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Texas Football 2025 - Careening Towards the Abyss
SL Xpress replied to closetojumping's topic in Football
I feel like the answer is to perfect the body's ability to heal to practically mutant levels and then surgically enhance the skeletal structure with adamantium. I read about that procedure in a medical journal.- 5452 replies
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Texas Football 2025 - Careening Towards the Abyss
SL Xpress replied to closetojumping's topic in Football
The good news is it's only one. Remember last year when we lost two running backs back to back to season ending injuries? It could be worse. My hope is that Cojoe returns next year better than ever. -
The point is not that Texas would have beaten OU if Benson had played. The point is that he didn't play at all. Not a single snap. And then he was the workhorse the rest of the season. And no offense to Ivan Williams, but he was never in the class of Benson. He was fool's gold. If he wasn't the very picture of chopped liver as a running back, I don't think we use that term in the same way.
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Phil Fulmer. Lloyd Carr. Gene Chizik. Ed Orgeron. Jimbo Fisher. There are several mediocre coaches I'd take Mack Brown over when it comes to running a program that also won a national championship. Before Mack Brown came along I thought the administration might be indifferent to Texas football for the rest of my life. Whatever faults Mack Brown may have, he is one heck of a salesman. He galvanized the campus and got all the BBs in one box. The other candidate at the time was Gary Barnett, who was demanding autonomy from the athletic department because the environment was toxic and not conducive to a winning program at all. Which was true, but would not have created a long term healthy environment. And for all his faults he brought Vince Young to campus and gave us 2005. That Rose Bowl will forever be my favorite moment as a sports fan. Regardless of Mack Brown's faults, I do not believe that moment occurs with someone else in charge. In any case, he did make the decision to recruit Cedric Benson, even if it was reluctantly. He did eventually play him, and Benson had a great career. And Mack Brown did share a special story about Benson's grief after the Rose Bowl win against Michigan, when he voiced the tearful realization he would never put on the Longhorn uniform for a game ever again. There's a lot of things to like about Mack Brown. I can feel two emotions simultaneously. I can feel gratitude mixed with some irritation. If I don't share the gratitude I'm being churlish, and if I don't share the irritation I'm inauthentic, so I share both. I am sorry it caused the thread to be about Mack Brown versus being about Cedric Benson, but Mack Brown can be a polarizing figure on this board in some respects, and that's just the way it is. In any case, here's to you, Cedric Benson.
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I'm thankful for Mack Brown, but I'm not his biggest fan. He's just not my kind of guy. But I will say he is very effective in these kinds of moments, and I'm very appreciative of him sharing this story. I was, however, a HUGE fan of Cedric Benson. I remember watching him play for Midland Lee, particularly in the state championships. I didn't see all three, but I saw two of them. Remember that during their entire history Midland Lee had always been overshadowed by Odessa Permian. But Midland Lee was a powerhouse for Benson's 3 years on varsity, and Benson was a huge reason for it. We all remember Benson as this big hulking back, but he wasn't that at all at Midland. I don't want to say he was skinny, but he was certainly lean. I don't think he ever got above 195 lbs. while playing varsity. Especially as a sophomore. He was deceptive in everything he did. He didn't look like he had a lot of wiggle. He never looked like Barry Sanders or Bijan Robinson. And yet, defenders could never seem to get a clean shot at him. He could make people miss in the hole as well as any running back I ever saw. He never had breakaway speed, but he often seemed to run just fast enough to score. He had the most incredible forward body lean I've ever seen in a running back. I felt like he lost a little bit of that as he bulked up, but maybe that was an optical illusion. He definitely had it as a freshman at Texas when he was still a little leaner compared to