Mystery continues ...

With just hours until the Frogs open the season at home against Baylor, the status of Tommy Blake remains uncertain. He apparently is/was in an area hospital with an "undisclosed illness." (He was to be released today, according to reports.

Medical privacy laws prohibit the coaches from saying anything more specific about what ails the star defensive end. Gil LeBreton has a good column in today's Star-Telegram about the situation. Count me among those who fully expect him to play Saturday. If he is unavailable, that would cast doubt on his status for not only the Texas game next week, but the remainder of the season.

Blake back with team

All is well on the defensive line for now. Tommy Blake has returned. He'll be needed even more now that defensive tackle James Vess will not play this season. According to the Star-Telegram, he's still on the team, but a violation of university rules has sidelined him for the season. In unrelated news, Andy Dalton has beaten out Marcus Jackson for the starting quarterback position. Both have reportedly practiced well during the off season, but a decision had to be made in time to give the winner a chance to prepare for Baylor. Dalton was named the starter after Saturday's scrimmage. Many people are surprised, but the fact that Jackson, a sophomore who led the Frogs to a win over the Bears last year, was not given the job earlier was an indication coaches were learning toward Dalton.

Disturbing news on defensive front

After all the great national press about the Frogs' prospects for 2007 -- top 25 rankings virtually everywhere you look, prognosticators predicting a run toward the Bowl Championship Series -- there's a disturbing column in today's Star-Telegram about star defensive end Tommy Blake. Apparently, Blake, an All-America selection by several publications, has gone home.

It's too early to jump to conclusions, but if he quits the team, the defense will be much less intimidating, having lost its best player. Hopefully, he'll work things out and be back in Fort Worth in a few days. My guess is he will return. With the NFL on the horizon, Blake has too much to lose by sitting out a year.

UF wrong to discriminate against BUX

The University of Florida is trying to deny a Christian fraternity recognition as an official student organization because its admissions policy is exclusionary. Beta Upsilon Chi --also known as Brothers Under Christ -- filed a federal lawsuit last week, having been refused recognition by the university since May. Administrators must welcome BUX as an official organization for the fraternity to gain access to facilities at the University of Florida. Without this privilege, even the strongest groups would tend to wither over time.

The problem, as the university sees it, is BUX, of which I was a member at TCU, will not admit women. Imagine that -- a fraternity that wants to remain exclusively male. I guess it has to be pointed out to Florida that at most American colleges and universities, any group of women may assemble a sorority, even one requiring its members to profess a certain belief. Christian sororities are also quite common.


Even if BUX prevails in its battle for recognition, it still must fight for membership in the university's social-fraternity council, which prohibits religious discrimination. Obviously, a fraternity requiring its members be Christians does not comply.


So a Christian fraternity is denied membership because it insists on remaining true to its purpose. Try to wrap your brain around that. It's OK if you can't. If the architects of the non-discrimination policy cleared their heads long enough to think about how ridiculous it sounds to force a religious group to deny its bedrock principle, they'd be scratching their heads to the point of embarrassment.

Still no mtn. to climb

The football season is almost here, but there's been little progress on access for Frogs fans to CSTV and the mtn. (CSTV is available on satellite systems.) I'm tired of the Mountain West apologists comparing the conference's TV deal to the early years ESPN. Yes, ESPN struggled when it had none of the major sports to broadcast, but it survived its early struggles -- and dominates today -- because of a concept Superior to the MWC's.

The Mountain West is will be hampered by low visibility -- even if TCU and BYU do well enough to garner national attention throughout the season -- until the conference jettisons this ill-fated concept.