SL Xpress

Okay, Georgia, now your turn to go offsides again.

If it's a dropped pass it's invariably Blue or Wisner.

I feel like that was a pretty good transfer acquisition.

Yes.

Well, a better backup punter. Our freshman punter is pretty good when he's healthy. Right now he's relegated to being the holder for field goals and extra points.

Georgia's punter is better without Kern available.

It was a little crazy.

Two dropped passes from Bell. Throw more to him.

This is better than the Running down a dream montages. I've never been bothered by that song until this year.

I hate hearing that it's the biggest game at DKR in the history of the program, but it probably is.

Milroe. Consistently the most valuable player for both teams.

Fuck Bama. Nick Saban is a television analyst, and he isn't coming back. I mean, fuck Tennessee, too. I'm indiscriminate with my SEC fuck yous.

Sarkisian making his comments on the radio show. Prerecorded a couple hours ago, obviously.

Alabama could have had this same 3 and out result 40+ yards farther down the field.

B1 Bombers are better than T-38 trainers.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but LSU on the road against A&M in Kyle Field involves two teams that can't be trusted. Not just one.

After we win this conference a few years in a row they'll all be doing it. I like how they keep saying Starkvegas, acting as if this is a term we all use. They even compared the term to The Swamp. "Coach, we know how Spurrier came up with The Swamp. That was you that came up with Starkvegas, wasn't it!" "Oh yeah! Right before I left this great job so I could lose big and get fired from Florida. The adidas marketing team called me up because they only have like 3 schools they supply shoes to, and they were twiddling their thumbs because they didn't really have anything to work with, especially with all the basketball executives in federal prison, and they said, 'what about Starkvegas, coach?' And I said, yeah! Let's do it!"

I want A&M to go undefeated the rest of the way so our game means more! Ha. No I don't. Fuck them. I hope the biggest hicks in this Hicksville of a conference take the Aggies out.

I didn't even find it that heartbreaking. You know what I've found heartbreaking? The overall irrelevancy of this program from 1984 to 1997 and then again from 2010 to 2022. You know what I don't feel any more? Like this program is irrelevant any more. Hey, the OU game sucked last year, too, but is there anyone on here who can't feel like we've turned a corner? I know many of us feel snake bit. I do. But talking about last year as if it left a bad taste in your mouth. I don't get that. Last year was awesome. This year is more awesome. We're trending in the right direction by nearly every metric. I've watched a lot of football in my life, and it's amazing to me that with all the resources we have and the emphasis on fielding a winning football program so many people around the university share with me, that we've been so underachieving for so long. I'd watch our team and then I'd watch the best teams out there, and I'd so often think, "Geez, we're not even playing the same game they are." Now I watch us play and then I watch other teams play - including Georgia - and I think, "I'm not sure they match up at every position. I'm not saying they couldn't win, but they have glaring deficiencies I don't think we have." We're bigger. We're faster. We're more clutch. Our receivers rarely drop the ball. Our schemes play off of one another without getting so enamored with how tricky we can be, the way we did under Mackovic. We get receivers the ball while they're on the move, something I thought was written into the NCAA rules that Texas wasn't allowed to do. There's no more asinine Greg Davis play calling, or a high school coach having to come in and convince Mack Brown to maybe put Vince Young in shotgun and try running a little zone read. Our wide receivers are the best downfield blocking unit in the country. Our defenders never give up on a play. Our reserve wide receiver who is allergic to fair catches to the point I think he's going to get his head ripped off someday beat all 21 other players down the field to recover a critical fumble in the end zone. This team is really easy to root for. This coaching staff is really easy to root for. We have absolutely no quarterback controversy other than what's been manufactured by outsiders. We're recruiting lights out in the high school ranks and out of the portal. We have what may be the single biggest recruiting weekend in the school's history, which is hard to even imagine is possible. The student section is finally one contiguous group and isn't consigned to the corner of the east upper deck. The athletic department seems to understand the difference between making more money so the football team can win more rather than the other way around. NIL has completely negated the worst competitive disadvantage we've faced in our history by allowing us to have one of the biggest payrolls in college sports. This is our time. When is Washington going to be relevant again? Who gives a flying fuck about that game? Well, I do, admittedly. But it doesn't eat at me, because it feels like we have an opportunity as a program to possibly be in the mix every single year. Washington can't even keep their coach. OU can't keep their coach. Notre fucking Dame can't keep their coach. I'm so pumped for this game tomorrow. I feel like this is our time to shine, as a football program, as a fan base, as an institution. I'm going to revel in it. And Quinn Fucking Ewers is going to ball out and so is everyone else around him.

