PencilPusher

Listening to the comments from the townhall, reading some of the weekly missives, and talking with a few folks I know, I sense exasperation coming from CDC. Maybe not rip up a copy of the SOTU address exasperation, but exasperation nonetheless. Flash back 13 months after winning the Sugar Bowl, CDC had just completed his first year and everything appeared to be going the way it should. The balance of 2019 however was a disaster, some might say of epic proportions. The biggest men's athletic programs are underachieving and you could argue some of the women's (basketball anyone?). Meanwhile, the state's other P5 programs (except aggy of course) is achieving heights they haven't ever seen. Tech getting to the NCAA championship game (which Texas has never done) and to the CWS in the same season. Baylor currently being ranked #1 in both mens and women's basketball off of a NYE6 bowl appearance in football. You get the picture. CDC is hearing it from all ends and quite frankly is potentially staring at having to replace all of the major men's sports head coaches during calendar 2020. At the end of year 2, the job wasn't as fun as it was after year 1 and comments like "Goliath" perhaps show some of the cracks in the dam. CDC has done a lot to clean up the back of the house so to speak. If you don't think the gameday experience has improved from what it was 5 or more years ago, you haven't been paying attention. Fundraising for projects is getting done and CDC managed to backbench Plonsky and some of the other "cancers" in the department. However, the front of the house can't be shit or no one cares about all of the back of the house improvements. CDC is finding that, although it isn't a mess of his own making, there is a lot more clean up to be done than what he expected. How that gets done will be of great interest to all of us, but even if he butchers the clean up (i.e. hiring the wrong replacements on the first go around), he'll probably get a longer rope. Deloss did and eventually he had things humming during the "aughts", though the bridge from Akers to Mack in football was painful. Unlike Herman, CDC has a lot more support amongst the important people which is why he'll be given the benefit of the doubt. And just because......F Steve Patterson. Can't the University revoke his degree or something?

This guy certainly is in the discussion...

If anyone wondered what kind of owner Cal McNair is going to turn out to be...here's your sign. As expected, this move is being savaged (and rightly so) by the media and fanbase, though the fans will keep showing up to the games like lemmings anyway. Would the vitriol be as high if Bob McNair were still alive? Bob may have not been the greatest owner, but he was a great Houstonian, business leader, and philanthropist. Cal is none of those things at this point other than a member of the lucky sperm club. As such, he isn't going to engender any benefit of the doubt on moves like this, nor should he. We aren't in Dan Snyder or Jimmy Haslam territory...yet...but certainly seems like we are in Bud Adams or John McMullen territory (to recall "great" 🙄 Houston sports owners of yesteryear)

Also, if you throw out their unusual period of dominance from 1984-1994 where they won 10 of 11 (which is a statistical anomaly), the series from 1978 pretty much played out to the historical average. Aggies always like to start from some random period to prove the series was pretty even, but it wasn't without 1984-1994 factored in.

Summer Creek is starting to generate some D1 talent and their head coach and principal are UT folk. I think if we like these players, we'd have favorable tailwinds in their recruitment (vs Atascosita where the opposite is true). I know Banks committed to oSu, but 2022 is a long way off.

didnt realize Echo and the Bunnymen spent time in Wyoming...

To pile on to this, a couple of the moneyed folk I know have said that some of the bigwigs are in CDC's ear about this...not necessarily CTJ's take per se but the fact that the floor for success in their minds is that Texas should be the best athletic department of all of the state universities and ultimately how CDC will be evaluated in the near term. Football is bad enough, but having to listen to their Tech and Baylor friends cackle about basketball and baseball and shit like that is definitely putting a burr in their saddle so to speak.

Hire seems to have more of a 70's soft yacht rock vibe to it..... Vahevala(i)

I thought it was a fine ending to the show. "Russfest" and the finale were a good payoff to a show that lost its way, especially after they got rid of Erlich. I did like the homage to the original Pied Piper tale at the end...thought that was an interesting "side effect" to the programmed failure of PiperNet. While everyone assumes Monica took the drive to NSA, an alternate theory to consider is that Jin-Yiang stole it at some point. When the documentary crew finds "Erlich", of course Jin-Yiang is sitting in the dark behind a computer screen- perhaps working on a new "Yao Net". That could pass as an allegory to Chinese hacking and technology theft. Wouldn't put it past Judge to leave that somewhat ambiguous because the social commentary about tech being dangerous in the hands of certain forces could apply equally to the NSA or the Chinese government. Big Head as president of Stanford is also a subtle dig at universities and their administration. What is the old line...if you can't do, teach. And if you can't teach, administer. Who couldn't see Jared content to live his life helping at senior centers or other such things. See that Zach Woods will be part of Avenue 5, which is a new comedy coming to HBO from the creator of Veep....I'll definitely check it out in which "Jared" is the head of customer relations for some space cruise ship. Russ Hanneman as a hair transplant magnate....it might have been funny to see a brief infomercial for that.

Nothing wrong with a little Bailey Quarters.....

Proud to say I have this shirt at home:

So if we truly have "hashed" out our coordinator hires with Harrell and Ash, speculation on who the other assistant hires should be? Think these are probably no less vital.....we know how assistants like Mehringer can really f things up. Anyone that has to be retained from the current staff?

