Future Texas Football Scheduling

ive already handed him my laundry list of non-con opponents. goes something like this…

Oregon
Tennessee
Penn St.
Notre Dame (thanks for calling on deuce-9)
Miami, Fla.
Boise St.
Utah
Alabama
Michigan
Wisconsin

No way all this goes down, and the way to hear him tell it, all have been in some form or another, laid out on the table before. An Alabama series fell thru after Shula left that woulda been played this year and next? or last and present, I forget.
Problem is, no PSU, UM or Wisco, given the above stated pre-reqs. But damnit, Wisco just for the trip to Madison in early September. Please and Thank You.
Next series that breaks will be Maryland, then Oregon, then… wait for it… Arizona State.
A Lot of people talk about the possibility of Va Tech in a home and home, and for some reason, Belmont keeps their short stacks.

blegh!

oh, and one last thing. Fred Akers had one opponent in his last couple years he tried to schedule, but never reciprocated. and now that there’s a native son on the sidelines, that school may be ready to return the interest.

hopefully revenge for January 2, 1984 will be on the horizon.

Fuck scheduling BSU, until they rid themselves of that blue abomination of an arena field.

I’d love to see Bama, Michigan, Wisky or Tennessee, though.

UT v UT. call it the real orange bowl

you can even let fedex sponsor it!

I think horns, both bates and brick, are ok with the Maryland tilt.

As a rule, anytime Ole Miss is mentioned it needs to be accompanied by pictures of the students body. No, not the chodes.

I want U-Dub in a major way. Sarkisian has them on the rise, both on the field and in recruiting. Plus you can walk, or boat, to the stadium from my Dad’s house.

I also wouldn’t mind a home and home with USC, assuming that shitbird Kiffin is still at the reigns.

Oregon would be cool too, but I’m not sure how excited I would be to open the doors further to their SEC like recruiting tactics. They took 3 rb’s last year, two from Houston, and one from Temple.

I don’t understand why a quality team from either the SEC, PAC whatever, or Big Ten would want to schedule us for an out of conference game. In those three conferences, everyone’s strength of schedule is already strong enough to get them to the title game as long as they win out….maybe they even make the title game with one loss . Why would they risk a loss to Texas? Why play an OOC game like Texas? there is too much downside for them, because a loss is a strong possibility when playing us. However in our boat, we really need a matchup with them for our OOC strength. Heck, we could go undefeated and not play in the title game because of our weak schedule now that Nebraska is gone. They don’t need us to make the title game. Why risk it?

Seattle would be fun, so I’d take Washington. I’d love to play Tennessee as well. Knoxville is an awesome town, but I can’t get my wife (understandably so) to attend a Gator game up there.

Good stuff. You’d have to think Bellmont is keeping in mind that Big 12-2 is a temporary fix and not permanent. Really three scenarios:

1. Stay in the Big 12-2 (or even add 2 teams to make it back to 12). Playing 9 (or 8) conference games with patsies listed above. Makes sense to add higher profile non-cons.
2. Move to Pac-16. Playing 9 conference games (adding Arizona and Arizona State as patsy replacements). Would likely be more competitive.
3. Independent status? Pipedream at this point, but let’s see how well Bevo TV does. In this scenario, you have to schedule as many top tier teams as possible. Notre Dame is a great start.

As for current non-con’s, I don’t think you’ll see Texas touch supposedly “dirty” programs with a 10 foot pole. Oregon? Alabama? LSU? No thanks.

And if you’re not scheduling the big boys, then location should definitely be taken into account. Westwood and The Grove is a nice start. Mill Avenue, anyone?

Maryland is not a good team and they are in decline. If we want a DC area game, we should get Virginia Tech to agree to a home and home in which they play the return at FedEx. That’s where all their alumni are, I’m sure they would be happy to do it.

Auburn would be pretty sweet. Colorado at some point if they turn it around. Florida state? Utah? St Louis rams?

2013: Take the team we don’t play next year… either BYU or UCF and so 2013
you have Ole Miss, UCF, & Southern Miss. (guess)

Others I’d like us to go after…Cincinnati, Louisville, or Syracuse. Big names without a lot of pop. Cal/ND to open up a season is rough. I kinda like the OU model right now. ONe marquee game and one absolute patsy with the other 1-2 being mid-tier respectable matchups.

