Athlon Sports’ Steve Lassen has a preseason raking of the Big 12, with what I think is the magazine’s prediction that Texas Tech will finish 9th in the conference. This is a pretty short preview of each team, nothing terribly in depth. I’ll quote two things, which are their opinions of players to watch on offense and defense, but if you are delaying work this Monday, so click on over.

Offense:

True Freshman to Watch: WR Jerand Bradley
Incoming Transfers: WR Kaylon Geiger; OL T.J. Storment; QB Tyler Shough
Breakout Player: QB Tyler Shough

Defense:

True Freshman to Watch: DL E’maurion Banks
Incoming Transfers: S Reggie Pearson; CB Rayshad Williams; LB Jesiah Pierre; DB Marquis Waters; CB Malik Dunlap
Breakout Player: DL Tony Bradford Jr.

If you haven’t heard or read about the scandal at Arizona State, buckle up. Yahoo Sports’ Pete Thamel details how basically an assistant coach, defensive coordinator Antonio Pierce, was running multiple on-campus recruiting visits all of last year, despite the fact that basically all of last year players were not supposed to be on campus. And the coaching staff was the goody-two-shoes vs. the bad boys who wanted to break as many recruiting rules last year as possible and you basically have the goody-two-shoes absolutely willing to talk to the NCAA:

Multiple sources indicated that there were numerous staff members — one estimated a half-dozen — “keeping receipts” on illicit recruiting activity. One said that Pierce fostered an “in or out” culture within the program, which created mistrust and fear as he accumulated power and convinced Edwards to bring in recruiting-focused coaches like defensive backs coach Chris Hawkins and receivers coach Prentice Gill. Neither had on-field experience at a Power Five school. They replaced veteran coaches who Pierce didn’t think recruited well enough.

As a distinct “camp” formed around Pierce and those loyal to him, coaches and staffers began collecting evidence as protection for their own jobs. And that’s why it remains a mystery as to who accumulated and sent the dossier, which one source estimated was more than three dozen pages.

“I don’t know who sent it, that’s what stuns me,” said another source. “I don’t know. When you don’t care [about breaking the rules], and so many people are seeing and knowing what’s going on… When you’re above the law and thumb your nose to it, it’s karma. You reap what you sow.”

The whole article is wild, absolutely wild.

Penned by Dawson Deaton is Deaton becoming a father during the football season last year, including Deaton having a bye week and being at home for the birth of his little girl, Parker. I know that Deaton was out for most of this spring, and also wonder if that afforded Deaton some time to be with his daughter as well, which is good, especially if he was rehabbing. I didn’t become a father until I was in my 30’s so the idea of being one while in college is something that’s difficult for me to consider.