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Posted
29 minutes ago, statsman said:

Ok, I recognized Spike Dykes. Is it bad that I don’t know who any of those other guys are in Iceman’s pictures?

 

Lots of players from the 90's and 2000's.  Just jogging people's memories before kickoff week.

31 up there, Y'all should know him.  Jonathon Gray's daddy, no like for real bio dad, James Gray.  He was a great RB in his own right.

Posted (edited)
57 minutes ago, Iceman said:

The money has everything to do with it.  Same as it does in Austin, Athens, or Columbus.  Let's stop playing like the actual campus experience has a fucking thing to do with the other, because it doesn't.

Wanna know why UT fan is disliked?  Because some ( a shit ton) operate from the notion that they don't have to pay anyone.  Players just come there because it's so fucking perfect.  Only place in the world...even in the 70's...and it's a gotdam lie.


 

Why don't you read and understand the quote posted above from the $$ behind Tech recruiting.  He flat out acknowledges Tech has to play 25% + over "market" to get people to sign with them.  Because it's fucking Lubbock.  And it's fucking Tech.   Both complete shitholes

Edited by Skipper
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Posted
53 minutes ago, Iceman said:

spike-dykes-544x306.jpg

 

38 minutes ago, statsman said:

Ok, I recognized Spike Dykes. Is it bad that I don’t know who any of those other guys are in Iceman’s pictures?

You don't recognize Kevin Hart and Will Ferrell?

32 minutes ago, South Austin said:

I didn't know Will Ferrell was on Sonny Dykes' staff.

Fuck you stole my joke.

Posted
3 minutes ago, Skipper said:

Why don't you read and understand the quote posted above from the $$ behind Tech recruiting.  He flat out acknowledges Tech has to play 25% + over "market" to get people to sign with them.  Because it's fucking Lubbock.  And it's fucking Tech.   Both complete shitholes

I forgot to address the part about "UT fans being disliked", mainly bc most of us don't give a fuck if we're disliked by students and alums from lesser programs. I'm certainly not going to spend time on Viva the Matadors or Double T message boards pumping up Texas athletics' accomplishments. I'd have to eat even more shit than @Iceman does here.

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Posted
17 minutes ago, DFW Horn said:

I forgot to address the part about "UT fans being disliked", mainly bc most of us don't give a fuck if we're disliked by students and alums from lesser programs. I'm certainly not going to spend time on Viva the Matadors or Double T message boards pumping up Texas athletics' accomplishments. I'd have to eat even more shit than @Iceman does here.

The Tech boards suck.  There wouldn't even be anyone to pick on you. :) 

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Posted

I worked for the team in the 90s under Mackovic and before the games we would get a copy of the opposing teams media guide.  The Tech media guide was catchy and had us saying it the rest of the season.  It still stuck with me 30 some odd years later 

6/21/23 Question O' The Day: Bandwagon Wednesday, Greatest Sports Trios  All-Time And More. Always More. – Ryan Hyatt's Raiderland

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Posted (edited)
30 minutes ago, Skipper said:

Why don't you read and understand the quote posted above from the $$ behind Tech recruiting.  He flat out acknowledges Tech has to play 25% + over "market" to get people to sign with them.  Because it's fucking Lubbock.  And it's fucking Tech.   Both complete shitholes

I acknowledged that, if not specifically.  But yeah, Tech players are paid.  Tech is not a bad place to got to school, regardless of what you say.

The premium is because they don't have the program/ other talent/ NFL factory status of other schools.  We don't have the same discussions in basketball circles, do we?  No.

The funny piece in that aspect is how the big dogs keep yelping about said market.  If Tech sucks so bad, then why even acknowledge it?  Your great locale and program will give you a built in discount.

Edited by Iceman
Posted
1 hour ago, Iceman said:

There's even a previous, vacant Best Buy...and a bunch of old Town & Country Convenience stores( Now Stripes.)

As has been said multiple times, y'all keep playing this idiotic "Lubbock is in the stone age" card.  You never lived it.  It's a great fucking place to go to school.

 

None of us were saying that in the posts you’re responding to, you willfully oblivious fucktard. I was mocking the actual obvious, that your fucking coach is claiming that other schools are talking shit about Tech and Lubbock in ways that only that drunk’s low educated audience would believe. 

1 hour ago, Iceman said:

The money has everything to do with it.  Same as it does in Austin, Athens, or Columbus.  Let's stop playing like the actual campus experience has a fucking thing to do with the other, because it doesn't.

Wanna know why UT fan is disliked?  Because some ( a shit ton) operate from the notion that they don't have to pay anyone.  Players just come there because it's so fucking perfect.  Only place in the world...even in the 70's...and it's a gotdam lie.


