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NCAA Division I FBS: Big Ten Conference, 2010 season – attendance map (2009 figures), and modern era helmet history chart. Plus maps of the two Big Ten Divisions starting in 2011.

admin — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 23:37:21 +0000

Thanks to the NCAA site, for 2009 attendance figures, ‘NCAA Accumulated Attendances, FBS’ (pdf).
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New Michigan State helmet, here (at Motown Lowdown, a SB Nation blog), featuring a tapered grey stripe at top of helmet, and a slightly darker green helmet color.
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You will notice I placed a small rectangle for the Nebraska Cornhuskers on the main map page. Of course, Nebraska will be joining the Big Ten next season, in 2011, but I figured people would like to see geographically where the Cornhuskers’ home, Lincoln, Nebraska, is located in relation to the other 11 Big Ten teams’ locations.
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On the main map page, the modern-era helmet history of each team is not completely comprehensive, but shown are all major helmet design changes of each Big 10 team from the post-World War II era to the present time (approximately 56 to 64 years). That includes face mask color changes. As usual on these maps and charts, all modern, plastic composite helmet designs of each team in the Confeence are shown, and they are arranged chronologically from left to right.

The plastic composite helmets replaced the old leather ones in the years following the end of World War II. By 1946, many NFL teams, and a few college teams, had started using the new type of helmets, which had come out of technological innovations made during the WW II era. By the early 1950s, every college team was using the new helmets. Each teams’ helmet history on the chart thus starts when that school started using the safer and shinier new headgear. I made exceptions with Penn State and Michigan, because there was room for a leather helmet there, and I was able to find images of their final leather-helmet era designs. Believe me, if I could, I would have included the leather-helmet histories of all the teams, but sadly that visual history is very hard to unearth and there is no source out there for even incomplete depictions of what teams’ helmets looked like circa, say, 1900, or even 1940 {like the Michigan Wolverines helmets included in this photo from University of Michigan’s Bentley Historical Library site, here. Full article (‘Michigan’s Winged Helmet’, here}. The following link has (and sells) leather helmets of college teams, but some of them are probably not accurate, like the Michigan State helmet (more on Michigan State’s leather helmets circa 1933 to 1947 later). And back then, with some manufacturers, leather helmet colors only came in black or tan, and sometimes if a school wanted their football team to wear helmets in the school colors, they had to paint them themselves. So anyway, at the Past Time Sports site, you can see the old , circa 1930 to 1940s, leather helmet designs of Michigan (top of page); and further down the page teams such as Michigan State, Penn State, Wisconsin, and Ohio State, {click here}. And you can go to MG’s Helmets site for a nice set of pages that shows, year-by-year, the helmet design of the popularly recognized National Champion, here …Note: go to the 11th category on the left-hand sidebar called ‘NCAA National Champs [1936 to present]‘. There you can see the 1936, 1940, and 1941 AP #1 Minnesota Golden Gophers’ maroon leather helmet and the 1942 AP #1 Ohio State Buckeyes’ silver leather helmet with top red stripe.
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Who was the first college football team to wear the winged helmet that the Micihigan Wolverines have made so famous ? The popular story is that it was Princeton, then Michigan that first wore winged helmets. This is false. Michigan State had a winged helmet first. The thing is, Michigan State wore gold and black for a 14 year period, a fact that has been pretty much forgotten. And during this time, which was 1933 to 1946, Michigan State wore a series of winged helmet designs. The Michigan State winged helmet came two years before Princeton’s winged helmet, and 5 years before the Michigan Wolverines’ winged helmet. [Note: Michigan State was an independent during this time period, and were not invited to join the "Big Nine" conference until 1948, and by that time they were back in green and white gear and no longer sporting winged helmets. With Michigan State joining the conference in 1948, it became popularly known as the Big Ten.]

The University of Michigan’s cross-state rivals, the Michigan State Spartans, who as the Michigan State College Spartans, from 1933 to 1947, under coach Charlie Bachman, wore a gold leather helmet with a black ‘wing’ design that featured a small block-letter S in the center of the wing. The ‘wing’ was simply the shape of an extra layer of re-enforced padding over the forehead, and was a standard part of the Spalding leather football helmet’s design…it only became a wing shape when it was painted a different color than the leather helmet itself. The Spartans’ gold and black winged helmet predates the navy blue and yellow [aka maize] winged helmet’s debut at the University of Michigan by 5 years.

