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tokamak

Burnt Ends
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Everything posted by tokamak

  1. I just watched The Killer on Netflix. You might think an assassin thriller from David Fincher with Michael Fassbender would be worth your time. You’d be wrong.
  2. Yeah this seems like the way to go. Buy a Texas reservation: Texas plays = ticket for ~$1500 all in, Texas doesn't play = get nothing for $1k Buy Bama+Michigan reservation: Texas plays = ticket for ~$1500 all in, Texas doesn't play = get ticket for ~$1500 and recoup what you can on the secondary market Only downside is that if we go, you'll be sitting with opposing fans. But monetarily you come out way ahead assuming you can resell the ticket for more than approximately face value (which you can).
  3. Seems like there's way more inventory all of a sudden today. SeatGeek went from I think 1,500 or so tickets for sale yesterday to 2,700 as I type this.
  4. If we land Evans today, you need to walk in like this
  5. I just watched McKinley's junior and senior tape and it doesn't scream 5-star to me. Great size and frame, but it's just a lot of clips of him making kinda normal DT run stops, not wreaking havoc. College guards will be able to hold those blocks against him for longer. Compare, for example, to Colin Simmons' tape, which is him running past 6A tackles practically before they get out of their stance.
  6. For the average fan (speaking about myself here), it's pretty clear that NIL is having a big impact. On the flip side, there's a lot about it that is opaque to us as fans. There are a lot of rumors, innuendo, and speculation, and very little public in terms of hard numbers, for obvious reasons. Here's a (probably incomplete) list of things we're pretty sure we know: NIL is at the forefront of high school recruits' minds. It's openly discussed during visits and so forth. However, the extent to which NIL matters as the deciding factor varies a great deal. There are several 5-star recruitments each year that are pretty much purely NIL-driven. However, there are plenty of others who are still operating on the mindset of finding the right fit and the opportunities will come. For your average 3-star type, they're probably not getting promised much at all, just sold on future opportunities if they perform well. It's assumed that NIL is a bigger deal in the transfer market, at least at the top end where Texas is and should be involved. Guys at smaller programs that show out know that they can improve their situation by jumping into the portal. Small school coaches have started complaining openly about this. There was an initial gold rush associated with NIL with some pretty ridiculous numbers/contracts/promises involved. It looks very likely that the market is already correcting a little bit into something more sustainable. Different programs take very different approaches. Some go for big swings to land a few top prospects but probably aren't doing much for the middle and bottom of the roster. Others are a little more cautious about going all-in for any one player. Careful observation reveals that Texas is probably in this second group. The bag game is still alive and well in certain circumstances. It's probably best to think of bags and legitimate, rule-following NIL as a spectrum, not a binary. Texas BMDs are not yet fully mobilized in a way that us average fans would hope. The reasons boil down to conservatism and concerns about lack of ROI. A relatively small number of people are carrying the weight for Texas right now and it's not sustainable in the long term. It's very easy for us to sit here on a message board and spend other peoples' money. Fan collectives seem like a mixed bag. For example, supposedly Ole Miss's is rolling and coincidentally they have been really active in the portal. Many of them are a complete joke right now. Texas One Fund is off to an OK start but has lots and lots of room to grow. edit: adding a couple more thoughts to this It's clear that we have gained some advantage via NIL so far, but to me it does not seem that Texas' (and programs like it) advantage has been as immediate and decisive as many assumed. I think the reason is point #3 above. Damn near every school has a few donors that can splash out some cash. The question going forward is who can sustain in the long term? A gap between haves (Texas, ND, USC, etc) and have-nots (Wyoming, Wake Forest, etc) appeared immediately. I expect the gap between those true haves and the sorta-haves (Nebraska, Tennessee, Alabama?????, etc) to begin growing. My personal opinion, probably not very controversial, is that we are still a long ways from the final form of all this. There are lots of aspects of the college football world in late 2023 that do not look sustainable. I think it's quite possible that the concept of NIL as it is right now will be largely forgotten or irrelevant in 10 years, replaced by a system in which the players get a share of the CFB revenue pie in a much more direct way.
