OldArmy

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I’m an Aggie, and Ed Orgeron imho is the perfect fit at LSU. While not a fan of all things LSU, I have to say it is great to see a man as proud of his state, school, team and his program act like he does. He is pissed about last year, and I would not give a hoot for a coach who would not be. Never heard the man say anything disrespectful towards others, but he is pretty direct (which is old school for honest). it’s refreshing to hear a guy who is planning to rip somebody a new one on the field come out and admit it. I think your coach is going to go down in history as one of the best in the game.
Well, the myth of oil money running wild paying all of A&M’s bills is getting really old. A&M did not raise the $485 mill for Kyle Field in “like a week.” The 12th Man Foundation had well over $280,000,000 in the bank, had been saving to up grade Kyle for decades (and the cost was just below $450 mill, the other $35 mill was for the renovation of facilities linked to football that were funded out of a separate bond initiative). That 280 million fund was earning more than the cost of borrowing money for Kyle (at the time). So, the school kept the 280 million, borrowed against that for the bulk of the money, had a plus up from bonds issued by local governments as part of the deal to keep games in the College Station area during reconstruction, etc., etc. There was a significant plus up in donations to the school athletics, but quite a lot of that went to a new baseball stadium, new track and field facilities, new softball stadium, new basketball arena....A&M still has a lot of money, but it is not from oil money alone, not by a long shot.
When they start paying players for video game revenue, maybe part of the deal should be video game refs to replace the real ones....
Definitely could use some pose-traction....
Yeah right. Tradition with innovation has led to a lot of half ass wannabe crap happening all over campus. The 12th Man Foundation has blown one hellava lot of money in the last few years screwing with what was a very simple formula that worked. What they got for it was a lot of pissed off older Ags who have better things to do than pay to watch the high school Harry crap John Sharp and company have brought in. Note to A&M athletics, stop paying a ton of money on coaches who had better days behind them than in front of them, Sumlin and almost ever coach he brought in, for example. (Next year we might be sayin the same thing about Jimbo)
Well, no question about who kicked who's butt. Say what you want about the Big 12, Texas is one proud (and arrogant) program, they had a very good team, and Georgia let the narrative be..... we will kick your butts because we got dissed in going to the playoffs. When you are dealing with 18-21 year olds, that's all the edge the Horns needed. Was really pulling for the Dawgs, but after about 5 plays, it was pretty obvious the sips came to play.
Great win for Kentucky, great season. Will miss Snell though. Lotta fun.
On the plus side, in his old age he can always say, "Huh, you think you youngins' are tough, I survived an encounter with Nick Saban, yeah, look at this and tell me......."
Tried to come up with something more eloquent and fitting than your comment, but I think you nailed it.
This "award" and about $7 will get you tacos and a soda at some Taco Bells.....
1. Have no idea if it is true or not. Will agree with many of you who said in one form or another that this smells and could be true. 2. If it is true, it follows a pattern we have seen over and over again in college ball. That pattern shows up kinda like this, new coach and a huge bump in quality of recruits. Did not say an uptick, a huge bump in quality of recruits. Fisher showed up and in less than one full recruiting season it is a significant bump. 3. Add in stupid stuff you see happening, administration giving him a National Championship Trophy without a date on it, on top of the largest salary in the history of the school ...... and everywhere else, and employees under Fisher feel the pressure. Fisher made a big deal about toughness. Well, when you say that, you know need to show that, and trying to do that too fast to players used to a different regime, and it gets interesting. Sumlin had a bad locker room dynamic. His teams were not cohesive on both sides of the ball. That creates a lack of loyalty, stuff you got away with at another school as a coach (head or assistant) might not fly in that situation. 4. Stop if you think I'm saying Fisher is dirty, I have no idea. But that kind of intense, win now, stuff WILL most likely encourage some people to do stupid stuff. It only takes one afternoon of dumbass to devastate a program these days. The way to avoid dumbass is a hyperactive, relentless and merciless oversight of everybody. Hard, almost impossible to do without a dedicated and disciplined approach. Don't know Fisher's new staff, how disciplined they are, but teams do it. 5. Example: Alabama wins all the time. Everybody knows it. Saban is one of the most scrutinized coaches in history. But he basically told everybody he was going to do it his way, and his way was to build under a microscope. If there are mistakes at Alabama procedurally, Saban seems to be on top of it. I have said a lot of things critical about Saban, but never that he did not run a clean program. Perfect? No, perfect does not exist. 