In the photo above from 1939, you can see 1940 Heisman trophy winner Tom Harmon of Michigan on a sweep play, versus Michigan State. Both teams are wearing winged helmets.

After Michigan State coach Bachman retired, his successor, “Biggie” Munn returned Michigan State’s football colors to green and white, and the Spartans started the 1947 season in white leather helmets with a green wing design (seen above). But in the team’s first game under Munn’s charge, Michigan State were blown out 55-0 by the Michigan Wolverines. Munn scrapped the white and green winged helmets after that one game, and outfitted the Spartans in a green plastic helmet that had just a plain white center stripe. That was the last of the winged helmet for the Michigan State Spartans, and over the years, the Michigan Wolverines winged helmet has overshadowed the Michigan State Spartans’ contribution to football iconography. So yes, it’s true that future Michigan Wolverines’ coach Fritz Crisler used the winged helmet at Princeton from 1935 to 1937 (painting the helmets the Tigers’ orange and black, plus adding orange paint to the three stripes that radiated out from the front of the helmet), and it is true that Crisler then took this winged helmet design to Ann Arbor, Michigan when he took over the head coaching role at Michigan in 1938. But the Michigan State Spartans’ winged helmet came first (in 1933). To see an illustrated article on this, click on the following… ‘The Official History of the Winged Helmett’ (Spartans Jerseys.com site).

The link I made earlier in this post, to the University of Michigan’s Bentley Historical Library site and their article on the Michigan Wolverines’ winged helmet, also confirms that the Michigan State Spartans had used the winged helmet before the Michigan Wolverines. But this article buries that fact deep into the 12th paragraph, and doesn’t even bother to give a date for the Spartans’ innovation {that link, again, here}.
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Thanks to Elite Deals site, where I got most of the current Big Ten helmet photos. I also got a couple photos from Score Here.com.
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Special thanks to the two sites that were instrumental in making this helmet history chart…the brilliant site Helmet Hut. Helmet Hut/College.
And the singular Helmet Project page, which is the only site I can find that has attempted to tackle helmet histories of college football teams (even if it is only from 1960 to the present day)… http://www.nationalchamps.net/Helmet_Project/
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One more thing…the Ohio State buckeye-leaf decals were green in the 1970s, were black around 20 years ago or so, and now are a very dark green (I think). My last post on Big Ten football, in November, 2008 {here} linked to a now-infamous thread on BuckeyePlanet.com {here}, which featured an ex-Buckeye player who showed photos of his helmet (this ex-player is early 1990s Ohio State punter Scott Tema), and provided vociferous arguments for the fact that the buckeye decals have always been black, but some outlets sell fake ones that are green. Well, 25 pages on, and a Slate.com mention later {here…(‘Lunatics Guide to College Football’, by Justin Peters on Aug. 29, 2007 @ Slate.com…see Ohio State/Bizarre fixation)}, the jury was still out but leaning towards dark hunter green, and certainly leaning towards the fact that during the 1970s, at least, the buckeye decals were definitely green. So I decided to use the Ohio State University.edu ’s entry on the subject {here}. I did find out one thing for certain, though…the leaf decals were being awarded starting in 1967, not 1968, like is popularly believed. 1967 was the last year that Ohio State wore a red helmet. On page 17 of the thread, you can see a photo that proves this {here (halfway down the page)}.

2009 NCAA Football Rankings- Final AP Poll, Top 10/ (plus a how-to for: Bing.com/maps-Bird’s-Eye satellite view).

admin — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 21:18:19 +0000

To see the full AP Poll (Top 25)l, {click here (SI/CNN.com)}.

On the map, at the far right, top, there is the top 10 listed, along with the result of each team’s bowl game. Also on the map there is a shot of each team’s home stadium. In the little text boxes that accompany each photo, I have included the years when there were stadium upgrades (an upgrade usually means expansion). I have also noted when the playing surface was altered. Three of the venues have switched back to good old real grass (hooray for Florida, Ohio State and TCU!), while the Iowa Hawkeye’s Kinnick Stadium, and the Texas Longhorn’s Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium, have switched back and forth , and now back again, to artificial turf (boo). PS, that story about Boise State’s blue astro-turf at their Bronco Stadium causing waterfowl to think it’s a body of water, thus killing the birds when trying to land ?…Wikipedia says it’s an urban legend. Not so sure about that, but maybe I’m being a color snob (and an opponent of artificial turf in general).

