Linking Up: Big 12 preview stuff, Georgia hullabaloo, podcast changes
Getting close to the start of the season, so here are some links to tide you over.
*I've done a whole mess of Big 12 preview stuff for Athlon lately:
- Why the Sooners will or won't be back in the College Football Playoff;
- Same deal for Texas;
- Big 12 "wild cards" for every team this year;
- Texas is my pick for the team most likely to knock Oklahoma from its perch on top of the conference.
I should probably point out that I'm not sure if I'm picking the Longhorns to even finish in second place. I do think right now UT has best chance of outshining OU of any other Big 12 team.
*Lincoln Riley's misconstrued comments about Georgia's defense produced plenty of thoughtful writing – much more so than it deserved. It comes as no surprise that one of the best college football bloggers out there, Senator Blutarsky, held up Georgia's end of the bargain. (I commented in the linked piece.) Ian Boyd also brought up some good points in defense of the Big 12 and offered a critique of Riley's thoughts.
All that being said, I'm still unmoved from my initial thoughts about this hill of beans.
*I've got a new RSS feed for the podcast. Long story short, I'm no longer working with Sooner Sports Radio. Also, the third-party host that I was using is no longer a viable option.
The bad news is that if you subscribed to the show through Apple Podcasts, you'll have to resubscribe.
Bear with me on this. I'm working on changing up the format – or at least the subject matter – a bit.
*I've been watching Hulu's miniseries based on Lawrence Wright's book The Looming Tower. I'm not wild about Hulu's presentation, honestly, but it does remind me of what a great job Wright's book did tracing the origins of Al-Qaeda and the events leading up to the terrorists attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. You should read it.
*Any summer with a World Cup is a good summer. We've been treated to an outstanding tournament this go-round, although I'll cop to being kinda bummed that none of the South American teams advanced beyond the quarterfinals – I have more fun watching Brazil, Argentina, etc. than the other teams by a decent margin.
As good as France is, I honestly believe Croatia has a shot on Sunday. The French side has just seemed complacent the entire tournament to me.