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SL Xpress

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Everything posted by SL Xpress

  1. This upsets me a lot less than you might imagine. Rodney Terry had to go. We're very fortunate we got out of that deal in a minimum amount of time.
  2. "We should want college sports to collapse on itself like any poorly regulated market in a normal boom/bust cycle." That's what you just wrote without intending to.
  3. I can't agree with you there. I'm not rooting for them, but I'm indifferent about their success.* Winning the director's cup is a big deal to me. I watched as Stanford dominated this thing for a couple of decades because they fielded so many more sports than we did. Now that they've limited the advantage having extra programs gives Stanford (I'm not completely on board with this, since I think fielding more teams should be incentivized, but that's a different topic) with only the top 20 results counting, Texas has been dominating. Personally, I love it. *That's not true. I get a great deal of entertainment value at watching their reactions to repeated failures. So I'm not indifferent. I also can't imagine being indifferent about them winning a national championship in football. I'm not concerned about it, but that wouldn't be an ideal outcome. I still remember OU winning a national championship in football in 2000. That was a dagger through the heart. I'd prefer they remain awful, because that's fun. But I'm not going to be too bothered if they manage to become good in something aside from meat judging.
  4. No no no. THEY'LL understand it. They just won't be able to EXPLAIN it.
  5. I know one of the things Del Conte is doing with the proposed House Settlement money sharing is fully funding the available spots with full scholarships. So now every sport that Texas fields a team will have every slot as a fully paid ride. Assuming something doesn't change via legislation or through the courts.
  6. Are they playing OU? No? I'm not rooting for A&M.
  7. It's a great high school type venue. It's their all everything arena. Not really a bad seat in the house. All bench seating. It should be a good crowd. The students will show up for sure. "Safe-Ty Schoo-oool" clap clap clap is their favorite chant. If you can, get seats towards the middle of the court. Doesn't matter which side. I would be a little surprised if it sells out, but not entirely. Rice will give out tickets to high schools and local club teams in group packages to try to make sure the place is full. In any case, the place will be pretty packed. 3000 minimum. I've gone to multiple matches there. It's pretty full even for exhibition games if Texas is playing. Try to take her to Gregory Gym if you get the chance. I didn't compare the home schedule to football, but sometimes you can make it an extended weekend. It's arguably the best home court atmosphere in volleyball.
  8. I saw one list where he's the 16th best punter in the country. The 5 star ranking is by the kicking promoter that runs a camp and promises to promote the players that go through their training. At this point it seems dumb to me not to recruit punters out of Australia.
  9. I can't even discuss NIL and the transfer portal with people who don't follow it. Eyes start glazing over very quickly. They prefer their convicted opinions based on sheer ignorance. That's a complicated subject, but it's nowhere remotely close to as complicated as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
  10. The idea there's this clear line of demarcation is false. The lines are very blurry and not at all obvious. First, you have the far right, with ideas of white purity, who are absolutely convinced the Jews are behind a grand scheme to weaken the white race by blending the blood lines. Then you have the far right that thinks the establishment of the state of Israel is a clear sign of The Rapture. They want to put the full might of the United States behind Israel with no strings attached because they feel like in some way there's a religious duty to do so to herald the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Jewish Americans who consider themselves rabid supporters of the state of Israel encourage this in any way they can. Then you have Jewish sympathizers - like me, for example - who support the Israeli state out of some level of sympathy and possibly admiration - at least in my case - for Jewish heritage and culture. Then there are plenty of people who feel like the Jewish cabal is responsible for all kinds of ills, and the concentration of wealth, even if they don't believe the Jews have a grand scheme of weakening one race or another. Then there's the people who have decided their sympathies are with indigenous people of all stripes - never mind that it's often a nebulous term since homo sapiens have been conquering, settling new lands, committing genocide, and generally changing occupations of land ever since moving out of East Africa. It's not to say that any genocide is acceptable because that's how we've always done it, but it is to say that saying that one