link "Texas: Land of Poor Sportsmanship: Clinging to a 49-7 lead, Texas Tech kept star quarterback Cody Hodges on the field throwing. When his touchdown pass made it Texas Tech 56, Sam Houston State 7 and Hodges departed, TMQ expected to see some sportsmanship on the part of the Red Raiders. I expected wrong. Reserve quarterback Graham Harrell proceeded to throw 17 times after Tech had taken a 49-point lead, as the school frantically ran up the score to a final of 80-21. Yes, Tech has a pass-wacky offensive philosophy, but to keep throwing when you're so far ahead shows poor character on the part of the coaching staff. There is no glory in pounding on the weak -- only bullies do that, and usually because they are afraid to face the strong. Over at College Station, it was Texas A&M 45, Southern Methodist 8, and not only was Aggies starting quarterback Reggie McNeil still in the game, he was passing on first down as A&M frantically ran up the score on the way to a 66-8 victory. Ahead 59-8 in the fourth quarter, Texas A&M coaches were still calling passes. Aggie coaches, you may want to boast and brag about final scores, but you show the world poor character when you behave in such little bully fashion. Two weeks ago the University of Texas displayed similar bad sportsmanship by frantically running up the score to 60-3 against Louisiana-Lafayette. Hey, Texas universities, the athletics department is supposed to set an example. If the example set is greediness and poor sportsmanship, how, exactly, is this supposed to serve the interest of students?"
yeah..this is a texas only thing. teams other places in the country...like florida and california...they never do that sort of thing.
This is ridiculous...Where is this type of article when the Miami's or Florida State's or even Michigan or Ohio State do this type of thing...How idiotic...
Texas Tech running up the score shouldn't surprise anybody. Leach could be up 3 TDs and call a timeout with 4 seconds left just to throw into the endzone. As for A&M, I'm not sure why Coach Fran would leave Reggie in for that long. In Texas' opener, we only threw 17 times. The problem was that Lafayette couldn't stop our basic running plays. http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/boxscore?gameId=252460251
I hate when people say that Tech runs up the score. What are they supposed to do? They benched their starters early on. And inserted freshman stud Graham Harrell in the 2nd half. What are they supposed to run the ball? That's dumb the team needs to get their young players experience. All teams need to do so. I promise Harell isnt going to be handing the ball off much next season so why should he now? Not to mention that Sam Houston was actually talking trash prior to the game...This is football... Back in the day nobody told Nebraska to stop running
in Texas. That was his point. It is why I don't root for any Texas schools. Rubbing your opponents face in the mud does not make good sportmanship.
just one reason why college football sucks, the annual Florida State/Texas/LSU vs Central Ohio Barber College games...
Totally agree. Tech only plays one way - passing. They did bench all their players, and you're not going to ask backups to not play hard. Texas did the same thing. The silly thing was the scheduling of a 1-AA team (and another one next weekend?).
USC scored 70 last week. Florida (when they could) ran up scores all the time. Michigan won 55-0 last weekend. How is it different in Texas?
Might as well not even keep score... like those silly ass baseball and soccer leagues where "everyone is a winner!" Small schools know what they are getting themselves into when they schedule power houses (think Rice against UCLA and Texas in two weeks), and they do it for the money... so stop whining. As long as there is a ranking and bowl system as wacky as NCAA footballs there will be huge score differentials... enter a playoff system and teams will stop trying to improve their rankings by scoring TDs by the boatload.
A lot of the Blame lies with the BCS. Computer ranking There are eight computer-generated rankings that make up this variable. The rankings are actually the output of computer programs that crunch weekly game statistics. Most of these programs were designed by people with backgrounds in math or statistics. Their formulas factor in an eclectic mix of variables, from who won to where a game was played. http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/question535.htm So out of the 8 formulas, SIX use either final score or margin of victory as a factor for the computer ranking. Only one, Scripps-Howard goves a penalty for running up the score but also uses final score as a factor as well.
I don't think this is true anymore - it was changed a few years back, for some stupid reason. A team that consistently wins by 1 is seen as the same by the computers as a team that consistently wins by 40. It's just a matter of time before that comes back to bite them in the ass. I think a good compromise would be to consider margin of victory, up until a certain point (say 25 or 30 pts).
No, UT didn't do the same thing. When you have a HUGE lead like Tech had and UT had, it's common courtesy NOT to throw the ball. After Vince came out of the game in the 3rd quarter, we only attempted 4 passes in 1 1/2 quarters. You're right, you can't tell backups not to play hard, but you can run the ball as much as possible to use the clock. Incomplete passes stop the clock, when you have a big lead, that's the last thing you want to do. I don't agree w/ the article, I think it's dumb to just call out the Texas teams, all teams do it. But as far as keeping Reggie in the A&M game, that's a dumb move any way you look at it.
But Tech *doesn't* run the ball. ever. It's different for a balanced team that can run the ball. The courtesy is that you run a conservative, base offense. For Tech, that's throwing the ball. It's not like they were throwing to run up the score - they were throwing because that's all they know how to do. Even when "running", Tech's offense is like 2 yard passes and then run from there. Besides which, just two games earlier, Sam Houston State "ran up" the score on Bacone College, winning 77-7. I don't know that they (SHSU) are a team to feel sorry for. Reggie was in the A&M game about as long as Vince was in the UT game. He came out early to mid 3rd quarter.
As a side note, Reggie is a senior, his backup is a RS Freshman who will start next year. I wish Fran would have him pass a little more next time (he was only 3/3 or 4/4 in passing). I don't want to be like ou next year.
Tech could easily hang 100 on Indiana State (0-3) this Saturday. Indiana State lost to St.Francis (who??) 42-10 earlier this year
