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SL Xpress

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Everything posted by SL Xpress

  1. I don't know any details. It's going to hamper them regardless when he passes on. He's basically Oregon's PUF. Half the campus is named for him or a family member.
  2. Because Kirk Bohls put a number out there. This is how reporting works. No one has time or the means to figure out what the truth is. So what they look for instead is someone authoritative they can cite. This isn't limited to sports. War reporting is especially bad, but it's any topic, really. How many deaths were there in the battle yesterday? I don't know, but the Russian ministry of defense reports this many. Same thing happened with Ohio State last year. Before the season the athletic director says they'll have a payroll of $20m, so everyone in the world said they had a payroll of $20m. The payroll was well north of that. Closer to $25m. But that doesn't matter because the athletic director stated before the season in an off hand way it was $20m, so everyone in the world could quote that and be covered. When people say Texas has a payroll of between $35m to $40m, they say according to the Houston Chronicle, and that's about the end of their fact checking. Nobody else covering a team has put a number out there, so Texas makes headlines. That's how it works.
  3. Rumor is he's leaving $6b. I believe that's just for the athletic department. Probably more for the general fund. But it's not like I've seen his will nor has anyone I've talked to. Just a rumor.
  4. 1946, to be exact. Jim Tatum's sales pitch to the OU board of regents was that he would pay veterans returning from WWII to play for OU, and build a football powerhouse. Unfortunately for him he took an unlimited budget and exceeded it. They fired him after one year and put Bud Wilkinson in his place who managed the money better. Tatum is also the only head coach they've hired since WWII other than the (also) one year Schnellenberger. Everyone else they hired as assistant coaches. Most of the time as internal promotions.
  5. We've never tried before. So yes. This is new.
  6. Well, maybe to the average fan. But to us obsessives they're never lost. I'd like to think we have a new generation of obsessives coming through.
  7. I'd argue Gerry Hamilton, but since Gerry hitched his wagon to Bobby's a long time ago, that makes Bobby the best by extension.
  8. How does that sound bad? The only time I'm not doing 17mph over is when I'm at a stop sign or traffic light. Ok, ok. School zones. I live in Houston, so that makes a difference. Here I feel like I'm going the speed of traffic. I travel anywhere else and I stick out like a sore thumb.
  9. I think we're projecting on a group of people we don't know, who all could very well have different reasons for what they do, even different depending on which transfer we're talking about. I mean, that's what message boards are for. One thing that sucks about the internet is I used to engage in guy talk around facts that none of us in a group knew the answer to, which meant the conversation could go around in circles forever without any of us knowing the answer. Fucking Google cuts that shit short real quick. But subjective things we can't possibly know the right answer to? Bring that shit on!
  10. Maybe. What I will say is that all it takes is a handful of posters to behave in an unhinged manner and suddenly according to some the whole board thinks that way.
  11. Regardless of the charges, he was in jail from 3am to 7:30 pm or thereabouts. That's going to leave a mark. You can beat the time but you can't beat the ride.
  12. Mackovic dipped his toes in recruiting other areas. Well, his assistants did, in any case. Ricky Williams case in point. Eric Metcalf recruited us as much as the other way around. But we've never really flexed as a national recruiting power the way other schools do because of the perception we didn't have to. There was also the fact high school coaches ran recruiting in the old days in many ways. You had to stay on their good side or you weren't going to have much of a chance with their players. A good way to piss off that fraternity was to bring in a bunch of out of state players. Everything is so transactional now. Not just NIL, although that's obviously a critical part of it. But high school coaches have seen their influence diminished by trainers, 7 on 7 programs, and other 3rd parties even before agents got involved. One of the big reasons why Texas was so fiercely opposed to A&M heading to the SEC is that as an institution Texas spent decades trying to keep the SEC out of Texas as a prominent presence. But once A&M broke that seal the floodgates were opened. We'll never go back to the days of instate schools dominating Texas recruiting. At the end of the day Texas and the coaching staff at UT do not owe their loyalty to high school coaches. Their priority is to build the best roster they can. There are going to be years where different positions of need are going to have a weak in state class. I love the idea that Sark and company have created enough in roads in hotbeds outside the borders that they can go get the best regardless of geography. There was a feeling that in the 2000s Mack Brown had an opportunity to do the same thing. The brand after 2005 had never been hotter. Vince in football, TJ Ford and especially Durant in basketball. Baseball winning a national championship. Instead he sat on his laurels and allowed Saban to take the recruiting momentum away from him while he acquired a lot of summer camp bread to build recruiting momentum, and ended up with very average classes that were overrated because the commits had "Texas" next to their name. This is honestly the best I've felt about the program in my lifetime. I was too young for the glory wishbone era. But I remember the 70s, and all the decades since. This is the best shape the program has ever been in during that time in terms of long term sustained success. It feels like this is the way it always was supposed to be, and we even got a little glimmer in the mid 2000s. But that was a mirage, and I knew it at the time. This feels good, man.
  13. "I have a Tuesday meeting I'd like to invite you to, Nick." Steve Sarkisian, probably.
  14. I'd still rather never play them in anything ever again, but if we're going to, I like it that we're telling them to squeal like a pig.