 

Never mind that I’ve actually been involved in this shit and I know you’re patently incorrect about UT football paying players via the bag game, because I don’t need you to believe me. All anyone needs to do is look at what Texas is doing now versus being forced to watch the cheaters run off with the 5 stars in the OL and DL for over a decade and they’ll know “oh, yeah, Texas must have recently started paying players.” 

It’s pretty obvious and well known that Texas was sitting on its hands while the SEC and Ohio State raided the state once ATM opened the gates. I don’t really expect you to get that, slorch, because you’re equal parts blindly biased and room temperature IQ, but most folks will. 

1 hour ago, statsman said:

Ok, I recognized Spike Dykes. Is it bad that I don’t know who any of those other guys are in Iceman’s pictures?

I’ll have to take your word for it on Lubbock. Confession- I had my SATs sent to TT. I was going to be the first in my family to go to college and I wanted to study engineering. We had been living in Fort Benning, Georgia when Dad retired from the army and moved to Texas. I knew that in Georgia, if you wanted to study engineering, you went to Georgia Tech, so in Texas…

 I figured it out when TT sent me an informational booklet that, I kid you not, had the pages and cover actually cut in the shape of a cowboy boot!

There is a lot of truth to the saying, “Get your grades up or get your guns up!”

My oldest daughter, against my input, applied to Tech in the beginning of her application process. She had great grades and scores but was a worrier. I am not making this up - she got an acceptance response from Tech in less than 7 days from sending the app in. I assume anyone in the top 50% of their high school class that attends there must feel like a fucking genius from day one as they walk around and see morons bumping their heads against building walls as they wear their underwear on the outside of their shorts. 

42 minutes ago, DFW Horn said:

As a realist, I'm sure UT was involved in the bag game at some level over the years. We just didn't have to pay out nearly as much as other, less desirable places. Based on photos and what I've heard, I'm sure Tech's campus is no longer a deal-breaker for y'all.

Just win, baby!

Don’t equivocate about the bag game and Texas. If Texas was participating, the hue and cry coming from the cheaters would be as loud as it is now about mean ol’Texas. 

Now, UT basketball? … sure. 

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Posted
6 minutes ago, Skipper said:

Why don't you read and understand the quote posted above from the $$ behind Tech recruiting.  He flat out acknowledges Tech has to play 25% + over "market" to get people to sign with them.  Because it's fucking Lubbock.  And it's fucking Tech.   Both complete shitholes

Ok but who cares? The answer is: not our donors.

Like, of fucking course we're going to have to pay more to get a top recruit, that's obvious. We don't have the history or brand recognition. That shit takes time and wins. Time is free, but how do you get the wins? You need to get players. How do you get players? You pay them. Everyone pays. If we have to pay a bit more then we'll do it because we have the money. It's a really simple calculus that any GM could make in his sleep, and given how many times much bigger brands have tried to poach Blanchard just in the last couple of years, it seems like he's doing something right.

Do you think it's an accident that Texas seems to be paying the most football NIL out of anyone? That's how Ohio State won a title, and Texas wants to do the same. It seems like a good idea to me.

If you really, actually want to win, you have to do all the things Tech has been doing. Invest in great facilities, pay your players, the only aspect that the jury's still out on is the coach. If he can't produce, we'll pay someone else, and I guarantee you we won't make the same mistakes aggy did. It's like I said earlier, we're very obviously trying to follow the Texas model because it's a good model, and of course there's going to be a lot of catch-up involved. You can't close a gap like that overnight, and hell maybe you can't close it period, but you can definitely get a lot closer.

Either way it'll be fun to watch it all play out.

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Posted
30 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

Ok but who cares? The answer is: not our donors.

Like, of fucking course we're going to have to pay more to get a top recruit, that's obvious. We don't have the history or brand recognition. That shit takes time and wins. Time is free, but how do you get the wins? You need to get players. How do you get players? You pay them. Everyone pays. If we have to pay a bit more then we'll do it because we have the money. It's a really simple calculus that any GM could make in his sleep, and given how many times much bigger brands have tried to poach Blanchard just in the last couple of years, it seems like he's doing something right.

Do you think it's an accident that Texas seems to be paying the most football NIL out of anyone? That's how Ohio State won a title, and Texas wants to do the same. It seems like a good idea to me.

If you really, actually want to win, you have to do all the things Tech has been doing. Invest in great facilities, pay your players, the only aspect that the jury's still out on is the coach. If he can't produce, we'll pay someone else, and I guarantee you we won't make the same mistakes aggy did. It's like I said earlier, we're very obviously trying to follow the Texas model because it's a good model, and of course there's going to be a lot of catch-up involved. You can't close a gap like that overnight, and hell maybe you can't close it period, but you can definitely get a lot closer.

