Monkeypox

Agreed. Last year our defense was historically bad and I can't count the number of times I heard there was "NO EXCUSE!" for it. Well, our defense is just as bad this year, but there don't seem to be all the same cries about DeLoach. He HAS to take some responsibility in this, sadly. Now, I will assert the same things I did last year. That this "offense" puts the defense in bad positions with its inability to sustain drives. The only thing it does efficiently is go 3 and out. But you can't have the kind of venom for the DC last year and simply give DeLoach a pass. I've heard the excuse "maybe he's not allowed to do his job..." Well, that's too bad. If that's the situation then I would expect his resignation at the end of the season, bc a defense this bad will only serve to hurt his reputation. That would probably be the best thing for him as long as he's under a coach that ALLEGEDLY doesn't let him do his job. But I'm skeptical about all that. Regardless, wheels are definitely off of this thing, and, unless there's a miraculous sustainable turnaround, multiple heads must roll.

They had this offense figured out by mid-season last year. I think there are other spreads out there I MIGHT be a fan of, but this one, notsomuch. This is a team that needs to be able to put its identity into a toughness and physicality that just isn't present in this system. The Navy game that everyone likes to hang their hat on was against the only defense close to as terrible as ours. It's called an anomaly. Everyone pointed to our passing yards last year, and I continually suggested they were primarily put up between the twenties, our 3rd down percentages were generally terrible, and we rarely could sustain drives. "But look how high we're ranked in passing yards!" Blech.

Warren has been on the field this year, but his play has not been there. When talking about team missed tackles and positioning, his name should be at the top of the list for offenders. I'm happy to see him coming on late, but the reason someone says "where has he been?" it's because he's not been making plays, NOT because he's not been given his shot. NOW, I don't completely fault the kid, because it seems like they change his position and training requirements every year, and there's no way to gain a comfort level and confidence in what you're doing with that.

I think another thing this does is allow you to actually learn and implement things and give the athletes a better chance to execute things. Installing a new system against the likes of LSU and OU is like learning chess by playing against Deep Blue. Playing these money games lessens the kind of situational learning you practice all week. You get a lot of practice at 1st/2nd/3rd and long on offense, and a lot of practice at 1st and 10 on defense. For me, it's not even about opportunities for success or "gimme" games because I'm not sure there's any such thing for this team right now, but if we were at least able to start the year with some lesser opponents, I think our team would get a better understanding of running the offense and defense for themselves.

You want tough guys who are also big and fast and strong. I like an overachiever as much as the next guy, but you won't sustain wins with a team full of guys who don't have projectable size, speed, strength, etc. You'll get blown out by the big boys just like now. But, hey, in the short-term you can enjoy a few quality wins against Belt teams.

With the exception of Jamario's freshman year, the DD ground game was rarely "explosive." I like a powerful run game, myself, but that was the definition of "3 yards and a cloud of dust" and without an absolutely DOMINANT defense, it was pretty sad football for the most part. And while I believe that the 2002 team would be competitive in today's Belt, I don't see what the point is when you consider, sadly, that that was the "pinnacle" year.

Yep.

And the percentage on those completions.

I like how it's become an "either/or" argument somehow. We have NEITHER the talent depth NOR the quality coaching on special teams. Yes, our team has more speed than it's had in the past, and it's deeper, but it still doesn't extend into the vast majority of our players, ESPECIALLY when compared to the likes of LSU. COACHING'S responsibility is to make up for the lack of depth with strategy and personnel decisions. As Jesse pointed out, Cobbs and Quinn both played ST for us, and were very good at it. By saying that we don't need to have our starters out there playing ST in case they get hurt, you recognize the large talent gap between them and backups/ST players. Our Special Teams suck, and it's both a coaching and personnel issue.

Lott, Dunbar, Riley, etc. all have more speed than we're used to seeing.

Now, I won't say I didn't see some crappy throws from Vizza, but I agree with you on all points. He had constant pressure. We didn't call a very good game, and we had some critical penalties and drops.

DD had 9 years. I personally felt he should've been fired 4 years in. If TD's results are not better when his guys are seniors, then I think you can make the case for getting rid of him. I think the talent lvl is much better now than it ever was in the DD years, but that talent is young, as is the system they're in.

I think it has some, but I also think the offense wasn't nearly as good last year as some made it out to be, especially late in the season.

I agree with this assessment. So far, I think over the last two years, our overall talent lvl has significantly increased, but we can't really expect to go up against a 10-win Tulsa team from last year with a young team that won 2 games last year and expect to come out on top. It did NOT appear to me, as it has so many times in the past, that our guys were just outclassed by theres (perhaps along the D-Line this is still the case, IMO). Our boys can play. Team speed has gotten better. There were a lot of missed tackles on a few plays, but for the most part, the issues were in positioning, losing track of the ball, getting beat by the PLAY (not the man). We looked night and day better than we did last year. It mostly seems to me that people are upset that Tulsa and our conference mates have passed us by, which is something they all did several years ago, before Todge was given the reigns. I was plenty disappointed with some things today, but I don't think it's as doom and gloom as everyone wants to make it out to be. Tulsa and Kansas State are way ahead of where we are. Accept that for now, not forever. It's reality, and no amount of Green Kool-Aid will make it not so.

