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SL Xpress

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Everything posted by SL Xpress

  1. No one should have to apologize for beating a dead horse on this thread regardless. There's a Great Western Plains filled with pulpy equine carcasses on here.
  2. I couldn't disagree more strongly. Charlie Strong was a shit hire at the time. The idea he was the most qualified head coach out there willing to take the job is laughable. Tom Herman was a flavor of the month who successfully parlayed interest from LSU into creating a feeding frenzy for his services with an interim athletic director and a short term president about to head off to a school that focuses more on academics pulling the trigger. I'm not saying I'm a huge Brian Kelly or Lincoln Riley fan, but that's the type of hire I'm talking about. Mack Brown was that type of hire. Fred Akers, David McWilliams, John Mackovic, Charlie Strong, Tom Herman, and Steve Sarkisian are not that kind of hire. Other institutions can go out and hire top innovative assistants and HCs from outside D1. I want us hiring the Augie Garridos of the world whenever possible. Make it a slam dunk. Chris Beard was that kind of hire. Let's go out and try for the same kind of caliber of candidate. That's the hope, anyway. Whoever it is has big shoes to fill for such a short period as head coach. For me Beard had it all. But there are other really good coaches out there. Hopefully we get one of them. I have ZERO desire to see a coach get the job who has no head coaching experience. This isn't a training ground. This athletic department should be the apex predator. The big fish eating the smaller fishes. Let them cut their teeth somewhere else and then we'll hire them.
  3. There's still a lot of room between 0 and $50 million. Even if the buyout ends up being closer to the zero number, like @immamac already stated, I foresee this easily getting into the 10 figure range just to make it go away.
  4. I didn't understand any of those takes. The university system isn't exactly analogous to a company with a board of directors anyway. It's a public institution funded by taxpayers with a huge responsibility to the general public at large. The Board of Regents is at the top of the hierarchal pyramid, and the one appointed to keep the public interest as a central part of their decision making. If any one of the athletic director, president, or chairman of the BoR go rogue, with no level of collaboration or alignment sought out before making an important decision, they're simply not going to be able to last. And it's not like the buck necessarily stops with Eltife, either. I'm sure he was in consultation with fellow BoR members and the governor as well. None of these guys is Frank Erwin. I'm not sure someone with that kind of influence will ever be possible at Texas again. People also keep talking about how Texas can fire with cause, and use sovereign immunity to get out of any subsequent lawsuit. I guess that's technically feasible, but that's never been the Texas way. The one time they tried to fire with cause and fight the subsequent lawsuit was with Bev Kearney, and I absolutely know for certain everyone involved with that decision wishes they'd just negotiated a settlement from the get go. That was a different deal because she brought forward a discriminatory lawsuit that bypassed sovereign immunity, but it was also a crystal clear decision after all parties admitted she'd slept with one of her athletes. Notice she's never been hired since, which will be different than what will happen with Beard. Texas is going to want this to go away as quietly and quickly as possible, as much as is possible with FOIA. That's going to entail a large amount of money passing hands. Which is going to intimately involve the BoR.
  5. Who knows? That was the other rumored candidate. A lot of former players were backing him. He got an interview. I love Ivey. I used to post all the time that he'd make a great coaching candidate in the future, and hoped he might come back to UT some day. But that was assuming he'd make it as a head coach somewhere. I'm just not a fan of hiring an unproven assistant in any sport at Texas. For me, it's not the UT way. Hire the best proven commodity out there who is interested in the job. Pay them what it takes to get them on board. That's the only thing that has ever made sense to me.
  6. I would argue that Penders and Barnes back to back were good hires. But it depends on how we're measuring it. Those aren't Gustafson/Garrido/Pierce levels for sure. In terms of hiring best candidates available and them doing a good job with the program, I think both hires were good, though. The truth is the athletic department went through a bad time for a while, but now the hirings have been really good across the board. Since people almost never leave Texas for another job, there hasn't been the need to make back to back good hires. The initial good hire hasn't departed. But we're looking for at least having one of the top 10 coaches in the country. By definition that means there aren't many candidates who will fit that paradigm. Beard did. A lot of the others - like, say, Bill Self or Mark Few - aren't going anywhere. If you take away the ones that won't be leaving their current situation, the percentages of getting it right at the level we'd all want to see goes down precipitously. KU has nailed their last 3 hires, but they're about the only ones, unless Davis or Scheyer end up being home runs, which the jury is still out on. I hope it's a home run. If it's not, then they'll be fired some time down the road and UT will go through the motions again. The nice thing is the things that make UT an attractive job aren't going anywhere. The bad thing is we had the answer, and now we don't.