I wouldn’t mind drawing from the MWC occasionally if it means we get a 2-1 deal against the likes of TCU, BYU or Air Force.

We need to be careful going forward because season openers may occasionally be conference games. Just look at the SEC or Pac-10. That means you could have a murderer’s row of ND, OU, @Tech, Cal. Ouch.

Basically, if we truly are gonna play ND EVERY year. We don’t need to have another Ohio State level game. ND is enough. Fill in the other game with a Rice caliber team and fill in the other with a Maryland/Minn caliber team. My two bits.

Scipio – Alamo bowl is now Big 12 vs. Pac-10. (On a side note, I think San Antonio is going to find out the hard way that fans on the west coast aren’t going to be as enamored with the Dec/Jan weather as fans from the Big 10).

The UCF game was a 2-for-1. I doubt it gets canceled as we’ve already given them their home game. More likely they move it to 2013 or 2014.

Also, with no away OOC dates for 2013 and 2014 perhaps an away game with BYU would be an easy spot to fill.

Can’t see UF ever happenign as they never play OOC games out of the state of Florida.

If UT was actually averse to playing against dirty programs we wouldn’t have the series with Ole Miss coming up.

The Big Ten rights issue can and will be worked out,. It’s not in their interest to lose out on Texas v. Michigan because of highlight packages.

We’re a national program and a should be playing at least one one national game a year in a game where winning is a value add. Notre Dame Michigan Georgia.

Generally we should not be playing good teams from non BCS conferences like BYU. Winning is expected, losing is possible. (Though at this point I’m thankful for any decent opponent in DKR.)

One national game, one game against a decent team from a BCS conference that helps recruiting. (Cal, e.g,).

Washington would be a great non-conference opponent. We have some recent history – Holiday bowl when Neuheisel was there. Husky stadium is a bit worn down – but still a great game day atmosphere/setting and Seattle is a terrific road trip – if a bit long.

They’re playing solid Big 12 comp(Nebraska) out of conference this year. So, I am guessing that they’d be interested.

I don’t know where Syracuse plays these days – but if it’s stil the Carrierdome – scratch that. Horrible atmosphere and no appeal as a road venue.

There’s a lot of risk in playing TCU – but they are starting to get some national respect. They are probably the second best team in the state right now. Perhaps third if Tech is any good with Tommy T.

Michigan. Washington.

Great traditional programs that have a fair chance of being very good at any point when they would end up on our schedule.

Michigan will ditch Rich Rod and get it together. Washington is coming and with USC in jail they could make a big move in the Pac 10.

Talk about great road trips.

Then it’s settled bullzak, Seattle’s where you can call me an asshole then buy me a beer. Get DeLoss on the red phone wouldya….

This thread reminds me of the two longhorn bulls looking down on a herd of cows from the bluff.

“Let’s run down there and fuck a couple of them,” whooped the young bull.

“Nope, son, let’s walk down there and fuck ’em all.”

I expect they’ll convince WY or UTEP to delay their 2012 game a year or two.

FL hasn’t played OOC out of state in the 2 decades since they lost at Syracuse. Truly the biggest scheduling pussies in colllege football. Spare us the FSU excuse, the Gator cowards dropped Miami and would have dropped the Noles except for legislative intervention. Always trying to ride the SEC myth into the 2-team beauty contest, just another reason we need a playoff. Which we basically have in the BCS bowls, but don’t yet play the semifinals and championship game.

Go after FSU, they are up there with Michigan, USC, Colorado, and ND among programs with the guts to play anybody anywhere.

Speaking of Michigan, I’d guess they are the unnamed big team. I’ve read/heard rumors in the past that they were being added to the schedule. Too bad the BTN fight appears to have scuttled it.

Schedule Boise, there’s nothing to lose now. A loss, even at home, wouldn’t have the shock and sting that OU’s did because years later the Broncos have the respect of being a top power. No riskier these days than scheduling ND or USC. With all the talk of big names ducking them, scheduling Boise would be a PR win for a UT that has recently seemed to go out of its way to portray itself as the clean program future of cfb, the antithesis of SEC squalor. Besides, blue is the color compliment of orange.

