It’s been a truly unhinged week in the Big 12. 

To recap: Doctors are petitioning the Big 12 and NCAA to pause the Monster deal, police are investigating an aggravated assault in the TCU locker room, Utah is suing a Whittingham, and Art Briles popped back up in the news. 

You can check the links above for the full stories. I’ll rapid-fire some thoughts on each.

The Monster Deal

Everyone has gotten their shots in at the Big 12 for the Monster deal. Now it’s the doctors’ turn. 

They’re citing the health risks for kids who may consume energy drinks, and, like, I get it. As someone who lived off white Monsters in my twenties, I’m here to tell you that is not a healthy way to live.

But I am surprised they drew the line at energy drinks and the Big 12 when booze and gambling deals are everywhere in college sports. Multiple casinos have team jersey patches this year. So does a crypto company. A data center company got the naming rights to a Power Four stadium. Sports betting is bankrolling huge chunks of the college football media industry.

The real problem here is how badly the Big 12 lost the PR war. I’m willing to bet this never lands on doctors’ radar if the deal doesn’t first become a race for everybody in college football to dunk on the league.

I will still defend the league on the dollar amount it got for each school. It’s apples-to-oranges to compare this directly with what individual teams are getting for jersey patches. There’s a totally different ROI for a local business sponsoring the local team than for a company sponsoring 16 different jerseys across markets all over the country.

But nobody was really telling that story when the deal rolled out.

The league also could have helped itself if the patches matched each team’s jersey color and the Big 12 logo could be interspersed with the Monster logo. 

I get why Monster wouldn’t want that, but the patches just aren’t aesthetically pleasing. The internet was always going to roast them.

Big 12 ADs publicly and privately haven’t exactly put a positive spin on the deal, either. An organized push from the league and its schools could have worked wonders.

Ironically, all of this is probably giving Monster exactly what it wants: a ton of exposure. That’s why I don’t think this necessarily becomes a precedent-setting deal that establishes the ceiling for future Big 12 patches. We need to see what the numbers look like after this year.

TCU Losing the Locker Room?

The reported details of the Jacob Fields story at TCU are wild.

Fields, a likely starter at free safety, was dismissed from the team after a fight with a teammate, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. TCU Police list that Aug. 13 locker-room incident as an aggravated assault, and the investigation remains open.

The Star-Telegram, citing an unnamed source, reports that Fields fought with an offensive player after tensions had been building for weeks. Fields had allegedly been targeted by teammates, including one who spit on him, and the report says Sonny Dykes didn’t know the full extent of the situation.

First of all, that’s a tough blow to a TCU secondary already trying to replace Bud Clark. But the bigger question is this: Does Sonny Dykes have a locker-room problem?

Playing in Ireland has become a real curse for the Week Zero loser. Just look at how K-State’s season went last year. There was even a fight involved in that scenario. 

My antenna is officially up for TCU as this year’s candidate for an international-trip season spiral.

Utah Suing Former TE Coach Freddie Whittingham

Utah is suing former tight ends coach Freddie Whittingham for breach of contract. It all stems from how he left the Utes to follow his brother Kyle to Michigan.

This is no minor dispute. Utah wants $300,000 for breach of contract and at least $1 million in damages. 

Utah alleges Whittingham talked to Michigan without permission, left without providing written notice, failed to pay required damages, and recruited Utah players and recruits while still employed by the school.

The kicker is that the other coaches who left Utah for Michigan reportedly paid the liquidated damages required by their contracts. So I understand why Utah wants to collect.

I’m still not sure it’s worth the PR hit. Regardless of the circumstances, there’s almost no way for Utah to come across as anything other than a sore loser to the general public in a situation like this.

Schools lose coaches all the time. Those coaches recruit their old rosters all the time.

The Kyle Whittingham saga has already been long and painful enough. First came the will-he-or-won’t-he-retire period. Then Michigan unexpectedly opened. Whittingham took seven coaches, Utah’s best recruit and several of its top players with him. AD Mark Harlan publicly took a shot at Salesi Moa for flipping to the Wolverines. Details of Whittingham’s reported demands leaked.

Now you’re two weeks from the season starting, and you’re throwing a lawsuit on top of all of that?

At some point, everyone involved just needs to be ready to move on.

What You Need to Know

• Former Baylor head coach Art Briles says he accepted the Texas job in 2014 but changed his mind after the Bears lost their bowl game to UCF. 

• K-State suffered two brutal injury blows on its offensive line, including one to a preseason first-team All-Big 12 selection. 

• Kenny Dillingham came right out and said why he didn’t take the Auburn or Michigan jobs this offseason. 

• Ty Hildenbrandt from The Solid Verbal joined me this week for an in-depth preview of the Big 12. 

• A national college football writer called out Texas Tech fans for being so angry at him this week. 

• BYU added to its basketball roster a player who had already been playing in the NBA Summer League. 

• Oklahoma State head coach Eric Morris wins the award for wildest headline of the week.

• Want your Big 12 news and analysis in podcast form? Listen to Open For Business at the gym, in your car, or first thing in the morning on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.

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