Below is a little chart I put together that shows each of the top 10 teams’ 2009 home average attendance. The blue column on the left shows the 2009 averages, plus the team’s rank in the 120-team Division I-Football Bowl Subdivision (the Michigan Wolverines were the higest-drawing college football team once more). In the middle column is listed percent capacity that each team drew (some venues allow for standing-room tickets, hence the percentages which exceed 100%). The light blue blue column on the right shows 2008 average gates, plus percent change from 2009-versus-2008.

Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org {2009-10 NCAA football bowl games page, here}. Thanks to NCAA site, for attendance figures {click here (pdf )}.

Thanks to http://www.rolltide.com {Bryant-Denny Stadium page, here}. Thanks to http://www.gatorzone.com {‘The Swamp”, here}. Thanks to http://bealonghorn.utexas.edu {Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial stadium, here}. Thanks to konrad_photography at http://www.flickr.com , {click here (Lane Stadium, Blacksburg, Virginia)}.

Thanks to NCAA Stadium Guide, at http://ncaafootball.com {click here for interactive stadium guide} **Recommeded**.

Thanks to Bing.com’s awesome Bird’s Eye view. Just check this shot of the Cincinnati Bearcats’ Nippert Stadium complex {click here}.

Here’s how you can easily access Bing.com’s Bird’s Eye view…

1). Make a Google search for whatever you want to see, inserting wikipedia in the query…say, “oregon ducks stadium wiki” / {you get this (first search result: ‘Autzen Stadium-Wikipedia..’)}.

2). Once you click to get to Wikipedia’s ‘Autzen Stadium’ page, {here}, click on the Coordinates (at top, right in bright blue).

3). You should then have this page (GeoHack-Autzen Stadium) {here}. (It might take a while).

4). You will see in the middle of the screen a purple band for Bing Maps (popular). One of three options there is Bird’s Eye . Click on Bird’s Eye, and you get this, {click here}.

Thanks to Micosoft for that.

Thanks to Jeremy at Albion Road site { http://www.albionroad.com }, for catching my error in not showing an up-to-date photo of the Texas Longhorns’ Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium, which he found (somewhere) at http://onair.cstv.com/ . The endzone stand in the open air part of the horseshoe, (ie, at the far left in the photo) is the upgrade this photo shows.

NCAA Division I, Football Bowl Subdivision: The Big 12, with 2008 average attendances, and modern helmet history of each team.

admin — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 17:58:40 +0000

As with the SEC map I posted a couple of weeks ago, the modern helmet history of each team is shown in the teams’ sections on the far right. The images of each team’s helmet start at the post-World War II period, circa 1947 to 1950 or so. This is when the old leather helmets were eventually replaced everywhere by the modern plastic compound helmets. I am not positive, but I think I have every helmet change of the teams in the Big 12, from that post-War period to the present. At the bottom right of each team’s section is that team’s current helmet design [note: Baylor has 2 helmets here because the team has home and road helmets this season.].

Thanks to MG’s Helmets {click here}. This is where I get the illustrations of the current helmet designs.

Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org {click here (set at Big 12 Conference football)}. Thanks to Kansas U. Athletics site/’Evolution of the Jayhawk’ {click here}. Thanks to Chris Creamer’s Sports Logos Page {click here}. Thanks to Helmet Hut site {click here (set at College)}. Thanks to The Helmet Project site {click here}. Thanks to Logo Shak {click here}. Thanks to Helmet History.com {click here (set at College)}. Thanks to glenniz, for the Sooners-wagon-on-dark-red-background image {click here}.

Thanks to The Southwest Conference Helmet History site, which was a real help in nailing down obscure helmet designs and dates for teams like Baylor, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech {click here}.

NCAA Division Division I, Football Bowl Subdivision: The SEC, with 2008 average attendances, and modern helmet history of each team.

admin — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 22:16:41 +0000

Notes on the map and chart…
Instead of just listing last season’s average attendance for each team, there are now 3 columns…2008 average; Percent Capacity [of stadium]; and Change From 2007 [by percentage]. This list is at the right-hand side of the map. Below that is the list of SEC titles by team, including total seasons played in the SEC. Titles won in other major conferences, for Arkansas (in the defunct Southwest Conference) and South Carolina (in the ACC) are noted at the bottom.

