Why do we schedule teams like this? If we beat'm, we just drop in the polls anyway. Can't be much of a chance for improvement, gives the team a false sense of confidence, and I feel bad for the other team. Not even that enjoyable to watch.
This week was pretty crappy when it came to games as many teams were off. I mean look at the games that were on TV (that were in my area): Pitt at Texas A&M (decent match-up) Arkansas at Alabama - *yawn* South Carolina at Tennessee - double *yawn* Even the Thursday night game sucked. On another note, did anyone else see Tim Brando? Dude looks ridiculous with coloring the hair red.
Are you serious Manny? This was the greatest game of the weekend, hands down! Hook 'em. Nearly 50 in a half? Good stuff. And watching Larry Fitzgerald made me wish Roy Williams got more passes his way.
I just saw that Arkansas came back and won this game, lol. My comment was more towards before the game. Yea, I know that Arkansas beat Texas but LSU or Auburn was the team everybody thought would come out of the West and Alabama is on probation (and looks like they will stay on it until the end of time). Add in that I don't care for either team (especially Alabama) and to me it was a boring match-up. However, it turned out to be a helluva game.
I can't argue with scheduling pansies. The problem is... what if Texas had beaten Arkansas? Nobody cares. That's why Dodds didn't want to schedule it. If you beat the Arkansas, Marshalls, and Stanfords of the world... people nod their heads, and say you were supposed to. If you lose, you get bashed. And you're going to lose every now and then, when playing a quality opponent. My only complaint is that it's a football game. That means that the point of the game isn't Mack Brown showing what exquisite manners and generous sense of compassion he has. He's supposed to do what's best for his team. And that doesn't entail taking penalties with the 4th string in the game while running up the middle. Two of 3 is fine... the penalties were ridiculous (as made clear in my own thread... sorry, didn't see this one).
It's part of the unwritten rules of football: you don't run up the score. Yes, scoring with our 4th string back would have been running it up. Despite the delay of game penalties, Hall and Johnson still had opportunities to score. If you want a coach that runs it up, perhaps you should root for a team with a jackass at the helm.
Actually, that's the first time I've ever seen that done. And I watch a lot of college football. I've seen the 3rd and 4th string in. Good idea. Nobody gets hurt, people get experience, and the score doesn't get ridiculous. I've seen coaches run it up the middle. Fine. No reason to humiliate anybody. I've never seen a coach tell his 3rd and 4th string to take 3 penalties before. That's just as insulting to the other team. Besides, if we really didn't want to run up the score... we could have already stopped at 35... just as little chance of them winning at 35 as at 63 .
LOL. how about just not a coach who is a p***y? would that be too much to ask. it's the attitude that pervades the whole program, be nice or you might hurt someone's feelings. don't worry about that mistake son, i won't hurt your feelings. yell at you, what, i'm a p***y, you don' have to worry about that. we'll get 'em next time. hey, go 15 yards backwards on this play, it shows class. i would have been perfectly fine had we run the FB up the middle 4 times and failed. i wanted 70 and wouldn't have granted tulane even that favor, but i would've said "that's just mack trying to be class." but this was classless and demeaning and horrible example to set for the team. if you can give me one example of anyone ever taking 3 penalties to PURPOSELY NOT SCORE maybe i'll change my mind. no one else could think of an example at the game.
OMFG!!! did anyone just hear mark may? not only do we get the disrespect of not getting any highlights (though sportscenter made sure to show dj get laid out while trying to chase a guy down), but mark may calls us out for running up the score!!! after they called us a playground bully earlier. omg. omg. omg. he said we should be ashamed for having the starters in after halftime and, the most absurb thing he said, passing in the 4th quarter. uhh, anyone remember us throwing in the 4th quarter? i remember nordgren throwing one BS piece of crap pass that missed. otherwise we ran, ran, ran some more. we didn't even leave the 2nd string qb (who's actually the best qb) in after the 3rd. and we took penalties to purposely not score. we score 14 pts after halftime (which i'm sure a ton of good teams score even more against pansies) and purposely try to not score and we get called out for running up the score. i used to think people were BSing when they said the media didn't like us (despite always overrating us to start a season just to tear us down), but now i'm not sure. we got called out left and right for losing to arkansas and got reamed in the polls then didn't pass the teams that lost the next week. and now we get called out for running up the score when we did the exact opposite and get no highlights. MFing damn. i used to like mark may. now i don't. even smokey hasn't said we ran up the score.
It was hard not to score when we tried not to score. I'm not precisely sure why the media dislikes Texas so much. Yes, they've underachieved a bit. But not that badly. 3rd best record in the nation over the past 4 years. They've underachieved much less than Notre Dame, FSU, Florida, or UCLA lately. Yet those programs don't get trashed the same way Texas does. I mean, I think Mack Brown is a solid A- coach. But one thing he doesn't do is run up the score. The Stanford game was the only one I remember where you could even field a remotely credible accusation.
Why do we schedule teams like this? If we beat'm, we just drop in the polls anyway. Can't be much of a chance for improvement, gives the team a false sense of confidence, and I feel bad for the other team. What kinds of teams do you propose we schedule? Keep in mind, these things are done like 5 years in advance... For all we know, Tulane was crap back then (they certainly were last year). I'm not precisely sure why the media dislikes Texas so much. Yes, they've underachieved a bit. But not that badly. 3rd best record in the nation over the past 4 years. They've underachieved much less than Notre Dame, FSU, Florida, or UCLA lately. Yet those programs don't get trashed the same way Texas does. Texas arrogance. A bad habit of talking up big games and then getting our asses kicked ("I'm keeping a list" right before the OU game?). Playing soft. Playing scared. All of those other teams have won a title of some sort or not been self-promoted to win one.
I readily admit to not being a huge college football fan. But I am aware that schedules are made out into the future. Here are some past Tulane computer power rankings: 1999 - 92nd... ahead of Northern Illinois who is currently Top 25 ranked. Texas was 23rd and Oklahoma was 28th. http://teamrankings.com/ncf99/ 2000 - 83rd... ahead of Big 12'ers Oklahoma State and Missouri. http://teamrankings.com/ncf100/ I guess my point is that four or five years into the future, it is hard to determine whether teams from the MAC or WAC or other mid-level conferences will be a challenge or a patsy. Seems like a crap shoot to me.
We did leave our starters in way too long but anyone who thinks we ran up the score did not watch the game. I think it's unwarranted criticism...if you're going to rip him do it cause our starting safeties went down not because a 4th string back didn't score a TD. Look for Tulane and UT to play again in the future.