how he looked later on. But in high school his torso looked like it was literally parallel with the ground as he ran. And he always went forward. He showed that too, at Texas, but in high school it was even more remarkable. I cannot tell you how often it looked like the defense had him tackled, and he'd somehow squirt through with that forward lean of his, and somehow make 5, 6, 7, 8 yards out of the carry. Sometimes more. It wasn't just once. He seemed to do that every time he carried the ball. And he saved his biggest moments for the big time. He scored 5 touchdowns in each of those 3 state championships (13 runs and 2 passes). I loved watching Benson play in high school. One of my favorite players I ever got to see. I wanted to pull my hair out with his recruitment. He wanted to go to Texas. Everyone knew he wanted to go to Texas. But Mack Brown didn't like his measurables. At a time when Texas was often offering kids earlier than anyone else, he wouldn't extend an offer to the most celebrated back in the state, even with a lot of alumni pressure to do so. Mack just didn't feel like Benson was good enough. It wasn't like Mack offered him right before signing day or anything. I believe Benson came to a camp to prove himself, even though he was a little indignant that was necessary. Finally Mack Brown reluctantly offered the guy that summer, bowing to pressure and the knowledge if he didn't offer him and Benson went on to be a star somewhere else there would be hell to pay. Benson immediately accepted. Then he gets to campus and Mack Brown does his usual deal of not playing freshman. He often did the same thing. I remember pulling my hair out with Derrick Johnson when he got the same treatment. The famous 2001 game against OU Cedric Benson didn't get a single carry. We had Ivan Williams as our starting running back. It's the only game that season where he didn't have a carry. The next week against Oklahoma State he ran the ball 31 times for 131 yards (he'd run for 100 yards or more in the next 4 games, too) before finishing with his first of 4 1000 yard seasons. I'm not saying Cedric Benson was the greatest human being on Earth. I didn't know the guy personally. I know there were issues there. But he loved Texas, and he was a gamer. That guy could smell the end zone, just like Ricky Williams could. I'm glad I got to watch him both in high school and at Texas. I'm grateful he's a Longhorn.
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Sub-Educated Cretins: The SEC screenshot mega-thread
SL Xpress replied to SimkinsMan's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
Is this kind of encouragement necessary or warranted? Methinks not. -
I think it's hilarious. My favorite horn downs moments include: Texas isn't even playing. Horns down is basically the OU hand sign. They sell a TON of merchandise licensed from UT. A&M fans are constantly using the horns down sign, too. I think it's great! Teams we don't play on a regular basis. The horns down sign - started by OU fans in the 70s but it's grown because of television and various stupid controversies - is so universally recognized you'll see opponents like Michigan fans throw the horns down sign for the television cameras because it's such expected behavior. Why would anyone get upset about that? That's terrific! Texas is crushing the opponent. It is so fun to see the horns down hand signal when we're beating the other team like a drum. Any time Texas is mentioned, and the first reaction is to throw the horns down sign. Especially when it's done to me personally, but not just then. My least favorite horns down moments are when Texas fans make a big deal out of it, like it's some kind of sacrosanct gesture being defiled by heathens. Give me a break. It IS sacrosanct to me, but I don't expect others to feel the same way about it. Rodney Terry in particular needed to STFU. He later apologized, which I'm glad for, but no coach or administrator should be making any kind of deal out of it. It's embarrassing. It's embarrassing when fans get offended, but at least they're not official representatives. I guess if I was at a funeral and we were all singing the eyes and then some goober threw the horns down I'd have to kill him, but I wouldn't be angry when I did it. It's just something that would have to be done. But if Aggies or Sooners had a wedding cake with the horns down on it, I'd just laugh. Have at it! Give me a slice. Let me eat a piece of your obsession with us.