On the far right, in the chart section, each team is listed top to bottom by how they finished in their division in 2008. The bulk of the images in each team’s section are devoted to depicting each teams’ helmet styles, and their changes through the years, starting with the modern helmet’s introduction in the post-war era circa 1946 to 1950 (which is when plastic composite helmets replaced the old leather helmets of the pre-war era). The helmets are chronologically listed from left to right, and top to bottom, for each team. The current helmet design is placed at the bottom right of each team’s section. This is not a comprehensive list, but all major helmet changes and most minor helmet changes are shown, with the following exceptions. The only two logo-based helmets (that I am aware of) which I couldn’t find a suitable image of are the Kentucky Wildcats’ split blue helmet of circa 1963-1968, with the players’ numeral on the left-hand side [which is shown on the chart], and the head of a snarling wildcat on the right-hand side; and the Mississippi State maroon bulldog-head-in-three-quarters-profile helmet of 1963-1965. In the Helmet Project site’s notes on their Southeastern Conference page, there are photos and descriptions of these two helmets {click here, then click on ‘Southeastern’, from the column on the left, then scroll to find the two teams’ sections}. And there are a few helmet designs I have left out of various teams’ sections because they were of a design that had been used previously, or were very slight modifications of logo size or center-stripe.

Thanks to the contributors to the pages at en.wikipedia.org (click here (‘2008 NCAA Division I FBS football season’)}. Thanks to the excellent site Helmet Hut, where you can buy the old helmets, or any custom design {click here}. Thanks to the Helmet Project site at http://www.nationalchamps.net/Helmet_Project/ . This is the only site I can find that actually tries to tackle the helmet histories of NCAA teams, and there are still a good deal of gaps and unknown designs. Thanks to this site, http://helmet-history.com/ , which was a real help in filling in the gaps somewhat.

2008 NCAA Football Rankings- Final AP Poll, Top 10.

admin — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 21:02:31 +0000

Final AP Poll, {Click here (ESPN site) }. 17 of the 65 voters refused to go with the program, and voted for a team other than the Florida Gators. The Utah Utes received 17 (!) first-place votes, and the USC Trojans got 1 vote. What does this tell you ? That the BCS system has solved nothing, and there will never be a time when there is a completely undisputed National Champion in college football, until playoffs are established. But that would eat into the lucrative Bowl system. There must be some way to work it out so that the Bowls stay intact, but a playoff system, like between the top 8 ranked teams, is implemented.Kudos to the Mountain West, a conference that is for so-called mid-Major programs, but has produced the 2008 AP College Football # 2 (Utah) and # 7 (TCU) teams.

NCAA Division I-A / Football Bowl Subdivision, the ACC: Team Profiles and Attendance Map (2007 figures).

admin — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 14:55:10 +0000

The Atlantic Coast Conference (the ACC) was formed in May, 1953. Founding members were Clemson (Clemson, SC), Duke (Durham, NC), Maryland (College Park, MD), North Carolina (Chapel Hill, NC), North Carolina State (Raleigh, NC), South Carolina (Columbia, SC), and Wake Forest (Winston-Salem, NC). These schools left the Southern Conference primarily because that conference had a ban on post-season play.

In 1971, South Carolina left to become an Independent (South Carolina is now in the SEC).

Georgia Tech (Atlanta, GA) left the MAC, and joined the ACC in 1978. Georgia Tech had been in the Southeastern Conference (the SEC) from 1933 to 1963.

Florida State (Tallahassee, FL), also left the MAC to join the ACC, in 1991.

In 2003, there was a big shake-up in the East, and 3 schools eventually left the Big East to join the ACC…Miami (Coral Gables, FL) and Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA) joined the ACC in 2004; Boston College (Chestnut Hill, MA) joined in 2005.

The ACC Championship Game is Saturday, December 6th, in Tampa, Florida. For the second straight year, Virginia Tech will play Boston College for the Conference Title {see this}.

Thanks to the contributors to the pages on ACC football teams at Wikipedia. Thanks to http://www.nationalchamps.net/NCAA/database/index.htm . Thanks to the AP Poll Archive (Click here}. Thanks to the sites on the SSUR site (the Society for Sports Uniforms Research) {Click here}. Thanks to the North Carolina sports site called Tar Heel Times {Click here}.

Thanks to the Helmet Hut site (I have set the following link to Florida State helmets; the Miami page is also nice) {Click here}.

