BuckeyeInSeattle

Yes, he would. We are really thin at DB this year (particularly CB, but since some guys can be interchangeable, it's really just thin at DB). He might have started the year 3rd string, but he'd be seeing real minutes now.

Superb timing.

This isn't unique to Texas. All the blue-blood programs with passionate fan-bases who pay for subscriptions to web sites get bumps in the recruiting rankings if the 'real' rankings would make their fans sufficiently upset, which leads to their fan bases having unrealistic expectations. Notre Dame and Michigan are two teams that have been getting inflated recruiting rankings for decades, and you can see the slow, insidious spread of the poison through their fans over time. I don't follow Texas closely enough to have an opinion, but the Longhorns fit the profile, so I wouldn't be surprised.

Alabama looked very beatable against UF as well. They've got the team to run up the score against some opponents, but they're not the dominant team they've been in some recent years. I could see them losing another game and missing the playoffs, but I could also see them improving as the year goes on and being the best team in the playoffs.

I'm not sure if you're being facetious or not. If you're being sincere, I'd like to understand your reasoning for believing that any one of these Trump enablers are going to pay any price at all. Most of the Republican senators are in states that would elect Adolf Hitler (the time-traveling still-alive version, or the dead-for-65-ish years version, doesn't matter) if he had an 'R' beside his name. Most of the Representatives are in gerrymandered districts and face no viable opponent. Trump and Moscow Mitch stacked the Supreme Court beyond the ability to repair it in my lifetime (sans packing the court). They stacked Federal Courts to the point where even the Ninth Circuit (now featuring 10 Trump appointees) can't be considered a reliable slam-dunk for the Dems anymore. A large percentage of police officers (no, I can't quantify that-- feel free to call me out if you think I'm talking out of my ass) are somewhere on the right-wing spectrum, with a disturbing minority being outright White Nationalists and the like. I want to believe that the guilty will get their come-uppance, but I'm just not seeing it. The entire justice system is broken (in many ways).

I'm one of the very few*actual* Socialists in the Democratic party, and even I recognize the need for a strong, principled Conservative party. It wasn't that many years ago that the GOP could have addressed increasingly unfavorable demographic trends by deciding to offer a brand of conservatism that would be acceptable to a meaningful minority of people of color; to take a true conservative stand that the government has no reason to be concerned with who a person chooses to love and build a life with; and to push for conservative solutions to the fact that a sizeable majority of Americans have not benefited very much from the efficiency and productivity gains of the last 50 years. All of this was on the table as recently as the 90s. By instead relying on the Evangelical wing of the party to make the gains needed to counteract shifting demographics, they painted themselves into an increasingly smaller corner-- to the detriment of the country.

I live in Seattle, know some UW donors, etc. I don't have any inside scoop or rumors or stories that you can't already read about on various forums from past years. But he was a wreck at UW, and pissed off more than his fair share of people. It wasn't just the drinking. From what I understand, it was more of the same at USC. He may turn out to be a great coach and win a lot of games, but it seems odd to me that the best UT could do was to take a gamble like this. His record as head coach is not any better than the coach he's replacing, and he's got a drinking problem. I see the possible upside; I just assumed they could find someone to gamble on whose possible downside wouldn't be so... publicly embarrasing.

Because Ewers doesn't sign until next year, and Urban is supremely confident that he will still have a shot? First things first is doing a Ricky and recruiting the QB you got that could be a fifth year starter for you. You know what? I'm a moron. I lost track of the fact that Ewers was a next year recruit. Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.

Certainly a possibility. I will say, literally everything I have ever seen, heard, or read (mainly his book Above the Line) about the man leads me to believe that he would get started immediately and try to get Ewers in the fold. The idea that he'd let Ewers go to Ohio State when he has a decent shot of getting him on his team is just not at all consistent with who I think he is. He could take the job without taking any assistants with him, and just recruit before NSD1. I mean, how much do you really want a coach that has so little dedication to your program that he'll let one of the highest rated QBs in recruiting services history go to Ohio State, because he likes them or cares about his legacy or whatever? If a coach was trying to pull that bullshit when getting hired by OSU, I would be deeply unhappy.

I really like Skyline a few times a year (or did when I lived in Ohio). I just don't consider it to be chili. But I'm not sure what I would think of it if I hadn't grown up with it.

I thought there was 0% chance UM was going to take the job, but that interview is causing me to reconsider. Here's the thing: he could have easily said "I'm open to taking the perfect job in the future, but where I'm right now is that it would impact my health too much, so I'm not going to be taking a job this year." That would have relieved a lot of people of some anxiety and uncertainty-- OSU assistants that he might take with him, Herman, Herman's assistants, fans of both fanbases, family friends, etc. But that's not what he said. He said nothing about this year. He just made a general statement. So now there's a lot of people whose lives would be impacted if he takes the job, who are going to need to twist in the wind a while longer. And if he was truly decided on not taking a job this year due to his health, I don't see any reason in the world that he wouldn't just state clearly that it wasn't going to be this year. He wouldn't need to mention Texas, or confirm that Texas contacted him, or anything. So, I'm not sure if it was just imprecise phrasing on his part, or if he's playing games for ratings or to screw with Herman, or if he is still open to the idea of accepting the UT job this year. It's sort of puzzling.

There were a lot of Ohio State employees, including many in the administration, who supported Urban throughout that process. I don't claim to know how he feels, but it seems possible that he reserves his ill-feelings and resentment for one or two people who were calling the shots. For example, I really, really like my current employer; they've treated me exceptionally well. If I did something stupid, like browsed porn when I was connected to my work account, and someone went out of their way to insist that I be fired for violating company policy (whereas normally one would expect a reprimand for a first offense), I would feel unfairly treated. But I would be angry at whoever the person that did that was, and at HR for not backing me up. I would still think it's a great company, and would recommend it to other people-- heck, I'd call people that are qualified to take my place and recommend they apply.

No one in Seattle was terribly disappointed when he left. Source: I live in Seattle.

I don't know what sources you believe, but if any of them told you that health wasn't an issue, you should not trust them anymore. Urban may or may not take the job. He may or may not have seriously considered the job. But he has a serious health issue, and his desire to coach again doesn't make that health issue go away. He has an extended family that seriously (and sometimes publicly) worry about his health. There is no scenario in which he isn't considering his health at the beginning, middle, and end of any job evaluation he does. And the notion that family didn't matter... literally, WTF? Yes, by all accounts, they will support him whatever he decides. Awesome. But if his wife, his children, and his grandchildren all make it clear that they would prefer he not coach, that absolutely matters. He may not be a great human being, but he's not a psychopath. And he's also not a robot; just like every other human being on the planet, the notion of upsetting his loved ones or causing them to worry almost certainly weighs on him more some days than others. Every single one of us changes our mind regularly, has contradictory emotions regularly, are influenced by conflicting forces regularly... yet somehow, we don't assume that other people are the same way. The notion that there is a straight, linear, rational decision making process from start to finish, which can be perceived and understood by people on the outside looking in, is preposterous.

I realize he can't be hired this early in his career, but I am very confident that Jeff Hafley is going to be a very, very successful head coach. I expect him to be coaching at a blue blood program within the next 5 years. If Ryan Day were to leave Ohio State for some reason, there would be a lot of support for Hafley to get the job-- and that's right now, when he's only been a HC for part of one season. Like I said, I realize he can't be a candidate this year. But I think he'll have a better career than any of the other realistic options being discussed.