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Texas Football 2025 - Careening Towards the Abyss
SL Xpress replied to closetojumping's topic in Football
Embrace it? I never let it go. I always felt that's a part of what made us unique. We're arrogant regardless of on field results. I just wish it was going to be a prime time game. Oh wait. No I don't. I don't care. I'm happy the Ohio State meth tweakers are so upset about it. I hope we hear more about it after we soundly beat them the same way we did to Alabama in Tuscaloosa and Michigan in Ann Arbor. Let's bring the spirit of 2005 back and win again in the Horseshoe. -
Texas Recruiting Notes 2026: Boulevard of Broken Bagmen
SL Xpress replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
I think as much as anything Lanning is getting the benefit of the doubt. He's only been a head coach for 3 years, but he's gone 10-3, 12-2, and 13-1. He has an intense style which is appealing. I loved his pregame speech before the Colorado game, and the way he prepared his team to go into Wisconsin with the Jump Around song was pretty hilarious. Although the way Oregon played overall in that game was underwhelming, even if they did come out with the victory. But then again, I'm a big Dan Lanning fan. He's a bit of an asshole inside the program in terms of he has a bit of Bill Snyder in him. If football isn't everything to you, he doesn't really want to have much to do with you. He makes extreme demands on his staff and players in terms of the priority they put on football. But for me that's not a bug. It's a feature. He's great with alumni in ways Cristobal couldn't be bothered. He sees fundraising and alumni relations as a big part of his job. I don't know what kind of season they're going to have. I'm with CTJ in that I see a lot of holes. But I've also been underwhelmed with some of their personnel at the beginning of a season - last year particularly the offensive line - but they still find ways to get the job done. I feel like losing Evan Stewart for 2025 was a big blow. They have a huge resource in Phil Knight for NIL. They have a bunch of boosters along with him, but no one approaches Knight's impact. Even outside of NIL, he'll meet with recruits and players. It's a blinding glimpse of the obvious to say, but Knight has done more for an athletic program as a single person than anyone else in college athletics. But even still, they are extremely organized in how they handle NIL. They work with a budget. They prioritize players. They value the dynamic between keeping a roster and bringing in new talent. I don't feel like they're as allergic to character issues as maybe Texas is. They'll make exceptions if the player is talented enough and count on their culture to rein bad tendencies in. Not sure how that will work out for them in the long run, but it's definitely a difference I see. I'll be rooting for Oregon unless they play us, so I'm biased. I could certainly see a fall off. But right now it's mostly a "In Lanning we trust" kind of mindset. -
Sub-Educated Cretins: The SEC screenshot mega-thread
SL Xpress replied to SimkinsMan's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
We are doing the SEC a favor. As human beings we think we bond together based on what we have in common. And that is true to an extent. But the most powerful bonding agent is the concept of the outsider. We are bringing the rest of the SEC together by being a common enemy. Everyone can hate us. They can give examples of how much they hate us. Why they hate us worse than the next person hates us. They can all link arms, do the horns down sign, talk about how we're entitled, overrated, have more money than God, think we're God's gift to football, and all the other "aspersions" fans of other schools love to throw at us. To you, the rest of the SEC, my reply is, "You're welcome." -
Texas Football 2025 - Careening Towards the Abyss
SL Xpress replied to closetojumping's topic in Football
I'm with you. What would really make this board enjoyable for me is a complete lack of humor and everyone feeling like they're posting on railroad tracks. I think the big problem is a lack of consequences. If we could chop off a finger for violating one of SarkAfterDark's very reasonable guidelines for having the ideal message board, this place would be waaaaaay better.- 5452 replies
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Negative Recruiting Your Own School: The aggy Screenshot Megathread
SL Xpress replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
Yeah, apparently it's a big deal for Colorado, too. I'm sure you're right on Boston College. I just couldn't find anything on it with a quick 10 second search. I just know I saw it referenced all over the place in Eugene. They should make up a myth around it. Some dying football player as he's being carried off the field with collapsed lungs he wheazes out his last breath, only he's not able to force out "Let's Go Ducks" but instead a whispery "...s'go Ducks" then he dies, and it becomes a rallying cry. Kind of like Bear Down Cats for Arizona. -
Negative Recruiting Your Own School: The aggy Screenshot Megathread
SL Xpress replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
