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SL Xpress

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Everything posted by SL Xpress

  1. Not really. The questions were from the media. He just refused to get defensive to the media in front of the high school coaches. I don't have access to any personal conversations with coaches.
  2. He visited for the Georgia game last year and then in April. Your point still stands.
  3. It's a good talking point to the THSCA, but I watched the entire talk he gave on youtube a bit ago. There were some other things said. The question was about this year's class, and how only ten of the 21 commitments are from the state of Texas. Sarkisian did a great job of answering the question, but the clear message in the entire Q&A was that Texas unapologetically was going to go after the best talent across the country. He acknowledged that agents have diminished the role of Texas high school coaches in the process, but he challenged coaches not to just give up their role as advisors and mentors. He challenged them to man up and be a part of the process rather than throwing up their collective hands and saying, "what can you do? It's all about the agents now." He talked about how it's not just about Texas keeping the best players in the state. There were a lot of instate programs players could go to. Then he pointed out that many of the best players in the state were leaving for programs outside of Texas. He had the standard "if I could recruit my entire team from the state of Texas I would" line, but the clear message is that's not the world we live in. He refused to get defensive about it, which is exactly right. The truth is this recruiting season is a sea change from how Texas has always gone about its business. I doubt we ever see 80% of UT's draft picks to the NFL being instate kids ever again in my lifetime. Sarkisian has made a clear investment in going after the best players wherever they are, with an emphasis on the southeast and California. It's not just the NIL dollars spent. Or the commitments. Or even the visits, although all of those are a huge part of it. The coaches are investing their time and resources in travelling all over the country - not just to see specific kids, but to build connections in the high school for players in the current recruiting class, as well as who might be someone to look for in future classes. That's when you know Texas is serious about this. They're not just putting a sack of money in front of the player. They're going out and cultivating relationships because they want people to know they're in it for the long haul. That's how you help protect your program from bad seeds that poison the locker room and/or force your hand where you have to pull the lever to the trap door to get them out of Austin.
  4. Gerry Hamilton gushes about Cooper on this video about his commitment:
  5. Two of them. Asking back to back. The one I felt really bad for was Anthony Hill. So many Arch Manning questions. So many. Spiced up with a Colin Simmons question. You'd never know how good he is based on the questions he was asked at media day. Crazy.
  6. Of all the positions in football, I feel like running backs should max their value while they can. In that vein I'm a little sympathetic to Cooper trying to max his value. OTOH, I'll say that outside of WR, I feel like running back is the position where a true freshman can come in and make the biggest impact. I know it's a little different in Sarkisian's offense because of pass pro and how involved the running backs are in the passing game as targets - but when you have a special player you figure out a way to get them on the field where they can make an impact. I just feel like if he's truly playing games at this point, he's a likely flip target, and for all we know as the season goes on, other targets will make themselves available. Or we'll be on a special back in next year's class. As a fan that wants my dopamine hit I hope we get him, but the more rational side of me is going to be fine however it goes down. I like the room we have right now and I feel like opportunities are going to come up.
