BGT Big Sunday with Walters, Gillispie

Walters talks quarterbacking, perspective

The Black and Gold Truth was feeling confident and courageous one day so it stepped between the lines to run some routes against Colorado strong safety Ryan Walters on his prep-to-college conversion, the challenge of last season and more.

Knew it wasn't going to be easy going man-to man against a guy who racked up 57 tackles, two interceptions and returned a fumble 95 yards for a touchdown as a sophomore this past season.

Here's how all that went down that day.

BGT: Ryan, you were a quarterback in high school. Do you miss being the man with the ball in your hands?

Walters: Obviously, playing quarterback you have a bigger impact on the game than playing safety. You can control what happens because you're touching the ball on every play so that aspect I miss. I miss having that type of impact on the outcome of the game.

BGT: What about the physical difference between the positions, going from avoiding getting hit to trying to bring down guys and putting smacks on people?

Walters: I've had a couple of injuries because I'm not used to hitting as much as I am now but I like it and I'm adjusting to it well and I'm excited about my future.

BGT: An interesting year for you, I imagine -- the team has the program's worst record since 1984, yet you start to establish your name and your game as a Buff. How did you drive yourself through that adversity?

Walters: You have to keep everything in perspective. I'm living a dream. I'm playing Division-1 football in the Big 12 for the Buffaloes. I've wanted to do this since I was little.

No matter what the score of the game was I was just trying to play as best as I can and give my team the best chance I could to win a game.

BGT: There have been rumors that some players might transfer out of the program for various reasons. Without naming names, have you heard any of that going around?

Walters: I've heard of a couple. I don't know how much truth there was to it. Every school has that. There's always going to be a couple of people who aren't happy with the way things are going.

BGT: What about Dan Hawkins and his coaches makes you believe, as a player, that CU is capable of becoming a winner again?

Walters: We have 100 percent confidence in him as he does us. I think the mutual respect is because of that. He has never, for one second, questioned himself or questioned us so that there gives us confidence in him.

BGT: How did coach Hawkins keep the team up last season through all the losses to make you believe it was only a matter of time before you get to where you want to be?

Walters: He's telling us to do all the right things -- we just need have to do them. Whether it showed up on the scoreboard, we made improvements every game. I think the one thing we have to do better as a team and I know I do is grinding it out in the film room -- learning and critiquing and getting better.

BGT: Break it down, Ryan. How about a scouting report on the Buffs' secondary for next season, as it stands now?

Walters: Lionel Harris -- he's a real physical guy.

Jimmy Smith -- tall kid, long arms and I've never seen someone of his stature be able to move like him.

Jalil Brown -- playing cornerback, might move to safety. He's real strong, real fast, likes to hit. Kind of reminds me of me.

Cha'pelle (Brown) -- did some good things for us this year.

T-Wheat (Terrence Wheatley) -- the fastest person I've ever seen in person and the best cover corner, probably, in the Big 12.

BGT: What was the best thing to come out this past season?

Walters: Personally, just stepping into a leadership role. When you face adversity, sometimes people get complacent and I think I put it on myself to keep motivating; to let people know what they were doing was wrong or what they were doing was right.

Recruiting magic

How do coaches secure the best talent in the land when it comes time to stock rosters?

Some can point to tradition, NFL draftees, games on television or warm weather.

Others have something else.

Check out former Florida and current Illinois coach Ron Zook's magic (registration required), in a column by the Teddy Greenstein of the Chicago Tribune.

Gillispie not happy

Texas A & M beat Colorado on the road and yet coach Billy Gillispie was fuming over his team's effort and execution.

Maybe that's why the Aggies have turned around that program.

Read Pat Graham's story in an Associated Press story.

Big 12 Exposure

The Big 12 and Pac-10 are going to hook up for four years on the courts, creating a series of men's basketball games each season, starting in 2007-08.

On Dec. 2, Stanford comes to Boulder to play CU.

Interesting games include Washington at Oklahoma State, Texas A & M at Arizona and Texas at UCLA.

BGT: This is an exciting project that came together because both conferences saw the mutual benefits. This can only do positive things for the Big 12 and its' member schools. It creates a recruiting tool, as well, for CU and others to solicit out West. No one was afraid of laying it on the line competitively, giving up an easy win in place of a challenge. Of course, the money on the table, sure to be a result of the matchups, had to be attractive too.

Defense can win a game

Texas A & M is known for defense, Kansas is winning with defense and Butler is winning with defense.

