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closetojumping

Burnt Ends
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Posts posted by closetojumping

  1. 1 hour ago, MoJames said:

    I think the only way this happens appropriately is getting some of those who are in the know ( @closetojumping, @texifornia, @Machinator ) or someone I'm missing. I don't know if they would be open to it as it might put their identity out a bit and subsequently limit their ability to obtain information.

    Would be pretty funny to put some sort of disguise on their voice. I'd giggle listening to ctj in a higher pitched voice.

    It would be hard to get much higher than my natural falsetto, sir. 

    I’m in on some level. More about bullshitting and telling Longhorn netdom stories than passing along “inside” stuff since that shit is sporadic and often wrong, unless we’re talking recruiting. That also depends in different ways in terms of how Sark works with folks and who he brings along, including on the admin side. Also, I’d like to use it as a platform to air all of my petty grievances with various posters and such. I have a long list, and I’d like all of you to hear about it. 

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  2. 34 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

    I think you're off on your analysis of Sarkisian, alcohol addiction, football coaching, and chance of relapse.

    Relapse is a possibility for any alcoholic of any period of sobriety.  But he's been in a high-stress environment pretty much non-stop since drying out.  He's made the time he needs to make to devote to his recovery.  Is it possible that he will relapse?  Sure.  Is it because he's HFC at Texas, probably not.

    It's predicting the future, so I'm not going to argue vehemently about who could be right or wrong on this. I understand your past on addiction, but that's obviously not some exclusive club. Events and new behaviors, or relationships, or new environments, can all be triggers depending upon the person. Going from being in a protected role not owning the primary spotlight has worked for Sarkisian, apparently, in two big public orgs at Atlanta and Bama. That's different, however, than owning the spotlight and all of the pressure at a public place with the same or more coverage and pressure.

    The only evidence we have of Sarkisian as a head coach in two big and visible places is that he ended up being a spectacular failure due ultimately to his addictions. Can he keep his shit together at Texas? I hope so. We'll all cheer to that. Is there any reason to feel confident from that perspective? No. Optimistic? Sure, have at it. 

    Obviously, if he's able to bring 2-3 of the guys around him with him, that's pretty fucking good evidence that he's got buy-in regarding his behaviors and daily outlook, so I'm excited that it could go his way if Banks, Flood, and Millwee join. I know what's being reported about the WR coach there as well, but I am not sure that's all that real.

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  3. 59 minutes ago, Richter said:

    Hopeful optimism:  Maybe Sark's still in the brainstorming phase and no idea is a bad idea even if its a horrible idea?

    Also, how do you feel about Ash after the defensive improvement this year?   I remember you hating the Ash and Valai hires....

    You and I can both hope it was brainstorming. Sure, go with that.

    I hated the Valai hire for reasons I stated above in this thread and elsewhere. I'm comfortable stating that I was absolutely correct in that being a useless, idiotic hire that could not be justified, and never will be.

    I disliked the Ash hire because I didn't view it was a case of going out and getting the best candidate. Herman went out and got another guy he was comfortable with, and that wasn't the right answer. Ash did fine, but I didn't expect disaster. Ash is a mediocre to poor recruiter, a terrible evaluator of staff talent, and not an incredibly bright guy. He does know defense. If he's surrounded by guys that he didn't get to make the hiring choice on, and those guys can recruit, he's fine as a DC. Note: that's how it worked for him at Ohio State.

    25 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

    You are a pretty miserable fucking storm cloud lately since all this went down.  Mind you- this is not me bitching as I (think) I appreciate the insight into what's going on- but this seems like the 3rd hire in a row that doesn't really get it if some of the shit he's thinking about is really top of mind.  I get that none of this has happened yet- but if his initial instinct is Mike Fucking Stoops then that shows he's got to be sat on at all times. If you can accomplish what you need to accomplish by sitting on him, and he's at least trainable and open to better ideas that's a clear win from the last guy, but I'd rather he got it up front than had to have it explained to him like a 5 year old. Unfortunately if your sources are correct the guy in charge of sitting on him professionally and making sure he doesn't do something stupid is also an idiot that needs to be sat on that's come up with ideas of "lets give Herm another year when all the money is lined up now" and "golly, I hope they let me hire James Fucking Franklin"


    That leads me to something tangentially related that I'm a little bit serious about but obviously wouldn't ever happen in real life and that is Surly needs a voice in the operations of this AD.