  7. I don't understand. You were asking me why I'm so angry. Is it supposed to be entirely rational? Being a fan and making an emotional investment into something that none of us have any real control over is completely irrational. I don't care whether it's extreme or not. This is all entertainment at the end of the day, and I enjoy being petty about our previous coaches. If Beard goes on to coach another team for whatever reason I will always hope he fails miserably, even if I don't believe he will. The idea I'd have to defend that perspective to you is idiotic. I don't care whether you find that extreme or not. That's always been my behavior. That will be my behavior here. Deloss Dodds survived the hiring of David McWilliams, John Mackovic, Bob Wetlich, and Tom Penders just fine. All before either Barnes or Brown were hired (16 YEARS into his tenure!). He did it because the athletic director is measured based on revenue generation and overall athletic performance and funding. No one is going to measure CDC on Sarkisian because he wisely sought cover under Hartzell and especially Eltife. You're creating a measurement for him out of thin cloth that has never existed for the athletic director in UT's history. And if you're concerned about Sark, go get concerned about Sark on the football board. Sarkisian's performance doesn't have anything to do with Beard. Or vice versa. If Texas went on to win a national championship in men's basketball and still fielded 8-5 teams in football there will still be plenty of pissed off people around. Especially if we're watching fucking TCU compete for national championships at the same time. I'd be one of them. I also don't give two shits about your daughters' level of athletic ability. I mean, congrats to them and to a lesser degree you. But unless they're going to be difference makers at Texas - which is extremely difficult to do, especially volleyball where Texas only brings in the best of the best - then I have no idea how that's germane to anything. Good for you and them. I wouldn't worry too much about Texas becoming Stanford. Texas recruits to the minimum NCAA academic standard. Stanford does not. Stanford won't accept a commitment until the student passes the academic admission process, which isn't until the end of their senior year. Scholarship athletes at Texas are practically guaranteed admission at this point - again, assuming they pass the NCAA minimum, which lo and behold, they almost always do. Texas has athlete friendly majors. Stanford does not. Texas can get in almost any transfer they want (unless they've taken a bunch of criminology/criminal justice classes). Stanford only accepts about 60 transfers per year period in their entire student body. Football just this past year is now able to bring in 4 transfer players per year assuming they qualify academically, but that's a huge breakthrough that's not available for any other sport (I'm assuming maybe due to Dennis Green's exit interview, but don't know about that). Texas already makes all kinds of compromises to field successful teams in football and men's basketball, both above board and under the table. If they don't keep a coach arrested for felonious assault then I guess that's a line they're not willing to cross just yet. But I'd love for someone to point out for me a major college that has. Some of you are acting as if this is some kind of indication of a purity in the UT athletic department that simply isn't there and hasn't been for some time. At the end of the day people can take whatever side they want. I do know if Chris Beard is fired he has only himself to blame. There are a thousand ways that evening doesn't end with him in a local jail cell. And yet, that's where he was. If people want to rationalize about why Texas should keep him, I say go right ahead. I don't know what happened that night. If he didn't physically assault/choke his fiancee, he didn't actually bite her, maybe he tried to push her away and yelled at her aggressively, then sure, he's getting a bit of a raw deal. But unless there were hidden nanny cams with footage that's going to come out completely exonerating him, and the marks on the fiancee that were allegedly present at the time of the arrest turn out to be completely fictitious, then I don't understand how we come to that conclusion. But this idea that suddenly Texas is indicating they don't want to win in the SEC is hilarious. There's plenty of dirty pool being played at Texas. It's been going on for quite some time. ESPECIALLY in basketball, where it hasn't been possible to be consistently competitive without making under the table payments for 30 years or so. And now with NIL here a lot more is perfectly legitimized. The problem with winning is the same it has always been. You have to have the right coach. We had the right coach in basketball and now he's fucked it up. Maybe they hire another "right" coach the next time. But if CDC keeps the money pouring in, evidence suggests he's going to be just fine regardless of how many coaches come through under his watch in football and men's basketball.