group of people or another have some kind of greater claim on a land because their ancestors lived there doesn't really mesh with reality. But that's neither here nor there as this growing sympathy with displaced populations, especially from colonialism stemming from the expansion of Europe throughout the world, has gained greater traction over the last few decades. This group fully backs Palestinians as the victims, and in my mind there's a very legitimate case to be made. I think you'd have to be stupid - or blindly loyal to the Israeli cause - to see how the Israelis have conducted themselves towards the Palestinians since the Zionist movement gained steam in the late 19th century to believe otherwise. There's also this strange to me amalgamation of identity politics, where people who identify themselves as disenfranchised have also glommed onto the Palestinian cause as a fellow group of people who are also disenfranchised and ultimately powerless against a state sponsored oppressor. Think of the LGBTQ+ groups and their allies. Some of these groups not only don't identify with each other on any other issue, but actually are active enemies of one another. I'd also say there's not just an adding to antisemitic ideas. There's an adding to anti-Arab, anti-Islam, and anti people who look different. And that's not just a US thing. That's very much a European sentitment, too, as we can clearly see from recent election results. And of course, none of this is new. What is remarkable is that we even try to build a multicultural society in the first place. I, for one, think it's the grandest experiment and the highlight of what we can achieve as a human race. I also believe it's filled with landmines that we refuse to acknowledge, and continue to minimize. As if we just have enough good intentions it will all work out in the name of human progress. Which I do not believe. And then there's social media with its algorithms, measurements of engagement, vehicle for bonding and successful reinforcement of views no matter how extreme - in many ways the more extreme the more successfully and tightly knit the bonds that are formed.
  11. Previous ADs are now at LSU, Alabama, and Ohio State. And I never thought any of them were all that great. My assumption is if they get lucky on the AD hire he'll be hired by someone else and get him and his family out of College Station as soon as possible.
  12. I knew some of them, but I only know what happened to a few. And yeah, speedgoat was awesome.
  13. UT baseball and softball are still playing. This has the potential to get so much worse (better). Neither Texas team is a juggernaut per se, but they have some clutchiness. I have to acknowledge while I predominantly root for our teams because I want to see Texas do well, there's also this part of me that wants to see us do well simply to watch the Aggies completely implode.
  14. It probably was Aggie, but it could have been a Sooner family, too, being in Plano. Horns down is literally their hand sign. They've been doing it since the 1970s. Aggies caught on from them.
  15. What takes the cake for me is she called you out by your internet handle rather than your real name. It feels like that would add to the awkwardness.
  16. That's dumb. Why keep a username from that old site? Also, that site only allowed 8 characters No spaces. So I know that's not true. Don't ask me how I know. - slxpress
  17. These are great examples. It's stunning to me overall how all in the staff has gone in recruiting nationwide. It's not just dipping their pinky toe in California, and maybe grabbing a kid from a neighboring state. They've been successful in Florida previously, and certainly we've seen players recruited from other hotbeds like St Louis and Georgia. But we're going after kids wherever they are. This is the widest net and with the biggest numbers of out of state targets I've ever seen. That any of us have ever seen. I really like the way they're doing it, too. There's no desperation. It's utter confidence. Last year I was really nervous around this time. Now I feel an utter state of calm. They're going to make their big push on the June official visits. They've brought in the creme de la creme. There's no fat in these June visits. No bread. And they've kept their powder dry. So many other schools leading with a premature ejaculation. Texas ensures there's some interest and fit there beyond the payday. No process ensures you hit on every target, and regardless of what kind of environment you have, kids are going to transfer for more playing time if they're talented and it's tough to see how they get on the field in the time and manner which they're looking for. But the methodology Texas is choosing to employ is the best way to manage personnel. The only thing is, you better be an apex predator to do it this way. You have to be uber confident in your product, your sales pitch, and your ultimate ability to close. It's not like Texas is the only game in town. But I really love the approach they take, and I'm convicted it's going to pay dividends come the early signing period and beyond.
