What’s going on in the Big 12 and beyond? I expand and explain every Sunday in Postscripts at Heartland College Sports, your home for independent Big 12 coverage.
Big 12 Media Days Winners and Losers
With media days done, my vacation begins. It’s off to Colorado for three days of Red Rocks, beer and Avett Brothers, kind of in that order. While I’m out, here are the winners and losers in Frisco. See you next week.
Winner: Joey McGuire
The Texas Tech head coach knew he was going to get plenty of questions about Brendan Sorsby, the fallout at Tech and so much more after the last month. He didn’t run from it. It would have been easy for him to say “Hey, he’s not on our roster anymore so I’m not going to talk about it.” Instead, he answered every question, no matter how direct or indirect, and provided thoughtful answers on everything from what he might have done differently to the inevitability that other schools are going to have to grapple with this at some point.
As bad a job as Tech did with how it handled Sorsby from a PR standpoint, McGuire did some real work to repair it this week. The thing is, for those of us that have covered the conference since McGuire took over at Texas Tech, he was the same guy he’s been every year.
Winner: Willie Fritz
For part of Tuesday, McGuire was Fritz’s personal hype machine, spending as much time navigating the Sorsby mess as he did pumping up the Friday night conference opener with the Cougars that few in Lubbock wanted to be on a Friday. But there was an undercurrent of respect for Fritz from the national media as well, one that Houston hasn’t had since it joined the Big 12. That’s what winning does.
Fritz’s body of work doesn’t get much attention and it should get so much more hype than it does. He’s coached from the juco ranks to the power conference ranks and has won 261 games, including his time at Brenham College, where he won a juco national title. Him shouting out his first media days in the Southwest Junior College Football Conference at Navarro College in 1993 was funny because I know at least four people who probably covered that.
Fritz is poised to turn Houston into a Big 12 power. The love he got from McGuire and West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez on Wednesday, along with the national media, only reinforced what he’s building in Houston.
Winner: The Arizona Schools
Of the four corners schools that joined the league three years ago, no two schools have embraced the conference more than Arizona and Arizona State. Both schools got plenty of attention over the two days.
Kenny Dillingham held court at both the podium and in breakouts. He’s one of the most quotable coaches in the conference but he also knows how to line that up with expectations. He knows his team can contend but they’re not “the team.” He likes the chase. Plus, he didn’t sound inconvenienced by the trip to London in September. He welcomed it.
As for Arizona and head coach Brent Brennan, they fully embraced the league and the expectations they’re dealing with in Year 3 in the league, coming off a 9-4 season. Quarterback Noah Fifita got plenty of attention, as he should have, and talked more about the team than himself.
Where the season goes for both teams is to be determined. But they came out of media days with a nice PR bounce going into fall workouts.
Loser: Brett Yormark on Texas Tech
Sean Dillon’s question at Big 12 Media Days was designed to bait commissioner Brett Yormark into a response about how aggrieved the Texas Tech fan base feels right now after the Brendan Sorsby debacle. He could have handled that question several ways and come out of it fine. He chose the wrong one.
By walking across the stage, challenging Dillon to stand up and ask the question again and then giving him a terse response that meant nothing was a rare moment where Yormark didn’t know what to say — and he should have known what to say. He’s had a month to prepare. One could say that Dillon had some attitude in how he asked the question. But it’s on Yormark to either defuse it or sidestep it gracefully. He did neither. He lost significant PR points, something I know he hates.
I made this point in my takeaways from his press conference. He was right to ensure Sorsby didn’t play in his conference this year. It was too much of a liability for the integrity of his conference and his job is to look out for the Big 12. But not recognizing how Tech’s fan base feels about it and not acknowledging that isn’t the right approach. For a guy who usually knows the right thing to say, this was a moment where he faltered.
Loser: Made-for-TV Podium Sessions
For those looking for insight from coaches, the main stage podium is not the place to find it. This year, more than ever, the questions felt surface level and less about football and more about other non-football things — and I’m not talking about things like Sorsby and the like.
Those sessions have reached the point where there is little to get out of it. The league does it for TV and I get that. That’s why I’m thankful we still get the breakout sessions and the way the league arranged them this year was a win for those of us that want to tell stories and not just sound bites. They were staggered in a way when I could talk to more players and coaches than ever before.
But I could live without the stage sessions, especially if the league chose to move to the basketball format where it’s a Q&A with media questions peppered in and could be moderated by someone like ESPN’s Kevin Connors, who would ask solid questions and did so during the short roundtable Q&A each day.
The Jury’s Out: Cincinnati
Cincinnati got its letter of inquiry from the NCAA earlier this week about Sorsby. I know Tech fans are like “finally,” but the NCAA had to put Sorsby’s eligibility to bed before it could do anything else (also because it can’t walk and chew gum at the same time). Now it can turn its attention to Cincinnati.
A letter of inquiry doesn’t mean Cincinnati did anything wrong. It just means the NCAA needs details. Be patient. This will take time. We all want this part of the saga unpacked. But answers don’t come overnight. Bearcats head coach Scott Satterfield had little to say about it on Wednesday.
