SL Xpress
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This Oklahoma team JUST LOOKS DIFFERENT: OU Screenshot Megathread
SL Xpress replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
I have learned to be careful about sweeping generalizations regarding the future of college football programs. I maintain that the current state of college athletics, and specifically college football, is unsustainable, so the future is going to be very different than what we see today. What that is and when it comes, I have no idea. I can foresee the disruption. I have no real insights into what it will eventually resemble, and I don't believe anyone when they say with conviction what it will become. It's all speculation. My speculation would be we see further constrictions into who is actually competitive at the highest levels, and that the Big 10/SEC carve up the rest of college football and form a new association which displaces the NCAA in many respects. But that's speculation. An individual like Larry Ellison getting involved in NIL, or someone with less net worth but willing to spend a much larger percentage of it to see their favorite team win, can quickly shift the dynamics of NIL the way it's currently executed. I still maintain the bottom line is you have to have the right coach. Finding and then keeping the right coach once you have him is still the biggest challenge of every program wanting to be elite. But having robust NIL support is now a critical component of that. Riley left OU and Saban stepped down at Alabama in part because of the resources to support them at their previous stint. Same thing with Brian Kelly to LSU and Jimbo Fisher to A&M, or DeBoer to Alabama. It's not that excellence can't be maintained through coaching changes. Look at Ohio State, which has still yet to make a truly bad hire since Woody Hayes in 1951. But you roll the dice every time. Every program not named Ohio State has gone through some lean years. Some, like us, more than we could possibly imagine. I had hopes OU would maintain their Gary Gibbs, Howard Schnellenberger (who I thought was a home run hire...nope!) John Blake succession ad infinitum, but it did not work out that way, unfortunately. But I'm enjoying their current struggles and I hope they continue for the rest of my lifetime, however long or short that may be and whatever the cause. -
Transfer Cycle 2024-2025 - Handjob Helobious Is the Man!
SL Xpress replied to closetojumping's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
Maybe so. But while it seems obvious in retrospect to start the Longhorn Foundation, tie donations to seat priority, and make donation money available across all sports, he's still the first one that did it. He also started the move to suites before any other program as well. And that took some level of vision because we went into a lot of debt to do it. But yes, I do agree with your point. -
Texas Recruiting Notes 2026: They Can't Keep Getting Away With This
SL Xpress replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
Explain its origin so I can be thoroughly annoyed as well. Sounds like something I can quickly and easily get on board with. -
Transfer Cycle 2024-2025 - Handjob Helobious Is the Man!
SL Xpress replied to closetojumping's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
There were also administration issues. The chancellor and president were anti football. They wanted Texas to be a first rate research institute and they saw being a football factory as detrimental to those efforts. It's amazing how effectively we were chopping ourselves at the knees, while all the regional competition had a win at all costs mentality. Dodds figured out he could make his job security all about how much money he raised. And so he did. -
Transfer Cycle 2024-2025 - Handjob Helobious Is the Man!