  18. I don't know about y'all. It's just me. I have never found the broadcast networks particularly sensitive to what in stadium fans have to endure to attend a game in September. It's the same complaint every year. Yes, it sucks to have midday kickoffs in September. 6pm and after is still hot, but it's better than the sheer misery of a 2:30pm kickoff. And yet, we've had plenty. They fill up their broadcast schedule with sometimes esoteric reasoning, none of which we're privy to. But one thing for sure is they don't give a shit about the wishes of that particular school. Oklahoma has spent years dealing with morning and midday kickoffs in the Big 12 to the point their local businesses and fan base have been complaining even more vociferously than Ohio State. No one gives a shit. What Fox has or hasn't done in the past to or for Texas doesn't have any bearing either. We're not going out of our way to punish Fox. We're not going out of our way to help them, but if a Sunday night kickoff made sense for the Texas football program we'd accept the offer. It doesn't, and we're not. I'm just saying here's a very limited example of Texas not agreeing to what a TV network would like to do, and it's fully within UT's rights to do so. If there was a contractual obligation to play on Sunday night, sure, Texas would play on Sunday night. But there's not. People are going to find ways to laud and hype Texas in ways we may not earn. It's always been that way. At the same time, people are going to find reasons to take shots at us. I'm just delighted to be a legitimate part of the football conversation in the offseason, and feel like it's not some kind of outlier where the rug gets pulled out from under me as a fan. If people want to boo hoo us about not accepting the move to Sunday night, let them. I don't care if the source is Fox, Ohio State, Texas haters, or click bait blogsters. It's an absurd line of reasoning. It's not going to stop, so I'm going to choose to be contemptuous of their rationale, because that's what it deserves.
  19. I'm just saying we said no when there aren't a lot of programs around the country that would turn down an exclusive prime time spot on Sunday night.
  20. Yes. Regardless, it was ridiculous. But it was 10 out of 11. I was trying to make it worse than it was.
  21. They just said no to a prime time game on Sunday night. Not completely their bitch. Just mostly. Mostly their bitch.
  22. I mean, losing 11 out of 12 to those bumblefucks nearly put every one of us out of our minds. There was nothing "brief" about that time period. As far as I'm concerned it was the birth of feelings of rivalry with them. Before and after they're a nonentity. We've gone 13-5 starting with James Brown limping us to victory in '95, including that Kafkaesque matchup in '99 after the bonfire collapse, where Mack Brown leaves the halftime locker room a little too early and has the whole team kneel down to pay respects to the fallen while the corps finished paying tribute to the victims. To me what makes them more insufferable nowadays is how inescapable they are. At least here in Houston. If they still had the numbers they had in the 70s they'd be nothing more than a fly in the ointment. I just can't conjure the kind of hate for the Aggies I can for the Sooners. It's like hating a mentally challenged little brother.