Either way it'll be fun to watch it all play out.

I am sorry, but I’m going to have to say out loud what all of us are thinking- if there is one thing that we know about winning football at Tech, it’s that Texas Tech does not know one goddamned thing about winning football. 
 
If Tech did, then at least once in the last 100 years it would have had a great team. It is remarkable that in a state where small fucked up private schools find their way to major bowl games, Tech hasn’t been to one since a four way tie in ‘94 allowed it to get soanked by a shitty Trojan team. 
 
Rice has a better football history than Tech. 
 
Tech’s floor and ceiling is like that crazy room in “Being John Malkovich”. 
 
But, that’s fine. Carry on with explaining to us how Tech is going about building a winning program. I’m sure y’all have it all figured out. 

Posted
5 minutes ago, statsman said:

I am sorry, but I’m going to have to say out loud what all of us are thinking- if there is one thing that we know about winning football at Tech, it’s that Texas Tech does not know one goddamned thing about winning football. 
 
If Tech did, then at least once in the last 100 years it would have had a great team. It is remarkable that in a state where small fucked up private schools find their way to major bowl games, Tech hasn’t been to one since a four way tie in ‘94 allowed it to get soanked by a shitty Trojan team. 
 
Rice has a better football history than Tech. 
 
Tech’s floor and ceiling is like that crazy room in “Being John Malkovich”. 
 
But, that’s fine. Carry on with explaining to us how Tech is going about building a winning program. I’m sure y’all have it all figured out. 

See, what you're not understanding here is that our positions are not at odds here. What I mean is, you're not wrong at all that Tech has never known shit about having a winning football program, and I don't personally think the Tech AD was ever serious about having a good football team (and I've held that position in my head for literally decades) until very recently.

The proof was in the pudding for a long time. To begin with, our facilities were subpar as hell for a long, long time and nobody seemed to give a shit. Jones Stadium was always pretty loud and rowdy, but in reality it was a total piece of shit with fucking astroturf and crappy seating that would fall apart every game with the students jumping on them and shit and the football facility and practice facilities were total bullshit and high schoolish, straight up. They actually got serious at some point about renovating it and attaching a state-of-the-art football facility to it and now it's actually quite nice. I got to tour the Womble football center and it really is second to none, they spared no expense, it's incredible. It had better be for all the money they spent on it.

Even after all that, the program really was just treading water the same as it did before, with maybe some superficial/marginal improvements in recruiting etc. under McGuire. Cody Campbell, of course, had also revamped the Matador Club, put in place the "base salary" or whatever you want to call it for all players, and all that jazz. But, of course, it wasn't nearly enough.

The real "turning point", I guess you could call it, was when the BMDs got fed up and sat down with the head coach, James Blanchard (GM) and Cody Campbell and were like "seriously, what the fuck do you guys need to compete, if you can present us with a comprehensive plan for the next X years, you'll have all the money and resources you need". From what I understand, all of this was very recent, as in toward the end of last season recent, and the idea is to follow the same model that Ohio State/Texas/etc are following from a recruiting/NIL standpoint. They know it's going to cost a lot of money, and they don't care.

So basically, yeah, you're not wrong. Tech has never been serious about football until now. That's just the plain truth, as you stated. And of course, there's no guarantee it will work out how we want in the long run, I think everyone knows that, Hell, I don't think any Tech fan is sure about McGuire, but the alternative is to just sit back and continue not really trying at all and hoping to eke out upsets here and there like we have done for the past 900 years or whatever, but that seems to have become an untenable position for the money men.

Considering how well we have turned around the basketball program from what it was less than 10 years ago, I have at least a little hope that things will improve on the football front to a point where I can actually get excited about football again, which hasn't been the case for quite some time now. We shall see.

Posted
1 hour ago, Brian Fantana said:

Ok but who cares? The answer is: not our donors.

I was making the point in the context of Slorch's assertion that Tech/Lubbock is some great place.   As someone that grew up in West Texas and has been to Lubbock dozens of times and seen probably 15 games of some sort in that stadium I disagree.   Forget the blue bloods, I think most recruits with a brain on their shoulder would take TCU or SMU all day over Tech if the money was equal.

Posted
2 minutes ago, Skipper said:

I was making the point in the context of Slorch's assertion that Tech/Lubbock is some great place.   As someone that grew up in West Texas and has been to Lubbock dozens of times and seen probably 15 games of some sort in that stadium I disagree.   Forget the blue bloods, I think most recruits with a brain on their shoulder would take TCU or SMU all day over Tech if the money was equal.