SL Xpress replied to closetojumping's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
I'm hardly a fan of the guy. But starting the Longhorn Foundation and making this quote are the two contributions I'm grateful for. Other than that he set up a culture that did a lot of harm. The way I always described it is the people in the athletic department got their job security from raising money, not winning football games. They wanted the football team to win a few more games so they could go out and raise a few million more the next year, not the other way around, and that was a serious culture issue that led to us whoring the program out worse than any other program out there in many regards. But the fact is when he was hired the athletic program was a poor in ways we can't even begin to fathom now. We depended on having the Texas legislature wrapped around our fingers for making capital improvements., Coaches weren't really paid competitive salaries compared to market rate. Every program was responsible for fundraising themselves. It wasn't the only reason, but one of the reasons David McWilliams was hired after Fred Akers is because he was willing to come to Texas for cheap. We couldn't afford a big name coach. John Cooper inquired about the opening before he ever took the Ohio State job and said, "I'm getting paid more here at Arizona State." -
This Oklahoma team JUST LOOKS DIFFERENT: OU Screenshot Megathread
SL Xpress replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
There's a whistling past the graveyard going on here. When I go over to OU sites and watch content from their insiders, I'd say they're pretty much done with the Venables era and they're just waiting for the string to play out. Sure, they'll get hopeful because that's what fans do, and they don't have the Battered Aggie Syndrome those cultheads do, but there's a part of the more rational ones that feels strongly things could easily go sideways again next year, and if so, the trigger is going to have to be pulled. They remind me of me during the dark periods of the 80s and 90s where I held onto the idea we hadn't been shut out in forever. They keep talking about their bowl streak like a mantra, to remind themselves Sooner football is still relevant, even when they know in their heart of hearts it really isn't right now. I think the more interesting part is the acknowledgement from the smarter ones they may not be able to keep up with the big dogs financially. Their athletic budget is fine, as far as that goes. But they don't have the deep bench of financial boosters, and they don't have the equivalent of Phil Knight or even a modern day T. Boone Pickens to make up the difference when it comes to NIL. They're in the same boat as fellow cheaters Alabama and Georgia. When it was all under the table, they were willing to match or surpass everyone else. Now that it's above board they're having a rough time competing. Honestly, I can't get enough of it.- 486 replies
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Transfer Cycle 2024-2025 - Handjob Helobious Is the Man!
SL Xpress replied to closetojumping's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
"We don't keep up with the Joneses. We are the Joneses." - Deloss Dodds -
Negative Recruiting Your Own School: The aggy Screenshot Megathread
SL Xpress replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
That's interesting, because I find I don't give a fuck. I loathe the SEC. I loathe these hillbillies we're attached to. I'm so happy these neanderthal, incestual, deliverance style typecast collection of cavemen have already learned to hate our guts. In one year! Outstanding everyone! I appreciate the single-minded passion with which these hick town Walmart greeters approach college football, so we can rake in more money, travel to actual football stadiums rather than the wanna be high school tinker toys in the Big 12, and be more relevant in terms of the future of college football than we could ever be in the backwaters of the Big 12. But why in the world would you actually want to be associated with them? And I'll say Mizzou gets all kinds of shit for not really being a culture fit for the SEC. They don't win anything. I think there's a general, "what the fuck does Missouri add again?" attitude among other SEC fans. A&M is seen as a collection of weirdos, but let's face it. Demographically A&M and everything in Texas east of College Station/Bryan is an excellent cultural fit for the SEC. They've enjoyed ball gargling Alabama, Georgia, and LSU while those programs actually win something. Who can't appreciate a good BJ? I can understand why some of the SEC fans like keeping A&M around. They're like a good collie that's been neutered so they're less likely to pee on the shag carpet. One of my favorite parts of the season was going on the various SEC message boards and seeing all the different fan bases line up to compete with one another as to who wanted to see Texas lose the most in the playoffs, even after Tennessee and Georgia lost. The fuckwads thought they had some semblance of conference unity before. No program can unite a collection of fanbases quite like Texas and our ability to generate an incredible shared "anyone but Texas!" attitude among everyone. It's been fun seeing how quickly we've been able to spread the hate. I look forward to seeing it grow! -
She stole his rings.
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Negative Recruiting Your Own School: The aggy Screenshot Megathread
SL Xpress replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
My favorite posts from the Aggies are their braying, "WE TOLD YOU SO!" to other schools' fans about letting Texas into the conference. That's what I was thinking about while reading the recent Georgia mod comparing Texas to the Yankees/Dodgers. -
Oftentimes it's not a matter of buying it. It's being able to give attribution to someone else. People often aren't interested in the truth of it. Look at war reporting when there's obvious made up numbers being thrown around. They'll toss the numbers out there anyway and say, "According to the Russian Defense ministry...blah blah blah." There's no transparency in NIL. Ohio State is constantly being reported as having an NIL payroll of $20 million because that's what the athletic director said before the season. I've been told by some people in the space it was much closer to $25 million. But the $20 million is stated as fact because no one knows and they can attribute the number to someone. Oh, and an obligatory fuck Chip Brown.