6. So, that brings us to, if Fisher is not dirty, what the hell is going on at A&M? Same stuff that gets you in trouble, maybe. Maybe nothing happened, but a door was left open and the NCAA will have to show up. They should, BUT the NCAA is flawed, has a horrible track record of doing things in a timely manner, and few would argue their investigative abilities make for clarity. Does not mean if they find something it was a mistake. My point is even if they don't find much, it will take them forever to do it. And that sucks, as many of you know. 7. I think the NCAA is going to come in and look real hard at this, and they will find something. Do not know what it is, but this smacks of the kind of behavior that happened more than once in the old days at A&M. If that is the case, it opens the door to some pretty serious charges about lack of institutional control. 8. I hope this is a disgruntled kid, but not sure. What I am sure of is, no matter how this goes, its not good to have the NCAA walk into your house with a mandate to look at everybody, in this administration and in the last. 9. I agree with everyone who has said this is a game changer for college ball. College ball needs some game changing rules about players, and the first one A&M needs in this new environment is what in the Army was called the Inspector General. Totally independent of everybody, operating not for the benefit of the President, the Board of Regents or the Coaches, but whose only assignment is to do continuous internal looks at the program. All day and all night. Why? There's $485 million bucks invested in just the stadium and locker rooms. Big, big money for a university. Welcome to the new world guys, but this is the "hey, I was wronged" age.
Sumlun was snakebit..... Not sure if it was all his fault, but he was part of the problem with QB retention.
NFL numbers are in the tank, revenue is dropping, not just in percentage against population growth, stadium attendance in abysmal, numbers for playoff games are ...... It may be an entertainment "deal", but this is a desperation move, trying to gin up declining investor excitement by throwing bad boy names out there. They are out of gas BEFORE they fill up the tank, this not only will fail, its already dead. Does not mean it won't have a couple of seasons, but this is going the way of the Pacer. Do you have a clue how this works? The market is saturated, the only way to make money out of a start up in an ever decreasing marketplace is to get investors with capital to burn to put up before the idea goes bust. This league is going to fail.
I think it is a great idea..... But then again, I'll admit it's a self serving motive.
Not too enamored with the Stoner design, only own 12 variants, the FN FAL is more interesting.....
Could.not.agree.more. JFF is an accident waiting to happen; his penchant for gambling (and many other "questionable" penchants.....) makes him a desperation hire. Signs this league is out of gas......
Maybe Herbie was right, the passion at Jimbo's new job is just different.
Do not have a dog in this fight, but from the outside looking in, UT's athletic department (not the players, or even the most recent coaching staff) has no leadership. Its puzzling, and the last presser was just.... wierd.
On the other hand, could be really smart. He may have had promises from Chief about playing time (whatever). He may have committed to A&M based on position coaches, yada. Could just want to make Jumbo's staff show their face at his door so he and his family can do an eval. Prefer not to judge a 17 year old on a life decision like this. Best of luck to him.
The one thing about this that bothers me is the Jameis affair. FSU (and its coaching staff, administration and student body) worked overtime to cover that mess up (and it was more than just stealing, that prized QB had serious issues. Still does). So, I am with you on the "be careful what you wish for", but if all you are worried about as an FSU alum was that Jimbo's leaving was how it was timed, then I'll posit that as an Aggie I'm not much impressed with the underlying principles in your concerns about this move. To be upfront, I think one of the great flaws in Sumlin's make up was his ability to identify and deal with potential self destructive personalities in the locker room at A&M. This is not about what school is better, or got the better deal, or what a fan with a blog thinks about his school's professional sports franchise versus another schools. A&M a couple of decades ago got slammed by trying too hard to game the system. I just hope this $75 million dollar prize heffer got scrubbed properly, because I think there is more than enough smoke to believe Jimbo and FSU et al enabled, and covered for, a person a decent staff and administration would have smoked.