I mean that's all fair, but it's perfectly fine for a late teen/early 20s guy. I wouldn't want to live there now, but I had a great time as a college student and so does pretty much everyone else that goes there. Pretending DFW is some kind of massive upgrade for a college student that only cares about playing football and fucking is silly.

Posted

Whatever its shortcomings, Tech is not A&M. If Campbell keeps pouring money into the football program and holds the coaching staff accountable for what they are given, Tech will become a player. They will have few other schools that are likely to match what Tech will spend for the B12's access to the playoffs. Tech, like Texas, was not a big bag-game school. Now that CC is writing checks, they too are in a new era.

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Posted (edited)
13 minutes ago, Skipper said:

Forget the blue bloods, I think most recruits with a brain on their shoulder would take TCU or SMU all day over Tech if the money was equal.

You never attended school there, but you know better than those who did. Mkay. 
 

As far as that last statement, it's debatable. The time since 2009 has generally sucked on that front for Tech football. The NIL era has brought different levels of talent. The coaching? Who the fuck knows at this point? The story is still being written. 

Edited by Iceman
Posted
10 minutes ago, Iceman said:

You never attended school there, but you know better than those who did. Mkay. 
 

As far as that last statement, it's debatable. The time since 2009 has generally sucked on that front for Tech football. The NIL era has brought different levels of talent. The coaching? Who the fuck knows at this point? The story is still being written. 

I didn't go to school there but had plenty of friends that did, went up to hang out during college and during law school + probably every Texas game weekend during my 20's and early 30's.   Maybe it's gotten magically better. I haven't visited in over a decade.  That being said, Lubbock isn't 'uniquely' terrible IMO.  I put it on the same level as Waco and College Station from my personal experiences in each place during those days (and probably a notch above Waco outside of the fact that at least Waco is closer to civilization).

Posted
39 minutes ago, Iceman said:

You never attended school there, but you know better than those who did. Mkay. 
 

As far as that last statement, it's debatable. The time since 2009 has generally sucked on that front for Tech football. The NIL era has brought different levels of talent. The coaching? Who the fuck knows at this point? The story is still being written. 

I think purely on location.  I'd rather be in Fort Worth or Dallas than Lubbock and I don't even hate Lubbock.

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Posted
1 hour ago, Fondren & Main said:

I think purely on location.  I'd rather be in Fort Worth or Dallas than Lubbock and I don't even hate Lubbock.

To that point, the distance from DFW/ CenTex/ HOU/ et al tends to be a draw for regular students. 
For athletes it probably isn't, especially in how affects travel for family. Then again, other minor league sports are hardly ever in major metros either. 

Posted
5 hours ago, Brian Fantana said:

Do you think it's an accident that Texas seems to be paying the most football NIL out of anyone?

Show your work, please. Without citing Kirk Bohls' bullshit claim about our payroll.

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Posted
4 minutes ago, TrashMaster G said:

Show your work, please. Without citing Kirk Bohls' bullshit claim about our payroll.

Why is it bullshit? And why do you seem to take it as a slight? If you've got it, flaunt it, and you guys clearly have. Do you really believe that all your football players are there for the love of UT? I don't believe you're actually that delusional.

It's not likely an exact figure will ever be known, but it doesn't seem like he's the only person that thinks Texas is spending big. And it's not like there's anything wrong with that, it just is what it is.

Posted
3 hours ago, Skipper said:

That being said, Lubbock isn't 'uniquely' terrible IMO.  I put it on the same level as Waco and College Station

J Peterman No GIF
 

(I reject the premise that Waco or College Station are as good as any other place on earth, except each other.)

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Posted
8 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

Why is it bullshit? And why do you seem to take it as a slight? If you've got it, flaunt it, and you guys clearly have. Do you really believe that all your football players are there for the love of UT? I don't believe you're actually that delusional.

It's not likely an exact figure will ever be known, but it doesn't seem like he's the only person that thinks Texas is spending big. And it's not like there's anything wrong with that, it just is what it is.

The Athletic got their bullshit $40 million number from KB's column.

Posted
8 minutes ago, TrashMaster G said:

The Athletic got their bullshit $40 million number from KB's column.

I understand that. The article also infers that a number of people across the college football landscape believe the number is at least close to accurate. You didn't answer my question.

Posted
7 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

I understand that. The article also infers that a number of people across the college football landscape believe the number is at least close to accurate. You didn't answer my question.

Why is it bullshit? - It's either factual, or it isn't. KB pulled the number out of his ass and multiple other outlets ran with it, wanting to believe it is true.

And why do you seem to take it as a slight?  - Everywhere the number is reported, it is couched with the very strong suggestion that OF COURSE Texas is trying to win by outspending everyone by miles and miles. Even though we have never done that.