Hey how about that 63-yard TD-setup punt return last night? Jordan Shipley could run donuts around those Cowgirls

From the link, another blow to Aggie ego:

“FL hasn’t played OOC out of state in the 2 decades since they lost at Syracuse. Truly the biggest scheduling pussies in college football. Spare us the FSU excuse, the Gator cowards dropped Miami and would have dropped the Noles except for legislative intervention. "

Not sure calling them the biggest pussies in college football is fair. FSU is one more (preseason) Top 25 team than Texas schedules most years. Dodds strategy seems to be to headhunt the very bottom of the BCS conferences-Maryland, UCLA, Minnesota. It doesn’t seem fair to the non-BCS conferences that he can take advantage of people believing that these bottom feeders are better than their best teams. Hell, Maryland is 0-2 vs. the Sun Belt the last two years and went to OT with James Madison last year. Lafayette, Temple, Buffalo, Arkansas St, La Tech would actually give Texas a better game/blowout than last years Md squad, and wouldn’t ask for a return game. Unfortunately Dodds, and it seems most Texas fans, have zero interest in competitive games during the regular season. It’s all about the ranking and the title – and being able to boast of more points than yards than UTEP. Hopefully someday we get a playoff which might not punish teams so badly for taking scheduling risks.

Maryland is a program on decline, but they’re an easy W, and best of all: Access to the DC recruiting area for a weekend. Prince George’s County has some quality talent, although it tends to be long on athletic potential, weak in the technique and coaching department, and putting a 50 point beat down on the terrapins could open some doors for us down the road.

Obviously, a Va Tech match up at Fed Ex would be ideal, and since my house is 10 minutes from the stadium, I’ll host the BC pre game in my back yard. A game against Virginia wouldn’t be bad either.

If the Longhorn Network is going to succeed, then UT needs to play games in big TV markets outside Texas. It can make money on the Texas T.V. markets by itself, but you eventually want it to be like the YES network, which is carried on my basic FIOS package. You don’t get there by not agreeing to do some Home and Home with teams in good T.V. Markets.

WHY DO PEOPLE THINK PLAYING AT FEDEX WOULD BE GOOD?

The field sucks… there is no scoreboard – yuo’d better have a smartphone if you have action on another game. It has a 1980s video screen. Maryalnd literally has a better stadium.

FedEx = Shitty obstructed view seats… located near nothing… I think there is a McDonalds and a liquor store a half mile away. Assclown management. The best thing about FedEx is the tailgating. 2 hour traffic jam in and out lasting for hours after the game. No metro access.

I was a season ticket holder for a season at FedEx and will never go back. If someone offers me free tickets, I have a strong internal debate. The only exception being to see the Titans.

M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore would be a much better venue. It’s 10x better than FedEx. Great bars right across the street… better concessions (club level is outstanding)… just as good tailgaiting… Inner Harbor within walking distance. Better traffic patterns.

Failing that, if you want to stay in DC, there is a possibility that RFK will still be standing. It’s better than FedEx.

magnus, youre on. seattle is spectacular.

by then of course Griff will have written a tell-all about his PED use so….

and before I die I would love to see my beloved Horns in the Big House. somebody make it so.

if we get more mercenary with the schedule I can learn to live with the former big XII.

Has Mack ever tried to schedule his old alma mater, the Seminoles? I don’t have any particular love or hate for FSU, but I would think it would be fun for Mack on 2 levels:
 - a chance to play his old school
 - a legitimate chance to beat them after years of frustratin at UNC

I’d wouldn’t mind some games against Washington or Tennessee. It’s going to be interesting to see who we schedule for 2014.

How about Colorado? It would be intriguing given the re-alignment, it’s a great road destination, and it’s practically a guaranteed W (at least now). Plus, Texas seems to pull a few kids out of the area now and then.

1. Georgia
2. Maryland
3. Virginia
4. West Virginia
5. Arizona

General comments to all:
 
Les Miles, they’d risk it because playing these games early can makes your team better, it captures national attention, and it can be used as a momentum boost for a program. There’s also a huge recruiting appeal for a number of these schools. These teams also have fans to satisfy – a non-con slate of Temple, Rice, Louisiana-Monroe, and San Jose St doesn’t move tickets or draw media attention anymore than our recent sorry slates.
 
Arizona State is a good addition to the Pac 10 short list. I like a Stanford match too. I know Harbaugh wants to play us so he can extend his reach in Texas recruiting, where he’s already had great success.
 
I think we all agree that Washington would be an excellent schedule move.
 
