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statsman

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  1. After the show last night, and seeing ratings, I have to think Yormark wants to tell the IR8- “you stupid motherfuckers couldn’t figure out that supporting and promoting this program is the easiest way for everyone to succeed as a conference and make everyone rich?”
  2. Obsession? No. It is on my mind. I’m a fan of Longhorn football, and there are one or two more significant games to play in the B12. The one tonight? The conference commissioner has already said he will be there rooting for Tech. The conference supervisor of officials sent Kevin Mar and his crew (officiators of some very odd games) to Austin tonight for the third time this season. I imagine that in a very short period, I won’t be thinking much of the IR8 at all, but now I am very conscious of them.
  3. So much for “the Big XII won’t try to screw us. They want that sweet CFP money and we’re the only ones that can get it for them. Let’s see that’s $6 million, less the $4 million they would get if we went to NY6 bowl instead, so $2 million, divided 12 ways…$167k each! There is no way the IR8 would give that up just to stick it to Texas one last time!”
  4. Eric Nahlin just posted that Kevin Mar’s crew is doing today’s game. Even though his crew has already done two Texas games this year (Wyoming and KSU). Of course they are. I’m sure Yormark and Weiser are laughing their asses off.
  5. Some of you might know that I am an ancient Longhorn football history buff. How did Texas football get where it is? From the earliest days, Texas knew it wanted to be a national power, even when the best programs were obviously the Ivy League schools. When football was more of a club sport, student team managers worked to schedule home and homes with distant flagships. Texas went up to Chicago and took its ass whipping from Stagg’s squads. It scheduled Notre Dame whenever it could. It was so proud of the coup of scheduling a game in Boston against Harvard. And the Horns usually lost. Meanwhile, other state programs were letting easy train schedules determine who they played. Texas was getting national exposure, and learning what was required, play-wise, to be a national power. (Note- this is not an approach that only the Longhorns could take) UT was the first program in the state to build a stadium. It was expensive as hell, but it was the first. A lot of programs wouldn’t have their stadium for decades. Texas started the SWC, primarily to get rules of play and eligibility written, signed up to, and enforced. When the SWC was collapsing, Texas was the leader in finding a home for the SWC’s most popular programs, and Baylor, in the Big XII. Then, in the aughts, UT saw the impact streaming would have, and budgeted the money to wire all its athletic facilities accordingly. Dodds shared this vision with the Big XII, and encouraged them to do the same. They declined, citing the expense. Here we are. Texas has planned and invested wisely for over a century. Lilliputians hated Gulliver because he figured out that the quickest way to put out a city fire was for him to puss on it. Rather than thank him for his quick thinking and help, they tried to blind him. The IR8 could never bring themselves to thank Texas for all the revenue their free riding brought; they’d rather vote it down and keep it from leveraging all its resources. Gulliver was surprised to discover that the Lilliputians hated him. I am surprised by the hate expressed by the IR8.
  6. That was a different era. That was an era when, if a Mountain West team signed a player, that ended up being good enough to star in a bigger league, they could keep him until he ran out of eligibility, because there were barriers to transfer, and bigger (richer) programs couldn’t give incentives (NIL) to transfer. Also, the IR8 program formula for success is to find the right coach and pay him to stay. Now, the quality of life for power program coaches and aspirational program coaches is markedly different. Rich programs can hire staffs to scout the nation for HS recruiting and transfer portal recruiting. Smaller programs need the assistant and head coaches to do that, and it’s an all year job.
  7. My wife had a knee issue (no crutches l), a few years ago, and I got there early, drove on San Jacinto from Dean Keyon (told the guard at the box that we needed ADA drop off but didn’t show anything), dropped her off at the NW corner of the stadium, turned up to the LBJ library and headed back to my peasant parking.
  8. I don’t know. When you review the Tech fan behavior, in Lubbock, at football and basketball games, it’s clear they are getting off on “hating Texas”. Scheduling them there is like scheduling Arkansas. We think we’re setting up a game and they are preparing a jihad.
  9. https://www.theunticket.com/texas-tech-doll/
  10. Prediction- over the next couple of decades, there will be changes in the coaching staffs and ADs of the various IR8 schools. (Of course there will be. There always are). At some (I predict Baylor, TT, TCU, UH) and not others (ISU, KSU), the new AD or coach will roll out their turnaround plan, and part of it will be, “I’m going to call Austin, and see if we can schedule a series. Remember how much fun those games were? How exciting? Games like that are what we need to get this program rolling again!” They’ll make that call. UT may receive it and consider it. “A game in Lubbock? Hmmm. Y’all played Ole Miss in Houston, in the NFL stadium. How about that? A game in Austin and a game in Houston?” Or, maybe they’ll just try to get the Legislature to force a game contract (like some Ag legislator did once).
  11. And, no mistake- if Paul Foster (by all accounts a good UT regent, but a big Baylor booster) were still on the BoR, we don’t get to go to the SEC. If Abbot were not governor, we don’t get to go. If there were any way for politicos from west Texas, FW, Waco to apply leverage to force Texas to stay in the Big XII, they would have. If there were any way that TT could come along, they would say “sign us up!” Without hesitation.