  8. Bingo. I vacillate between the different stages of grief. Thank God for volleyball, which I've also followed closely for several years. This past season was a godsend for me. A true fantasy type season. But it doesn't make up for the nuclear bomb leveled on my basketball dreams. It's been devastating.
  9. They all matter to me. If Texas is going to field a team in a sport I want them to have the goal of competing for national championships. I've always felt that way. We're closer to that now than at any point in my lifetime. They didn't fuck up the basketball hire with someone who was going to produce an "above median performance." The elite level coach fucked up by getting arrested for felonious assault on his significant other. That's not a failure of the hiring process. Why am I angry? A guy I felt like was the answer to a 40 year wish has now fucked things up - in frankly what looks like an irreparable way for him. Now I get to watch him go off and be tremendously successful somewhere else, which will feel like a kick in the balls. The guy in charge right now is someone who I have despised as a coach (just a coach, not as an administrator or recruiter) for 20+ years. The hiring process will be a roulette wheel regardless. But to act as if the hiring process has brought in mediocre coach after mediocre coach across the athletic department is a sack of shit, lazy accusation to make. Simply say they've hired mediocre football coaches, and haven't brought in an elite soccer coach, because that's the only accurate criticism that can be made at this point. There's no guarantee the next coach will be a failure or a success. I can only hope they hire the best candidate possible and they do a great job. They won't necessarily be Beard, but they don't have to be. It's possible to follow up a hire with another good hire. Happens all the time. It's also possible to hire someone who doesn't do well at all, in which case we'll have to start over again at some point. The whole thing fucking sucks, but this is how the world works.
  10. Well, it looks like we're about to find out. I hope so. I really have less than zero interest in watching Terry flail away. But given how the team is falling apart already under his watch, it doesn't look like I have that much to be concerned about. Could be a bunch of coaches getting really big raises to prevent them leaving. I hated the baseball hiring process that led to David Pierce, even if it seems to have worked out in the end. I like it when CDC is able to identify his target and then goes out and acquires them. There simply aren't many coaches on the same kind of resume level Beard was when he was hired. And none of them are alumni. I don't think any of them are all that reasonable as targets even with a virtually unlimited budget, which the basketball job will not have. But $5m a year is still a really big amount. I'm at least hopeful. We'll see how it goes. Mostly I wish all of this didn't happen. But it did, and now here we are.
  11. Who the fuck are you? "...hoping they bring us above median performance." Football, men's basketball are the only sports producing "above median performance." I'd argue soccer, too, but they had a decent year this year in part thanks to the Big 12 being so woeful in the sport. EVERY OTHER SPORT is performing at an elite level. Get the fuck out of here with your "hoping they bring us above median performance." They're fucking up with the football hires, but in every other sport they're killing it with their hires. Seriously killing it. Fuck off.
  12. Not lamenting his possible firing. I wish ill on every coach who leaves Texas for any reason whatsoever. I'm petty like that. Nothing against @shadow_operative and his love and appreciation for Rick Barnes, because I have a ton of respect for Derka, but I'm glad Barnes has continued his post season woes at Tennessee. Fred Akers, John Mackovic, Charlie Strong, Tom Penders, Bob Wetlich, Shaka Smart, Karen Alston, Mick Haley, Jim Moore, Mack Brown, on and on. I didn't root against Abe Lemons that much because he wasn't at a competitive program. Some other coaches I didn't list were never head coaches again. Some are in sports I'm not going to give a lot of thought to. It's not meant to be comprehensive. Just an indication that it's all encompassing and includes all sports. I hope they all fail. But it's going to suck watching him succeed somewhere else, which he's going to at a spectacular level. That's not the same as saying he should remain the head coach at Texas. Like I've said previously, if he choked a bitch or otherwise was physical with her he has to go. Period. Even without conclusive evidence one way or another, I can't think of a head coach at a major university who kept their job after appearing in a jailor outfit in front of a judge for a felony assault arrest. I don't even know how long that list is off the top of my head, other than Mickey Joseph at Nebraska, which is not the same thing at all. I'm just being realistic. If/when he's fired, he's eventually going to be coaching at another major college program, and he's going to do really really well, and it's going to suck a big one for me. Like I've told people pretty much all my life. You're never over your past relationship until you're in your next one. Terry ain't it. I've never liked the guy as a coach. Never. Even when he was an assistant under Barnes I wasn't a fan of the guy (except for his loyalty, which was exceptional). If they managed to keep him my interest in Texas basketball would fade into a minimal life support level until he's gone. I have no idea who they'd hire, but I hope he's really really good. It's going to be a problematic hire, without a doubt.