Same for Tennessee. A match-up with Tennessee is not only realistic, but very attractive. Tennessee has a laudable history of aggressive non-conference scheduling and they’d love to have the recruiting presence here.
 
I doubt we schedule Colorado in the near future as we wouldn’t want to reward their move.
  
I have zero desire to play Boise unless they come here for one game home contest, no return trip. Same goes for TCU – as we did a few years ago.
 
Thanks for the correction on the Alamo Bowl. Completely slipped my mind. That’s a bad deal for San Antonio. You could count on Big 10 fans fleeing their states during December.
 
Rejiggering UCF/UTEP/Wyoming makes sense. They need to be spread out if we want to retain those dates. I still don’t see the appeal of UCF.

I am for scheduling any solid team from the eastern part of the country. That would mean at least mid-level teams from ACC, Big East, and SEC. Off the top of my head here are the teams I would think would be interesting.

ACC: Florida State/Georgia Tech/Virgina/V Tech/Clemson/Boston College/Maryland/North Carolina
Big East: U Conn/S Florida/Cincinnati/Louisville/West VA/Rutgers
SEC: Georgia/South Carolina/Tennessee/Auburn/(I wouldn’t mind an LSU/Arkansas/Alabama game every once in a while)/Ole Miss

If the point of the OOC schedule is to increase our perception to the media then we need to go East. I would even be open to playing the top teams from Conference USA or something like that if it would help.

I am not against going West, I just don’t think it helps keep the media’s attention on us like going East.

I think we should schedule TCU or SMU for a home and home on the condition that their home game be in Jerryworld, so all the Texas fans that want to can buy a ticket. That would remind them who daddy is.

We open thusly in 2011:

Sept. 3 RICE
Sept. 10 BYU
Sept. 17 at UCLA
Sept. 24 UCF

We need to ditch one of these games to fit the Big 12 schedule. Logic dictates that we ditch UCF. I like Rice as a sure patsy,

If the Big 12-2’s reputation is as bad as you’ve been making it out to be, then keeping the weakest OOC opponent (Rice) over a stronger one (UCF) is illogical.

Joetx -
 
Once you’ve served schedule strength, you don’t expose yourself to risk from a higher risk/low reward team like UCF. Rice also allows you to ease into the schedule.
 
Similarly, when we pair Notre Dame/Cal in 2015/2016, we want a pure patsy as our third opponent. Not some scrapper.

Monahorns -
 
I like your thinking, but…
 
See above. There’s no upside to scheduling the South Floridas of the world.
 
They can beat you up, even if you don’t lose the game. And if you win, you get no credit.

the clapper said:

Generally we should not be playing good teams from non BCS conferences like BYU. Winning is expected, losing is possible. (Though at this point I’m thankful for any decent opponent in DKR.)

Agreed, especially given the fact the Horns are 0-2 vs. BYU.

Troy Barksman went wee wee wee all the way home said:

August 9th, 2010 at 8:48 am

I expect they’ll convince WY or UTEP to delay their 2012 game a year or two.

FL hasn’t played OOC out of state in the 2 decades since they lost at Syracuse. Truly the biggest scheduling pussies in colllege football. Spare us the FSU excuse, the Gator cowards dropped Miami and would have dropped the Noles except for legislative intervention. Always trying to ride the SEC myth into the 2-team beauty contest

Agreed & would add that the SEC in general plays the “our conference is too strong” excuse for largely avoiding anyone w/ a pulse in OOC play (outside of GT-UGA, Clemson-USC).

And in response to Juan Jones, at least Texas visits the opponents’ place. A tough guy like Urban Meyer shouldn’t be such a pussy.

What about the Big East?

We need a home and home with West Virginia to even the all-time record.

I wish we’d schedule Nebraska in 2011, but I’m sure they left the Big 12 for that very reason.

Scip, I think that is a possibility with playing teams like S Florida. However, I remember S Florida a couple of years ago reached like #2 before they lost a couple. I think teams in the eastern part of the country a little easier treatment from the media and voters. I don’t ever remember TCU getting that high in the rankings despite building their program over a longer period of time and even having some nice wins over the years. S Florida had virtually done nothing up until then and vaulted to at least top 5 just by beating some really sorry teams.

But yeah, some teams would get us more attention than others with less negative effect.