  7. You know what they had going for them? They were willing to do all the negotiations in private and then spring it on everyone as a fait accompli. Even kept everything from A&M because they would have gummed up the works until the whole deal was basically done, then strong armed the Aggies into voting for it so it would be a unanimous vote. The Big Ten wanted a public discourse about the possibility of allowing Oklahoma and Texas into the conference, which would have given the state legislature every opportunity to torpedo it - because you know they would have. We were blessed to have Eltife - or as I like to call him, Eljefe - because he was intimately aware of how elements of the legislature would react, and navigated it perfectly. We got everything done in an off year where only the governor could call a special conference, and of course Abbott was a friend to the cause and would do no such thing. The irony is that Big Ten's insistence on having an open dialogue because it wouldn't be right to make the decisions in secret, ended up with Oklahoma and Texas going straight into the arms of the SEC - which may have happened anyway, but they made sure they weren't an option. Then when the USC/UCLA deal happened, Fox made sure it was a done deal - in secret - before the California legislature could get involved. They still did, with the Board of Regents punishing UCLA a bit for asking for forgiveness rather than permission, but the deal still got done. I'm not sure that USC/UCLA deal gets done the way it did without the shock of OU/Texas doing the deal they did with the SEC. Fox made it clear it was unacceptable for USC/UCLA to go to the SEC as well, and they made sure the deal with Big Ten, with all its warts, got signed and delivered. In any case, I hate being in the SEC because of our compatriots, but not being in the conference meant we would have fallen behind in the new world order. Basically, I hate the collective fandoms, but their single minded passion regarding college football means the SEC has a dominance regarding the future of college football the other conferences outside the Big Ten would never have. We needed to get into either the SEC or the Big Ten to maintain our relevance. The timing was crucial. As much as I hate the SEC, I am grateful we're a part of it. Who knows what the future is going to bring? Without protection from federal legislation there's going to be more and more pressure for the Big Ten and SEC to do some kind of football merger, inviting whichever programs they want to be part of the whole thing. I'm not saying it's imminent, but it's inevitable. Without being able to control payroll - and it's going to be impossible to control payroll with the current dynamics in play - there will be constant pressure to raise revenue, and to split the revenue with fewer entities. This is market systems 101. Texas would have always had a seat at the table, but the membership in the SEC means we have more say over the process than we ever would have in the Big 12. The Big 12 was compromised anyway because outside of Texas and OU it was a conference of poors - some of the programs are REALLY poor - and their agendas would have never meshed with UT. Because of the television deal, every program in the SEC has at least some funds to work with, especially when compared to the Big 12, so there's at least a little bit of a unified front, even if none of them have the overall resources Texas does. I will say I do believe federal protection is going to come some day. I just don't know when that will be or what kind of messed up form it will take. Because you know it's going to be messed up in some way. It always is.
  8. It sounds like an amazing experience. That's such a great age, too. If you can afford it I'd grab the tickets now, that way it's done and you don't have to think about it. Then try not to look at ticket prices after that. They're going to go up. Sure, they may come down at some point, but you're taking risks and you've got a 12 year old and a 14 year old to think about. What I'd recommend is think about it as an investment. Being able to tell your kids they're going for sure, and to get hyped about it, is a gift in and of itself. I have great memories of going to football games with my Dad at that age. I wouldn't trade them for anything, and very few were close to as big time as heading to the Horseshoe for the opening game with a team as loaded as this one. But I also often say the easiest thing in the world is to spend someone else's money. If you're trying to cut costs because you're going to have to cut back on meals for a while, or your kids are going to be wearing shoes with holes in them for a year until you can save up the money to replace them, for goodness sakes don't do it. But if a part of you is mostly not wanting to be taken advantage of when lower price tickets could still be available, go ahead and pull the trigger. Let your kids get amped up.
  9. I mean, they're still there. I'm sure we'll play them again at some point. But in the context of your post, they sure got under the Aggie's skin. There was a time before premium seating meant visitor allotments were reduced and bands were put in the worst seats, the opposing team always brought their band to away games. Especially in state opponents. The way the Rice band would tweak the Aggies at Kyle Field was something else. Of course, they'd do the same to us, but we always thought it was a riot. It wasn't the band, but a couple of years ago I went to a volleyball game at Tudor Fieldhouse when Texas came to play for a preseason exhibition game, and the Rice student body (plus their smaller band that plays at the Fieldhouse) came out in force. At one point they all started chanting "safe-ty schoo-ool" over and over again, and you just had to laugh. I love Rice.