  23. I don't agree. I like the sentiment, but I don't think it's completely accurate. Texas has always thought of ourselves as pure as the driven snow. For the longest time I was extremely proud of that stance. That changed in the late 2000s as Alabama started paying trainers and coaches to bring kids to their summer camp, throwing around hundreds of uncommittable offers, paying for multiple unofficial visits to build rapport and to get them invested in the team and their incoming teammates. And of course financially compensated the players and their families for playing at Alabama. It had gone on before, but Saban industrialized it and built a recruiting strategy around it that was unparalleled in its comprehensiveness. And then, of course, everyone else followed suit, with Mack Brown sitting on his laurels, preventing assistants from going anywhere outside the Austin area during the football season, and playing the mark for Garrett Gilbert's dad. And Charlie Strong had some of the same vibes. No interactions with trainers. No paid unofficial visits. To me, negative narratives about Texas thrive because other fan bases perceive we think we're better than them. It's hard to combat something that's true. I think indifference is a more effective response. In any event, if guardrails are put up regarding student athlete compensation, the enforcement mechanisms better be robust, draconian, and swiftly applied. I do not personally believe any of those things are going to be present, which means gifted players will continue to be compensated well above their ability to bring value to a company via their endorsement, by boosters who see their real value as being able to help bring victory on the playing field for their alma mater. If Texas doesn't play ball on some level, but chooses to take a firm stand in an effort to help curtail the escalation of player compensation, then they'll pay a price in terms of success on the playing field. We're not there yet, so it's hypothetical. We'll see how everything plays out. I'm especially curious as to what would come out of Congress and/or the President. I think that's the only place that can affect some kind of solution that doesn't involve a never ending series of court cases - and even that would almost certainly result in challenges in court. But some kind of antitrust exemption especially could be handy to either the NCAA or whoever succeeds them as a governing body. I'm not saying it's a good thing. But it's tough to see how we experience anything other than a lurching chaos from now until the foreseeable future unless there's some kind of national legislation (or, I guess an executive order, since that's a big part of how we're operating as a country these days) addressing collegiate athletics.
  24. Just to go back to the stupid Ohio State argument that Texas is scared to play in the Horseshoe! At night! Because more articles came up on my feed this morning, especially after Del Conte addressed it at the SEC meetings yesterday. A few points: 1) Ohio State/Big Ten agreeing to the massive television contract with Fox, CBS, and NBC is the principal issue here. Not Texas. They love to crow about how much bigger their contract is compared to everyone else. Well, the golden rule applies, boys. He who owns the gold makes the rules. Welcome to noon kickoffs, Buckeyes. Don't like it? Too bad. You signed the dotted line. No one forced you. You're the sacrificial lamb for the rest of the conference because you're the biggest draw, especially when Michigan has a down season. Tough titties. 2) Ohio State fans and Texas haters, plus click bait artists, love to project fear on Texas for not wanting to play in The Horseshoe! At night! But that's not it at all. If Ohio State was playing almost any other program, they'd readily move the game to Sunday night. Why? Because nearly every program in the country is desperate for more exposure, and would sell out living relatives to garner an exclusive prime time nationally broadcast window on a Sunday night. Forget about the consequences. But Texas doesn't need prime time exposure. We'll get plenty of prime time games this year, because we're Texas, and we're not saddled with an albatross of a television agreement with Fox like we were in the Big 12. Sucks to be you! What people are enjoying ascribing to fear, is actually arrogance. Ohio State is desperate for a prime time game at home. Texas is not desperate for prime time exposure. We don't need it. We don't have any reason to move the game to Sunday. It creates issues further down the line. So what if San Jose State is not the most fearsome opponent on the schedule. Sarkisian wants to establish the season's rhythms as soon as possible. It doesn't matter how much of a difference it makes on the win/loss schedule. Our program priority is winning a national championship. Moving the opening game to Sunday night puts us further from that goal, regardless of how much impact it has. It has some impact. How much is hypothetical, but it's also entirely unnecessary. I remember years when that wasn't the case. When the athletic department would schedule games with Hawaii simply to have an excuse to take the entire athletic department on a paid trip for them and their families, never mind the negative impact it would have on the players and team. One of the best moves Mack Brown made early on was to cancel that silly boondoggle. He got the same kind of grief about Texas being scared to play a Hawaii team that was going to be terrible after losing their entire roster. Ohio State is going to be good. They're literally always good. They don't really have down years or bad coaching hires the way everyone else does. But there's no incentive for Texas to do the Ohio State fan base any favors. "Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part." Sort your shit out with Fox. That's not our problem.
  25. That 66-3 UCLA game in 1997 was the most miserable I've ever felt. I'm sure there have been hotter games, but sitting there in the stands because I never leave a game early felt like the most pointless gesture in the history of my most pointless gestures. And I'm a real champion for pointless gestures. On the east side, too. I felt like God's judgement was searing down on me that day.
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