Joetx – hate to stand up for the SEC, but they’ve played quite a few “named” opponents recently Auburn/USC, LSU/Washington, Tenn/UCLA. UGA/Ok State. Alabama is playing Penn State this year.

UF seems to be the one that won’t play anyone with a pulse outside of its home state.

“Agreed & would add that the SEC in general plays the "our conference is too strong" excuse for largely avoiding anyone w/ a pulse in OOC play (outside of GT-UGA, Clemson-USC).”

That’s right, other than those rivalry games their top teams play nobody OOC. Oh, and these:

Alabama: Plays #14 Penn St. this year OOC. Played a preseason top 10 team the past two years.

LSU: Plays #18 North Carolina and #24 West Virginia this year.

Florida: Plays #20 FSU and “high risk/low reward” USF. True Meyer’s hand is forced and he is a bit of a pussy, but the fact is they are locked into one decent OOC game every year.

Like these three, Texas has top 5 talent almost every year. They should have a better scheduling philosophy than “Hunt down the teams with good reputations that actually suck”. For all the talk about how cautiously you have to schedule to get to the BCS title game, the one year Texas actually won they played #4 Ohio St. OOC. I used to blame Dodds but it sounds like a lot of the fanbase shares his philosophy. We really need a playoff.

“Maryland is a program on decline, but they’re an easy W, "

“Others I’d like us to go after…Cincinnati, Louisville, or Syracuse. Big names without a lot of pop.”

“I like Rice as a sure patsy,”

“I have zero desire to play Boise unless they come here for one game home contest, no return trip.”

“Generally we should not be playing good teams from non BCS conferences like BYU. Winning is expected, losing is possible.”

“There’s no upside to scheduling the South Floridas of the world. They can beat you up, even if you don’t lose the game. And if you win, you get no credit.”

Washington is a great choice. Great city to visit should be good once again, and my high school and U Wash grad can’t stop talking about how weak our SOS is. It would be nice to remind him what good football looks like (again).

Maryland is absolutely the wrong kind of scheduling we get a team we are expected to beat, but just might be good enough one year to beat us particularly after we travel east and have a 10 am kick off. NO THANKS

I think we need Oregon again, we should continue to schedule CU (mainly for my benefit so I can continue to see the Horns here in Colorado), but also because it’s a nice place for an away game and it has the possibility of becoming a decent rivalry if CU ever fires Hawkins— Colorado State, and Air Force actually might be more fun than CU now that I think about it.

Other than that, I think the universal best choice is mighty Tulane University we don’t even need a home and home, do I even need to explain this one?

Other teams along similar lines — San Diego State, Army, and Navy (Annapolis is beautiful in the fall) i.e not too tough but fun/interesting places to visit. Service academies would be good pub and you know Mack would look good talking about how honored we are to play these great American hero’s. Plus I like to watch option football.

Just to be clear, I would love to see top 10 teams every week, but that will never happen unless and until there is a playoff system in place.

So until then I’m being realistic.

Ha, love how the Ags are suddenly SEC apologists.

FL’s “FSU is all we can handle” argument is laughable since FL hasn’t played a single out of state OOC game during the entire lifetime of their players. Regardless of FSU usually being mediocre for a long time now, FL couldn’t even schedule one home and home from weaklings like MD, VA, Rutgers, Indiana, Baylor, or even Troy? What other top 25 program doesn’t play any OOC games out of state?

Gutless, cowardly, fraudulent, bullying, poll-scamming pussies.

Juan Jones… way to take quotes out of context.

Here’s what I’d like. 1 marquee game a year from a BCS premier program. For example, ND or Bama or FSU or Michigan.

1 game from a patsy. Let this be UNT or ULALA or Rice.

1 game from a lesser BCS team or a stronger team from a weak conference. This would be your Maryland/Indiana/Kentucky/Ole Miss/Southern Miss/BYU/TCU/Louisville type game.

That’s better than what most SEC teams are doing right now. I can’t remember the last time UT played a DIv. II team. Florida plays one every year.

You tout LSU’s schedule but fail to mention Mcneese state (div. II) and ULM.
You also conveniently missed that Bama plays Georgia State (div. II) and San Jose state.

To repeat so maybe it will be harder to take my quotes out of context. Once Texas only has 3 OOC games a year I’d like to see this.