  13. Well, there's a shitty head coach in charge. The worst thing that could happen to this program is for this team to achieve enough success that the administration chooses to give Terry the head coaching job. That man is not a leader. He's not a good Xs and Os guy. His best quality is having a sense of loyalty, and some minor - MINOR - recruiting skills. He's always been a decent recruiter. My guess remains that Texas will be playing hiring roulette at the end of the year. They won't find a better fit than pre felony assault Chris Beard, but maybe they can make a kick ass hire nonetheless.
  14. Our freshman setter, Ella Swindle, and our highly rated incoming freshman middle blocker, Nya Bunton, will be playing in the Under Armor volleyball all star match today at 3pm central on ESPNU.
  15. I'm not sure if this thread could get any less informative while we all wait for something else substantive to come from the lawyers or the district attorney's office, but degrading into a conversation about right wing/left wing responses if he's cleared (it's not certain that's going to occur) and comparing his situation to reactions regarding Andrew Tate is a good way to do it.
  16. Very close. It happened twice. People forget about the Orange Revolution from November 2004 to January 2005. Basically protests forced a revote, which Yanukovych lost after winning what was considered a rigged vote earlier. Honestly, if Yanukovych had been willing to be even more brutal than he was and go all Assad during the Maidan Revolution, maybe he's still in power. Although at this point I'll never count out the Ukrainians. I'm not sure there's a braver people anywhere in the world. I wish we were doing even more than we are for them.
  17. With some fairness. I have no idea if you're interested in the truth of it. Sometimes it's nice to just say, "Those stupid Russians and their stupid propaganda." Because frankly the Russians are pure evil, and so explaining the thought process makes me feel like I'm empowering it in some way, which is not my intention. The point of any explanation I give is to describe why it's effective, and why it continues to be propagated, even as absurd as it is. Quickly, for the west Nazism means HItler's Third Reich, the takeover of Europe, the Holocaust, the Battle of Britain, U-boats and the Battle for the Atlantic, D-Day, and the eventual liberation of Europe. For Russia it's about the German betrayal, their invasion of Russia with Operation Barbarossa, the massacre of the Russian people, the raping of their women, the steadfastness of the Russian defense, and the eventual brave repelling of the invaders, although as the Germans left they made sure to destroy and kill as much as they were able leaving the country as well. Estimates vary, but a decent figure to use is 20 million Russian civilian deaths, and over 100,000 towns and villages completely destroyed. As part of this narrative, a strong element is the story of Stepan Bandera and his Banderistas. They were part of western Ukraine who pined for an independent state. To this end they collaborated with the Nazis, and are accused of committing atrocities against Russians and Russian leaning citizens. Stepan Bandera is a part of every Russian's education growing up. So when Russians refer to deNazification, they are talking about the elimination of the radical Banderistas. The Azov Regiment was formed in 2014 as a volunteer group sent to fight the separatists in the Donbas region because the military was inept and ineffective, partially out of neglect during Yanukovych's presidency (he purposefully gutted the military and strengthened the secret services as a Putin stooge who was trying to become president for life), and partially out of an unclear chain of command and a lack of a popular mandate among the leadership following Yanukovych's swift escape from the country. It is indisputable that the Azov Regiment was composed almost entirely of Banderistas who saw themselves carrying out his legacy to ensure an independent Ukraine, and they made no apologies for that. Their successes in combatting the separatists at a time when the official military was weak and ineffective made them national heros to a degree. That's not a completely fair description, and I should make it clear I am much more sympathetic to the western oriented Ukrainians regardless of whether they consider Bandera a hero or not, or whether that specific mythmaking is healthy or destructive. However, that's enough to at least instruct someone as to why the Russians use the language they use, and why it's eaten up domestically, even if it makes no sense whatsoever from a western perspective. But Azov regiment members dancing with Israelis won't do anything to counter the narrative of Nazis to a Russian audience. It doesn't evoke the same imagery it does in the west.
