touchthemonolith

That makes sense. I guess that's the reason they never made tests for HIV, diabetes, tuberculosis, cancer, malaria, typhoid fever, smallpox, or Ebola.

From Pflugerville because after 30 years in the city I finally got priced out of Austin FIGHT

R.I.P. Jake Smith's College Career 2019 - 2020.

Thoughts and prayers with the Smith family tonight.

Social distancing champ 2020

Steal someone's cable login like an adult.

Uh you're a fucking lunatic, bro. You know what's even more deadly than COVID and rabies? Flying an SR-71 in a combat situation. Trust me, as a former SR-71 pilot, and a professional keynote speaker, the question I'm most often asked is "How fast would that SR-71 fly?" I can be assured of hearing that question several times at any event I attend. It's an interesting question, given the aircraft's proclivity for speed, but there really isn't one number to give, as the jet would always give you a little more speed if you wanted it to. It was common to see 35 miles a minute. Because we flew a programmed Mach number on most missions, and never wanted to harm the plane in any way, we never let it run out to any limits of temperature or speed. Thus, each SR-71 pilot had his own individual “high” speed that he saw at some point on some mission. I saw mine over Libya when Khadafy fired two missiles my way, and max power was in order. Let’s just say that the plane truly loved speed and effortlessly took us to Mach numbers we hadn’t previously seen. So it was with great surprise, when at the end of one of my presentations, someone asked, “what was the slowest you ever flew the Blackbird?” This was a first. After giving it some thought, I was reminded of a story that I had never shared before, and relayed the following. I was flying the SR-71 out of RAF Mildenhall, England , with my back-seater, Walt Watson; we were returning from a mission over Europe and the Iron Curtain when we received a radio transmission from home base. As we scooted across Denmark in three minutes, we learned that a small RAF base in the English countryside had requested an SR-71 fly-past. The air cadet commander there was a former Blackbird pilot, and thought it would be a motivating moment for the young lads to see the mighty SR-71 perform a low approach. No problem, we were happy to do it. After a quick aerial refueling over the North Sea , we proceeded to find the small airfield. Walter had a myriad of sophisticated navigation equipment in the back seat, and began to vector me toward the field. Descending to subsonic speeds, we found ourselves over a densely wooded area in a slight haze. Like most former WWII British airfields, the one we were looking for had a small tower and little surrounding infrastructure. Walter told me we were close and that I should be able to see the field, but I saw nothing. Nothing but trees as far as I could see in the haze. We got a little lower, and I pulled the throttles back from 325 knots we were at. With the gear up, anything under 275 was just uncomfortable. Walt said we were practically over the field—yet; there was nothing in my windscreen. I banked the jet and started a gentle circling maneuver in hopes of picking up anything that looked like a field. Meanwhile, below, the cadet commander had taken the cadets up on the catwalk of the tower in order to get a prime view of the fly-past. It was a quiet, still day with no wind and partial gray overcast. Walter continued to give me indications that the field should be below us but in the overcast and haze, I couldn't see it.. The longer we continued to peer out the window and circle, the slower we got. With our power back, the awaiting cadets heard nothing. I must have had good instructors in my flying career, as something told me I better cross-check the gauges. As I noticed the airspeed indicator slide below 160 knots, my heart stopped and my adrenalin-filled left hand pushed two throttles full forward. At this point we weren't really flying, but were falling in a slight bank. Just at the moment that both afterburners lit with a thunderous roar of flame (and what a joyous feeling that was) the aircraft fell into full view of the shocked observers on the tower. Shattering the still quiet of that morning, they now had 107 feet of fire-breathing titanium in their face as the plane leveled and accelerated, in full burner, on the tower side of the infield, closer than expected, maintaining what could only be described as some sort of ultimate knife-edge pass. Quickly reaching the field boundary, we proceeded back to Mildenhall without incident. We didn't say a word for those next 14 minutes. After landing, our commander greeted us, and we were both certain he was reaching for our wings. Instead, he heartily shook our hands and said the commander had told him it was the greatest SR-71 fly-past he had ever seen, especially how we had surprised them with such a precise maneuver that could only be described as breathtaking. He said that some of the cadet’s hats were blown off and the sight of the plan form of the plane in full afterburner dropping right in front of them was unbelievable. Walt and I both understood the concept of “breathtaking” very well that morning, and sheepishly replied that they were just excited to see our low approach. As we retired to the equipment room to change from space suits to flight suits, we just sat there-we hadn't spoken a word since “the pass.” Finally, Walter looked at me and said, “One hundred fifty-six knots. What did you see?” Trying to find my voice, I stammered, “One hundred fifty-two.” We sat in silence for a moment. Then Walt said, “Don’t ever do that to me again!” And I never did. A year later, Walter and I were having lunch in the Mildenhall Officer’s club, and overheard an officer talking to some cadets about an SR-71 fly-past that he had seen one day. Of course, by now the story included kids falling off the tower and screaming as the heat of the jet singed their eyebrows. Noticing our HABU patches, as we stood there with lunch trays in our hands, he asked us to verify to the cadets that such a thing had occurred. Walt just shook his head and said, “It was probably just a routine low approach; they're pretty impressive in that plane.” Impressive indeed. Little did I realize after relaying this experience to my audience that day that it would become one of the most popular and most requested stories. It’s ironic that people are interested in how slow the world’s fastest jet can fly. Regardless of your speed, however, it’s always a good idea to keep that cross-check up…and keep your Mach up, too.