Do you really believe that all your football players are there for the love of UT? - It's a silly question. I won't dignify it with a response.

Posted
1 minute ago, TrashMaster G said:

Why is it bullshit? - It's either factual, or it isn't. KB pulled the number out of his ass and multiple other outlets ran with it, wanting to believe it is true.

And why do you seem to take it as a slight?  - Everywhere the number is reported, it is couched with the very strong suggestion that OF COURSE Texas is trying to win by outspending everyone by miles and miles. Even though we have never done that.

Do you really believe that all your football players are there for the love of UT? - It's a silly question. I won't dignify it with a response.

I think you should probably just stop being so sensitive about it. The only meaning it even has, if true, is that Texas is deadly serious about having the best roster in college football, and anyone that considers that a negative is a fucking idiot that probably believes that Alabama had a 2-deep full of NFL talent all those years because everyone's parents just really, really loved Nick Saban.

Posted
6 hours ago, closetojumping said:

None of us were saying that in the posts you’re responding to, you willfully oblivious fucktard. I was mocking the actual obvious, that your fucking coach is claiming that other schools are talking shit about Tech and Lubbock in ways that only that drunk’s low educated audience would believe. 

Never mind that I’ve actually been involved in this shit and I know you’re patently incorrect about UT football paying players via the bag game, because I don’t need you to believe me. All anyone needs to do is look at what Texas is doing now versus being forced to watch the cheaters run off with the 5 stars in the OL and DL for over a decade and they’ll know “oh, yeah, Texas must have recently started paying players.” 

It’s pretty obvious and well known that Texas was sitting on its hands while the SEC and Ohio State raided the state once ATM opened the gates. I don’t really expect you to get that, slorch, because you’re equal parts blindly biased and room temperature IQ, but most folks will. 

My oldest daughter, against my input, applied to Tech in the beginning of her application process. She had great grades and scores but was a worrier. I am not making this up - she got an acceptance response from Tech in less than 7 days from sending the app in. I assume anyone in the top 50% of their high school class that attends there must feel like a fucking genius from day one as they walk around and see morons bumping their heads against building walls as they wear their underwear on the outside of their shorts. 

Don’t equivocate about the bag game and Texas. If Texas was participating, the hue and cry coming from the cheaters would be as loud as it is now about mean ol’Texas. 

Now, UT basketball? … sure. 

No shit, myself and most of my buddies from HS all received acceptance letters from Texas Tech...without applying. We just all got mailed documents congratulating us, they we were accepted, and information on how to continue enrollment. 

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Posted (edited)
5 hours ago, Skipper said:

I was making the point in the context of Slorch's assertion that Tech/Lubbock is some great place.   As someone that grew up in West Texas and has been to Lubbock dozens of times and seen probably 15 games of some sort in that stadium I disagree.   Forget the blue bloods, I think most recruits with a brain on their shoulder would take TCU or SMU all day over Tech if the money was equal.

I'm also partial to larger metros, but college is different, especially for athletes. I enjoyed my 4 years in Stillwater as a college student even though I have no interest in living there as an adult. A ton of high level football recruits also come from small towns and rural areas so small college towns aren't a negative. There are some that might actually not want to live in the middle of the Austin or DFW. I mean, Tuscaloosa Alabama isn't exactly a cosmopolitan locale. Lubbock would be considered a "big city" for many of these players. The logo on the helmet is far more of a factor than zip code.

Edited by 'stache
Posted
9 minutes ago, 'stache said:

I'm also partial to larger metros, but college is different, especially for athletes. I enjoyed my 4 years in Stillwater as a college student even though I have no interest in living there as an adult. A ton of high level football recruits also come from small towns and rural areas so small college towns aren't a negative. There are some that might actually not want to live in the middle of the Austin or DFW. I mean, Tuscaloosa Alabama isn't exactly a cosmopolitan locale. Lubbock would be considered a "big city" for many of these players. The logo on the helmet is far more of a factor than zip code.

I don’t disagree with this, for the most part. Texas misses out on guys every cycle because the player or the program realizes that Austin and the fishbowl of UT’s brand would not be a good fit. It happens early in most of the processes but occasionally a guy will visit and then one or both realize, yeah, there’s a better fit somewhere else. 

Bussey, two cycles ago, fit that on both sides. Unfortunately for him, he chose ATM instead of somewhere like KSU that would have actually developed his 5 star talent. 

My one quibble there is that Tuscaloosa gets a lot of credit from folks as a small town. It is and it isn’t. It’s an hour from Birmingham and that’s a decent sized city. Driving from the airport to Tuscaloosa isn’t a drive through wide swaths of forest or farmland. It’s like driving through smaller and smaller suburbs to an exurb. 