Could such an approach work in Boulder?

Todd Lickliter, the coach at Butler, was one name mentioned as a possible candidate to replace Ricardo Patton by Jeff Goodman of FoxSports.com when he spoke to the Black and Gold Truth last month.

Butler was picked to finish sixth in the Horizon League this season by those who should know, the coaches, yet are rolling along at the top of the pack and if you can believe it, are ranked no. 12 in the country.

USA Today did a breakdown on how the Bulldogs get it done.

In a nutshell, they hold opponents under 60 points.

Force more turnovers than their opponent, just don't turn it over much at all themselves (10.1 times a game), allow the opposition to shoot just 40 percent from the floor and but 29 percent from 3-point land, showing they know how to extend the defense.

Offensively, it helps that their backcourt of Mike Green and A.J. Graves combine to average 31.9 points and 7.9 rebounds per game.

BGT: Butler values possessions, knows defense is the way to equalize talent and plays as a team. What CU could be with such a philosophy. Add some scorers, have everyone fill a role and instill pride and a school might become someone.

Big Red Embarrassment

Baseball, yes, but important still in this space because it involves ethics and morality. Not saying I'm the party leader on either of those matters just that those things are relevant, always.

The BGT posed a couple of questions about Mark McGwire's rejection letter, so to speak, from the writers who vote on the Baseball Hall of Fame, who snubbed him in a loud way recently. I asked if him not getting the vote was the right thing to do or unjust, just like with Pete Rose; didn't their on-the-field accomplishments deserve the ultimate personal recognition?

As you'll read below, two different schools of thought.

"I would vote for McGwire if I thought he was deserving because if he did take steroids, he did so when there was no real substantive rule against it in Major League Baseball. I have a hard time punishing someone for breaking a rule that didn't exist.

"However, I do feel that players in the steroid era should be held to a different standard than those who came before them. I also feel like some of the pitchers in the steroid era should be given a little bit of a break, not a big one, but they were facing juiced batters after all.

"The Pete Rose issue is pretty cut-and-dried for me. I would never, under any circumstances, vote him into the Hall of Fame. It is clear to me that he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame in his career on the field if that was all that was considered but he broke a most sacred trust in betting on baseball. The cost of doing so should be a ban from the Hall of Fame. I don't think making him wait a few extra years to get into the hall qualifies as any kind of punishment. If he is allowed in, he gets everything he ever wanted.

"How is that punishment?"

Kyle Ringo, Daily Camera

"I'm ready to throw the last 15 years of MLB out the window. I grew up idolizing Reggie Jackson but the guy looks like a skinny middle infielder next to the juiced players of the past decade. Cheating is cheating. I can't find any way around that.

"Was McGwire juiced in 1998? Who knows? But why should we have to wonder about it? Why does my kid have to grow up in an era when the thrill of following a season where two guys break (Roger) Maris' record comes into question a couple of years later? Why does he have to watch Barry Bonds' undeniably incredible swing, then have to read about him in a negative light every other week in the sports page.

"Take away the juice and baseball is baseball. Go watch a high school game. It's a beautiful thing. Watch a Little League game. That's a good time. MLB? I don't trust it anymore.

"As for McGwire and Rose, they're different kind of guys, know what I mean? Even though he probably cheated when he played, I'd trust McGwire with my sister. I'd trust Rose with a tip at the horse track.

"But I wouldn't vote for either of them for the Hall of Fame."

Mark Collins, BuffaloSportsNews.net

BGT: What's ironic is that the St. Louis Cardinals are one of the most historically respected teams in the sport and McGwire showed himself well for the organization on the field and to a degree, off the field, until the steroid talks began. Regardless of his accomplishments, which were grand, he is forever stained as "dirty" now, bringing shame to the that franchise.

The disappointing thing is McGwire, with his talent and natural strength, would have been an rare power hitter without drugs. Without questionable enhancement, he wouldn't have ended up before Congress, wouldn't have had to sidestep or avoid an issue.

Ask yourself, who has more respect now as a hitter -- Cal Ripken and Tony Gwynn, both elected, or McGwire. How many home runs did Ripken and Gwynn hit?

Whether you are for or against McGwire's enshrinement amongst the best in baseball history is a personal decision. Something, however, is evident and speaks boldly. The writers who have the power of the vote are not forgiving types when it comes to impropriety or alleged impropriety with fair play, no matter the numbers piled up over a career on the field.


Comments and questions may be sent to thebgtruth@yahoo.com.