  12. I guess I’m fascinated by the game theory aspect of all this. In an Economics class, the prof said that the assumption most Economics is based on is “people make decisions in their own interest”. This conference realignment highlights flaws in that assumption- administrators that have a lot of power, but will only govern for a few years, make short term decisions that have negative long term implications. So, fans enjoy storming the field and giving shit to players. Coaches enjoy voting Texas down in a poll. ADs pressure a conference to limit promotion of the biggest brand. All decisions that have a near term benefit. Then, when Texas leaves (and it was hard- a lot of time to wait out the political situation, a lot of money), it hears, “you selfish asshole! And, hey- what about the tradition? Didn’t we have some good times?” All of these TV ratings highlight just how much free riding was going on.
  13. If you’re Matt Campbell, taking the ISU job in 2016, you look at a big name like Texas that went 6-7 and 5-7 the prior two years, and you see vulnerability. There are deep flaws in the Texas program, so of course you draw a bullseye on them. For whatever reasons (there were many), the UT program wasn’t performing, so you take advantage of it. The problem for Texas was that every pissant program in the B12 saw the same thing, the same opportunity.
  14. I’m talking about when he said that Texas and Iowa were the two big games. If he doesn’t get that from the coach, where does he get that from?
  15. Honestly, none of us suspected that we were such a big deal to the Cyclones program until Jarrod revealed it.
  16. I’m sorry, but I’m going to keep replying to this thread. I’m enjoying the result of the Big 12 standing up to Texas and its underperforming self.
  17. I think there has been resentment in the league office, for a while. A dozen years ago, or so, the Oklahoma Thunder lost a playoff game, and the OKC newspaper had a big photo of KD, calling him out as non-clutch. LeBron James commented, “It’s like they don’t realize he can be a free agent.” What could the Big 12 do in 2021? Nothing. There sure were things they could have done in 2008, though. Of course, that was three commissioners ago, and every university has probably gone through the same number of presidents and ADs. All these programs are locked into paths that they were put on years ago, by people that are long gone.
  18. A lot of the B12 resentment of Texas (which has been very real for years, in the Irving office) resulted from the LHN. They couldn’t stand that we weren’t rolling our tier 3 into a conference network and sharing the loot. What could they have done differently? They could have realized that if a down Texas makes them a lot of money, a resurgent Texas makes them even more. They could have not freaked out about the initial plans for the LHN, which were to weaponize it to support UT recruiting.
  19. I am fascinated by it. Just like, 60 years later, Georgia Tech fans wonder, “Now, why in the hell did we ever leave the SEC?”, future fans of Big XII schools will wonder, “How in the hell did we let them get away?”
  20. It’s really funny seeing the article from the Lubbock newspaper calling for a continuation of games with Texas. (My memory is that the Lubbock state rep did not participate in the Austin bitchfest at the Capitol, because they thought there was a deal in the works to continue the TT series. That deal was contingent upon TT helping UT exit the Big XII at a reduced cost, and Tech was unable or unwilling to come through). The disconnect is two-fold: 1. Myopia to the reality that Baylor, TCU, UH, ISU (this shocked me) and others all want to continue playing these games. Baylor had a sold out stadium and night time ABC broadcast when they hosted Texas; they have had streaming for at least five of their other games. 2. The way they (TT) treat Longhorn fans- the cussing out, the harassment. It’s like they’re satisfied that it doesn’t matter how shitty of hosts they are when the conference requires Texas to play there, and they never worried about what would happen if Texas weren’t required to play there. Here are the TV ratings so far- https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/college-football-tv-ratings/ It’s clear what they will be looking at, ratings-wise, going forward, except- it will be worse. ESPN paid the Big XII twice what Fox did, to get first choice on a few games, and to pick up the championship games. It looks to me like ESPN paid a premium to help Texas and OU get into the SEC earlier, and is ready to start broadcasting those Texas SEC games, and they will be scheduled to suit ESPN, not the Big XII.
  21. My guess is that he won’t be introduced to the crowd, and the TV crew will interview him and he will say all the right things (the lying son of a bitch)
  22. This is awesome, and the IR8 in a nutshell. There is no recognition that TCU, BU, UH all think that they have a “special” series with Texas, too. (Not to mention, we just learned that we were one of ISU’s main rivals just last week) There is no recognition that Texas will be renewing stronger rivalries with Arkansas and TAMU. And, of course, calling out a school about to add SEC blue bloods to the schedule, a school that has already been scheduling too SeC, PAC and B10 teams, as chicken. I swear- the IR8 have the self awareness of my 13 year old daughter.
  23. It really is impossible for us to show less respect for the tragedy than the Ags do.
  24. Thats the gross impact, but I don’t think each crew is equally bad. None of the crews did us any favors, but some are worse than others. Here is what I have: Rice-Salaam Wyoming-Mar (bad, but didn’t matter) BU-Anderson KU-Boitmann OU-Alvarez (bad) UH-VanderVelde (bad, until a decent spot at the end convinced everyone they were for us) BYU-Anderson KSU-Mar (bad) TCU-Salaam ISU-Boitmann (bad) Johns did the OU-OSU game. Id like to see Salaam or Anderson again, but I fear we’ll get Alvarez or VanderVelde. Those two, and Mar, put the biggest screw to us over the last three years.
  25. Nope. NCAA hired basketball and baseball officials. Conference only hires football officials.
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