ouflak

But if they implement these rules, we aren't going to get 'shorter' games. We'll get less football, sure. But they will make up that time with more commercials.

Yep. So much for the 'unbreakable' GOR that supposedly couldn't be bought out and can't be negotiated.

Sure. But we all knew how that was going to work out for them. And that's exactly what's happened. And at that time, I think most of us were still figuring out that the Big XII experiment just wasn't going to work. History has changed our perspective.

I like it. I especially like the casting of Jess who really fits what I thought that character should have been all along. I'll definitely be watching this one through. It's a fairly quick story if it follows the game, which it seems to be doing.

Like many others here, not seen any of the Harry Potters or Fast and Furious flicks. Don't see that state of affairs changing. I've never seen Platoon and can't see any compelling reason why I ever will. Also not seen Fifty Shades of Grey or any of the Daniel Craig Bond flicks (though I have seen significant bits and pieces here and there). Someday I'm sure I will properly sit through those Bond flicks beginning to end. Only a couple of weeks ago I finally buckled down and watched The Dark Knight at the urging of many others around me over a period of years - took me a few sittings to get through all of it, but I was determined. I will not be watching any other Batman/Joker films unless they are encompassed as part of a larger story that doesn't focus on those characters. So outside of Michael Keaton's version and now TDK, I have not, nor will I ever see any of the others (sequels, origin variants, etc...) including Joker. No matter the quality, it's just been done tooooo much. One film that I've curiously missed, as I was a bit into a few comic books at a young age, is Iron Man. I've made a note to catch that one when the next opportunity arises.

Did your fans and alumni come out to games in big numbers and watch on TV and online in the multi-millions per game? You may have 'done everything right', but some things just can't be managed. They just have to happen. There is a bigger picture.

Anticipated? No. Not a chance. Taken their time and laid out some plans for a few scenarios? Maybe do some background digging around and see what the landscape is shaping up like? I mean they had years before OU/UT were bolting (atleast on paper). If they'd just made the prudent decision to wait one year before expanding, which doesn't seem that unreasonable to me, this would have all just fallen into their lap.

Yeah I think there are some people in the Big XII office with their heads in their hands right now. And you've got to be wondering if Tech and OSU might now be looking west yet again....

I can't see OU ever going to the B1G (without UT). After what the CFB world has witnessed happened to Nebraska, nobody in the OU stables would be willing or foolish enough to take that risk.

There is just no other way to feasibly manage this many teams. They may call it something completely different than pods, perhaps even banning the use of the word in any official capacity. But when everything is finally decided and put down on paper, it will be some glorified version of pods.

So what were the final standings? I figure us Kansas pickers got a little boost.

Houston - 5 Arizona - 1 Tennessee - 3 (Tiebreaker) Illinois - 4 Notre Dame - 11 Kansas - 1 Kentucky - 2 Colorado State - 6

Agree. Even well before the pandemic, the system has been extremely - in some areas desperately - experiencing shortages. It's an issue that's been exacerbating for years, especially in care homes. There were already prognostications that our shortages would even be in the realm of 100,000 short of staff for NHS within a decade, a similar number for the social care sector. And that's every position; nurses, doctors, PA's, med techs. These shortages are already responsible for the rampant burn out, often resulting in people leaving the medical field altogether, and a decreasing quality of care at all levels. Then the pandemic hit, which only accelerated the cull of talent out ofthe NHS and social care services. Against that backdrop, they want to lose 75,000 more professionals, along with the 40,000 they've already let go in the social care side? In what reality is that in any way practical and beneficial to the NHS or to the people who have to depend on it? I could maybe see an argument if the field was instead growing and meeting demand over the last decade and could reasonably foresee a future where they could perhaps replace these losses, even if it hurt for only a short time. But we're already hurting. Far fewer and fewer are even going into the medical field, and it's been that way for a couple of decades now. Sorry, but at some point, you've got find a real-world balance that makes sense. I wish we could get away from this extreme posturing and pidgeon-holing. It's dampening every opportunity to have a proper constructive discussion. Does it really seem reasonable that 75,000 doctors, nurses, PA's, med techs, etc... all 'don't believe in science'? C'mon.

It was a stupid policy, as well as being cruel and ill-conceived.

Very political answer... as a scientist.

This is not strictly true. It has been scientifically and statistically demonstrated that there are direct correlations between age/certain pre-rexisting conditions and the chances of becoming ill in any way, or dying. So depending on your background, you can have some idea. And, depending on those background details, you can be something like 99.999% certain you won't have any symptoms at all (young with no pre-existing conditions).