    Now, we all know that this site is not as good as Hornfans was circa 1998-2002 or 04 or whatever it was. That's not a knock on this site- it's just a simple acknowledgement that longhorn messagedom has splintered and fractured a metric shit ton since Agnor and Wheeler split and the proliferation of the $9.95 guys. But, there are a metric shit ton of smart people on here- that make serious money in their professions, have real responsibilities and quality work, and most importantly are not 187 fucking years old.  I don't mind the big donors that write the big checks having their thoughts taken into account, but that's a really old fucking group that has the 9 and 10 figure type money.  What I would suggest is that collectively, some of the people in their 40's and 50's doing good work but that don't quite have fuck you money yet might have something interesting to add to the process.  I nominate, of course, Vic, Derka and Spider2yBanana to be our representatives to the AD for all things sports related.  But on a serious note- the value of crowd sourced opinion of intelligent and knowlegeable people (or even not mouth breathing morons) has been shown to do better at lots of shit than expert level people acting on their own. I wish there was a way where with some formality you could factor in shit like- should we do this- and places like this could have a say in this opinion.  Because I have to tell you man- when there are an immediate 100 red flags on here about something like Watson as OC this board is almost never wrong about shit like that.  

    I don't think I've been miserable, or felt that way, about Sarkisian. On the surface, I've viewed it as a terrible fucking hire. This job ages the clean and sober and overwhelms the ill-prepared. In Sarkisian's first two HC stints, he was never sober and was renowned for being ill-prepared. Now I'm supposed to believe he'll be the right man for the job at this fucking place? Okay, sure. So what have I done? I've put all of my stock into who he hires as a supporting staff. The rest of the shit we're supposed to buy into is hollow trash spewed by the unwashed and naive.

    I don't give one fuck if he has an endorsement from Nick Saban. Nick Saban is a sociopath without a conscience or a vague sense of empathy. He's looking at people as robots because he is a robot. If the robot stays in its lane and produces numbers, Nick Saban will endorse it. I'm guessing he'd endorse Keurig as enthusiastically as he'll endorse Steve Sarkisian or AFLAC.

    I'm supposed to believe that this guy's sobriety is as solid as an oak? Well, oak trees have weak root systems and they're the first trees to go during droughts and hurricanes. So goes most addicts' sobriety when tested by the white hot heat of 1000 suns within the first five years of their journey. So no, fuck faith in that too.

    So what is left to have faith in? I'll bet everything on my end on the staff and support staff, and I don't need every hire to be glorious in my own mind. Just show us hopeful signs and a couple of slam dunks. That's not miserable, that's reality. 

    Regarding the crowdsourcing of power to influence ADs notion, I literally am working on a business plan for that. I need some other businesses to find their footing, and I need to figure out how to make it okay to money with it or get comfortable with the premise of a non-profit for such purposes. I vetted an executive summary with one of the decisionmakers in a large UT money family this spring and they thought it could have legs.

    20 minutes ago, alphahorn said:

    To get one's panties in a wad over Mike fucking Stoops RUMORS is silly.  There is no fucking way to know if this came from Sark and I seriously doubt that it did as it was quashed shortly after emerging. Let's at least see the names HE ACTUALLY puts forth before we lynch the poor fucking bastard.

    No one is lynching Sarkisian yet. But the motherfucker needs to get his staff right from the jump. The Stoops stuff wasn't just $9.95er nonsense. Those guys had no interest in immediately angering their base with the Stoops stuff. What they did by releasing it, however, is a service to the rest of us as it spurred a real discussion with the powers that be.

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  4. 11 minutes ago, NoName said:

    Stoops just seemed like people looking at who was on the Bama staff/analyst list identifying who had been prior coordinators, then who had been there a little while or whose terms matched up with Sark then identifying them as a potential name

    ...at least that is what I am hoping happened.

    because there is no fucking way that Mike Stoops is a good hire for any program at this point in time.

    I don’t want to disavow anyone of their illusions, as I’m learning more each day to cherish mine, but that’s not how his name got on the list. The list that was immediately released by IT wasn’t them spitballing and was given by a source close-ish to Sark. Same dude nailed the fact that Sark was the guy and a few of us dismissed him for being a honk because of it. 

    We’ll see how close that list comes to reality, but it’s different than the random names that have just been floated since then. 

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  5. 24 minutes ago, HenryJames said:

    @closetojumping and @SydneyCarton are pretty influential, and they’re both aggressively promoting Brian Cushing for the job.

     

    23 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

    On one hand that guy can forever get fucked and I’d rather have the reanimated corpse of Peter Cushing in the role...on the other hand we know he had access to the best roids. 

    I was going to make a joke about wanting to pull Boyd Epley’s corpse from the dustbin and fire up the Nebraska livestock growth hormone injection work from the 80’s/90’s into the program. Then I looked him up and that dude is alive and just fucking retired from Nebraska last summer. Nevermind. 

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  6. 2 hours ago, Richter said:

    Adios, enjoy your new board

    That board has no fucking idea the level of banal, insipid, voluminous word vomit it is about to be blitzed with, and I hope someone posts a screenshot of their reactions. 