  18. I don't want him to stay if he choked a bitch. And I loved the guy. How do I determine whether that really happened or not? I have no idea. So then as a rabid fan I either get him as the head coach, not knowing whether he choked or physically abused his fiancee in a meaningful way, or he gets fired, possibly not having done those things, and the program moves on. Beyond that, the team either does really well for the rest of the year, and we get Rodney Terry as the head coach for the next 5 years until he's fired for incompetence - which is what will happen - or we play hiring roulette at the end of the year with a very small chance of hiring someone who is a better fit for this job than pre felony assault arrest Chris Beard. Honestly it's just a joyous time all the way around. And of course, at the end of the day I'm just a fan. There are a lot of people materially affected by all of this in ways much more fundamentally than I am. But that doesn't mean I'm not affected at all. It all sucks. And frankly, regardless of his role in this, I'm pissed at Beard for it, because it is ultimately his fault regardless of what he did or didn't do that evening.
  19. I think this is an embedded Ukrainian reporter. I've seen other clips with him. Anyway, he has a message for the Russians trying to take Bakhmut, and the dogs that eat them after they die:
  20. Here's a great report from Vice News from Bakhmut. It covers a mortar team, the firefighters still there, some of the injured, but most of the story focuses on Sonya, a nine year old who is the only child still remaining there. Frankly, I think her parents are whackos for still being there, but it's still a touching segment:
  21. There were only two programs in the entire Sweet Sixteen that didn’t have a transfer on the team...Stanford and Ohio State. In fairness, there are a lot of folks who hate the game. Meh. I enjoy the whining. Goodness knows it’s not new to Texas. I’m glad we have a coach in Elliott who readily embraced the new dynamics, and did it better than anyone else in the country. After getting Barnes and Wenaas already, there’s a rumor another pretty big name transfer is onboard. That came out yesterday from a decent poster named aggielonghorn who doesn’t post a huge amount. Nothing has come out publicly so far, but Wenaas said she committed to Texas 10 days before she made any kind of announcement, so we’ll see.
  22. It's a German newspaper interviewing a UK based historian, so we should probably take the content in that context. I was always convinced Putin was going to invade, and was flabbergasted that so many people convinced themselves it wouldn't happen. The guy has publicly outlined his thoughts on Ukraine, his belief in Russian mythology, and his personal historic role in this place and time for its future legacy. I also don't believe whatsoever that Putin will ever let go of his dream to take Ukraine, at least all lands/cities along the coast, including Odesa, and lands/cities east of the Dnieper River. Any peace negotiations are a false front towards that end. I also don't think any of that is realistic, but realism hasn't played much of a role in this war from the Russian side. Maybe the reports of him suffering from pancreatic cancer are true. That will make him more desperate in certain ways, and his death will create a power vacuum that will bring about its own uncertainty. But there's not going to be a possibility of a real change in objectives until there's some kind of regime change, even if that change ends up being for the worst in some ways.
  23. If Ukraine is able to maintain any momentum in an offensive whatsoever, I think the Russian military in the area will crumble. These men are not in a frame of mind to fight to the death. Having bodies matters, but it matters a whole lot more if they're gladly willing to give up their lives. It made the Japanese extremely difficult to extricate in the Pacific, and it's how Iran won the war against Iraq. Frankly, it made a huge difference when the Soviet Union fought the Germans. But here they'll surrender as fast as they can or run away en masse. As long as the line holds things could be okay, but as soon as they soldiers perceive they're surrounded, or there's no hope, they'll fold. And I doubt communications will be all that robust, so things could break down based on perception even when the defense lines are actually still in decent shape.
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