Texas Longhorns

The best offense in the Big 12 is a badge of honor. Chances are, if you're the best in the Big 12, you've got a case as the best in the nation. Anybody want to dispute Oklahoma State or Baylor as the nation's best offense last year? I don't want to hear about Houston.

So, what can we expect next year? Which offense do you think will take the title as Big 12's best? Here are my five candidates:

Oklahoma

The Sooners bring back plenty, namely their three-year starter and Heisman candidate at quarterback, Landry Jones. His top target will likely be Kenny Stills, but freshman Trey Metoyer leads a talented set of newcomers who could make an impact in the fall. Running back Dominique Whaley should be healthy next year, and Roy Finch and Brennan Clay give the Sooners great depth at the position.

West Virginia

The first of two newcomers on the list, Dana Holgorsen brings his high-speed, high-production offense back to the Big 12 with another Heisman candidate at quarterback, Geno Smith. He brings back the Big 12's two returning receiving leaders, Tavon Austin and Stedman Bailey. Dustin Garrison will return from a knee injury he suffered in Orange Bowl practice, but Shawne Alston is handling the load in the spring.

TCU

TCU, like West Virginia, boasts two big-time targets for its big-time quarterback. Casey Pachall gets Josh Boyce and Skye Dawson back, and sophomore Brandon Carter's loaded with potential, too. And, oh yeah, TCU has three 700-yard rushers returning. Not bad.

Oklahoma State

Oklahoma State loses Brandon Weeden and Justin Blackmon, but nobody thought OSU could rebound from losing Zac Robinson and Dez Bryant. OSU has a few candidates to emerge as the new top target -- Josh Stewart, Isaiah Anderson and Tracy Moore, for starters -- and whoever wins the quarterback job will get the keys to an offense with a great offensive line and two running backs in Joseph Randle and Jeremy Smith that have a case as the league's best backfield.

Baylor

Baylor loses the league's Heisman winner (Robert Griffin III), top rusher (Terrance Ganaway) and top receiver (Kendall Wright), but the Bears may be back at it this fall. Nick Florence is an experienced backup who's ready to play. Terrance Williams has an NFL future, and Tevin Reese joins him as the No. 1 and No. 2 top receivers from the Big 12 in 2011 who return to the Big 12 in 2012. RG3 spread the love, and the Bears have plenty of talent in the backfield. Jarred Salubi, Lache Seastrunk and Glasco Martin will battle for carries.

So, who will be the best?

George Baltimore (Mansfield, Texas/Mansfield) has long been a Texas target. Baltimore missed the second junior day and doesn't have an offer from the Longhorns. He does, however, hold 12 offers from various schools.

The 5-foot-11 safety talked with RecruitingNation Midlands blogger Damon Sayles to talk about when he realized he was becoming a big-time recruit:

Each Saturday, Mansfield (Texas) High School coach Jeff Hulme would put college interest letters in his players' lockers. It served as motivation for many of the players. For Baltimore, an ESPNU Watch List safety who attends Mansfield, the occasional letter quickly became a barrage of weekly mail thanks to his performance after the Tigers defeated Keller, Texas, in their second game of the season.

Baltimore recorded two interceptions and returned one of those 95 yards for a touchdown as Mansfield beat Keller, 40-27. Baltimore also returned a punt 80 yards for a score.

All of that occurred in the game's first 15 minutes.

"That day right there was it for me," Baltimore said. "I came back the next week, and there were 50, 60 letters waiting for me. Usually, it was just one or two letters."

Baltimore also talked about what he is looking for in a school and when he will make a decision:

Baltimore said he's not going to make any college decisions until after spring ball. From there, he said he will begin eliminating schools by weighing different intangibles -- educational background, football program history and campus atmosphere among many -- and prepare a top list of schools to choose from. He hopes to announce a verbal commitment before the summer.

Read the full story here.

AUSTIN, Texas -- This time it wasn’t the NBA draft that lured away a Texas player.

It was the lure of playing time.

Sterling Gibbs, a backup point guard has elected to transfer from Texas. The rising sophomore played sparingly as a freshman on a team that had just nine scholarship players.

Gibbs appeared in 30 games, but started none. He averaged 7.5 minutes and 2.6 points per game.

Gibbs is the second player to elect to leave Texas this offseason. Guard J'Covan Brown gave up his final year of eligibility to enter the draft. Texas was able to hang onto point guard Myck Kabongo and that undoubtedly played a large role in Gibbs’ decision to transfer.

Texas signed Javan Felix, a 5-foot-11, 190-pound point guard from Saint Augustine High in New Orleans, in the fall. Felix was already expected to be Kabongo’s backup or even run the floor with Kabongo on occasion. Felix is rated 72 in ESPN’s top 100 players.

With the departure of Gibbs, Texas has five players currently on scholarship and another five who signed letters of intent in the fall. The Longhorns also recently picked up a commitment from shooting guard DeMarcus Holland (Garland, Texas/Naaman Forest). Post player Cameron Ridley, a top 10-rated recruit, is also expected to sign his letter of intent when the spring signing period begins Wednesday.