Yes, I also noticed Nwigwe's game was pretty stout. One of the few bright spots of our defensive play.

Yeah, my brother is a cop in Cleburne and we talk about this because I'm a late night driver and I get pulled over a LOT but I've only had one ticket in my entire life. 99.99% of the time you get pulled over for some tiny bulls**t late at night because they're LOOKING for something else. This is actually a way that leads to a lot of arrests for guns, drugs, assault, etc. for the police. One time, when I was moving to Los Angeles, I got pulled over TWICE in a span of 20 minutes out in West Texas. My two speeds were 74 in a 65 and 69 in a 65 (yes, 69 in a 65). They weren't trying to mess me over for speeding. They saw a guy with a ton of junk in his car at 3am in the middle of nowhere West Texas, and thought they'd take a look. These stops cost you like 30 seconds, but I can't tell you the number of times my brother has put serious criminals away by stopping them for not signalling or illegal u-turns at 3am.

did he say dollars? i think he meant "ameros."

They won't come to things IN LA, but they're expecting people to make the commute halfway to Pomona?

Hah! I knew it! You THINK! You failed the Commie Queer Test, Brainiac. A TRUE red-blooded American male doesn't think EVER, much less during sex. You must be one of those elitist fruitcakes, probably like to vote for well-educated peoples with "ideas." Me, I want a guy I can sit and have a beer with and not think about anything while we watch Top Gun. I don't know anything about Greeks, but I can only assume that they are from far away, and therefore browner than myself, and thus more dangerous. Bushy eyebrows, eat vegetables... ... in short, I got you, commie.

Point to one country and I can add six more, many of which are in the Middle East, and are now cutting their export due to their own consumption needs and shortages of natural gas. Others (non-OPEC) are declining for political, environmental, and tax reasons. As for Brazil, they still import quite a bit of oil, primarily for diesel fuel, and will continue to do so as they further develop. The overall difference in their oil consumption due to a conversion to ethanol has been miniscule. There are plenty of articles about all of this. I never said the sky was falling. I said don't get your hopes up and base the price of a world Commodity on a market where it's already saturated and for which growth is fairly predictable. You're only proving my point when you bring up the futures market. Reality in the market is what people BELIEVE. THAT'S what drives the cost for oil, and what you pay at the pump. Right now, they believe that the demand in places like China and India won't slow down, and that the slow down in production from net exporters won't be enough to keep up.

SMU and TCU already have rivals... each other. You can't just insert yourself into the middle of it because you want to. Right now, our best bets are those in the Sun Belt that share a border and have similar growth potential to ourselves. I think Arkansas State probably has the most potential strictly as a rival, as there is a Texas - Arkansas natural rivalry (a sentiment that I rarely see expressed in regards to Louisiana or New Mexico) and the big boys (UT-Arkansas) don't regularly play each other these days (not like they used to). I think you can find a solid number of ASU alumni and fans in the North Texas area (enough to help drive some demand for the game). You make a big deal out of it being a border war, you give some kind of trophy, you drum up demand for the game. The problem with any of these rivalries is that rivalries don't spring up overnight, and our history isn't one that allows for the renewal of any past rivalry, because very few people have knowledge of or give a crap about our past.

US demand is down. World demand is climbing, however, and will continue to do so, as China, India, and Brazil continue to grow. The consumption growth for 2008 is anticipated to be twice the rate of production growth. The change in US demand won't account for even a fraction of what these other foreign countries will require. I wouldn't get my hopes up about the conditions in the US having any far reaching impact. The best hope is that density in places like China and India keeps the demand from continuing at its current rate (some 6-9% increase each year). Basically, these places are crowded as is, and the impracticality of automobiles may eventually have an impact. However, that's not the case at present.

You mean this dude?

I just wondered if anyone had been playing this. I've been playing the crap out of it. It's a free online football sim game that works like this: You make a football player, give him attributes, and get him signed to a team. Some of those teams (like mine) are human owned and some are CPU. You get 400 Flex Points free. This is the game currency, and can be purchased with real life money (this is how people pay for the game, in essence) after your initial bit. You don't have to, as I have several friends who haven't, though it admittedly limits what you can achieve in the game. You can also get Flex Points for referring people to the game. They have to create an account and be active at least a couple of days. So YES, I would be getting some for people who sign up through the link (actually, a member of my team would, because I'm full up on referrals). I just want to be up front about this. It's not a scam and it's not signing you up for penis pill e-mails. I own one of the teams in the game, but we're pretty full on personnel (otherwise, I'd be on here offering contracts). I've had a ton of fun with it. Anyway, if you're interested, here are the links: Signup link: http://goallineblitz.com/game/signup.pl?ref=2839955 Newbie Forum: http://goallineblitz.com/game/forum_thread....pl?forum_id=19 (this will explain a lot of stuff. I highly recommend the player creation thread). One of my player examples: http://goallineblitz.com/game/player.pl?player_id=459748

I think Scott Hall should be our starter next year.