  15. I read an article today by Nicole Auerbach. It's not an unusual take. In fact, I'd say it's the common one. Here's a link to the article: Instead of the NFL Draft, Quinn Ewers should have entered the transfer portal Here's the article spoilered: Here's the part I want to take exception to: "But the reason many of us (including me) are questioning Ewers’ decision to go pro is not just about the money. I would never argue that a player should chase the biggest possible payday over any other factor — fit, development, family reasons, etc. And I understand that he grew up rooting for the Longhorns and was happy to conclude his collegiate career at Texas. He’d helped bring the Longhorns back to national relevance, and he’d taken the team to the CFP semis twice. His legacy was set in stone. Hell, even if Ewers had transferred elsewhere for one final season, it’s easy to imagine that Texas fans would have happily rooted for him from afar. We’ve seen it happen plenty of times in the modern era of college football." I would not have been rooting for Quinn Ewers from afar. This is a mistake. I'm not saying I speak for all fans. I don't. But I do know many fans feel the same way as me. The last school a player attends will tend to be the one they're associated with. There might be some exceptions. Probably Alabama fans claim Jalen Hurts. I don't know. But his legacy at Alabama is a bit skewed because of his season at Oklahoma. Dillon Gabriel will forever be associated with Oregon way more so than Oklahoma. Auerbach mentions Cam Ward, but who is going to associate Ward with Washington State any more? Is he going back to campus on a regular basis? Is he going to appear on the sidelines for future Cougar games? The whole thing gets awkward after a transfer. If you start to put a price on it, then it becomes transactional. Is it worth $4 million to not associate yourself as closely with the University of Texas? Honestly, it probably would be for me. But what if I'd already made more than $5 million during my collegiate career - maybe a lot more - and I expected to make millions more during a pro career? The money wouldn't mean as much. There's an emotional investment for Ewers. If he'd transferred to Miami the way Carson Beck did, he'd forever in large part be associated with Miami and whatever he did there for a season. The same way Beck will be now. The cavalier dismissiveness of Auerbach's article - and of everyone else who talks about Ewers' decision making as a mistake - is undervaluing the pull of an association with the University of Texas, especially when that association existed since childhood, and $4 million in annual pay doesn't have the same kind of pull that it once may have because of earnings already made. I get all the people who want to come down on Ewers as being not quite good enough. I have many of the same criticisms. But I am grateful for him coming to UT. I feel like he made the team a lot better with his presence. Sure, Manning seems more talented than Ewers overall, with a higher ceiling. Maybe the team would have been more successful than a second place finish in the SEC and a semifinal appearance in the playoffs. But that is entirely hypothetical, no matter how convicted people want to feel about their views. And Ewers is definitely going to be seen in a different light by many years down the road because he didn't transfer somewhere else, the same way other transfer players are seen differently because they chose to play elsewhere during their collegiate career. Was it worth $4 million to be able to say that? I don't know. To me it wouldn't be, but I don't have Ewers' earning power, even as a 7th round pick. I'm glad it wasn't compelling to Ewers, because I'd view him differently regardless of circumstances if it did.
  16. Gerry Hamilton has been talking about him as having made a huge impact in the spring practices. Baker is going to be the starter as of right now, but Brooks made a case for playing time in the fall. This will be a bit of a setback. As usual, I'm glad no one was hurt and I hope this serves as a learning opportunity so he doesn't do this again.
  17. It's funny. I think just winning the series was enough in terms of postseason and winning the conference. But I want the sweep for the sheer exhilaration of coming on this thread afterwards.
  18. One of my favorite Dune characters is...well, it's not Duncan, that's for sure.
  19. He's a top 50 player who committed to North Carolina out of high school, but it didn't work out. Pitino scooped him up on the rebound. It's not like the kid is some diamond in the rough. Everyone was recruiting this kid.
  20. Meh. It comes down to the head coach. If you have the right person in place they can overcome that lack of blue bloodedness. If you have the wrong person in place, all the blue blood in the world isn't going to elevate the program beyond their level of incompetence. A&M can't hire the right coach. I will say being a true blue blood helps keep a coach in place. But it's not a guarantee. If A&M finds the right coach they'll win. In the meantime I'll sit back and watch them flounder. Because Elko ain't it. And I like their odds of doing a bad job of replacing him with Alberts in charge of the hiring process. I don't think they're any more doomed to eternal mediocrity than Texas was from 1984 to 1997 or 2010 to 2022. Texas has more resources, a better location, a better history, and a number of other inherent advantages, but even with those advantages we couldn't win consistently doing those time periods. Yes, they're weirdos, but there's plenty there for the right head coach to tap into. It's just that it isn't so easy to find that guy or keep him once you have him.
  21. If we could target anyone Beard is serious about and just drag nuts all over him in recruiting that would be great.
  22. Helobious is the Earl Campbell of idoits. Got it. I think there's a wee chance I have a longer list than you.
  23. I don't think that position is as exclusive as you're implying.
  24. Miller likes to spread the floor and hoist 3s. To do that successfully it's helpful to have players that can make them. I know everyone wants a true point guard. I'm not sure it's in the cards for this upcoming season. Hope that Mark stays healthy. The goal was always to bring another combo guard in. This kid seems to fit the bill. If it's a Florida-Texas battle, that's pretty good company to be keeping. This is a roster being put together on the fly. I've said this before, but think of it as akin to Beard's first roster. Then hopefully we'll see things come together a little more completely in year 2. I'm assuming we're going to see a lot of evidence of a work in progress for next year's team. I also like the idea of beginning to develop relationships in international circles. But we haven't gotten the kid in yet, so we'll see what happens.
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