Thanks to Michael Bolding’s My Favorite Bowl Games page {Click here}. This is a nice page to check out, with lots of old photos and illustrations. I found old, leather helmet-era, and early 1950s-era helmet illustrations here (evidently from the FB Helmets to Infininity site, which is now the Infinite Helmets site, and is just starting to add content. On Infinite Helmets, there is a nice modern, Schutt-type helmet template, which can be seen on the NFL teams there…Click here).

Top 25, BCS Standings for Week 14.

admin — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:28:03 +0000

2008 BCS Standings for week 14.

admin — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 14:22:50 +0000

Full BCS Standings, and Polls {Click here}.

Alabama and Florida will meet for the SEC Title, on Saturday, in Atlanta, Georgia. {CBS College FB page, Click here.} Alabama is #1 in both the BCS Standings, and the AP Poll; Florida is #4 in the BCS, and #2 in the AP Poll. 2008 SEC Championship Game page, on Wikipedia, Click here.

The winner will be in the BCS Championship game. In the current BCS format, there are 5 games considered ‘BCS Bowl Games’: the BCS National Championship Game, the Rose Bowl (Pasadena, CA), the Sugar Bowl (New Orleans, LA), the Fiesta Bowl (Glendale, AZ), and the Orange Bowl (Miami, FL) {see this}.

NCAA Division I-A / Football Bowl Subdivision, the Big East: Team Profiles and Attendance Map (2007 figures).

admin — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 14:08:26 +0000

The Big East’s football conference began play in 1991. I wrote a bit about the conference last November {see this}.

The Big East’s football conference combines a few schools with storied pasts: Pittsburgh, Syracuse, and West Virginia, with some schools that never really had football programs to brag about, but are now improving: Cincinnati, Connecticut, Rutgers, and South Florida. Louisville is the other school in the conference, and is sort of in both categories.

Friday, the 101st edition of the Backyard Brawl will take place, as the West Virginia Mountaineers visit the Pitt Panthers (who are #25 in the BCS) {see this}. Here is an article from USA Today on the 100th Backyard Brawl {Click here}.

South Florida has seen their average attendance rise from 30,222 in 2006; to 53,170 last season. That rise of nearly 23,000 vaulted them from 76th highest to 38th highest. The nascent USF football program has only been in existence since 1997.

Thanks to http://www.nationalchamps.net/NCAA/database/index.h. Thanks to the contributors to the Big East football pages on Wikipedia. Thanks to AP Poll Archive {Click here}.

Thanks to http://gobearcats.cstv.com/. Thanks to http://www.scarletknights.com/football/history/first-game.asp (Click on it and check out the nice illustration of what the first college football game looked like, in 1869: Princeton vs. Rutgers.) Thanks to Ask-ville {Click here}. Thanks to The Sports Fanattic Shop {Click here}.

Thanks to Helmet Hut {Click here}; The Helmet Project {Click here}; Chris Creamer’s Sports Logos Page {Click here}.; Logo Server {Click here}; Logo Shak {Click here}.

NCAA Division I-A / Football Bowl Subdivision, the Big 12: Team Profiles and Attendance Map (2007 figures).

admin — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 17:02:19 +0000

The Big 12 was formed in 1994, when the Big 8 merged with 4 schools from Texas that had come from the just-disbanded Southwest Conference. The first season of Big 12 football was in 1996.

The Big 8 has it’s origins in the Missouri Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Association, which began football competition in 1907. Founding schools were the University of Kansas (Lawrence, KA), the University of Missouri (Columbia, MO), the University of Nebraska (Lincoln, NE), and Washington University (St. Louis, MO). The next year, 1908, Drake University (Des Moines, IA) and Iowa State (Ames, IA) joined. Kansas State (Manhattan, KA) joined in 1913. Grinnell College (Grinnell, IA) joined in 1919. The University of Oklahoma (Norman, OK) joined in 1920. Oklahoma A & M (Stillwater, OK) joined in 1925; this school is now called Oklahoma State.

Three years later, though, Oklahoma A & M left the conference, along with the smaller schools, to form the Missouri Valley Conference (the MVC).

The other large schools remained together as the MVIAA; the conference began to become popularly known as the Big 6…Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Nebraska, and Oklahoma.

The Big 6 remained stable throughout the 1930s and World War II. In 1948, the University of Colorado (Boulder, CO) joined, and the conference became known as the Big 7.

A decade later, Oklahoma State rejoined, and began play for football in 1960. The conference then became known as the Big 8.