Posted
6 hours ago, closetojumping said:

None of us were saying that in the posts you’re responding to, you willfully oblivious fucktard. I was mocking the actual obvious, that your fucking coach is claiming that other schools are talking shit about Tech and Lubbock in ways that only that drunk’s low educated audience would believe. 

Never mind that I’ve actually been involved in this shit and I know you’re patently incorrect about UT football paying players via the bag game, because I don’t need you to believe me. All anyone needs to do is look at what Texas is doing now versus being forced to watch the cheaters run off with the 5 stars in the OL and DL for over a decade and they’ll know “oh, yeah, Texas must have recently started paying players.” 

It’s pretty obvious and well known that Texas was sitting on its hands while the SEC and Ohio State raided the state once ATM opened the gates. I don’t really expect you to get that, slorch, because you’re equal parts blindly biased and room temperature IQ, but most folks will. 

My oldest daughter, against my input, applied to Tech in the beginning of her application process. She had great grades and scores but was a worrier. I am not making this up - she got an acceptance response from Tech in less than 7 days from sending the app in. I assume anyone in the top 50% of their high school class that attends there must feel like a fucking genius from day one as they walk around and see morons bumping their heads against building walls as they wear their underwear on the outside of their shorts. 

Don’t equivocate about the bag game and Texas. If Texas was participating, the hue and cry coming from the cheaters would be as loud as it is now about mean ol’Texas. 

Now, UT basketball? … sure. 

Just to dovetail on this, because I feel like this is an important point regarding Texas recruiting. This isn't for a Texas Tech audience. This is for fellow Longhorn fans.

I'm not going to go down the rabbit hole of the 70s and 80s, because that's it's own thing, but it did set a foundation for the pure as the driven snow approach the administration, the coaching staff, and frankly, all of us fans took regarding our football program.

In the late 90s Mack Brown arrived and shifted the entire dynamics for how to recruit Texas. He locked the state down. Texas went on a facilities spending spree that no one else could even approach. Brown was a Svengali wizard with closing skills even Alec Baldwin could admire. But things changed towards the middle of the 2000s. There were mistakes made on the Texas side, so it's not all on every one else. But this is when 7 on 7s first becoming popular, where you were falling behind in development and exposure if you didn't participate. It was the beginning of the personal trainer era. All of this had been going on in basketball since the 80s, but high school football coaches had held on as the gatekeepers, at least in Texas, into the mid 2000s.

Saban was the first to industrialize the new dynamic. Suddenly Alabama was tossing out 300+ offers per recruiting cycle, with the caveat that they weren't "committable" offers. To make it committable, you had to make it to one of the Alabama camps. How were you going to get to one of the camps? Well, Alabama would pay your way. This was the start of the paid unofficial visits, which are basically de rigeur and have been the worst kept secret in college football recruiting for a decade and a half. They would spread around hefty bonuses to third parties who could get talented players to their campus. Soon the whole SEC was participating in these shenanigans, and not long thereafter, the rest of the college football world as well. Especially Clemson, Oregon, and Ohio State. 

Mack Brown, and then Charlie Strong after him, refused to play this game. We wouldn't do anything to establish relationships with third parties because we still felt like the key relationship was with the Texas high school football coaches. We also wouldn't move up our recruiting cycle, because Mack Brown felt like kids should finish their junior season first. So not only were we not compensating players in the same way schools like Alabama, Clemson, and Ohio State were doing, we also were refusing to work with third parties, we weren't willing to compensate players for visiting the campus on an unofficial visit, we weren't helping defray costs much less financially reward people for bringing talented players to campus. 

And in the meantime all of us - and I include myself in this - would feel good about how tight we were able to wear our halos. I remember the first time I had my road to Damascus moment was when it was apparent we had a legitimate shot at Saban. At the time he felt like he had no chance to compete with Bear Bryant's legacy at Alabama, but if he could become the first coach to win 3 national titles at 3 different schools, that's something he could be remembered for. It's laughable now, but at the time none of us - including Saban himself - understood the dominant run he was about to go on. I thought about it, and realized I wanted to win so badly in this new environment, that if hiring Saban was the price we had to pay, I was all in. Then Dodds and Brown managed to cockblock him, and the opportunity vanished.

I remember when we were hiring Tom Herman, and I told a collection of hardcore fans that we were going to start working with third parties and paying for unofficial visits, and everyone was aghast. "Oh, we don't do that at Texas." Yeah, we don't, and we're getting our heads handed to us in recruiting because we don't. You have to make the decision whether you're willing to compete in the big time, and right now we are literally making the deliberate decision we don't want to. It's not possible to compete in this environment without working with third parties and without helping with unofficial visits. That's anywhere. 