Sco Ducks is dumb, btw. I thought there would be a cool story. Nope. It's literally just Let's Go Ducks shortened. They've got merchandise for it and everything. -
Texas Football 2025 - Careening Towards the Abyss
SL Xpress replied to closetojumping's topic in Football
Unless/until they come to Texas. Then I hope we name a stadium after them. -
Texas Football 2025 - Careening Towards the Abyss
SL Xpress replied to closetojumping's topic in Football
Just plug in Hero Kanu. Oh, that's right. They can't. He'll be on the sidelines for Texas. Gosh, that's too bad.- 5452 replies
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Desperate times. Desperate measures. It's amazing what any of us will believe when we find our options limited and someone offers us hope. Even false hope. OU can see their relevance disappearing for lack of resources. They had to have hope a true salary cap was going to be instituted with the House settlement or other legislation/court orders. And then their approach would win out (I'm not saying it would - I'm saying that's the core belief). They still have amazing facilities, a decent athletic department revenue stream. They're not completely down for the count. They have a state population that's likely to subsidize the payroll with a tax of some sort, if that's permitted whether by permission or forgiveness. Same as LSU's fan base. I believe a diffusion of responsibilities is a great way to protect the incompetent. Who is responsible for the decline of OU football? Not me! I have answers, son! Diffusion of responsibilities in an organization rewards the people most gifted at finding scapegoats. I feel like Nagy has positioned himself where he won't be blamed for OU's decline for years. I'll also say that KSU did come close to competing for a national championship with Michael Bishop at quarterback. Probably should have. But that was a different era when Snyder exploited KSU's open enrollment and the junior college system in place at the time to help bring in players who had difficulties meeting the NCAA minimum entry. But that was 30 years ago and that dynamic hasn't existed since. Also, TCU competed for a national championship. But that was a one off. More the exception that proves the rule. Nagy can poo poo the recruiting services all he wants, but the truth is it's harder to find a diamond in the rough than it ever has been. There are too many paths to exposure. I truly feel like it starts with having the right head coach. The right head coach wouldn't have had an end around pulled on him like this. Nagy having the power he does is as much a sign of Venables being the wrong guy as much as his horrific offense and his win/loss record. Could you imagine this happening to Bob Stoops?
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OU is doomed to failure, IMO. I appreciate that college football has become way more transactional than it ever has been, but it's always been transactional on some level. OU fielding successful teams is the perfect example of that. It's still relational, though. The NFL's primary source of talent acquisition is the draft. Of course they can fill in gaps with free agency and trades, but if you're not drafting well you're simply not going to be able to compete at the highest level. College football's primary source of talent acquisition remains high school recruiting. At least for programs with national championship aspirations. Which OU may or may not ever achieve again, but that's going to be the fan base's expectation for the time being. The transfer portal is critical, but it's to plug gaps, not to overhaul the entire roster. And even there relationships can be important. OU is adding layers to their talent acquisition that are going to make them inherently less effective in recruiting. Not more effective. They are going to purposefully recruit guys who are undervalued in order to beat the system. But they're having the coaches recruit players they didn't fully invest in. That's an organizational issue. Also, Nagy says his goal is to win national championships, but that's not really his goal. His goal is to keep his job regardless of performance. OU fans and administrators are obviously desperate. They do not feel like they can compete in the NIL space so they're hoping Nagy is some kind of magic bullet. Castiglione has resigned/retired, in part because of the dynamics in play within the athletic department. Venables isn't happy having the power of building his roster taken away from him. He's on a short leash. If/when OU fails to meet expectations, who is going to get the ax? It's not going to be Nagy, that seems certain. He's going to be able to sell this form of bullshit for several years before OU people realize the Emperor isn't wearing clothes. They'll probably have to go through at least one more coaching change before they clean shop. OU's best hope is that Nagy is hired away to peddle his bullshit somewhere else. Because what kind of quality head coach is going to want to sign up for this mess? This is doomed to failure. They'd be better off hiring Larry Ellison's wife for the position. At the very least go after one of Harold Hamm's kids. Then hire the right coach like they did with Bob Stoops. I realize coaches like that can be a moon shot, but that's what it takes. Nagy is going to help run that program into middling status at best.
