Quoner

Ditto. Of all the online communities I've single-handedly destroyed from the inside, this is my favorite.

Thank God I was out of town for most of this. It's clearly sorry, but the thing that is as much a beating for me is everyone who bent over-backwards to make him what he is and feed off his hype since we was in 8th grade do the same backflips to tear him down. To tie it back to college football, it's like if Chip Brown decides to do a takedown piece on Deloss Dodds after making his name off his hand-fed realignment stories earlier this summer.

He wrote a thesis on inferiority complexes and projection. It's a pretty good read.

Like Omar Infante?

Love the supporting quotes from the mayor and local officials. Exactly what TCU did when things picked up for them last year.

Shut up, UNT03.

Well, today's trade pretty much seals it for me: meh to the big trade without a real owner. If financial relief means we'll overpay a good prospect for a freaking Molina brother, I shudder to think what Seattle or anyone else would ask for this year. I'm all for staying with this hand and exploring whether they could add a bat by dangling Ramirez, Davis or something of that ilk.

I read the Yankees aren't trading for him because they are confident they'll sign him this summer.

When they play teams that already get good ratings. The Houston numbers are interesting, though.

He quoted such great numbers to back it up though. I think that deserves a Texas Tech Football Fan doll.

The next step is for Denia to find its Avi Adelman. Hopefully, he won't be bitter enough to start stalking tailgates to take photos of people who stop to pee on a shrub or bush like Avi does on St. Patrick's Day in Greenville, but you never know. I just don't want to get pepper-sprayed right before the Houston game.

God you need me.

Great take on the never-ending soccer is da best/soccer is boring debate.

Exactly - we agree! The FWST is a shell of itself with a lot of angry and overworked reporters left who will, if you slip a drink, tell you how much they hate their expanded beats. I'll tell you what, though, don't ever take up kidnapping. You'll be terrible at ransom notes.

This cut happened more than a year ago. It must have really affected everyone for this delayed outrage to just be setting in right about now.

Yes, but didn't clarify. I am not worried that this thing gets resolved this season; I am now worried if the Ryan/Greenberg bid survives the obstacle course Hicks is laying for it behind the scenes. Whether or not that gets resolved, I am worried about the team making a short-sighted trade for a guy who will be gone in a year when it might make more sense to hold those chips to play a better hand than Roy Oswalt or Cliff Lee. If our farm systems is that good and the core isn't going anywhere for awhile, I say make trades to address other shortcomings while keeping chips aside for the moment KC, Florida or anyone else decides to start their next rebuilding project and puts someone like Greinke or Johnson on the market. If I hadn't made a vow to myself not to berate the team whenever the winning streak ended, I would have plenty to write about one of the worst games I've seen in years, but I'll just point out that: 1. Cheering when an umpire gets hit in the face with a 96 mph fasetball is sorry, no matter how bad he was 2. I hope the ridiculous Astros couple in matching ponchos directly behind home plate lost all of their retirement funds to Enron

This seems like a good time for me to post my things that make me feel nervous despite everything going well: -Nippert spot starts that won't always turn into Ogando pimpage -Feldman -CJ (still scuffling, but seems so close to just getting lit up for a few straight starts) -The upcoming schedule -Knowing now that, despite the success, not getting the win streak to 14 will probably make us lose ground -Knowing that the Rockies will probably let us down against the Angels like the Dodgers did -Knowing we have to win 2 of 3 in Cali to keep the momentum -The ownership fiasco -The thought of trading premiere talent to Seattle if the ownership situation gets resolved But, on the good list, EVERYTHING ELSE! I also realize it might be fun to revisit the Hurdle/Jaramillo debate at some point.

Ah, yes, the joy of covering the aggressive marketing campaigns ROI. I think it would have been better than 16K, but the point that we are both somewhat agreeing is that FBS schools on their own wouldn't necessarily drive attendance.

Well, I'm humbled with that sick burn from one of the most habitually negative people around. I didn't know serious sports talk *tm was the angry caller persona where you list out reasons for change you pull out of the air and tell the people in charge you know more than them. You've been perfecting that for years, so I suggest you leverage this expertise into a stint with 105.3 The Fan. Maybe they'll sponsor the board or help with the stadium if you call in, text or email a really good idea of how to change college sports and improve the program. Let's pick up from that comment about how Hawaii and Fresno are kicking BCS arse and really hash this out with some serious sports talk *tm. Or we can just agree to ignore each other unless the conversation paths cross, not have a slap fight and move on.

I'm with you on everything but Missouri State and Texas State. SMU opened the June Jones era with Texas State and drew a little over 22k. Then, they showed improvement and drew 34k for SFA a year later. Is SFA just that big a draw relative to the Bobcats? I think people will come for the other games you mentioned, but those smaller teams, no matter how much they pass us by in hypothetical WAC conference scenarios, are not a draw by themselves unless people think the home team is going to win and win big.

Yeah, Holiday is good as like a desert beer, but no idea how people sit and drink several of them at a time.

They didn't bother me until I talked to my local beer merchant and he said they had so much left in the late fall that they couldn't bring in as much Holiday Cheer as usual.

Apologies, it's "Smokehaus" /makes wanking motion and spits out that terrible, terrible, mouth-scarring beer, then yells angrily: YOU ARE NOT GOOD WITH BBQ! You are only good at cluttering the beer section and reducing the availability of good types of Shiner.

I used to say this confidently, then Smokehouse happened.

A&M has a student sports pass that has variable pricing -- about $300 just for football, $350 or so for football and basketball and a little bit more for all sports. Students then not only camp out to pull their tickets, but have to find another student's pass and pay a non-student fee to get a special sticker if they want to bring a friend. We have it good here. I don't have numbers on students, but most of the COBA professors I worked with while on campus believed that (1) we had more students working full-time and taking class than any other major school and (2) the students lucky enough to not have to pay had no excuse not to have at least a 3.5 because this was their job.