I'll also say that the reason Texas is in the position it's in regarding NIL has very little to do with the coaching staff or the administration. People don't understand how hard it is to do anything from the grassroots level without buy in from the heads of the organizations they're ostensibly trying to help. It's one of the hardest things in human society. It's unbelievably hard. I'm not going to say the administration sabotaged NIL efforts, but they sure didn't make it easy. They saw it as a threat, not an opportunity.

The folks who worked on NIL at the beginning are heroes to me. I mean that literally. I did nothing to help, but as a fan I get to reap the rewards of unending cold calling, unending hearing the word no, unending education of the stakeholders. Yes, we have a rich alumni base, but not that many of them wanted to invest in NIL. We don't have a Phil Knight $30 billionaire whale bankrolling our entire operation. Even now the administration would prefer in some ways to have the $20.5 million figure be the ceiling for payroll costs, but if we abided by their wishes we'd be ceding the field to the Texas Techs of the world. 

I say ad nauseum that you have to have the right coach. All the support in the world doesn't matter if the wrong guy is in charge. Neither Charlie Strong nor Tom Herman nor late Mack Brown would be successful in the current environment at Texas. It would simply buttress their collective incompetence. I feel like Sarkisian is the right guy. I can't say I felt that when he was hired. I certainly didn't feel that way after his first two years. But the way he's built the program, the way he's built his staff, the consistent development I see in Longhorn players in ways I never have before. The narrative he paints about changing the culture, with the GPA, the "way you are some of the time is the way you are all the time" line, the way he and his staff vet the players they go after. The work ethic. The transparency. The results on the field. I'm a believer.

But without being willing to compete in the same way the programs around us are competing would tie the hands behind the back of whoever the head coach happened to be. I am grateful the people who are in a position to make these kinds of decisions are choosing the path they're choosing. 

  • Hook 'Em 9
Posted (edited)

NSIAP. LOL I just read in the NCAA rule changes that simulating “brandishing a weapon” is an automatic unsportsmanlike penalty 

 

 

Edited by MirrOlure
  • Haha 2
Posted (edited)
4 minutes ago, MirrOlure said:

NSIAP. LOL I just read in the NCAA rule changes that simulating “brandishing a weapon” is an automatic unsportsmanlike penalty 

 

 

Y'all show the shocker on your hand sign, so pipe down. :)

Edited by Iceman
Posted
10 hours ago, closetojumping said:

None of us were saying that in the posts you’re responding to, you willfully oblivious fucktard. I was mocking the actual obvious, that your fucking coach is claiming that other schools are talking shit about Tech and Lubbock in ways that only that drunk’s low educated audience would believe. 

Never mind that I’ve actually been involved in this shit and I know you’re patently incorrect about UT football paying players via the bag game, because I don’t need you to believe me. All anyone needs to do is look at what Texas is doing now versus being forced to watch the cheaters run off with the 5 stars in the OL and DL for over a decade and they’ll know “oh, yeah, Texas must have recently started paying players.” 

It’s pretty obvious and well known that Texas was sitting on its hands while the SEC and Ohio State raided the state once ATM opened the gates. I don’t really expect you to get that, slorch, because you’re equal parts blindly biased and room temperature IQ, but most folks will. 

My oldest daughter, against my input, applied to Tech in the beginning of her application process. She had great grades and scores but was a worrier. I am not making this up - she got an acceptance response from Tech in less than 7 days from sending the app in. I assume anyone in the top 50% of their high school class that attends there must feel like a fucking genius from day one as they walk around and see morons bumping their heads against building walls as they wear their underwear on the outside of their shorts. 

Don’t equivocate about the bag game and Texas. If Texas was participating, the hue and cry coming from the cheaters would be as loud as it is now about mean ol’Texas. 

Now, UT basketball? … sure. 

Back in the day when DKR was AD, my brother was treasurer for the basketball booster club. 
At the beginning of a fall semester, it came to the club board’s attention that a senior player was having difficult transportation problems, so someone proposed buying him a used car. 
DKR somehow got wind of the proposal and quickly summoned all the club officers into his office, where he told them in no uncertain terms if they proceeded with their plan he would ban all of them from the UT campus and athletic events. 
That tells me Coach Royal ran a clean program and did not tolerate cheaters. 
Of course the $100 handshake was beyond his control and undoubtedly was a common occurrence as it was almost everywhere.

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
4 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

Back in the day when DKR was AD, my brother was treasurer for the basketball booster club. 
At the beginning of a fall semester, it came to the club board’s attention that a senior player was having difficult transportation problems, so someone proposed buying him a used car. 
DKR somehow got wind of the proposal and quickly summoned all the club officers into his office, where he told them in no uncertain terms if they proceeded with their plan he would ban all of them from the UT campus and athletic events. 
That tells me Coach Royal ran a clean program and did not tolerate cheaters. 
Of course the $100 handshake was beyond his control and undoubtedly was a common occurrence as it was almost everywhere.

