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statsman

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  1. WRT Texas and TT, - Texas (AD Bible and HC Royal) advocated for the SWC to accept TT. They felt the conference needed more state schools (the private schools were pushing for rules, like scholarship limits lower than other conferences, to save money). - When the PAC was looking to expand, in a move that would have killed the B12, Texas moved to bring TT along. - When Texas finally did leave the B12, it paid the old members what was owed and didn’t try to screw them out of anything. Texas paid a hell of a lot more to leave the B12 than Tech paid to leave the Border Conference. As near as I can tell, Tech’s big gripe with Texas is threefold: 1. Texas didn’t bring Tech along to the SEC (never an option; the SEC and B1G were never accepting Tech) 2. Texas isn’t agreeing to scheduling a football series going fwd. (future schedules must be mutually agreed upon. Maybe Tech could use a little introspection as to why Texas won’t agree? Isn’t it kind of like when a girl doesn’t agree to a date- do you really think it’s her fault?) 3. Twice, Texas plucked Tech coaches away- McWilliams and Beard. Both had ties with Texas that were older than their employment with Tech.
  2. #3 it is. I think it is dumb to rerank teams outside the CFP, based on bowl game results. Non-CFP games are exhibitions, pure and simple.
  3. So, what will IR8 fans do now? Why, they’ll keep on carping about Texas. I don’t get the FWST, but I saw this article posted in the men’s room at Central Market in FW. https://kdhnews.com/sports/college/mac-engel-the-texas-longhorns-now-have-a-major-problem-at-quarterback-his-last-name/article_d0ca48fb-367e-5f82-934a-fa71e0255911.html The premise is stupid- neither Manning nor Ewers are going anywhere. Austin, coached by Sark, playing behind this line and throwing to these receivers is where they both intend to be. Doesn’t matter to Engel. He is the kind of writer that is so pro the home town team that he is consistently anti the team he seems TCU’s real rival-Texas. I have never seen him write anything positive about Texas (pre-season, he said Texas had the most talent, but he was still not picking Texas to win the B12 because he thought Sark was flawed as a coach). He delights in any TCU win over Texas, in any sport. And he just can’t let it go. Ha-ha-ha-ha!
  4. Here is the problem. In 1936, when Germany (and Russia) invaded Poland, everyone said, “The UK and France have a problem”. They didn’t say, “The US has a problem”. (Clearly, far sighted observers knew that the U.S. was the solution). In the mid ‘30s, when Japan invaded China, it wasn’t the U.S.’ problem. Everyone understood that Uncle Sam might just decide not to get involved. Now, that’s not the case. I really think the thing to do is, as we have been doing, work to provide off ramps for bad actors. I think we need to supplement that strategy with serious defense buildup, to encourage them to take those exits. Or, we can just let a few small countries fall (Ukraine, Taiwan) and let Iran restrict access to the Suez Canal, and let the rest of the world figure it out. (Not my recommendation)
  5. The U.S. would never fight a war like this. This shows the flaw in the NATO alliance. The U.S. and Europe (and I know it’s silly to expect Europe to operate as a monolith) are each expecting the other to go on a wartime munitions production, and neither does. Ukraine is the one that suffers.
