Heard was better than Swoopes, but's that's a backhanded compliment at best. The defense was terrible, but was fortunate to get some TO's. Ultimately this is a program that can't be picky about W's right now. Keep playing Heard and maybe his ability in the passing game will start to develop. Unlike Swoopes, he's at least a threat with his legs.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Malik on Jerrod Heard: "He was held back, like in a prison cell."</p>— Brian Davis (@BDavisAAS) <a href="https://twitter.com/BDavisAAS/status/642911496352083968">September 13, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
That didn't last long. I was a Patterson fan(built the champion rockets team) but he sure pisses off a lot of people.
People trying to translate his success in building the Rockets of 20 years ago to UT were naive from the get-go. Everything he did outside of the Charlie Strong and Shaka Smart hires alienated alumni and fans, and I'm sure that 15,000 empty seats for the home opener against Rice was the final nail in the coffin.
Rumors are that they might be trying to hire Mack as AD. I would be fine with that. If Saban is still interested in leaving Bama, Mack will get him or at least try to. If not, Mack at least has a good eye on who to hire.
The Rice MOB had originally planned to go but found out they would have to pay the $100/seat. Apparently it is a big 12 thing - Baylor was doing it too (but only wanted $45/seat). When it all hit the media, UT announced that they had offered comp tickets to the Rice band which chose not to use them. I do know those tickets never made their way to the band. It looks like they were supposed to take them out of a fairly small allotment given to Rice for VIPs, players' families, etc. In previous years we would have had that _and_ the band seats. So - it looks like they are charging bands, unless the visiting school wants to use some seats that would normally be given to families and VIPs, and of course they are not going to do that. I heard one rumor that the SEC schools had been charging for band seats in recent years, and many schools quit sending bands to away games or only sent a smaller pep band. It's greedy. It's not like they aren't making a profit. I hate that the corporate mindset is taking away so much of what made college football enjoyable. Glad Patterson is going bye-bye, but that may not fix everything if other schools are doing it too (trying to charge as much as they can for every little thing).
Exactly and that's why so much of the UT alumni base freaked out when they heard this. It's the most profitable athletic department in the country, but they want to charge for visiting bands to attend, especially from small schools like Rice? Ridiculous. You're right about the atmosphere. It's nothing more than money-grubbing that will chip away at the atmosphere of college games which, for myself at least, is a huge differentiating factor between college football and the synthetic, contrived atmosphere of NFL games with manufactured "DE-FENSE" chants and LED lights telling fans to stand up.
But what did he do wrong? People didn't like him? Why? So UT hired a guy, but he didn't do things the way they wanted him to? Is Patterson just a huge dick, or what? I guess people didn't really want change at UT. Seems like change was needed.
Yes Patterson is a moron. Boosters didn't like him, they all wanted Saban and he went ahead and chose Strong anyway who really wasn't a booster favorite. Now he's charging bands for tickets at games, which only makes the school look petty. He supposedly has also had clashes with fans. He's done plenty wrong if you've actually followed him. This isn't about change. You can have change if it's the right kind of change.
He's a dick and a pretty greedy b*stard. Besides the Rice thing, the changes they made for season ticket holders were purely to gauge the fans while also making the gameday atmosphere worse. Several years ago, UT partnered with StubHub so that season ticket holders who couldn't go to games could easily resell their tickets digitally - this dramatically lowered the street price of tickets (below face value in most cases) and helped fill the stadium. It benefited everyone - season ticket holders, casual fans and the school. Patterson reversed that and has said they will cancel season tickets of anyone who tries to sell extras (unless you pay a ridiculous premium in advance to get "resellable" tickets). The result, not surprisingly, was easily the lowest attendance in 15 years this past weekend - and it was for a season opener. He's basically pissing everyone off, inside and outside of the school. People wanted change - but not a change just focused on maximizing athletic department profit at the expense of fans.
Holy crap. Who the hell thought that was a good idea? Steve Patterson sounds like he should go work for the Washington Redskins. That's Dan Snyder level f***ery right there.