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Texas Football 2025 - Careening Towards the Abyss
SL Xpress replied to closetojumping's topic in Football
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Texas Recruiting Notes 2026: Boulevard of Broken Bagmen
SL Xpress replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
Because if you're monitoring the numbers - and any good manager/owner monitors the concession numbers, because that's your lifeblood revenue source - at some point you can see the sales and ratios of sales/tickets sold are down. Doesn't matter by how much. There's a laser focus on those numbers. So then you suspect something. That's assuming the machines couldn't keep track of the voids, and most of them could. Every now and then at the theater I worked at they'd have some kind of hot dog sale. Buy some kind of combo and you got the hot dog for a cheap price. Anyone who got the item or items necessary - I don't remember if it was a large drink or large popcorn or a combination. Doesn't matter. But if anyone got the items necessary to qualify for a cheap hot dog but didn't get the hot dog, I'd simply not ring up the sale, then I'd tell everyone after that they could get a hot dog for the sale price if they wanted one, and ring up the whole sale at that time. We had multiple concession stands because it was a pretty big theater for its time, and inevitably the concession sales where I was working would blow the roof off of any other theater in the city. The general manager knew exactly what I was doing. He couldn't encourage me, but he sure was willing to turn a blind eye to it. What was critical is that the register balanced at the end of the night, but it always did. To be honest whatever concession stand I was working always had huge sales compared to everyone else because I was constantly hustling people to upsize or suggesting they add to their order. Shit works. Wasn't really incentivized to do it. I just enjoyed the process. On another note, one of my biggest frustrations at the time was the stupid way the concession stands worked. You'd have multiple employees there working almost an assembly line. One person would grab popcorn. One person would handle the drinks. One of them would handle special orders like hot dogs or nachos. One person would be on the register. But invariably the register took way longer than anything else, so it ended up being a bottle neck for the transaction process. I'd complain that we needed more registers and just have everyone use one and then get their own customers' popcorn/drinks, or at the very least just have one person doing all of that for multiple registers. It's not like the general manager was unsympathetic, but it was simply the way the corporation did it. Everyone did it the same way back then. Even when I'd attend old theaters, like the old River Oaks Theater before it was torn apart and remodeled into a dining theater, they did it that way. It was such a validation when theaters finally started going to the model with multiple registers. It's the only way that makes sense. Since I'm on the topic, one of the changes that happened about 20 years ago is that employees stopped going to movies. That was a huge perk when I worked in a theater in the 80s. You could see any movie for free pretty much at any theater. Even if the theater was another chain they had reciprocal agreements. I just told my manager I wanted to see a movie at another theater and they'd call ahead and get me passes at the ticket office. Any time I went to the theater - and this is into the 90s and 2000s - I'd ask the employees if the movie I was going to see was any good, or I'd ask what was their favorite movie the theater was showing. I don't know exactly when it was, but it felt like overnight suddenly the answer became, "I don't know. I haven't seen any." Not just that they hadn't seen any of the movies showing at that time. They really didn't see all that many movies in general. There's a big part of me that always wondered why would you work in a movie theater for low wages, no tips, poor hours, open every holiday, if you didn't like movies in the first place? Also, whenever I worked the ticket office, which was with some frequency, I'd regularly steer people away from the really bad movies and offer an alternative. There's no question I could have gotten in trouble for that, but I never got turned in for it. -
This video deserves attention. It's an interview with Rece Davis and Steve Sarkisian. I didn't find it insightful per se. It's about things I already knew. But Sarkisian comes across as so warm, genuine, at peace with himself and his job, and his vision for what he wants Texas football to embody. This video also makes me want to walk more, which is not a bad thing.
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Texas Recruiting Notes 2026: Boulevard of Broken Bagmen
SL Xpress replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
It was a pretty big theater. 500 seats or so from what I recall. No concessions or anything. I saw a ton of movies there, but I couldn't tell you the name of the theater/building any more. -
Texas Football 2025 - Careening Towards the Abyss
SL Xpress replied to closetojumping's topic in Football
Mack Brown was a field goal kicker whisperer. I'll always give him credit for that. Whatever magic fairy dust he sprinkled on kickers, we never seemed to miss late game field goals when he was head coach. Never.- 5452 replies
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Texas Recruiting Notes 2026: Boulevard of Broken Bagmen
SL Xpress replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
Oh, and that one, too. I mean there were movie theaters right on campus as well. -
Texas Recruiting Notes 2026: Boulevard of Broken Bagmen
SL Xpress replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
There were several. There was one at the student union. Another was in a separate building. They were constantly showcasing films for the RTF students, so every semester they'd rotate through some real gems.
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