Red Raider Gridiron | Flannel and Carpenter Injured

Additional Injuries:  LAJ's Don Williams and RP.com's Travis Cram report on different injuries yesterday (is an appendectomy an injury?).  Williams reports that freshman OT Beau Carpenter has also had to undergo an emergency appendectomy surgery and Cram reports that S Jared Flannel has a torn Achilles, the same injury that felled DT Britton Barbee.  Think a good thought for them. 

Williams' article also quotes head coach Tommy Tuberville on the quarterback decision that is set to come down on Sunday or Monday:

"As I’ve said all along, it makes me no difference (who wins the competition)," Tuberville said. "We’ll go with the guy who’s running this offense best as we speak.

"That could change during the year. There’s still going to be a lot of competition in practice every day."

Sounds like he's giving himself a little wiggle-room here as I think earlier in the year he said that he wanted to pick a quarterback and stick with him.  This somewhat makes me think that maybe both need the competition and to push each other and that they both may be fairly inconsistent in practice.  Any other half-assed guesses?

Smith Looks to Make Impact:  LAJ's Don Williams features DE Scott Smith and his passion for fishing (he's originally from Hawaii) and taking down quarterbacks.  A couple of things from this article, which is that when Smith was trying to decide on whether to commit to Texas Tech, DC James Willis and DE/OLB coach Robert Prunty made a trip to see Smith:

Defensive coordinator James Willis and defensive assistant Robert Prunty got on a plane and flew to Hawaii shortly after their hirings.

Smith said that clinched the deal.

"They flew in; they flew out," he said. "They came in and stayed about four hours at my house, ate dinner and went back to the airport. They just really wanted me to get to know them better, which I really appreciated because I had no clue who my coaches were, so it worked out great."

And LB Bront Bird gets me excited about Smith's potential:

"Dude’s a freak, man," middle linebacker Bront Bird said. "He’s so tall and fast. He’s got a knack for the pass rush. But we’ve moved him inside on some of our 3-4 stuff, where they really have to play more two-gap — where you’re head up on (a blocker) and you have to hold your point. He’s done well at that."

Good stuff, go read the whole thing.

Eight Big 12 AD's Meet With Learfield:  Interesting bit from CBS's Dennis Dodds as he writes that eight of the remaining Big 12-2 met with some of the folks of Learfield Sports, which is the same company that signed a deal to market Texas Tech. 

Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Iowa State, Colorado, Missouri and Kansas State had discussions Learfield Sports, a Plano, Texas-based company that manages the multimedia rights for more than 50 universities nationwide. Texas A&M AD Bill Byrne has talked and tweeted about the meeting publicly. The move is not related to any conference shifting, but is seen as a new revenue stream.

"[People are] interested in creating a cable network for the conference," Byrne told CBSSports.com. "It's something I'm quite interested in ... It's something that our fans are going to be demanding sooner rather than later."

Let's see, Kansas, Texas and Baylor are missing and Colorado is along for the ride for some reason.  Texas obviously has no interest in creating a conference network, but I am curious as to why Kansas and Baylor didn't join in the fun.  Also, Nebraska didn't feel the need to expense a trip to Dallas like Colorado did.   Strangely, no mention of anyone from the Big 12 office being there, I don't know, someone like the Big 12 Commissioner.

Video:  KAMC with a look at some of the freshmen, namely CB Tre' Porter, WR Shawn Corker and QB Scotty Young . . .

Miscellaneous:  A preview of 2011 commit QB Michael Brewer's Lake Travis team . . . FSSW with a bit about how a number of teams are switching to the 3-4 defense . . .