  6. It is a complete failure by the U.S. and NATO to not get more artillery shells to Ukraine. Here’s how the Russian and Ukrainian war efforts compare, in 10 charts https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/heres-how-the-russian-and-ukrainian-war-efforts-compare-in-10-charts-1cf9a74f?st=hfi3s4megak9dpg&reflink=share_mobilewebshare
  7. Early in Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the two sides sat down to negotiate. But a few days later, the discovery of Russian atrocities in Bucha changed everything, Yaroslav Trofimov writes. https://www.wsj.com/world/did-ukraine-miss-an-early-chance-to-negotiate-peace-with-russia-d864b7c9?st=7j08gvtdwisanzf&reflink=share_mobilewebshare
  8. The worst facet of the Aggie program is that they have Aggies in charge. They are true believers in the Aggie way and objective critical reasoning is not desired. They look at any success Texas has, and discount it as the result of luck and institutional favoritism by the NCAA and media. That would be fine for smack talk (hell, the Sooners have their fun with that, when they can), but nobody in a decision making capacity should believe it. But, they do! And even the Ags in authority believe it! And that leads them to try to mimic what they imagine UT to be doing, to navigate a route where they can parlay an easy path, a little flexing and some luck into a championship. If they tried to genuinely imitate UT, in pursuit of similar success, they would do the hard work of viewing their team objectively, seeking out weaknesses to address, scheduling difficult matchups (not easy ones) and not fearing failures that lead to learning. But, that’s hard, not fun and they absolutely dismiss the idea that this is the path Texas takes, so they continue on…
  9. Under conference record, they omit the 2023 B12 CG. I guess it wouldn’t do for Sark to have an 18, to Aggies’ 17.
  10. Try this: Last MNC- Texas: 2005, TAMU: 1939, OU: 2000 Last top 5- Texas: 2023, TAMU: 2020, OU: 2019 Last Conference title- Texas: 2023, TAMU: 1998, OU: 2020 Last CFP- Texas: 2023, TAMU: Zed, OU: 2019 Last time played for NC- Texas: 2009, TAMU: 1939, OU: 2008
  11. Is that for real? How about: CFP appearances- Sark:1, every Ag coach in history: 0 I mean, our season was better than every single post-1939 Ag season. The 50 star US flag has never flown over an Ag team having a better year than the 2023 Longhorns.
  12. Along the same theme as the post above, here is an opinion piece from the WSJ Op-Ed house liberal (sympathetic to administration). The key takeaway- the path to Ukraine defeat starts with not getting them enough artillery. Blame the U.S., blame Europe, blame whomever, but this was completely foreseeable over a year ago. https://www.wsj.com/articles/ukraine-may-have-to-accept-a-cease-fire-putin-orban-congress-aid-89f9932a?st=wh5ldjq5iw8a8tx&reflink=mobilewebshare_permalink
  13. I’ve seen that before, worse. In the ‘99 TAMU (bonfire) game, Simms scrambled down the left sideline and ran out of bounds. Brian Gamble ran up and laid him out, head on, all out of bounds. The ref threw the flag for the PF, Slocum argued (reminded him that the Ags needed to win, because of the dead kids) and the official picked the flag up.
  14. I suspect we’d be called for holding if we tried that
  15. “sue for tampering” I don’t think you understand how this works. One program doesn’t contact or “tamper” with a player on another roster. A coach doesn’t, either. That would be stupid and unnecessary. There are “portal agents”. We don’t know their names. The coaches and players absolutely do. The portal agents communicate with coaches (lots of them) and players (lots of them). This is going to shock the hell out of you, but Venables and his staff are talking to portal agents right now, too, trying to get the word to players that they have playing time and NIL opportunities for them.
  16. The hater comments are funny. The rivals know what’s coming. It’s not about the sports wins; it’s the way a successful Longhorn program dominates popularity and revenue in state. Yormark is a huckster, more interested in promoting than building. That said, I imagine he has viewed the last month- the TT game scene, the B12 CG attendance record, the ratings, and has a new perspective when he has conference meetings. I imagine his internal voice saying, “You fucking idiots. You had a program that could have been a tent pole for revenue growth for this conference, that could have established it as a survivor long term, and each of you stupid motherfuckers decided it was in your own best interest to hamstring them and bitch about them”.
  17. Yeah, and that is a better reference for Americans than the Crimean War. But, the last Ag MNC being closer to the start of the Civil Wat has been the case for a few years now. In seven years, it will be closer to the end of the Mexican American War, than to the present. Another good reference- when the Ags won their MNC, the U.S. flag had 48 stars. Their MNC is closer to the flag having 31 stars than to now.
