statsman

I got bad news for you. TCU will be flat against OU next week, and be crushed by the Sooners. Because they care about their game with us and don’t care about OU. That’s just the deal

(Let’s not mention Wilkinson Re-segregating OU football in the early ‘60s)

Kudos

Yes. In NCAA football, unlike basketball, the conferences hire the game officials, not the NCAA. The Big XII crews work for Tim Weiser, at the Big XII office. He holds them accountable. He doesn’t like Texas, and has admitted as much.

If our game at TAMU is played Thanksgiving weekend, you can be sure they’ll make a big deal about the 25th anniversary of the bonfire collapse.

I read this before going on my morning run. On my run, I started going through various counters to your arguments, but really…none of them were worth posting. Your post has shown a lot of thoughtfulness and sincerity, and displayed a lot of humanity (in the good sense) on the side of this issue that I generally contest. It highlighted complexities in very real ways that can’t be ignored, in good faith, and forces me to consider more points. I thank you for that.

Thanks. So, “occupied territories” is more etymological than literal?

I thought Hamas had authority of the former and Fatah of the latter. How are they occupied? I thought October 7 showed Gaza was pretty autonomous

What are the “occupied territories”, using geographic descriptions?

Huckleberry, do you think “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is anti-Semitic? I do- in that I see the Palestinian groups that promote it ad calling for a one-state, no Jews goal. Do you have a different interpretation?

Honestly, considering the actions of the Palestinian Fatah and Hamas, from the intifadas, where suicide bombers go into Israel to kill Jews indiscriminately, and the number of rockets fired constantly at Israeli civilian population centers over the last decade plus, I think the Palestinians look more genocidal than the Israelis. For some Jewish families, from 1933 to now, there have been precious few periods where one asshole or another hasn’t been trying to kill them for being Jewish.

On a Venn diagram, I expect the anti-Israel circle to be larger and mostly encompass the anti-Semite circle.

But that’s not true. There is no special aversion to using it wrt Israel. It happens all the time! In this thread! Anti-Israelis and anti-Semites like to use it to refer to Israeli policies, because they believe its application reduces the ability of Jews to be victims of anti-semitism.

Genocide? Please. The Holocaust was attempted genocide against the Jewish people. What Turkey tried to do to the Armenians was attempted genocide. What the Hutus tried to do to the Tutsis was attempted genocide. Israel is not attempting anything like genocide. Calling it genocide is a form of anti-semitism, implying these accusers learned more from the Holocaust than the Jews did.

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/mistrust-anger-and-confusion-hinder-talks-to-free-israeli-hostages-held-in-gaza-22ee5fcf?st=wh27kcbc6yo7zdi&reflink=mobilewebshare_permalink

We had a late night fire extinguishers war on the first floor of Jester East (wing past the handicapped area). It was wild, fun and a huge mess of white powder everywhere. We realized we were probably about to be in a huge amount of trouble. I had the brilliant idea of taking one of the last extinguishers with some powder left in it, and creating a trail up the stairs to the football players’ floor, and leaving the spent extinguishers there. The idea was to make it look like some rowdy football players trashed our floor. We never heard a word from the dorm. They just cleaned up the mess.

Because he had a friendly relationship with a player or staff that was disgruntled at Texas.

Is Wager working for TCU?

This explains something…O met an old friend, an Ag, for lunch last summer. The only mention of football was when he said, “I don’t know why y’all want to join the SEC. You’re in for some tough games”. I kept quiet, but thought, “No shit.” Think we don’t know that? Doesn’t mean we have to be scared. Anyway- I think they really believe that by being in the SEC, their program is on a higher level, and somehow we won’t be able to attain that level, all logic and evidence to the contrary.

Thanks! That’s actually a positive report for the B12’s future, that Fox was willing to commit that much. ESPN benefits from UT getting to the SEC ASAP, but Fox doesn’t.

Thanks! The unseemly death isn’t the only reason UCLA doesn’t lean into his memory. There was also a mini-scandal where he irritated a lot of fans by dropping an n-bomb at a booster meeting.

I wouldn’t say they are rigging games. The league office hates Texas, the IR8 schools hate Texas, and they have a bias. I doubt the collusion goes beyond “don’t do Texas any favors in the game”, just leaning a little harder than they would against a non-conference opponent. That can affect a close game. It is infuriating that, over the last couple of years, most of the opponent holding calls have been followed by (or synchronous with) Texas personal fouls, so the drive can continue. I thought last year’s offseason discussion about the pass rush (“how can we lead the conference in QB hurries but have so few sacks?”)was funny.

I like Sark. I hope he’s the right guy. I don’t give him a lot of credit for recruiting so well, because he is the first coach at Texas in almost 70 years allowed to pay players. (Can you imagine if early Mack Brown were allowed to finish his recruit pitch with, “Now that I’ve explained why UT is the perfect fit for you, I’m going to step out of the room, and this man is going to explain our NIL package”?) I hate being that guy (and I’m stopping in 3-4 games), but since Sark has been here, he has had an officiating headwind. I think he would have an even higher profile if we had won one more game in 2021 (maybe they call roughing the passer on OSU for the late hit on Thompson, or roughing the kicker on Dicker’s punt at Baylor) and been bowl eligible. Then, in 2022, if we get anyone besides Mar for the OSU game, and go to the B12 CG. (or maybe they call holding on Wiley in the TCU game, or not call a delay of game on our DT for doing what TCU had been doing the whole game).

Wait- have you seen the breakdown in payments to the B12, between ESPN and Fox? I have looked but not found them. Can you share?

Well, it will be interesting. Both UT and tOSU are playing their games at the same time. We’ll see how much of Ohio and Texas that Cincy and the Cougars can draw.