    In regard to the actual staff stuff, Lupoi and Sark have obviously worked together before, but they’re not exactly buddies. I hope he’s a guy Sarkisian brings in, but I worry that’s more hope than reality. 

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  7. 1 hour ago, Tex-19 said:

    This is my single biggest fear with the hire. If he's sober, I like it. If not, yikes. I may be misremembering but hadn't you previously heard from Bama people that he was clean?

    Yeah, from the same folks. Could be any reason for that. If I hear anything down the road that is worth retelling, maybe it’s worth a post but my preference is to give the guy a chance and hope he has his shit together and pulls us out of the rubble as he continues to climb out himself. 

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  8. 20 minutes ago, Mitch Cumsteen said:

    I know everybody has a hard on for Muschamp but outside of one relatively shitty year as DC at Auburn in between his Florida and South Carolina gigs, he hasn't coordinated a defense in a decade since he was last here. His South Carolina teams didn't really punch above their weight on defense either, especially considering they played in the shitty sec east plus aggy every year. Clemson routinely shit all over him, but they do that to just about everybody. I'm not saying he wouldn't be a good hire, but do we know he still has the goods to scheme against today's offenses? Is he really a slam dunk? 

    I wouldn't mind them sticking with Ash. His defenses tackled amazingly well considering where they came from last season and they didn't beat themselves. And his scheme seems easy to recruit to 

    One thing I do like about Sark is that he should have a pretty extensive network between Carroll and Saban plus his stint in the NFL. I think everybody lost a good bit of confidence in Strong right off the bat after he hired Watson. Same thing to a certain extent with Herman and Beck, although that was somewhat more justifiable given Herman's background on Qb development and play calling and Beck's reputation as a recruiter. I'm all ready to make snap judgments and overreact to whoever comes on board. 

     

    It wasn’t just Tim Beck, it was the whole staff. Hell, Mehringer and Warehime set me off the most personally. This is the single biggest issue with Sarkisian’s hire. If he brings in a great staff that can do well on both coaching and recruiting and runs a bagman game, fucking A.  

    12 minutes ago, Hiphopopotamos said:

    Is this a personal thing between those two - or is it because Will has his own guys that he has to bring with him?

    Not sure if things have changed, but Muschamp used to say that Giles is the laziest college coach he’s ever worked with, and his recruiting behavior certainly reflects that. 

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  9. 7 minutes ago, UDontKnow said:

    The possibility exists of developing the same kind of cardiomyopathy (dilated) from either alcohol or cocaine. If it's cocaine specific, then it's likely Takotsubo cardiomyopathy.

    You’d know better than the rest of us.

  10. 45 minutes ago, ClubWhatever said:

    So we hear he was throughly vetted.  I guess they forgot to talk to your friends.  

    Any time someone is hired in a big role, he/she is always “thoroughly vetted” and that is usually meaningless. 

    43 minutes ago, Hank_Hill said:

    Acute cocaine use or something from chronic abuse? Both can be a thing and one doesn’t necessarily mean he’s used recently. 

    No clue. 

    39 minutes ago, utexas8 said:


    Someone who knows someone, who knows someone, who knows someone at bama so take that FWIW, said he has shown up drunk to practice at bama.

    I Didn’t believe it because no way saban would’ve allowed it and no way Texas would’ve hired him without doing some serious vetting. But Who knows now.

     

    34 minutes ago, Cashcar said:

    Agree...most of the stuff shared via this “friend of a friend” stuff is bullshit. Let’s see how the guy does and hope he is true in his recovery. If he is, cool. If not, we fucking fire him and move on. 

    I provided details on who I talked to and didn’t reference a third level. Not only that, I have provided info that has shown itself to be correct repeatedly over the years and even in this thread, including Herman being gone in every take and Del Conte’s weak vote of confidence coming and also being meaningless. So fuck off on the “friend of a friend” bullshit. You can believe what you wish, but I literally gave you details verifiable on this. Sorry if you wanted to hear nothing but glory for our new savior. 

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  11. 25 minutes ago, Wulaw Horn said:

    This bag dropping- you reading between the lines and guessing or is this tangible/confirmed?  

    Both. Here’s the thing to think about - two of the best bagman ops ever were at USC under Carroll and Bama under Saban. Sarkisian excelled as a recruiter in both places. There is no regulation any more. The piety at Texas is largely gone. We need to win in today’s world of CFB. 

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  12. 6 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:

    If it’s any consolation I have a very good friend who knows Sark very well and really likes him and thinks he will do well at Texas. I respect this guy’s opinion. He’s very sharp. 

