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statsman

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  1. Yeah, this super league divisions plan is loved by the M2 schools, because they want things to be like they used to be- no pay for players and barriers to player movement. Any team could be as good as its coaching hire. They got to be on TV, playing name programs. They don’t like how things are. They want them to be like they used to be. It’s reminiscent of the Texas legislature hearings, when the reps from Waco, Lubbock, Fort Worth and Houston pitched hissy fits. “Somebody make Texas do what we want!”
  2. This argument that a P2, M2 and G5 setup will lose college football fans is overblown. In FBS, we already see a 20-80 split of fans (20% of the programs have 80% of the fans). Are the networks really supposed to strategize so as to not lose the 20% of fans that follow the lower 80% of programs? Although, I do understand why the M2 teams want revenue sharing with the P2 and salary caps.
  3. Sark talks a lot about “culture fit”. I imagine a big part of “culture fit” is the portal recruit expressing interest in more than maximizing NIL and also committing to not trying to leverage for more NIL in the future. The wrong attitudes about NIL built that Ag 2022 class and then ranked the Ag 2022-2023 seasons. And, of course, I have no insight into discussions with Texas recruits and will just assume they are all real princes, wrt character, attitude and culture.
  4. And this year, we lost to OU, and won the Big XII and made the CFP. It’s crazy- in ‘99 we were ranked high, had a real shot at a BCS game, and then the Ag game led to a three game losing streak. ‘01: played the B12 CG with a win putting us in the BCS CG, against a Buffs team we crushed earlier, and blew it. ‘02: Only had to beat TT to play for the B12. Blew it. ‘04: Incredibly talented team shut out by OU. ‘06: only had to beat one of KSU and TAMU to play for the B12 title. Blew it. It seemed like if we left the door the tiniest bit open, it would knocked over. I wonder if part of it was Mack, and his demeanor. He had terrific UNC teams before he came here that fell short of conference titles and Alliance Bowls. Maybe Sark is different.
  5. This reminds me of when I posted about taking a whore’s bath in the São Paulo airport. People were disappointed when they found out what that was.
  6. I have met Sooners who said they had an invite without Texas.
  7. Dead on. Years ago, when the question of who we wanted to win when OU played the Ags came up, I responded, “We want the Ags to win. The Ags take a big win, and then…do nothing with it. They’ll follow it up with a crazy stupid loss. OU, on the other hand, takes one win, and stacks another on top of it, and another, until they have made a season.”
  8. Because this is a Texas board. Because OU is our most hated rival.
  9. Sure. But, the reason why the perception lasts is that OU and others gleefully repeat it, and Longhorns sorrowfully admit that our forebears fell short and share our regret. The truth is-OU may have been a little better in some areas, and worse in others, and if Texas needs to apologize to anyone it sure isn’t the Sooners.
  10. Eeeeeehhhhh,…would it shock you to learn that the idea that OU was advanced and enlightened on race relations, much more than Texas, is largely a myth? Promoted by OU (with all of the SWC schools ready to jump in and bash Texas)? When most schools integrated, there was a usual pattern. They get their first African American recruit, and another or two the next year, and increasingly more, the trending generally up. OU integrated with Prentice Gauntt, in the mid ‘50s. In the early ‘60s, they resegregated for the same reason they integrated- they felt it made their team better. They thought they were losing recruits from Texas, so they stopped recruiting African Americans for a few years. They started up again as the SWC integrated. Texas? It was the first school in the SWC to integrate athletics, starting in track. Note- the AD who made that decision was one Darrell Royal, and he was trying to integrate football, too.
  11. Two thoughts: 1. M2 conference teams have different challenges. They have to sift through more players (entrants and exiters) and with less staff than P2 programs. Fans should encourage different approaches as they seek something that works. 2. Not my monkey, not my circus.
  12. Klatt’s podcast this week was interesting. He said he has talked to a lot of coaches worried about this portal. They fear they are going to lose guys they really want to keep.
  13. He is a weird dude. This SI article has a lot of examples where Sherrill recounts stories involving him being the hero, or giving the big comeuppance, that nobody else remembers. https://vault.si.com/vault/1993/09/20/who-is-this-clown-is-he-one-of-americas-greatest-football-coaches-or-is-something-funny-going-on-here
  14. The way it fell apart deserves to be retold. The Ags won the SWC three years in a row. When SMU got the death penalty, their boosters hired PIs to investigate the other schools, listing every possible violation. Texas got pegged with minor stuff, and cooperated with the NCAA, even self-reporting violations discovered in the internal investigation that the NcAA knew nothing about. The Ags resisted. They reported their internal investigation showed everything was on the up and up. Mind you- Sherrill was HC and also the AD. The NCAA hit them with penalties more severe than Texas’. A year later, a former player for the Ags, a FB from Georgia, named George Smith, told the Ags that he needed money, and if he didn’t get it, he would talk. The Ags sent a FedEx envelope to him with $20k cash. He opened that envelope in the presence of a Dallas Morning News reporter. The Ags responded to the scandal by flying Smith to B/CS, where he recanted (he later said he was paid for that, too). The NCAA threw their hand up and said they could not tell fact from fiction. TAMU had a president, William Mobley, who was not an Aggie. Mobley, with the aid of UT, was trying to get TAMU into the prestigious AAC. Mobley convinced his Board that Sherrill had to go, that if he wasn’t fired, Mobley would resign. They let Sherrill go, something the hard core Ags have regretted ever since.