Unless you count Sumlin's buy out, but get your point, FSU is a player.
Unless Saban is actually..... Nah, that's just too much .... Nah...
Our chancellor is, shall we say, prone to hyper-speech. Not a bad guy, but incapable of speaking about A&M without.... embellishing juuuuuust a tad. What he meant to say was, "the best coach in the nation still available who will come here for a truck load of money".
That was obviously supposed to go under Crists last post. Sorry bout that.
Schools like TCU and Baylor are making noise all over Texas..... don't see your point. Texas and Florida's populations are similar, and about the same number of schools we end up talking about. (will grant you that FSU and Florida as a combo have produced more talk about championships than the two long standing state schools in Texas (Texas and A&M). Your point after that is just trying too hard. If you throw in Miami, Florida has much more championship buzz. And, you do not count that the Great State of Texas also fuels (at 40 to 50 percent) OU, Arkansas, OSU, and......... Florida does not do that. Apples to apples, the Great State of Florida internally fuels three traditional powerhouses, depending on the year. Texas fuels most Nebraska, Oklahoma and Arkansas football programs as well as its own, and normally produces one or two powerhouses of its own a year, but mostly just one.
That is not a slam indirectly or directly at FSU or any other ACC school. If you take the money A&M has and compare it to the rest of the SEC, A&M has more than all of them combined, and by factors, not fractions. Obviously, this money is a recent development for A&M, which used to be considered the "po' boys" school in Texas until circa the 80's. But with all that new money came the belief that you could just throw money at a problem to fix it. The latest example of that was Sumlin's contract, a horrible piece of financial mismanagement. I believe the reason you don't have an announcement yet on the move is a combination of things at A&M, the arrogance of the "throw money and more than anybody else" crowd balanced by two other groups; one has concerns about the Jimbo's handling of a couple of things and the other concerned about the mess of the contracting snafu(s) with Sumlin. That is before you throw in whatever glitches Jimbo is trying to introduce through his agent. The longer this goes on, the more I think it will not happen. Jimbo looked at Sumlin's contract, and wants as much or more (and A&M probably will not do that without strings). Could happen in 10 seconds or never. We'll find out before next year.
Nonsense to compare TCU, Baylor and Texas Tech to the money at Texas and A&M. Get what you are going for, but A&M for example, has endowments of over 13 Billion, raised $192 million in football revenues last year. Only one other school in Texas comes close to that, and that would be the Horns, who have twice as much money in endowments as A&M (about that anyway) and consistently ranks as one of the top two collegiate money makers. Tech, TCU and Baylor just are not in that league.
Different subject; Good luck this week. Give' em hell. War Damn Eagle!
Eh. We will not know how "huge" it is for a couple of three years. Coaching changes take time to have an effect (most of the time), schools and coaches are not always a good fit, and still kinda not comfortable with the whole JW episode (of course, think Sumlin mishandled JFF's bizarre behavior, which affected the program). Sumlin's contract was poorly thought out, poorly revised and in the end that forced A&M to keep him at least a year longer than his record deserved, so the jury is still out for me. If he is hired, we'll see how the first recruiting class goes.
Buyout is $10.4 million, and Sumlin gets to keep it even if he gets another job, which he will. Cannot for the life of me figure out why Sumlin would want to stay. His popularity is tanking and if he stays it will be the same thing again next year, only worse. IF he thinks the pressure on him now is bad, next year it will be much, much worse (firing after the first SEC loss would be my guess). He needs to man up, and move on. He is a good guy, but the other coaches in the SEC have his number, the fans have had enough of his horrible mismanagement of quarterbacks, his lackluster (at best) ability to hire and retain high quality assistants (Chief is the exception, not the rule), and to develop team dynamics (locker room leadership. Take the money and go Kevin. Hell, maybe a school next to a beach.......