Hard to disagree with those comments and I realize that is an extremely tall order but it is frustrating to watch shows that end things in less than ideal fashion. Of course, that's life in a nutshell....things often don't end cleanly or crisply.......much like the last decade of Longhorn football :(

Binge watched over the Thanksgiving holiday. Thought season 4 was meh and an OK, but not great way to end the series. The ending was ambiguous and didn't seem to mesh with the rest of the series necessarily. Not sure why we needed the BCR at all......wasn't in the book and why wasn't it just part of the resistance itself. Seemed like an arbitrary add. (cue the political conspiracists). What happened to Ed? The attractive swinging German blonde? So many questions. I am developing a pet peeve on some of these limited engagement series that the writers need to pitch the story arc for the entire planned series up front, including how many seasons/episodes. It seemed like Season 3 was setting up a longer series, then it got cut short and they had to wrap things quicker, which means leaving a lot of loose ends and ambiguity. Glad I watched the series and the concept was good, but not sure if I would start it today generally knowing the now formed story arc.

I took a holiday from Texas football after the TCU game when it became apparent that this season was heading down the crapper fast. Since then I have been anxiously awaiting the coaching reckoning which I knew was coming. Since the conclusion of this disastrous season I have formed these mostly unassailable opinions: The Texas staff did the worst coaching job this season in the conference, perhaps the entire country. CDC had a hand ensuring that the coaching reckoning we were waiting for happened quickly after the conclusion of the season. It isn’t finished by a longshot, but at least it is underway As of today, no one really knows what the fuck is going to happen next year and into the future. Me…I give this no better or no worse than a 50/50 shot to get back on track as of today. So with popcorn in hand, looking forward to sitting back and watching this show, which quite frankly will be the only interesting thing coming out of this season. No matter what happens and how much invective is spewed over the hires in the coming days, I believe we will know how this ends by the time the last second ticks off the clock at the Cotton Bowl in October 2020. And so will CDC.

being a Primo user, the big advantage it has is the oval shape, which allows you to cook more. For example, this weekend I was able to simultaneously smoke 2 6.5lb pork shoulders and about 10 large chicken breasts (about 7-8 lbs worth of chicken) (chicken wasn't on the whole time, but you get the point). Also like the ability to put a heat deflector down on half the grill for the indirect smoking experience. No significant cost difference than a BGE as I recall. There are cheaper rounds (like Kamado Joe) that a lot of folks say do just as well as a BGE. I'd vote for the Primo, but it is a matter of preference on oval vs round.

I must have been out of my mind. Look at you. Why don't you do something with your life? Sit around here all day, you contribute nothing to society. You're just taking up space. How could I be with someone like you? Couldn't respect myself.

FIFY

Truly a sight to behold. A man beaten. The once great champ, now, a study in mopishness. No longer the victory hungry stallion we've raced so many times before, but a pathetic, washed up, aged ex-champion.

Local stations won't do that in Houston because the ratings are too high. Generally, unless blacked out by NFL rules (i.e. directly competing with Texans home game), Dallas and/or NO will get shown here due to ratings. In Dallas, local stations don't show the Texans because they don't draw any ratings. Not sure Jerry has to do anything to do with that. Texans have done zero to expand the base outside of the Sam Houston Tollway.

I'm sure the Texans will blame the highly successful Astros game competing (which was meaningless in the grand scheme of things) and the Dish Network controversy, but the truth hurts. The Texans have actually shrunk their football footprint across the state from what the Oilers had back in the day.

nm

Pos rep for this. Remember cheering loudly when the big man would come off the bench in the early Tom Penders years.

This! However, the seemingly well intentioned governor of CA did open up a Pandora's box of unintentional issues that haven't been explored. Some have been mentioned above. Title IX will be a bigger issue than thought because all of the SJW's will be out in force talking about things like gender pay gap, etc. I think we all know the economics arguements, but don't think this won't become an issue. California will be ground zero for this. Do we end up with a system where the athlete has a significant "franchise fee" withheld due to association with a university's brand that than gets "distributed" to other student athletes. Taxes - regardless of who pays the $, the IRS and state governments will absolutely come after their share of $, especially since the $ will no longer be shielded by the non profit status of the universities. Almost think this is one of the underlying reasons for CA passing the bill because they see tax revenues that could be generated from this that they aren't getting today. I don't think kids will get thrown in jail per se as was intimated above, but the IRS/states may extract their share of penalties if the laws/rules aren't followed and those could be substantial if the athletes aren't getting the proper advice/representation Amateur status - This could also become a bigger deal because at what point do the universities decide that having semi-pro athletics associated with the school is not part of the university mission. Like Greg Fenves has always said, athletics is the front door to the university which is extremely important in terms of alumni engagement and fundraising but if it begins to get too unwieldy to manage, do institutions change their mind. I think that there will be a number of universities that "bow out" of big time college athletics because the juice won't be worth the squeeze (Rice would be a perfect example of a school that may move that direction) As is typical with government "interventions", we pass the bill and sort out the details later, but it is clear that the full ramifications of this have not been fully considered (hello law of unintended consequences). The NCAA probably has limited recourse on this, but if they wanted to slow the train down, they should immediately announce that if the law goes into effect, that schools from the state of California will be ineligible to complete in any NCAA competition (no March Madness, no road to Omaha, etc.). Football is a slightly different beast since the NCAA doesn't control it per se, but could influence the CFP to not select CA teams and even pull the Rose Bowl from the CFP rotation. By isolating California, the NCAA would then have a decision to make. It could either work to come up with a system that works for all member institutions or dig in its heels and say no way in hell. If the NCAA digs in its heels, the can would get kicked down the conferences and university regents who would then have to decide what course to take. Long term, athletes will probably be compensated in some form, but how we get there and what collateral damage occurs along the way is anyone's guess.

I'll reiterate an earlier post and say I'll keep an eye on this kid as he develops and see what scuttlebutt there is coming out of the SC program. My guess is that his TX offer wasn't committable yet and he's reserving a spot at OSU in case TX doesn't come through.