  15. He really did start to build the Ags into something. There were three pillars to his Ag program. 1. Install a pro style offense and let Slocum run his defense. 2. Rather than resist the hokey, anachronistic Aggie tradition and mythology, lean heavily into it. He quickly realized that the Ags in power slopped that shit up and couldn’t get enough of it, so he gave it to them by the bucket. He made a KO team out of walk ons and called it “the 12th Man” squad. He whooped and hollered at yell practices like he invented it. And he HATED tee-you. 3. He bought players like a SOB, having the Ags up (down?) there with SMU and OU. He had success. I would rate the importance of the above noted program pillars as 3,1,2. The Ags would claim the importance rank was 2,1,3. Boomer Ag fans love Sherrill like no other coach, because he won, and he preached that Aggie BS like no other coach before or since. Not even Gene Stallings could out-Ag Sherrill, and he actually is an Ag. He is the coach that they have yearned forever since.
  16. Jackie Sherrill is one weird dude. Back in the ‘80s, before an Ag Cotton Bowl appearance, the (now defunct) Dallas Times Herald did a long piece on him. They related this story- He was a HS football star in Boloxi. There was a girl in HS that he liked, but wasn’t really interested in him. Sherrill became a college football star at Alabama, and invited that girl to Tuscaloosa, to be his date for a football weekend- go to the game, attend postgame parties, and so on. She accepted. He left her alone the entire time. No ticket for the game, escorting to parties. As she prepared to return home, he met her and made the point that she really screwed up by not being nicer in high school. The whole weekend experience was about settling a score. Sherrill is one weird dude.
  17. Confession- I have been online, following the Longhorns, since 1996, on Austin360, Netscape on a Unix box at work. In almost 28 years, I have never read or heard anything that made me think I needed to check out Geoff Ketchum or Orangebloods. I have read people post that the non-football discussion is good; that just isn’t compelling enough.
  18. Texas doesn’t have the OL depth chart disaster that OU does.
  19. Maybe a lot of it depends upon where you are as a fan. 25 years ago, I would have been a lot more interested in following the whole recruiting season as prospects appear, and then sign with Texas or a rival. Now, I only care about the top handful of prospects, maybe a local kid or big national guy. If it’s choosing between a podcast discussing Junior Day invites or the radio, I’m probably going with the latter. I probably enjoy the retrospective content more than some of y’all.
  20. As for the theory “maybe he was covering for his son?”- the DNA evidence is what establishes OJ as the killer. He did it. If the case had occurred after a few years of NCIS, the jury would not have dismissed it as readily, but it wasn’t as familiar to them, then, as it is now. Oh, well. It’s a travesty that he got away with it. I look at it as a crossroads in US race relations- the day that showed a rich Black guy could get away with murder just like rich white guys had been doing for decades (see Cullen Davis for a good example).
  21. I thoroughly enjoyed KD playing in 2021, and hope to see more.
  22. (I was at the ‘84 game where Gray ran Jackson down, tackled him hard and ended his season)
  23. I went to a HS math tournament in Auburn back in 1979 (I was at Spencer HS in Columbus, GA). Gave me a sense of familiarity watching the 1983 UT-Auburn game on a 19” screen in ‘84. My only memory of that game was Jerry Gray stretching out to make an interception on the right sideline that was a better catch than any Longhorn has made in the last five years. Bo Jackson was just becoming a “thing”, so him doing fuck-all never really registered.
  24. I’ve been subscribing to OTF and IT. Observations: Their casts align fairly well: Ringleader- Burton (OTF), Nahlin (IT). Burton is a more adept host. Who gives more information? Quicker? May be a matter of opinion. Ex-player- Babers (OTF), Kelson (IT). Again, a matter of taste. Babers has radio experience, but Kelson has a ten times better speaking voice. Babers, I feel, has a need to fill empty space that Kelson doesn’t. I prefer Kelson; even though he is never asked to carry a show, he usually provides real insights as the talk comes to him. Ex coach- Ervin (OTF), Shipley (OTF), Williams (IT). Frankly, I find none of them a must listen. I do enjoy Bobby talking with Ervin during the season. Cub reporter- CJ Vogel (OTF), Joe Cook (IT). I find Cook a better listen. YMMV Recruiting Ace-Hamilton (OTF), Wells (IT). Hamilton seems to bring more, and has a better delivery. Wells? I get it. He’s a “dawg” and he’s from East Texas. Got it. Does OTF have anyone like Boyd and Wadlington? I can’t find them, if they do. I like Boyd, when paired with Kelson or Wadlington. Wadlington pairs well with most everyone else. His “Everyone Gets a Trophy” podcast is a must listen, for me. I think we’re lucky that we have both channels. I “subscribe” (Apple podcast- my $9.95 is IT) to both, and listen, primarily based on who is talking. If it’s CJ and Babers, I’m out. If it’s Wells and Williams, I’m out.
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