That leaves Texas with 12 scholarship players. The Longhorns continues to hope to add one more to get to the maximum 13 -- small forward Devonta Pollard. The 6-foot-7 Pollard has Texas among his final four, but just recently completed a trip to Alabama and is headed to Georgetown this weekend. Pollard to ESPN’s TideNation he will make his decision when he returns from Georgetown.

I've been inspired by the boys at the Big Ten Blog, and this should be a fun walk through each week in the new-look Big 12 next season. I'll pick one game a week during the season that I'd attend if it were entirely up to me. I don't make the call, and things change as games are played, of course. But right now, this is how it'd look if it were up to me. I'll include road nonconference games, too.

• Week 1: West Virginia vs. Marshall
• Week 2: Kansas State vs. Miami
• Week 3: Texas at Ole Miss
• Week 4: Kansas State at Oklahoma
• Week 5: Texas at Oklahoma State

Here's what the Week 6 slate in the Big 12 looks like:

• Iowa State at TCU
• Kansas at Kansas State
• Oklahoma at Texas Tech
• West Virginia at Texas

My pick: West Virginia at Texas

I was actually a little torn here. Making my first trip to Fort Worth was tempting, as well as a first look at Iowa State. Ultimately, I couldn't say "no" to a likely Top-25 showdown between two contrasting styles. West Virginia goes into one of its most difficult atmospheres of the season, and both teams could easily be undefeated, too.

The Mountaineers' front seven was decimated by the draft, and facing the Longhorns' physical offense will be a huge test. If they can't stop it, it's going to be difficult for the offense to make enough of a difference.

This game is probably the premier matchup in the Big 12 this season. West Virginia may have the league's best offense. I feel pretty confident that Texas will have the best defense. Whoever wins this one will make a pretty huge statement. A win for Texas, especially if they beat Oklahoma State the week before, would stamp the Longhorns as a legitimate Big 12 title contender (and maybe more?). If West Virginia wins, though? So much for growing pains in the new Big 12. It's still early, yes, and the toughest part of the schedule is to come, but this will be a big test for both teams. Both have a lot to lose and a lot to gain.

Let's do it.

HornsNation's Max Olson will chat you the world today at 2 p.m. CT.

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NORMAN, Okla. -- Texas coach Mack Brown was the first Big 12 coach to speak out against some of college football's latest rule changes, but Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops and Oklahoma State coach Mike Gundy joined him in expressing concerns this week during interviews with ESPN.com.

Stoops' biggest concern was the potential for players to be penalized for continuing to play if their helmet is knocked off during the course of a play.

"It doesn’t make sense," he said. "It’s not anybody’s instinct to stop. I don’t think that’s very fair or very realistic."

Stoops and Brown both brought in officials this offseason to explain the rule change. For example, pass rushers can continue to rush the pocket without a helmet if they're engaged with an offensive lineman, but if a passer escapes the pocket or steps up to run, players must stop. If not, they can be flagged for 15-yard penalties.

"I’m not for that. Any rule that gives the officials or makes the officials have judgment calls is a bad rule because it’s not fair to them either," Gundy said. "Judgment calls make it difficult, and so you always want to take judgment calls out of their hands."

Additionally, players must sit out a play if their helmet comes off, which Brown noted could pose problems late in games. If a helmet comes off and the player's team doesn't have a timeout saved in a game's final minutes, there will be a 10-second run-off.

"They might need to look at that a little bit more," Stoops said.

The nightmare scenario? Being forced to run a game-deciding play with a top talent on the sidelines because a helmet came off.

"You can’t have a game changed because a helmet came off a key player," Gundy said. "That’s not a good thing."

The intent of the rule is to get players, some of whom have grown lazy in correctly buckling helmets, to take safety seriously and wear helmets correctly, which could also prevent concussions.

The question: Will the good intent outweigh controversial side effects?

"They’re trying to get them to tighten up their helmets, which is a good rule," Gundy said. "But those kinds of things have to be taken into consideration."

Additionally, players may call for a fair catch on onside kicks this year if the ball bounces high in the air after just one bounce. If it bounces twice, it's a live ball on an onside kick as it had been previously.

Stoops says he's "fine" with that rule, and Gundy sounded less concerned about the rule change than Brown.

"I am not a big fan of the onside kick. I hold my breath whenever you do it or you’re against it, because three kids, three players on both teams are going to get blown up every time. You’re just sitting ducks. You’re standing there looking in the air and a guy’s blowing you up. If that were my kid, I wouldn’t be real fired up about that," Gundy said. "I know it’s part of football and this and that, but there’s a lot of things that go on in history of life that we change when we think it’s better."

The result for Gundy's Cowboys? He may abandon the onside kick altogether with the new rules.

