Not only did Texas lose the national championship game last night, tonight they now have to deal with losing one of the best defensive backs in the country as well.
According to the Austin American-Statesman, All-American safety Earl Thomas has decided to leave Austin and ply his football skills in the NFL.
As a redshirt sophomore, Thomas had two years of eligibility remaining. As one of the most talented defensive players in the country, Thomas is all but assured to be taken in the first round of the 2010 NFL draft.
If Thomas would’ve waited another year, though, he could’ve been the first safety taken off the board; this season, that honor will go to Tennessee’s Eric Berry.
And Southern Cal’s Taylor Mays will have something to say about who is the second player taken at the position.
Damn it Son, give us one more year!!!
Ah hell, who am I kidding, I’d be gone too!!!
Roll Tide Roll!
I hope Taylor Mays gets drafted 2nd, and that Earl Thomas falls to a spot where the Steelers can pick him up.
@SteelersQT:
How true for you SEC fans – your best hope is for any possible misfortune to befall the Texas Longhorns, because otherwise you know you’ve got problems
http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/polls?pCat=46&sCat=953
Final update from the voters of America…
(92,000 votes in)
(“Who would have won if Colt McCoy was not injured”…)
Texas: 54%
Alabama: 46%
Alabama can have their asterisk.
I’m satisfied knowing that sports fans across America know who the best team is (or more specifically – “who the best team was coming into the Texas Alabama game and who would have won the game without the freak injury to Colt McCoy that took him out of the game”).
BTW to @Deb:
Regarding you deep analysis of polling methods and your impressive education in mathematics…
FYI I am an engineer and at one point majored in mathematics and tutored math including calculus and statistics. Deb, most polls these are ‘non-scientific’ when it comes to this new ‘age of communication’.
So what you do is look at: 1. Who is conducting the poll; 2. Make a common sense judgement on whether it is meaningful.
ESPN web site is a rather sophisticated site – clearly engineered by software engineers who know their stuff.
Note the ‘map’ of voting trends. As an FYI (I’m assuming you’re not familiar with the particulars of computer networking and programming…) – the demographics – i.e. deriving the state the vote came from is based on the IP address (let me know if you need an explanation of that term) of the computer the vote was submitted from, which can then be mapped to an ISP provider, and in turn mapped to a U.S. state. While it is possible to spoof IP addresses, it is a complicated trick, really only possible to be done by computer programmers who have taken some time to program a spoofing mechanism targeting the specific site. Common sense, along with my technical background tell me that the likelihood is very very remote that this particular poll was somehow ‘rigged’ in this way. Common sense tells me (non-tech savvy) sports fans across the country (such as yourself), who frequent the ESPN web site saw the link, clicked on it, and submitted their vote. Also, note that the poll is engineered such that only one vote is allowed from a single computer (and in this case, since the IP addresses were being tracked, that is the likely mechanism being used to enforce it, and therefore it would be very difficult to vote twice from the same computer).
So, in short, no, this poll is not a ‘scientific poll’, but anyone with a bit of technical savvy can come to this conclusion: The poll is probably is a fairly good read on the sentiments of sports fans across America who frequent the ESPN web site.
Hope this helps you a bit in the future when you look at online polls, etc. And feel free to post questions if you’d like information on any other technical issues or facts on networking or even mathematics, polling methods, etc.
@ AE1360…
“I hope Taylor Mays gets drafted 2nd, and that Earl Thomas falls to a spot where the Steelers can pick him up. ”
I’d love for that to happen but we need help at CB more than S. If my memory serves me correct, I think Earl was listed at CB when he came to Texas or played CB in High School…
@scott_nchills…I’ll concede that UT would have beaten ‘Bama if McCoy played as soon as the Longhorn nation concedes that OU would have beaten Texas if Bradford hadn’t gotten hurt on the Sooners 7th play of the game. Fair enough, right? As for the poll numbers you use, these same Longhorn ballot stuffers voted McCoy the player of the year. We all know that was well earned!
@ dr. g- apples and oranges. bradford was injured going into the game and probably shouldnt have tried to play to begin with. also, landry jones started 3 games after the initial injury to bradford and had far more experience going in than did gilbert.
gilbert ended up doing well all things considered…he will be fine, as will the Horns.
@DG0122….Bradford played the entire game the week before the UT game. So we should feel sorry for the horns because their coaching staff gave so little playing time to Gilbert (who, I agree, played well in the 2nd half). The main point is that it’s always “something” with UT. They never get beat, there are always some odd circumstances (you know, like football players getting hurt) that cause their demsie. That’s why they’re referred to as the “whiny orange” in the state of TX. Always crying about something.