  18. I don’t know if there is an official way to count this, but it is a little over 31k days between the Charge of the Light Brigade and the first game of TAMU’s 1939 season. It is about a year short of 31k days between 1-1-40 and 1-1-2024. So, around mid summer,…
  19. I am not tied in. Not “connected”. I do, however, buy Phil Steele’s magazine every year and two years ago I noticed that Ole Miss (easier to type than “Mississippi” and less confusing than UM) was loading up on portal transfers. For starters, not depth. This was the same offseason after the Ags’ 2022 class. It was obvious what Kiffin was doing. He couldn’t compete, funds wise, with TAMU, didn’t have the innate draw of LSU or Bama, so he was trying a different strategy. It cost less (paying 40-50 guys on your roster, rather than all 85, which is what big schools were trying in 2022), and had less risk of busting on players after you committed to them. Now, it’s not an easy strategy. To make it work, you have to have a real national scouting program. You have to understand who fits your scheme, and you have to be able to teach the scheme details, quickly, to newcomers. In other words, there is more to it than directing bags in a new direction. Which I would never expect Fisher, Bjork, or any of the rest of the Ag brain trust to ever figure out. They say Elko is a smart guy. Maybe he can figure it out.
  20. I got into the thread late. Just wanted to mention- damn, Bob Lilly looked great, right? He is one of the amazing physical specimens this state has produced, like Young, Campbell and Nobis. Not 99% of the general population, but 99% of all conference player population
  21. Don’t think there are any “just bad” guys here? I disagree. Iran is bad. They are funding Hamas and supplying weapons to Hamas and Hezbollah (and are allied with Syria and are supporting the Houthis). They are supporting bad actors all over the region and world (including the Americas). Iran is bad. Their removal from the scene would create room for all sorts of productive activity
  22. I have seen another line in this thread, just as dumb. It goes like, “Why not allow the ‘right of return’? It doesn’t guarantee wiping out or expulsion of Jews in Israel. The nation can be a democracy, and allow multiple factions to co exist”. (The Palestinians and their supporters have, in fact, never in their entire history established a liberal democracy with protections for minority rights and establishment of the ‘rule of law’)
  23. That is a sweet sentiment and I applaud it. Hearts and minds. Problems: Hamas militants don’t wear uniforms. They have the tactic of feigning being civilians when it suits them, and breaking out the weapons when it suits them. Hamas imbeds military centers and stores in civilian population centers and social service (hospitals) centers. Hamas builds tunnels, for militant use, under civilian population centers. Hamas uses civilians as human shields. Hamas uses suicide bomb vests under civilian clothing. So, you see the difficulty of fighting Hamas. The arithmetic the Israeli government has to solve- Gazan civilian lives vs. IDF soldier lives. (In WWII, wrt Japan, the U.S. decided 100k innocent Japanese civilians vs. 0 Army Air Corps KIA was an equation Uncle Sam could live with). Folks are trying to imagine some kind of “third way” where Israel can navigate this mess without significant loss of civilian life. I don’t think it exists. I think, after October 7, Israel sees two options: 1. Say, “OK, Hamas, you got us good! We’ll just rebuild those walls (maybe a little stronger), let less Gazans work here, inspect shipments more thoroughly and go on with our lives”. 2. Eradicate Hamas, at any cost to civilian life, and then figure out how to deal with what’s next. The calls for cease fire (always on Israel, never on Hamas) are calls for option 1. Problem is, October 7 was so horrific, and Israel is a democracy, and they are galvanized for option 2.
  24. Thats the point! This has been a world of states for thousands of years, replacing world of tribes. Hamas’ is the government of Gaza, heavily in Iran’s sphere. I won’t honor the fiction of Hamas as a “legitimate” or elected government; that ship sailed 15 years ago. It is an authoritarian government. There are lots of authoritarian governments in this world; uniformly it sucks for the governed. Israel says that the October 7 attack was by Hamas and they declared war on Hamas. They are being coy; there is no functional difference between warring on Hamas and warring on Gaza. Israel does not accept responsibility for Gazan civilians. It does not accept them as citizens. Things will suck horrifically for Gazan civilians until Hamas is gone.
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