Saturday Big 12 morning rush: Headlines from around the conference

The latest stories from the Big 12 Conference in Saturday morning’s morning rush. Including Texas Tech’s Chris Beard on a wedding promise.

Each morning, Longhorns Wire scours the web for the top Big 12 headlines happening around the conference. Today’s stories are courtesy of Twitter, Fort Worth Star Telegram, and SB Nation.

Chris Beard officiates wedding

Texas Tech men’s basketball coach Chris Beard made a promise back on August 1, 2019 and on July 24, 2020 he delivered.

TCU football close to finalizing games for Week Zero, Week 2. Possible opponents?

Drew Davidson of the Fort Worth Star Telegram laid out the potential plan for Texas Christian as they look to fill out their nonconference schedule.

There’s a strong sense that TCU would open the season at UNLV on Aug. 29 in Las Vegas. Similar to TCU, UNLV had a non-conference game against Cal canceled with the Pac-12’s decision.

The game would be played at Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium, which will be the new home to UNLV and the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders. With the NFL canceling its preseason, TCU and UNLV would be the first football game played at the stadium if it happens.

TCU has a history with UNLV. The schools were both members of the Western Athletic Conference from 1996-98 and the Mountain West from 2005-11. TCU owns the all-time series record 9-1.

It’s unclear who the Week 2 opponent may be to replace Prairie View A&M.

“We liked these options because it gave us flexibility,” Donati said. “We have the ability to adapt if needed.”

As of now, TCU’s non-conference schedule would have games on Aug. 29 (possibly at UNLV), Sept. 12 (home opener) and Sept. 26 (at SMU) with Big 12 play starting Oct. 3 (Oklahoma State). But, as Donati said, this also gives the program flexibility to shuffle games, given the unpredictability of the pandemic, with open dates on Sept. 5 and Sept. 19.

Rating Big 12 Coaching Hot Seats

The SB Nation Kansas Jayhawks website wrote about which Big 12 coaches are on the hot seat. It started with Texas Longhorns head coach Tom Herman.

Getting warmer

Tom Herman, Texas

The Longhorn coach isn’t in “win or be fired” mode yet, but that time may be coming. Texas has high expectations as usual, but this year, those expectations actually appear justified considering what the Longhorns return on both sides of the ball. Herman is 1-2 against Oklahoma, having lost the last two matchups. But so far, his best season (2018) still featured 4 losses with too-close-for-comfort games against Tulsa and Kansas.

It’s been a bit of a frustrating tenure so far for Herman; He’s 25-15 in Austin, with 11 of those 15 losses coming by 8 points or fewer.

It’s also notable that Herman almost completely revamped his assistant coaching staff the past offseason, bringing in seven new hires this offseason, including new offensive and defensive coordinators.

Mike Gundy, Oklahoma State

Lukewarm Seat

Matt Wells, Texas Tech

Neal Brown, West Virginia

Cool Beans

Dave Aranda, Baylor

Lincoln Riley, Oklahoma

Gary Patterson, Texas Christian

Matt Campbell, Iowa State

Chris Klieman, Kansas State

Les Miles, Kansas