Bullshit.  All that meant was DKR didn't want to know about it. 
 

Translation: Find another way. 

Posted
6 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

You are wrong.

LOL.  Every team in the world was paying players, but unicorns and bigfoot resided in Austin.

Posted
22 minutes ago, Armybrat said:

Back in the day when DKR was AD, my brother was treasurer for the basketball booster club. 
At the beginning of a fall semester, it came to the club board’s attention that a senior player was having difficult transportation problems, so someone proposed buying him a used car. 
DKR somehow got wind of the proposal and quickly summoned all the club officers into his office, where he told them in no uncertain terms if they proceeded with their plan he would ban all of them from the UT campus and athletic events. 
That tells me Coach Royal ran a clean program and did not tolerate cheaters. 
Of course the $100 handshake was beyond his control and undoubtedly was a common occurrence as it was almost everywhere.

My paternal grandfather was good friends with (and occasional legal advice giver to) DKR and they talked about pay for play stuff occasionally, I know from his direct testimony that DKR was against it, at least that's what was always conveyed to him. 

However, he would also talk about how there was a lot of "dealing" aka the $100 handshake you refer to that was basically impossible to police.

I wish I could find the framed picture I have of the two of them golfing. I haven't seen that damn thing in 15 years and I can't imagine where it is.

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
9 hours ago, Brian Fantana said:

See, what you're not understanding here is that our positions are not at odds here. What I mean is, you're not wrong at all that Tech has never known shit about having a winning football program, and I don't personally think the Tech AD was ever serious about having a good football team (and I've held that position in my head for literally decades) until very recently.

The proof was in the pudding for a long time. To begin with, our facilities were subpar as hell for a long, long time and nobody seemed to give a shit. Jones Stadium was always pretty loud and rowdy, but in reality it was a total piece of shit with fucking astroturf and crappy seating that would fall apart every game with the students jumping on them and shit and the football facility and practice facilities were total bullshit and high schoolish, straight up. They actually got serious at some point about renovating it and attaching a state-of-the-art football facility to it and now it's actually quite nice. I got to tour the Womble football center and it really is second to none, they spared no expense, it's incredible. It had better be for all the money they spent on it.

Even after all that, the program really was just treading water the same as it did before, with maybe some superficial/marginal improvements in recruiting etc. under McGuire. Cody Campbell, of course, had also revamped the Matador Club, put in place the "base salary" or whatever you want to call it for all players, and all that jazz. But, of course, it wasn't nearly enough.

The real "turning point", I guess you could call it, was when the BMDs got fed up and sat down with the head coach, James Blanchard (GM) and Cody Campbell and were like "seriously, what the fuck do you guys need to compete, if you can present us with a comprehensive plan for the next X years, you'll have all the money and resources you need". From what I understand, all of this was very recent, as in toward the end of last season recent, and the idea is to follow the same model that Ohio State/Texas/etc are following from a recruiting/NIL standpoint. They know it's going to cost a lot of money, and they don't care.

So basically, yeah, you're not wrong. Tech has never been serious about football until now. That's just the plain truth, as you stated. And of course, there's no guarantee it will work out how we want in the long run, I think everyone knows that, Hell, I don't think any Tech fan is sure about McGuire, but the alternative is to just sit back and continue not really trying at all and hoping to eke out upsets here and there like we have done for the past 900 years or whatever, but that seems to have become an untenable position for the money men.

Considering how well we have turned around the basketball program from what it was less than 10 years ago, I have at least a little hope that things will improve on the football front to a point where I can actually get excited about football again, which hasn't been the case for quite some time now. We shall see.

So, what are the golden days of Tech football? Off the top of my head, here are the top three in my football watching lifetime:

1. 1973 - Jim Carlen and Joe Barnes produced an 11-1 season with a Gator Bowl win over Tennessee. Might have beaten Texas to finish the regular season unbeaten if the game had been in Lubbock instead of Austin. Final rank = 11.  

2. 2008 - Mike Leach went 11-2 just  in time for a contract extension that they ran him off to be rid of the next year. Final rank = 12.

3. 1976 - Steve Sloan and Rodney Allison (with a little known assistant coach named Bill Parcels) went 10-2 and almost went to the Cotton Bowl. Final rank = 13.

As far as a sustained era, I'd pick Leach. He got Tech consistent television coverage, making them feel relevant even when they were mediocre.

Good luck in winning the Medium 12, you occasionally Red, occasionally Black Raiders.

 

 

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