SwanderedTalent

derp

was that where you stopped reading?

I remember him referring to us as "t.u." one year when Bonfire was televised, maybe 92 or 93. I think he's a pretty typical Aggie, not in the ten percent of "Ah'd turn down chemotherapy if it came from a t.u. hospital!" type, but just generally a yokel dipshit. All of which is beside the point of, it's pretty fucking aggy to talk shit to a cancer patient over his college allegiance. Who cares where he worked and what college team he continued to support after getting stankrammed by Mack Brown? I mean, I guess I'd see the irony if he were a former governor who'd vetoed funding for the hospital he ended up getting treated at, that sort of thing, but I doubt Slocum ever knew much about the University of Texas beyond "that's the only game these dipshits care about, I better win that 'n."

Who did you think I was speaking for?

Maybe. The perfect and entirely unrealistic solution would be to just let one person (me) pick the field every year and let that person (me) shape it depending on the year. So in 2005, we skip the playoff and go right to Texas-USC. In 2008, it's eight teams. If you have to have a set number, four isn't enough. Just from personal experience, the cutoff between "qualified to compete" and "a total also ran" doesn't feel like it happens at 4/5. Sixteen (or, God forbid, more) is too many. The only problem I have with eight is that it doesn't give us enough headroom to get G5 represented (that's not much of a concern for me, personally, but other people seem to care that Central Florida et al not get left out). I'd be OK with 8.

yes, and if you go back and read my post without thinking "ooh I gotta play Smart Boy and disagree with this!" and leaping to write your response, the explanation of "why" is clearly stated. it is an opinion based on personal preference, it won't change

"Ah hope people that fuck their seckertaries don't go to hell"

yeah you tell that dying old man! WHOOP!

When you're bouncing around the State of Texas with that A&M logo it carries a lot of weight." - @CoachSchloss so it's like a heavy, heavy burden to carry

Unwieldy is not the right word for it, but college football has traditionally been a sport that tries to use the regular season to determine the top teams, and then in a completely illogical but occasionally lovable way, use the post-season to try to pick the best from those teams. Under that system, a lot of deserving teams got left out of proper consideration over the years, but we never had an 8-3 team invited to play for the national championship. That's the problem with the 16-team field. It's too inclusive. If the pre-BCS was too random, and the BCS and four-team playoff excluded too many teams from consideration, a 16-team field (FUCK FCS/I-AA) includes too many teams who over the course of a dozen games already showed they weren't national championship caliber.

yeah as soon as I saw this bumped, I knew what the news was wasn't everyone else expecting him to transfer? because from the start he seemed like a contributor level player at best and there was a disconnect between attitude and aptitude

feasibility study lol

Bingo. For financial competition reasons, small geographically coherent conferences don't work within today's CFB model. But sharing a conference with a bunch of schools in your geographic footprint is a lot more interesting than playing schools 1500 miles away as a "conference" game. /enough realignment talk

yes, no, no, no

so this is cool, but I am not sure I buy the premise that these rankings would have been the same had they been selecting for 12 instead of 4. It's a lot easier to tell Shithead State "aw, rats, you just missed it, you were fifth!" when it doesn't matter. When it means Shithead State gets to host a first round game in a 40,000 seat stadium in Bumfuck, Mississippi, it's a different question. In the same way, it's a lot easier to say "we consider all comers, look who finished 10th and 11th!" when only four get in than it is to actually give those two shitbird programs spots in the playoff instead of a three-loss Michigan or USC team.

the conference alignments weren't perfect in 2010 but they were certainly better Agreed w/whoever said a round-robin within a numerically logical conference size, applied across multiple conferences, makes the most sense. I said that in (sigh) the realignment thread too.

I swear there was a post on TexAgs that got reposted at hornfans.com, where some Aggie said "they're on the 9 yard line and Young has 191 yards rushing, I don't like the looks of this"

I expect to see a lot of tractor-related expenditures at A&M

This could cross post on the Unpopular Opinions thread, but I'm one of three people on the Internet who loved Brent Musberger. Loved loved loved him. He called some of the biggest games I watched growing up and I always liked the way he set the stage for things. He never sounded bored setting up games that were likely blowouts so his energy when those games turned out to be huge thrilling upsets didn't feel faked. E.g., the 1996 Big 12 Championship Game. I get he's not most people's cup of tea. And that he's retired. Jackson was obviously in a league of his own. Nessler to me was way better 15 years ago. I think Sean McDonough has surpassed him. Fowler is the fucking worst. He sounds like an announcer in a football movie, like he's scripted and played by someone who knows football announcing by watching tapes of announcers, not growing up with the sport. Of all time, I agree w Augustus that Franklin and Gottfried were special.

Shrug. I didn't think Tom Herman would lose his first game against Maryland, but there we found ourselves. It's not unusual to get uneven results in year one after a regime change-- when it's a linear handoff a la Urban Meyer to Ryan Day or Bob Stoops to Lincoln Riley, that's one thing, but when you're making wholesale changes the way Sarkisian's staff surely is, improvement doesn't always manifest in the W-L record in year one. Even when it does, it can be uneven-- Stoops at OU, Tressel at Ohio State, Saban at Bama, etc. 7-5 wouldn't surprise me in the least. I'd be more surprised by 10-2. I think the most likely outcome is to walk away somewhat frustrated thinking the jury's still out on Sarkisian. I feel like we'll know conclusively during Year 2 if he's going to make it, unless Year 1 is some kind of insane outlier either way.

Klatt is currently the best analyst. I thought Chris Spielman was extremely good at the same kind of analysis-- things like an OL tipping a play with his feet, or the why of when a specific approach is or isn't working. Any idiot can watch a team complete a dozen crossing patterns in a row and say "Ohio State continues to work the crossing patterns, Michigan has to do a better job of stopping them!" It takes a competent analyst to explain that, because Michigan is NOT telling its DBs "just run behind the receiver and let him catch the ball and then chase him til he gets tired", something they ARE telling them isn't working, and WHY it isn't working. What is it, and why is it. Klatt and Spielman are about the only two I can recall saying anything in the booth that a coaching staff would be interested in hearing. Herbstreit is probably the worst. He is one hundred percent, literally one hundred percent, jargon without analysis. High-pointing the ball, athletes in space, hog mollies dominating on the offensive line, big hole in the A-gap, 11 personnel, it's entirely jargon to cover up the lack of insight. Which makes sense; Herbstreit played in a prehistoric Ohio State offense and took his last snap almost thirty years ago. His experience as a player doesn't shed any light on why 2021 football tactics work or don't work beyond the most basic stuff a la "that was a good block" and I guess he doesn't really work at learning it well enough to explain it. Gary Danielson is a fucking clown and almost unlistenable if the game affects the SEC's post-season outlook, because whatever the fuck it is, he will find a way to try to rhetorically turn it to the conference's advantage. It's rare to see a football play with perfect blocking, a perfect read by the QB, and a perfect throw to a receiver who ran a perfect route only to have it broken up by the perfect defensive technique of the DB, unless you're watching an SEC game on CBS and Danielson is on the call. The SEC is just that good, you see.

which would still be debatable

man they're bored

and I wouldn't trade the other four decades for the 2000s, specifically 2005, which is the kind of magical season absolutely zero Aggies have any understanding of a magical season for A&M was "we beat Alabama and finished 2nd in our division!"

fun facts, in the 1980s, Texas finished in the Top 5 twice (1981 and 1983). A&M, 0 times in the 1990s, Texas won its conference as many times as A&M did in the 2010s, Texas won more NY6 bowls (1 to 0) than A&M the fucking 2020s aren't over yet