  10. I am extraordinarily grateful for the current state of Texas athletics. 1984 to 1997 I wasn't sure if Texas as an institution was going to even care that much about football any more. Then Hicks and Evans got involved at the board of regents level, helped bring Mack Brown on, and I've never had to question the commitment to football since. But even then I didn't really like Dodds or Brown, although I enjoyed our successes under them. That doesn't matter. I don't have to like the people in charge as long as we're winning. But the last two years have been ideal. On just about every level. I love our board of regents chair. I love our athletic director. Our coach feels like the right guy for the job. He's someone I'd love to sit down and have a beer with, and neither one of us drink. We're highly successful. We appear to have a plan on nearly every level. I have a huge amount of admiration for the people who took the initiative to put an NIL structure in place from the grass roots. I contributed jack squat to speak of to that effort but as a fan I've been able to reap the rewards. We need to win a title, but I feel confident that's coming. In the meantime, I have basked in our off season relevancy. We practically owned the SEC media day coverage. Even when we weren't' being talked about, it's like the people involved were going out of their way not to talk about Texas and Arch Manning because they were so sick of it. As far as Derrick Cooper, it's the Miami fans that have been fun to watch. They're acting like they're being walked to the guillotine. Hopefully the good guys come out on top today and I get to enjoy the regional fan bases go out of their minds again at another Texas recruiting victory.
  11. The hilarious thing to me is at the time I thought Tech was reaching when they forced him out. Did they really think they were going to do better? He was a good coach for them. Then they hired Mike Leach and he led them to the best years of their existence. It wouldn't be a stretch to say that Mike Leach helped contribute to their current financial security when it comes to NIL, since he recruited and played both of the partners in Double Eagle. And Kingsbury is a direct lineage from Leach, who recruited and played Mahomes. And I thought they made a mistake. Lol. They did make a huge mistake in the way they handled the whole James situation, but that was just Texas Tech being Texas Tech. It's like the frog asking the scorpion not to sting it as he carries it across the river. They're going to do Texas Tech things.
  12. You probably think Bill Snyder is very mid, too. 27 years with only two conference championships. No national titles. Compare what coaches did before and after Leach at Texas Tech, Washington State, and Mississippi State. I find your measurements for success in sports across the board on every sport you choose to opine about to be unreasonably excessive. It makes me wonder if the people around you measure your successes and failures similarly, and let you know about it on a daily basis.
  13. BOW has an interesting view on life, that's for sure. I'd love to see his resume, littered with nothing but success, to have such a high bar for others.
  14. Well, he hired Mike Leach, who attended BYU while Edwards was coaching there. Leach was recruited to play football, but an injury apparently kept him from playing. Allegedly he would sit in on film sessions as a student with the coaching staff. After graduating in 1983 he eventually got his law degree from Pepperdine in 1986, became an assistant football coach in 1987 at Cal Poly, then took a job as the head coach of a team in Finland. That's when Hal Mumme plucked him to be his assistant at Iowa Weslayan University. I'm sure through his connection to Lavell Edwards. Hal Mumme was doing things radically different. He was purposefully trying to break football. Specifically how the game approached offense, and he needed people on his staff who weren't afraid of that. Which Mike Leach fit to a T. They left for Valdosta State then paired up at Kentucky. When Bob Stoops took the job at OU he hired Mike Leach to run his offense without really knowing the guy. He just knew the offenses at Kentucky were the ones that gave him the most trouble as the defensive coordinator at Florida, so that's the guy he wanted to run his offense. Honestly, it was kind of similar to what Sarkisian did with Pete Kwiatkowski.
  15. Hal Mumme should get a lot of the credit there. Not that Mike Leach wasn't a bit of a mad scientist, because he was, but Mumme is the one who came up with something radically different.
  16. Forget fade routes. I like deep pitches to the running back running to the pylon against very fast defenses. THAT is a recipe for red zone success!
  17. That said, there are few schools in compliance from a scholarship perspective. Some, like Oklahoma State, are far off the numbers. The only enforcement mechanism for Title IX is the court system. There's no regulatory body - state, federal, or a third party like the NCAA or conferences - enforcing the federal law when it comes to scholarship opportunities. And while Title IX isn't about compensation, there are still lawyers who are filing suits that say schools administering NIL to athletes directly should be complying with Title IX statutes. Whether I agree with that stance or not, the lawsuits are being filed. It's not necessarily about the merits of each case. It's about how much of a threat it can be to the NCAA so they're forced to settle rather than risk a judgement in court.