Texas has had inept offensive lines pretty much ever since Mackovic's recruits left other than the 2005-ish group with Lyle Sendlein. A lot of it started at center. We constantly fielded multiyear starters who wore roller skates. But all it takes is one weakness among the 5 and the whole group looks ineffective. It didn't have to be center on any particular play. I remember my Dad ran these analyses back in the 90s examining great OLs around the country. His conclusions weren't necessarily dramatic. It feels intuitive. What he found is that the two dominant factors for excellent offensive lines were lots of upper classmen from year to year (prodigies excepted), and...here's the kicker...plus 15 OL on the roster on a consistent basis. Until Flood got here with Sarkisian's complete and utter buy in, we simply weren't doing a good enough job getting big humans who could move in space, and even if we did, we didn't get enough of them. Coaches with good recruiting staffs - and I'm looking specifically at Mack Brown - do not want to fill up a lot of space with OL because if they don't work out they can't be spun anywhere else. A defensive lineman who isn't quite quick enough to beat the block can be moved to the OL and become a quality player a lot easier than the other way around. There's virtually no offensive linemen I know of that were highly recruited, but when they didn't pan out on that side of the ball they were moved over to defensive tackle where they became a terror. But it does work the other way. Rarely, I'll admit. But it's possible. I'll also say Flood/Sarkisian finally have schemes that give the OL a chance to be successful. Yes, they're recruiting big guys who can move remarkably well in space, and then they're recruiting a bunch of them, because not everyone works out. And then they keep bringing in a bunch with every recruiting class. All of that is fundamental. That's where the success comes from. But then you add to it the blocking schemes and offensive philosophy we're using. It's fundamentally sound. The schemes build off of one another from one play to the next. We run a TON of zone blocking. But we also run a lot of pulling action. And what we're doing with the pulling action is not even remotely obvious. Many times we're literally pulling players in both directions. So for defenders trying to follow the flow of the play, Texas will get them moving in one direction, and then the ball goes in the other. My point is the scheme is constantly allowing the OL to get leverage on the defender they're matched up against. And if they can't conceivably get leverage because they're moving two spots down to punch a defender in the earhole, the success of the running play isn't predicated on getting a complete seal on that defender. So much of past staffs seemed to just demand the OL get tougher and more physical, without giving them any schematic tools to ensure success. I guess the proof is in the pudding in terms of whether the OL excellence we're seeing is repeatable year after year, but it feels like we're FINALLY doing all the things programs with great offensive lines have always done. Recruit big bodies who move well in space. Recruit some guys who may not have big bodies but have the frames to carry more weight and let them season. Recruit a lot of them every year rather than getting so enamored with freak athletes that you're loading up with skill position players and defensive studs that you're running on the bare minimum of bodies for the OL. And then scheme in ways that give your OL their best chance to be successful. I know I'm preaching to the choir here, but of all the things going on in this program, the emphasis in every way of being effective in the trenches has me most excited about our long term future. And there's a lot that has me excited about our long term future right now.

He's great. Both in substance and the way he conveys it. I like making fun of the collective SEC fan base, but there's no questioning the passion for college football in the southeast. The amount of content - much of it pretty high level - compared to what we saw in the Big 12, is night and day. Even if Nebraska, A&M and Missouri stayed in the conference it wouldn't have come close to matching what I see week in and week out with the SEC fandom. Colorado, of course, never mattered. There is no way that school keeps Sanders if he can manage to win. They just don't care enough. That's what makes the SEC fun to be a part of. Nearly every week we're facing a fanbase whose whole identity is based around how their team does the upcoming weekend in ways that rarely happened outside of OU in the Big 12. There's some wishcasting with SEC fans. I certainly think Georgia can win this game. They're still Georgia. But the collective hope being invested by the SEC faithful in a Georgia win is downright heartwarming. It would be fun to see the rug pulled out from under them.