"Basically that means you have to squib the ball, and if you squib the ball, your percentages go down considerably," he said. "I agree with Mack, it’s not even worth it. Why run in there and blow everybody up for a play that was probably less than 10 percent chance to get, now it’s less than three percent?"

I've been inspired by the boys at the Big Ten Blog, and this should be a fun walk through each week in the new-look Big 12 next season. I'll pick one game a week during the season that I'd attend if it were entirely up to me. I don't make the call, and things change as games are played, of course. But right now, this is how it'd look if it were up to me. I'll include road nonconference games, too.

• Week 1: West Virginia vs. Marshall
• Week 2: Kansas State vs. Miami
• Week 3: Texas at Ole Miss
• Week 4: Kansas State at Oklahoma

Here's the Week 5 slate in the Big 12:

• Baylor at West Virginia
• Texas Tech at Iowa State
• Texas at Oklahoma State
• TCU at SMU

My pick: Texas at Oklahoma State

Once again, no contest here. It'd be my first look at the reigning Big 12 champs, who would be sporting a brand-new look on offense without the team's top two receivers (Justin Blackmon, Josh Cooper) and quarterback Brandon Weeden. My money is on J.W. Walsh as the man to replace Weeden, but he'd face what would likely be the toughest test of his season in Texas' defense.

What a matchup. Last year, the Longhorns provided OSU's offense its toughest test, and this should be a close, classic game. OSU's offense won't be quite as potent and Texas' defense should be much better, as will its offense. Oklahoma State says its defensive tackles are much improved, but they'll get a tough test in the Longhorns' three-headed rushing attack with Joe Bergeron, Malcolm Brown and Johnathan Gray.

Neither team will be among the favorites to win the Big 12, but both teams have the potential to take the lead. Want to prove it? Win this game. Loser will get downgraded in the race for sure, and this one should go down to the wire after OSU beat the Longhorns by double digits in Austin in consecutive seasons.

AUSTIN, Texas -- It’s odd, 17 years after he arrived, that Ricky Williams should be back again and this time inanimate, cast in bronze.

He had, after all, always been the ever-changing athlete. Ricky was not one who could be caught in a pose much less by his opponents. Instead Ricky was a subject tough to get a grip on. The dreads. The visor. The disappearance. The dress. Ricky was all those images. What he wasn’t and never will be is someone who can be captured by a single image or even an 8-foot, 1000-pound statue.

That’s not Ricky. Ricky evolves.

It seems everything these days, from Nick Saban to Tim Tebow’s teary speech after an LSU loss, has to be memorialized. Texas decided Ricky should be. He be the next to have his likeness placed outside Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium. Right there next to Earl.

To be sure it’s a tribute and honor. Over the top? Sure, but college football must have its heroes. And Ricky, one of only two Heisman winners in Texas history, is the Longhorns.

“It was so funny … I had to take [Williams] down to the running backs meeting. They were just in awe,” Texas coach Mack Brown said. “Just bringing a rock star in and walking him into the running back room. They were sitting up front and I walked in and said, `This is Ricky Williams.’ They couldn't move. They just sat there. They didn't say hello. They didn't shake his hand.”

Fourteen years removed from his playing days at Texas and this is the response Ricky still elicits from people in and around the program. Maybe that is why the statue seems premature. Ricky is still a living breathing entity, still changing, still effecting people.

Even to Ricky the statue seems a tad strange.

“It's going to be funny being a student walking past my statue,” Williams said.

Not that he is going to mind it too terribly much.

“I'm going to walk by it every day,” he joked.

Who wouldn’t?

On the other hand who, at age 35, with money and opportunity who said “I wake up and I say to myself, `What grand and glorious adventure do I want to do today,” would decide that the adventure would be to go back to school?

Ricky would.

“I want to get a “T” ring,” Williams said. “It’s one of the things I wanted to do a long time ago.”

Despite wandering away from what the public perceived his goals should have be on the football field, Ricky is actually all about goals. Setting them and meeting them. It’s how he came to be at Texas. He wanted to have an impact on a program. He wanted to be a part of something.

In the process he became something.

“I remember when he broke the record, we knew he was going to do it in the Texas A&M game, we just didn’t know how he was going to do it,” ESPN broadcaster Brent Musburger, who called the game in 1998, said during the statue ceremony.

He should have known. Musburger had been watching Ricky for more than three years. By that time it was clear nothing Ricky ever did was understated or subtle. So that he went through three tackles for 60 yards and into the end zone should not have been shock to anyone.

Those are the types of memories David Demming has attempted to evoke with this statue. A Texas fan can now look at this piece of art and remember what Ricky did in those four years.

The fans gets a glimpse at the dreads – not nearly as long as they would be, and the player – really at the peak of what he would be – and they are able to remember a few days and plays from the falls of the late 90s.

But not even Ricky believes this statue resembles who he is or much less who he might become now that football is over.

“Close enough,” he said.

Not really. Not at all.