Just received this from Mike Checkett at Ducks Unlimited:

For Missouri:

The front that passed through last week did not appear to bring many new birds into Missouri from Minnesota, Iowa and South Dakota.

Ted Shanks in northeastern Missouri was the only one to report a noticable increase in waterfowl on Nov. 14-15. Andy Raedeke flew aerial surveys over Mid-Missouri on Nov. 19 and didn’t notice much of a change in bird numbers from the survey two weeks before.

Some areas have experienced increased numbers that may be attributed to small groups trickling in over the week. However, Missouri is still waiting for a good push of waterfowl from the north.

The total number of waterfowl on state areas last week was around 610,827, which was far short of the 721,738 birds Missouri had this time last year.

These numbers could change overnight if cold fronts freeze wetlands to the north and push waterfowl south.

THE BIG STORY

Texas A&M appears to have bypassed Auburn’s Tommy Tuberville in its search for a new football coach.

Two Texas newspapers reported that Houston Texans assistant Mike Sherman was the leading candidate for the job and could be hired within days. Sherman declined to comment to reporters after his team’s loss to the Cleveland Browns Sunday.

Tuberville had been pegged as a top candidate for the job for almost a month, and his refusal to squelch the rumors until recently raised questions about his future at Auburn.

Tuberville, who coached Auburn to its school-record sixth consecutive Iron Bowl win on Saturday, told the Mobile Register he plans to meet with Auburn Athletic Director Jay Jacobs today to discuss a range of post-season issues.

“It’ll be talk about the season and, of course, the president will evaluate our performance,” Tuberville said. “I’ll make some recommendations and we’ll go from there.”

Tuberville declined to elaborate on what the “recommendations” might entail.

Jacobs said this week’s meeting would be a “normal, year-end” chat to discuss “where we are and where we think we’re going.”

The two parties might also discuss a contract extension for Tuberville, who signed a seven-year, $18 million deal after the 2004 season.

Tuberville will make an average of $3.1 million over the four remaining years of the contract, putting him among the best-compensated coaches in the nation, but still well below Alabama coach Nick Saban’s contract that is worth $4 million annually.

Tuberville may have lost leverage in his negotiations when the rumors linking him to the A&M job stopped abruptly. The Houston Chronicle and the Austin American Statesman reported Sunday that Sherman is the top candidate to replace Dennis Franchione, who resigned as head coach after the Aggies defeated Texas Friday.

The Chronicle said the hire could be made as early as today, and quoted an anonymous source as saying that Tuberville was never a serious candidate. Tuberville said Sunday he had not spoken with Texas A&M and had no plans to do so.

Jacobs said Saturday that he believes Tuberville put the issue to rest a week ago, when the coach said he would remain at Auburn “as long as they want me.”

“I think when it first started happening, he just said, ‘It seems like every year, I get caught in one of these things,’” said Jacobs, referring to the coaching rumors. “I think when it didn’t die down, he finally said, ‘You know what, I’m just going to come out and put an end to all this.’ That’s what he did last week, when he said, ‘I want to be here.’”

A look at the league: Read the rest of this entry »

After watching a ton of basketball this weekend, I made lots of changes in my ballot. The top 5 remained the same. I dropped two teams out of my poll — Kansas State (previously 17) and Syracuse (previously 24). I added Southern California (18) and Xavier (19).

Some teams made big moves up — Duke (10 to 6), Texas (15 to 7) and Texas A&M (20 to 8) and Vanderbilt (21 to 13) and BYU (25 to 16). Others made big moves down — Oregon (13 to 25), Gonzaga (9 to 24), Indiana (14 to 20), Tennessee (7 to 15).

Here’s the ballot:
1. Memphis
2. North Carolina
3. UCLA
4. Kansas
5. Georgetown
6. Duke
7. Texas
8. Texas A&M
9. Michigan State
10. Washington State
11. Marquette
12. Louisville
13. Vanderbilt
14. Clemson
15. Tennessee
16. Brigham Young
17. Butler
18. Southern California
19. Xavier
20. Indiana
21. Villanova
22. Pittsburgh
23. Southern Illinois
24. Gonzaga
25. Oregon

Observations:
– Vanderbilt is the best team in the SEC at the moment. Aussie A.J. Ogilvy isn’t quite in the class of Kevin Love in terms of a freshman big guy, but he’s not that far behind either. With Ogilvy and a couple guards who can hit open 3’s in Shan Foster and Alex Gordon, Kevin Stallings has his best team ever at Vandy.

– Tennessee looks like a train wreck right now. I watched both games this weekend, and there’s no cohesion, no point guard play, no defense. If West Virginia could hit open 3’s, UT would have lost that game too. I believe Bruce Pearl will get it together, but it’s ugly at the moment.

– BYU is legit. They wore down a little bit at the end against North Carolina, but they are a top 20 team.

– I struggled with where to rank Villanova. They got absolutely screwed Sunday night in their loss to N.C. State. I’ve watched the replay 10 times, and I just don’t see a foul there. I also had a hard time with Oregon. Scheduling a road game at St. Mary’s was dumb. That’s a hard place to play, and to me, losing that game isn’t an upset.

– Teams I considered for the top 25 but just barely left out include, in order: Wisconsin, George Mason, Arizona, St. Mary’s, Missouri, Creighton, N.C. State and Providence.