Hey, scream SEC to your heart's content. I'm not stopping you. I'm glad you're proud of your new Alabama overlord and their greatness under Saban. Oh, and Saban comes to Texas if Mack Brown and Deloss Dodds don't sabotage the move. So stick that in your analingus elephant worship. And yeah, what happened 50 years ago means a great deal to me. Stopping Joe Namath at the goal line means a great deal to me. Losing to Georgia in the Cotton Bowl means a great deal to me. And beating these bourbon soaked Deliverance banjo playing cultists is going to give me a great deal of pleasure. They call it DKR stadium for a reason. Maybe you should look him up sometime.

The path to power for ambitious Palestinians is going to remain hate towards the occupying Jews and calling for martyrs. Anyone making peace with Israel is going to be painted as weak and a traitor. Recent events are making Hamas, Hezbollah and by extension Iran less effective in prosecuting their anti Israeli behavior, but the underlying motivations and cultural identities persist. It doesn't take a majority of Palestinians wanting to fight Israel with their last breath to create an effective armed opposition. It takes a relatively small percentage - say 10% - being more hardcore than anyone else where everyone around them goes along with their agenda because to not do so places their family and social standing at risk. Also, outside funding is necessary, but there's no shortage of wealthy benefactors who would like to make Israel uncomfortable for a variety of reasons. They may not have the spigot Iran has had, but they've got enough to arm the next generation. Even if this results in some kind of short term peace, it's not going to change the overall calculus. But making your enemies less capable has its benefits, and Israel certainly has done that. Sinwar is a big one, obviously, but the overall campaign has been impressive from the standpoint of disemboweling Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran. It has required a level of ruthlessness that is off putting to many people around the world, but without that ruthlessness there's a good chance it wouldn't have been nearly as effective. I'm interested to see how effective this conflict is at pushing the two state solution rhetoric to a more successful conclusion. I do not believe a two state solution is sustainable. IMO it simply leads to a more effective platform for Palestinians to make Israel's existence more precarious. But there's a new impetus in sympathy to what the Palestinian people have undergone. I'm interested to see what comes of it.

I want to add on to this a little bit. First of all, Alabama is our bitch. The only time you've ever beaten us - the only time you'd ever be able to beat us - is by knocking out our starting quarterback. Scoreboard still counts, but we've always had the better teams. We own you, and that's the way it's always going to be. Two of your best coaches had Aggie running through their veins. Bear Bryant never could beat Darrell Royal. He also was a pissant for not figuring out a way to play Ken Hall. There. I said it. I'll never forgive him for that. He also had his greatest successes as a coach copying UT's offensive scheme. You guys are the poster children for made up national titles. You and your sisters in College Station have a patent on it. If it's not AP or coach's poll, they don't fucking count. It's not that difficult. Gene Stallings has so much Texas envy all the fiber and laxatives in the world won't ever enable him to shit it all out. Fuck the 92 championship season and that boring ass offense. OMG I wanted to stab myself with a fork watching those Crimson Tide teams. Jay Barker was the Trent Dilfer of college quarterbacks. Bragging about conference pride is a loser mentality. Let you lesser mouth breathing fan bases soak all that shit in. A&M has been sucking collective Alabama, Georgia, and LSU cock since they entered the conference. As usual, their greatest games are the ones they "almost" won. Or the ones where they happened to beat a great team but then didn't capitalize on it. They have been so proud watching other teams carry their water. Fuck. That. Hey, good for you for beating that Miami team and starting the stupidest chant in college sports. What a thing to be proud of. I'm glad I now have a rumor of how it was born. What's going to be way better is when the Horns Down becomes the unofficial hand signal of the SEC. It's already almost there. We'll see Alabama fans soon throwing them down when Texas isn't even playing, the same way everyone else loves to. And I'm going to enjoy soaking it in. You and Auburn can scream SEC at each other while paying University of Texas licensing fees for the upside down Longhorn decals pasted on the wrecks you keep in your front lawn.

Fuck that shit.