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Is he going to start a Tongan/Samoan to Nigerian dating app? The payout would be 19 years in the future at best, but I think there's some high returns possible there.
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At some point I said I wish Texas was doing camps in the South Pacific to recruit Tongans/Samoans and in West Africa to recruit Nigeria/Ivory Coast. I didn't take it the next step to think of creating a crossbreeding program. This is genius.
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It's not a college athletics rule. It's a federal rule regarding student visas. It's come up before with high profile international students competing in college athletics. I have no idea how easy it is to get around. It feels naive to think no player in the US on a student visa has ever received improper benefits. But the consequences are different since it's not an NCAA rule or enforcement you're violating.
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Texas Recruiting Notes 2026: They Can't Keep Getting Away With This
SL Xpress replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
A&M went from an all male college with a limited enrollment, to accepting ugly women in the 70s who didn't move the needle, to going Greek and expanding their enrollment in the 80s and 90s, using fishcamp and bonfire as their primary brainwashing tools rather than pretend army. The massively increased enrollment helped shift suburban Houston from a UT enclave to several places where Aggie hegemony rules. Since Perry and Sharp chose to deliberately turn A&M into a diploma mill, and their degree can't really gain them employment outside of their cultish oil and gas connections and their asinine faux military academy ring knocking, Houston suburbs have been overrun. Thankfully River Oaks and West University still offer safe passage. Yeah, there are Aggies around here, but they're not as numerous and easily dismissed as the odd mouth breather. As far as Fort Bend, you've got the massive Chinese churches imported by the real estate magnate behind Sienna Plantation, the huge Hindu temple just down the street from Dulles HS, the Pakistanistan west of Highway 6 looking for ways to terrorist bomb the temple out of existence, the Mormon temple, a couple of big Catholic churches that went from catering to Yankee immigrants in the 80s to almost wholly Mexican and central American descendants, and a dwindling white population that keeps moving further west because that's what white people do when people of color move in en masse, so that now Lamar Consolidated has schools rated better than FBISD. And then you've always had the eastern county precinct 1 which is the only place a Democrat+African American has ever been able to get elected. Yeah, it's not an A&M enclave. That's reserved for predominantly white suburbs like Katy and The Woodlands. -
Transfer Cycle 2024-2025 - Handjob Helobious Is the Man!
SL Xpress replied to closetojumping's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
I want Hero Kanu to go to a team with another defensive tackle named Tyler, so their slogan can be, "Hero Kanu and Tyler too!"- 7800 replies
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Texas Recruiting Notes 2026: They Can't Keep Getting Away With This
SL Xpress replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
I feel like we should be doing some kind of camp in the South Pacific and another one on the west coast of Africa. I'm all for a roster full of Samoans/Tongans and Nigerians/Ivory Coast players or their descendants. -
Negative Recruiting Your Own School: The aggy Screenshot Megathread
SL Xpress replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
Hastily Made Cleveland Tourism Video: 2nd Attempt At least we're not...Detroit! -
Transfer Cycle 2024-2025 - Handjob Helobious Is the Man!