Why'd you put deadly virus in quotations? Are implying that it's not a deadly virus? Because yeah, it is a deadly virus.

Scary Gary will impregnate your Mom while you're out there running drills.

For real. The form wasn't always pretty, but I never got tired of watching VY sidearm chuck a football for miles--directly into dude's hands.

It was my understanding that he hadn't played RB in his life until around Fall Camp.

...that's what I'm saying?

I love Chris Brown, but I figured that BJ Foster had the edge, or at least it would be an -OR- situation. Either way, well-deserved by Brown.

I just saw the depth chart. I haven't been following camp as closely as I have in years past, and was surprised to see BJ Foster behind Chris Brown. What gives?

No way Sam stays for fifth year 'victory lap'. That boy is going to rack up 4000+ yards, 50+ TDs, a Heisman, a Natty, and 5+ homicides of dudes he trucked on his way to the #1 overall pick. You heard it here first.

I want to be clear: the position I believe you challenged is that there's no general consensus among experts about the safety of playing college football re the pandemic, so it's difficult for anyone to predict what the season will look like re the pandemic with a ton of confidence. My understanding is that you're arguing otherwise: either that there is a general consensus about the safety of playing college football and/or that we can predict what the season will look like with a high degree of confidence. The fact that football players are dying from things other than COVID is actually totally irrelevant to the fact that football players will/may die because of COVID. It does not change the risks whatsoever and it does not make those risks even slightly more or less acceptable. And yes, the sport should have been cancelled years ago. We're all going to hell for continuing to support it, and it's absolutely going to be worth it.

I'm just new here. I don't know what a 'sock' is, but I hope I don't come across as a troll. I just like Longhorns sports: that's pretty much my whole deal. I don't disagree with much in your post. It's super promising that we've had success limiting the spread during fall camp, but can we use that to infer that we'll still be successful when it's Week 9 or Week 10 of the season and dudes have been traveling to and from college campuses all over the country for weeks? I don't know.

You really don't have to (and shouldn't) take my word for it. There's been plenty written about the lack of scientific consensus about playing CFB this year, rich with differing opinions expressed directly by experts themselves. USA Today: Same data. Same research. But different conclusions on safety of college football. Sports Illustrated: 'It's a F------ Mess': How and Why Football Conferences Are Arriving at Opposing Medical Conclusions WebMD: Will COVID Sideline the College Football Season?

What was it, like, nine weeks ago that we thought we understood the risks about slowly opening up Texas bars and restaurants at the time? It doesn't really seem like we did looking back. A lot of really smart people discussed it at length, in-depth, very recently, and a lot of them got it wrong. (No, I'm not saying CFB will cause a COVID spike like opening up bars and restaurants did this past summer, and I'm not saying that we shouldn't be trusting experts). I totally agree, it's not a grand mystery. It's hard to fathom how much progress we've made even in the past nine weeks. But, to my knowledge, there's nothing even remotely resembling a consensus among experts about the safety of playing college football right now. We definitely have some idea what it's going to look like, but I think you might be overstating* how clear that picture is.

Well, no. It's a question I asked you because I'm curious about your answer. I have absolutely no idea how many players are going to die of COVID or COVID complications this season. And to be clear, nobody does. Least of all anyone on this message board. A lot of people have a lot of different ideas about what it might look like to hold a college football season during this pandemic based on the data we have, but nobody really knows because nobody has ever tried it before. There will likely be consequences that nobody is even considering right now. Maybe no players or coaches will have any adverse health consequences whatsoever, maybe the health consequences for players and coaches will be catastrophic. Probably somewhere in between. That's why I shy away from making statements like, "The numbers will not be substantially higher this year."

So what's an acceptable number of football-related deaths in 2020?

Close: the Pac-12 actually died of sadness on January 4, 2006 in Pasadena, California.

Tbf he had offers from Briles, Kingsbury, Stoops, and Saban. I would assume they saw something they liked; though it could've very well been as a TE.

Got it. The only reason I mentioned it was because Jeff Howe said something similar about someone--I can't remember who--on the Longhorn Blitz a while ago. That they were opting out 'strategically'. Didn't quite understand it.

I fixed it to make it less creepy. You're welcome.