The conference remained the same throughout the sixties, seventies, eighties, and early 1990s. During this time 2 of the schools in the Big 8 emerged as national powerhouses…the Oklahoma Sooners and the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Both of these teams currently draw over 80,000 per game. Oklahoma has won 7 National Titles (the last in 2000), Nebraska has won 5 National Titles (the last in 1997).

Since the merger with the four Texas teams from the SWC, the conference has seen their national exposure only grow, as the football programs of the Texas Longhorns and the Texas A & M Aggies similarly draw over 80,ooo per game. Texas has won 3 National Titles (the last in 2005); Texas A & M won their only National Title in 1939. The only other team in the Big 12 that has won a National Title is Colorado, in 1990. The Buffaloes draw around 50,000 per game.

In recent years, the Big 12 has seen the emergence of the football programs of Kansas State, Kansas, Missouri, and Texas Tech. For around 40 years, Kansas State was one of the worst Division I-A teams in the country…it was 69 years between conference titles for the Wildcats (1934, 2003). The Kansas Jayhawks were a mediocre-to-poor football team for around 35 years, but last year achieved a #7 AP ranking and an Orange Bowl victory. The Missouri Tigers, while not as historically bad as the two Kansas teams, still had not done much to brag about since 1965 (#4), but in the last few years have emerged as a real threat. Last year the Tigers made it to the Big 12 Championship Game (which they lost to Oklahoma), and won the Cotton Bowl. At 12-2, Missouri was ranked #4 in the AP Poll in 2007.

Finally, there is Texas Tech {team profile, from CBS Sports site, Click here; Wikipedia page here}. The Red Raiders are from Lubbock (metro population of around 261,000), {Visit Lubbock site here}., in a region referred to as the South Plains (comprising the Texas panhandle {see this}, plus the area to the immediate south).

For 25 years (1932-’56), Texas Tech played in the obscurity of the old Border Intercollegiate Athletic Association (which was composed of football teams from schools in Arizona, New Mexico, and west Texas). In 1960, Texas Tech joined the SWC. They have won 9 BIAA Titles (the last in 1955), and 2 SWC Titles (the last in 1994, when they were only 6-6, but managed a share of the conference title, with Texas).

Though Texas Tech has not won a Big 12 Conference Title, they are the only team to have maintained a winning record in every season of the Big 12.

Mike Leach inherited the Texas Tech football program from Spike Dykes (13 years, 82 wins) after the 1999 season. The team has gone to a Bowl game every year during the innovative Leach’s tenure, and have won at least 8 games for 7 straight years. Raised in Cody, Wyoming, Leach grew up a fan of the relatively near-by Brigham Young University football team, whose high-flying offense (which won BYU a National Title in 1984) can be now seen as a harbinger of the current college game. Leach graduated from BYU, then earned a Law Degree at Princeton.

Mike Leach did not play football at the college level (unusual for Division I coaches, although another of the six coaches in this category is also in the Big 12: Mark Mangino of Kansas). Leach’s trademark is the prolific, passing-oriented offense, which is known as the spread offense, for the way it spreads the defense out, revealing weaknesses exploited by the multiple wide reciever/ wing-back formations. Leach was offensive coordinator at Valdosta, Kentucky, and Oklahoma. He came to Texas Tech in the same role, and became head coach in 2000.

This season, the mighty Texas Tech offense continues to roll (they average 47.9 points per game). Their next test is Saturday, when they travel across the state-line to play #5 Oklahoma. #2 Texas Tech has a real shot at the championship. If they can beat the Sooners, Tech finishes the regular season against perennial pushovers Baylor. If they win that too, Texas Tech will be in the BCS Championship Game, opponent, of course, TBD.

Thanks to nationalchamps.net/ All-Time Database {Click here}. Thanks to the College Football Data Warehouse {Click here}. Thanks to the contributors to the pages of the Big 12, Big 8, the SWC, and the BIAA, on Wikipedia. Thanks to the writers at Sports Illustrated August 11, 2008 print edition, including Austin Murphy {si.com, Click here}.

Thanks to Chris Creamer’s Sports Logos Page {Click here}. Thanks to Logo Shak {Click here}. Thanks to Logo Server {Click here}.

Thanks to Helmet Hut {Click here}.

Thanks to the Helmet Project {Click here}.

Thanks to MG’s Helmets {Click here}.

Thanks to Sports Logos and Screen Savers {Click here}. Thanks to FootballFanatics.com {Click here}.

AP Poll, and BCS Standings {Click here}.