SL Xpress replied to closetojumping's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
Yes. I always thought of it as GoBig12.com, but yes. It was affiliated with the AAS. Cox Communications had no idea what to do with it. It was a redheaded step child. It was driving all kinds of traffic but they didn't know how to monetize it. The people who built it had aspirations of it being the official Big 12 forums. TexAgs came from there. As already noted, Hornfans came from there. It's where Geoff Ketchum first started posting as an intern for KEYE. The first big Nebraska board came from there. I'm sure a couple of other schools, too, but I didn't pay much attention to them. Nobody else did, either. What changed message board wise was the world wide web. I accessed the internet prior to then as well, but it required a knowledge of esoteric commands, and search functions were rudimentary or nonexistent. Folks just put up information on college computers and you had to know how to find it. Usenet was the big message board type feature. GoBig12.com was built on the WWW protocol, then Netscape quickly came out allowing us to see the internet graphically. Sure, the internet existed, but there wasn't any kind of heavy usage among us Longhorn fanatics until GoBig12. -
I think I'd be keeping an eye open for other opportunities. Use KU as a stepping stone for a better gig. He's still pretty young. But if Oregon isn't going to do what is required to compete at the highest level - and they've made that plain - no reason to stick around. You simply can't win at the highest levels in volleyball without some NIL and portal contributions. That has become obvious. And not just the NIL. You need to be able to provide chartered flights out of Eugene to compete in the Big 10, and Oregon has decided they can't afford that across the board under the terms of their Big 10 admittance. Commercial flights just completely suck out of the Eugene airport, especially to some of the locations in the Big 10 like Happy Valley.
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And then changes will happen to the changes. College athletics is about to be has been and will continue to be whipsawed by court rulings until Congress steps in with some sort of legislation.
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They've spent money on men's basketball, and this past year they made a couple of big splashes in the portal in women's basketball. Apparently it was all about NIL. I guess volleyball drew the short straw. When you say they let Mike White go, I feel like it's akin to saying North Carolina let Mack Brown go back in the 90s. They weren't willing to match UT's offer, but it's not like they wanted him to leave. Oregon simply doesn't have the resources that big football schools have, and they never will. Smaller enrollment, smaller alumni base, smaller regional population. The football stadium only seats like 54,000. A lack of luxury suites. No luxury suites in their multipurpose arena that hosts basketball/volleyball. They're on half shares of the Big 10 TV contract until the next one is negotiated. If it weren't for Phil Knight evening the playing field they'd have no chance to compete.
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This isn't about lawsuits, but internal strife surrounding NIL. While we were exchanging posts I realized volleyball coach Matt Ulmer left Oregon for KU, a seeming downgrade in terms of volleyball programs and resources. Apparently this was all about Oregon not supporting women's volleyball NIL at a level Ulmer found acceptable. It's shocking to me that KU might be willing to do more, but there it is. Their star player immediately transferred to Wisconsin, which does have a good NIL program for volleyball. In an industry with no guardrails regarding labor costs and a lot of irrational emotion dictating market value, the rapid rise in costs to field a roster across a lot of different sports is going to continue to create fractures in programs around the country, regardless of Title IX considerations, and those are at least looming, even if we don't know how the Supreme court will rule on these things, nor how the current legislation/administration will intervene, or if they will. I know Oregon spends money on their men's basketball NIL, and they forked over a bunch for a couple of players this past year for women's basketball. Many of their track and field athletes have robust NIL deals with Downing Street. And of course football is at the top of the class in terms of NIL resources. I guess volleyball drew the short straw.
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I don't understand that move even a little bit. I can make some guesses, but Kansas seems like a step down in many ways. I will say having to share the volleyball court/arena with so many other sports is a real bummer. The travel is a nightmare, and because of the half revenue portion Oregon is getting, there's a lot of commercial flights for sports not football or men's basketball, and Eugene isn't exactly the friendliest airport to fly in and out of in terms of flight selection. Portland is better, but it's a 2 hour drive, and still not exactly ideal. And then the Big 10 is obviously a gauntlet compared to the Big 12. But volleyball is one of those sports where that's not necessarily a bad thing. I wonder if he has promises regarding NIL at Kansas while Oregon is focused on NIL for football? I don't actually know the answer. I went up there for the Nebraska match when they set an attendance record (primarily because of all the Nebraska fans that traveled there). I'm stunned by this, really.
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Texas Recruiting Notes 2026: They Can't Keep Getting Away With This
SL Xpress replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
He was an outstanding defensive back, and an even better high jumper. Yeah, he high jumped for Texas, to the tune of winning three NCAA national championships in the event, two in indoor and one in outdoor.- 1751 replies
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