  18. Yes. The $20.5 million is supposed to be for the entire athletic department. For example, it's been said the Big East will have a competitive advantage in basketball because many of their programs do not field football teams, so they can theoretically use more of the $20.5 million to fund their basketball roster. There are a metric fuck ton of lawsuits being filed against the NCAA. Think about how much the behavior is being incentivized. As has been posted above, the House settlement attorneys are set to pocket $750 million. That's without having to actually go to trial. It's sharks circling chum in the water. The NCAA has shown they no longer have any appetite to go to court on just about anything resembling player compensation, because they know they will lose. So it's just a series of settlements that governs collegiate sports right now. Currently the three biggest litigation avenues are student employment classifications (some of these NIL contracts sure sound like employment contracts to me as a non lawyer), Title IX, and any kind of limitation to NIL compensation. Basically, the whole point of the settlement for the NCAA and its members in the first place. The NCAA and the member schools are hoping for legislative relief from Congress and/or the POTUS. Everyone understands the House settlement provides about as much cover for college athletics and is just as workable as using an umbrella made out of tissue paper. The real point of the House settlement is to take it to Congress and use it as an example that they're trying to create some kind of sense out of the chaos, but they need help.
  19. A couple of years ago I had some regular interactions with a fairly fanatic Georgia fan who was questioning whether Texas had what it took to be competitive in the SEC. This was after Sarkisian's second season so it was a legitimate question if someone didn't know anything other than what they watch on television. I explained programs have to have the right coach, and Texas had been through a dry spell with late Mack, then Strong, then Herman, and the jury was still out on Sarkisian. But if he didn't work out we'd fire him and go after our next candidate until we found the right guy. But in terms of institutional commitment there's no issues right now, so it's simply a matter of time before we find the right guy and when we do he ain't leaving to go anywhere else. And maybe Sarkisian is that guy. Jury is still out (I should be clear I'm talking about two years ago). And then I turned on him and told him I found it rich that as a long time Georgia fan he's acting like it's always been the way it is right now with Kirby Smart. They've gone through a series of coaches since Vince Dooley who were nothing to get excited about, and frankly Dooley wasn't all that special. Good, not legendary or anything. Mack Brown was a way better coach than Dooley. Kirby Smart is by far the best coach they've ever had. But suddenly they're acting like they're entitled to their success because they're Jawja. They're making fun of Miami who was nothing before Schnellenberger, but the Hurricanes were demigods on the gridiron for 20 years, through 4 different head coaches - Schnellenberger, Johnson, Erickson, and Davis, before Coker inherited a stacked team until he had time to run the program into the ground. Georgia has never had a run like that. Yet another SEC program that's allowed Alabama to carry their water and then ride on the Crimson Tide coattails, but act like they somehow can claim partial ownership. Just some more "SEC! SEC!" troglodytes as far as I'm concerned. It's too bad I don't interact with that group any more. Of course, he'd still crow about the head to head victories from 2024, but I feel like Georgia fans better cling on to those wins from last year as closely as possible, because IMO there's a new sheriff in town.
  20. If Barry Switzer wore that tie I'd hope he'd use it later that day to commit auto asphyxiation. It is a good deed, though. Apparently a couple of the victims were from my church, although I didn't know them. The church held a series of memorials over the past week. No one can remember the church being that packed. Thousands came to each service, and while it's a good size church, we're not equipped to handle the numbers that came to each memorial service. In certain parts of the Christian community in this state - which Taafe is openly a part of - this event has seemed to hit in a very personal way. I don't blame him for wearing the tie. I think it's a nice way to recognize the tragedy and keep things in perspective even in the midst of SEC media days. The Aggies are complete goobers.
  21. This is the one I wanted the most. Ever since we got Brian Robison as a somewhat underrated defensive lineman I've been enamored with significant shotput distances as an indication of explosiveness. Not exactly a brilliant insight. Robison also had a stupid vertical jump which he used to great effect on blocking field goals and extra point attempts. Robison also wasn't James Johnson's size. Still, once I saw those shotput numbers - plus everything else mind you - I really hoped we could somehow add him as part of the class. I love love love this commitment.
  22. The plus in LGBTQIA+ is for cat lovers.
  23. Using that .gif with Oregon involved in the recruiting is like posting a video to Jump Around with Wisconsin as the competition. Cheeky.
  24. Don't forget he loves Galveston. LOVES IT!
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