from the same Carroll program that produced McElroy, Chase Daniel and Riley Dodge.

Obviously, these guys are winners. There is something about them that inspires confidence and significantly raises the level of play of their teammates. But while it is no coincidence that these high schools won a great deal while the above mentioned qb's were in charge...it is also no coincidence that these schools were successful before and after those guys as well.

My point is great programs produce great players...Greg McElroy would have probably been a much more prolific high school qb had he played somewhere else, but his time watching Chase Daniel prepared him for his record setting senior season and gave a school like Alabama the confidence to offer him a scholarship before he had ever really proven anything on the high school level.

Schools like Carroll, Katy, and Abilene Wylie groom their players for success from a very young age...kids learn the fundamentals first, then expand their knowledge. Along they way they learn to pay the price for victory...it is something that carries over as they move to the next level.

There is no substitute for a 6-4 frame, or 4.4 speed...but when the physiques are similar and the stats are similar, I would argue a player from a winning program has a distinct advantage entering college over a player who did not enjoy high school success.