I don't believe that's a logical correlation. I think a more apt one would be, "Lung cancer can be treated with chemotherapy, in recent years with increasing success. So everybody should get chemotherapy just to be sure." But then even that argument has its obvious flaws, one being that lung cancer -as far as anybody is aware - isn't easily transmissable by simply going about one's daily life as normal. There is probably a much better analogy out there that can be linked with normal behavior, maybe regarding a likewise infectious disease such as leprosy or turberulosis or perhaps even some STD's?

True. But, if that analysis and conclusion of the origins is scientific and accurate, there were only unvaccinated populations around when they emerged. For both Delta and Omicron. Those variants could have come from people who were the first in line to get a vaccine when it became available to them, as well as the subsequent booster, and 100% support mandates/fines/jail sentences for the unvaccinated. So blaming the unvaccinated for these variants is not logical. If on the other hand we get a variant that sweeps through that is unequivocally post vaccine availability and can clearly be traced to an unvaccinated group, then sure, pile the blame on.

Yeah that was mentioned in the article. For the rich, despite that taxation policy (now THAT is a truly awkward policy), it's still worth it.

I can tell you right now. India would be even bigger.

Closest I could find was this: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/16/us/politics/military-vaccine-mandate.html

Arguably. But the tsunami of money has been pouring in since the late 80's and only more is coming in. So we should all be figuring out how best to ride these waves, not anchoring ourselves in place and hoping that the things happening all around us will somehow just miraculously stop and stay the same. Whoever the A&M leaker was, I wonder if they aren't beginning to realize just how short-sighted a decision that was for their own school, as well as the impact on several others that would have had a chance to get into a playoff and just maybe, if perhaps rarely, grab a championship.

Now this is new (and possibly horribly mis-interpreted, though I can't find any original statement), atleast for me. This BBC article is implying that the Scottish government is considering that Covid itself - not the vaccine, but the actual disease - may have some adverse affect on pregnancies. I've certainly heard the theory that the vaccine might have adverse affect on pregnancies, though I believe that's been thoroughly disproven. But I'd never heard anyone claim that the disease itself might affect pregnancies. In my defense however, I haven't really combed the internet looking for this stuff, so I may have missed it.

Again, I don't think he was overrated. I think it really is a pure case of seeing exactly what you're getting and what you're going to get. USC teams should do well, win a lot of close, eventually very uncomfortably close, games. He'll rope in some players with some nice Hollywood style NIL deals. Rope in a few others since he is indeed a pretty good offensive recruiter. Time will go by, and the Trojan fans will also get to experience the pain of a mystifying loss to a team that had no business being in the game at all (and where USC perhaps even had a sizable lead at some point early on). And as soon as his team(s) faces a group of guys with the kind of intensity it takes to win a playoff game, that will be the crushing end to their season. His teams have been good in bowl games outside of the playoffs. *shrug* Except for the worst kind of luck, that should continue to be the case. I haven't seen any fans saying that, and that would be patently false. We got the best that he could give, which I think is fair to say after 7 years of seeing what that is. His ceiling is high. It's just got its obvious limits. USC will soon learn about this.

I haven't heard too many of my fellow fans ever say he was overrated. But sure have heard (and agree) that we've seen the best he can do. We've had 7 years to see what Riley had to offer - 2 OC, 5 HC. From the outside perspective, it wasn't perhaps too obvious. For those of us watching every game and keeping track, there was a very clear pattern that began to develop. The team counter intuitively changing effective (often highly effective) offensive strategy when up by a few scores. The defense having to spend more and more time on the field, especially at the middle-late stages of games. An overall lack of killer instinct and urgency, no matter what the situation. Needlessly close games against teams with (often) far inferior talent. Inexplicable, and frankly indefensible, losses. We were patient and very happy with 10+ wins, and conference titles... for a while. But as things became drawn out, and the pattern became so entrenched that it culminated into this last season where *everybody* could see what we fans have been experiencing for years - that 'nice guy' attitude, that softened up every aspect of our program, that made us weak-minded in playoffs - where you have to be at your strongest, a strange gentlemenly approach that struggled to match the chip-on-the-shoulder attitude that so many of our opponents brought onto the field. Riley had more than enough opportunities to change and adapt. His comments after the Baylor complaining about them running up the score pretty much underlined, even for his most ardent supporters, that we weren't going to see any improvement. And heading into the SEC, there was no way we stay competitive with that kind of coaching style. He's not overrated. He's a very very good coach. And I think he will have some really nice success at USC. Who knows? With NIL and some good recruiting and a bit of luck, he might finally take that we're-all-friends-here kind of game to another level. But I think we Sooner fans had enough evidence to see that it was not going to happen at OU, and it can't possibly translate to consistent success in the SEC.