    I have two friends at Bama. One is Saban’s longest tenured person in his inner circle, which should be obvious to figure out. They like Sark fine. They also say he hasn’t exactly been living the narrative fed to the media. Also, his heart surgery in July was brought on by cocaine heart, apparently. They think he’s a great football guy and such, but there’s a lot to worry about with the hire. 

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  13. 3 hours ago, utexas8 said:


    CTJ, any idea why UM never materialized?

    NFL outreach. People he trusts shitting on Texas. That is all I’ve heard and I can’t swear any of it is true. 

    3 hours ago, nunna yo bizness said:

    @closetojumping Without going back to reread old posts, as I recall is it correct to say you were hearing the Sark rumors for a couple weeks but were skeptical of them that we would have gone so far down the plan B list?  I guess my big question at this point is are the BMDs happy with this?  Did they want TH gone so bad that they are content to have shelled out probably $20 million in buyout money to get a guy that has no better track record than TH?  Did they know when they were writing the checks yesterday that this is what they were getting, or did CDC pull a bait and switch on them and leave them with their dicks in their hands?

    I am not close enough to any of that to be very helpful. Everyone wanted Herman gone, that much is for sure. The other thing that is clear is that outreach was made to multiple players and they whiffed even though we were willing to give many concessions and pay major $$. Swinney had no reason to say yes. Kelly apparently decided same. Meyer apparently has better shit to do. At some point, they painted the process into a corner and picked the best willing option. 

    I’ve been dismissive of Sarkisian as a candidate the whole way and so have my friends. This outcome sucks compared to my expectations. If the staff is bad ass, I can rationalize my way, nonetheless, into cheering for success. My biggest issue with the last two hires is that they were flat out DOA once the staffs were assembled. People didn’t want to believe it, but I did and I was correct. This time around, I expect many people here to see it for what it is. So this drunk motherfucker better have his personnel shit together from the jump. 

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  14. 3 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:

    Interesting that Muschamp is actually in play. You just had him attached to potentially Kelly instead of Sark. Very telling that he just started following CDC on Twitter. 

    I’ve been on a golf course most of today with one of my young sons and trying to be in the moment with him while of this shit has been happening. Accordingly, I don’t even have a clue what is public right versus all of the text walls and phone calls today. Is it out there that Muschamp could be the guy? If he’s the guy, they’re keeping Hutzler and supposedly Mike Stoops can stay at Bama and keep snorting coke or huffing paint or whatever he’s up to these days. 

    Regarding connecting WM to Kelly, that was coming from smoke at ND and I asked around about it. The response I got was that they don’t know each other and there is no way WM would go to South Bend. He’s willing to come back to Austin though. 

    Allegedly Carrington and Drayton will both be retained. I’m interested in seeing if that holds true and also wondering if either of those items have been mentioned yet, and also if not, if they’re even true. We’re about to hear a fuckton of rumors from all over the place now that the move has been made. 

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  15. @derpyhorndog feel free to disclose everything we tracked and figured out. I got the delisted plane’s info and gave it to derpy and he did the rest. It checked out with the rumors of meetings in Fort Collins and LA. It was the plane used by Eltife and/or his people when talking to Meyer directly. 

    That all said, I don’t know why any of you gave the David Dennison guy visible. I saw enough of his abject stupidity in a day’s worth of his posts to convince me to put him on ignore and move on. He’s a cloak room douche that wouldn’t have a handle if it wasn’t for the “sky is falling” circle jerk that those dipshits have working in that shithole. 

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  16. 11 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:

    Your comment weeks ago really caused me to discount him as a possibility, because I figured it was too high risk. I guess that explains why Kelly didn't sound like he was leaving in his press conference.

    The guy as a candidate was discounted the whole way until Thursday and people didn’t want to believe it. I found it so absurd that I dismissed it. I talked to friends that are around Sarkisian daily on Thursday and they dismissed it with “why wood Texas trade one addict for another?”. It’s pretty fucking stunning, and pathetic. 

  17. 11 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:

    Your comment weeks ago really caused me to discount him as a possibility, because I figured it was too high risk. I guess that explains why Kelly didn't sound like he was leaving in his press conference.

    The guy as a candidate was discounted the whole way until Thursday and people didn’t want to believe it. I found it so absurd that I dismissed it. I talked to friends that are around Sarkisian daily on Thursday and they dismissed it with “why wood Texas trade one addict for another?”. It’s pretty fucking stunning, and pathetic. 

  18. 6 minutes ago, taybo20 said:

    Well it was fun @closetojumping we got the fire, but not your hire. 🤘🏼

    My hire was Urban Meyer. I’ve maintained all along that no one knew shit about who the next guy was, but that everyone was certain that Herman was gone. Now it is obvious why - they were politely told no by everyone else or they idiotically targeted Sarkisian after Meyer said no. 

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