  7. I completely forgot about Hunter Moddon already. Just checked his 247 profile and he didn't sign anywhere yesterday, has no crystal balls, and has zero activity on his timeline since his decommitment in June. Wonder what the story is there.
  8. The off topic shitposting in this thread for the next 6 hours is going to be unbearable. What the fuck are we supposed to do? Work?
  9. SIAP. Big 12 coaches on Texas via The Athletic:
  10. Does Billy always have a Longhorn on his guitar? I have never noticed that before. Pretty badass.
  11. You know this already, but all of this is because the Republican primary is the real election. Primary voters are going to pick the most conservative candidate, full stop. Ken Paxton coming out and saying someone isn't sufficiently conservative is a devastating attack in the context of a Republican primary. But then so what in the general election? Of course the Democrat will point out that the Republican candidate is an unhinged reactionary, but your average Republican voter will just chalk that up to partisan mudslinging. In reality, Karen from the Woodlands and Billy Bob from Odessa know fuckall about the candidates for Court of Criminal Appeals (to be fair, I barely do either). They see an (R) and a (D) on the ballot, know that they're Republican voters, and mark the person with an (R). The question is how far can the state Republican party go before people start to notice, care, and vote accordingly? I'm a pessimist at heart, so I tend to believe the line is pretty fucking far. My guess is that to the extent that people even pay attention, there's a lot of the same rationalization we saw with Trump - "listen, I don't necessarily agree with everything Ken Paxton does, but I could never vote for a Democrat that wants to flood our country with transgender illegal immigrants and allow abortion on demand at 39 weeks".
  12. Uh, clearly Duke-level players are beneath aggy, ya dumb sip. They’re landing big fish from *checks notes* Old Dominion.
  13. So if QE has a great playoff and decides to go to the league, do we try to bring in a grad transfer type that wants to play school to back up Arch? Does such a guy even exist? As has been pointed out, the timing on that would be pretty bad for us. Do the coaches feel that Wright could play meaningful snaps for us if necessary?
  14. Great idea...if the state of Texas allowed us to bet on sports.
  15. Just saw this. Only really know him from 9-9, but he was absolutely perfect in that role. RIP.
  16. That's pretty funny, in a way. "If Walter comes to A&M, we'll buy y'all a house" "Why the fuck would we want a house in a shithole like College Station?" "No, no, no. We'll buy you a house in The Woodlands. It's close enough but not a dump." "Oh, OK, that makes way more sense."
  17. What's interesting is that the cool thing with white, upper middle class suburban kids in Houston and Dallas - who I assume skew more Young Republican - is to go to an SEC school if they don't get into UT or A&M. I wonder if those kids end up coming back to Texas.
  18. You have a gift for understatement, I see.
  19. The implication is that he is mentally unwell.
  20. You're correct in that his voting record is fairly straight-ahead Dem. Although he does seem weirdly obsessed with a pretty regressive vision of criminal justice. It's mostly just mistrust. He lost his nerve and bailed on his fellow Democrats during redistricting in 2003. All the bigwig local Republicans jumped on his bandwagon very early in the race, even though there were true Republicans in the race. They didn't make any effort to draft a candidate, either. Fertitta hosted his campaign kick off party. And a big part of his campaign message was literally "I'm buddies with people in Austin, so they'll stop picking on us so much". Obviously remains to be seen, but that attitude came across to me as hopelessly naive.
  21. I don't think that "this is what Tanglewood and River Oaks wanted" is quite the selling point you think it is. Anyway, we'll see on Whitmire. He got a lot of money from a lot of folks, some of them very, very conservative. We're about to find out what they want in return. SJL filed to run for her House seat today. Here's a live look at Amanda Edwards:
  22. So if we ain't getting Korie Black, why has Kobe pushed back his commitment date like a dozen times while the $9.95ers all still act like he's locked in? That doesn't add up.
  23. At this point I've forgotten (or never knew) all the twists and turns with Hampton, but maybe he's the classic "not a bad guy but immature and needs to get the fuck out of Daingerfield and away from some knuckleheads"?
  24. Since we're on the topic, my rankings head scratcher this year is Daniel Cruz. His junior and senior tapes are just a steady stream of pancakes and by accounts he's been good in camps. 247 thinks there are 65 better players in Texas this year?
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