Schedule one game against a top 10 premier team.
Schedule one game against a top 40 decent team.
Schedule one game against a top 100 patsy. Still division one but this enables you to get in a rhythm for the rest of your schedule.

To do what UCLA is doing this year is not ballsy. Its stupid.

Juan Jones…

The premise of most of our posts ASSUMED that Notre Dame was ALREADY on the schedule. With that type team already involved… thats why you have the suggestions to not add another top 10 caliber team.

Other than maybe UCLA this year… name one team that consistently schedules 2 top 10 OOC games a year. Every example you cited had just 1 game like that. That’s what we want out of Texas. Once ND is in there, no need to ALSO schedule an Ohio State that particular year. I am also assuming that Kelly will get ND back to a national power by 2015. I think they’ll be a perennial top 10 team by 2015.

Orangechipper said:

August 9th, 2010 at 5:29 pm

Juan Jones…

The premise of most of our posts ASSUMED that Notre Dame was ALREADY on the schedule. With that type team already involved… thats why you have the suggestions to not add another top 10 caliber team.

Other than maybe UCLA this year… name one team that consistently schedules 2 top 10 OOC games a year. Every example you cited had just 1 game like that. That’s what we want out of Texas. Once ND is in there, no need to ALSO schedule an Ohio State that particular year. I am also assuming that Kelly will get ND back to a national power by 2015. I think they’ll be a perennial top 10 team by 2015.

True no one schedules two top 10 teams. But they do schedule multiple Top 25 teams, like LSU this year, and OU in 2008 (only nonBCS, put playing TCU and Cincinnati definitely helped them). And it is only one stupid preseason poll, but unless I’m missing someone none of Texas’ currently scheduled OOC opponents -for the next 10 years – are even in the Top 25, much less the top 10.

As for Notre Dame, I can’t stand them but I made the exact prediction you did after their last two hires and I was proven badly wrong. I don’t have nearly the respect for Kelly that I did for Willingham or Weis (yes, I know how embarassing that is to say now) so maybe he will actually get them back to the top 10. But I think they’ve only finished in the top 25 once in the last 12 years so the odds are against them getting into the top 10 again regularly. I think people tend to overlook that Cincinatti was actually already pretty good when Kelly got there.

Also if the Big 10 surprise team is Penn St. or Ohio St. I will be impressed enough to stop whining about Dodds, but I wouldn’t count on it. Like Scipio said Belmont tends to exaggerate. I’m thinking Michigan State or Wisconsin. A good step up but not a team that is likely to give Texas much of a game.

Juan… fair enough. My only point is this.

When you schedule the top 10 team. Its a safe bet that they’ll be top 25… maybe not top 10 EVERY year.

When you schedule the second top 40 top team, you know that its POSSIBLE they can be top 25.

Remember, these things are done YEARS in advance. In 08 OU was lucky that Cincy was top 10 worthy. I think they even hit TCU in a better than normal year that year. But when they scheduled those teams… in no way were they expecting them to be so stout.

You also mentioned LSU… remember that UNC was a maryland type of team when that game was likely scheduled. IN 07 UNC was 4-8. in 06 they were 3-9.

That’s why when you have to schedule 5+ years in advance its tough to evaluate.

There is a lot of luck involved and LSU did get real lucky with UNC. And Cal has been a little down for three years but it is reasonable to think that between them and Notre Dame at least one should be top 20 in 2015 so those years look better than I game them credit for. But there are also some teams that can be pretty reliably counted on to be ranked highly virtually every year. Why not aim for one of them? Ohio St, USC, Penn St, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, LSU, Virginia Tech, Boise St, Oregon? I would even put other teams that have been down a while but should be coming back like Tennessee, Miami, and FSU a little ahead of ND and Cal in guessing where they’ll be in 2015.

I think at best most years in the new conference Texas will only be able to count on 1 top 15 team on their conference schedule so IF they plan on it lasting they shouldn’t be afraid of scheduling anybody OOC. The much bigger fear should be the Auburn 2004 scenario.

A couple of other reasons why I think we see Tennessee on the schedule pretty soon (maybe even 2012)…
1. Mack is a native of Cookeville, TN which ain’t too far from Knoxville. Mack is thinking retirement these days and has stated more than once that he loved Tenn. football as a kid growing up in the area. In addition, Mack has other local ties, such as his grandfather, Jelly Watson, is a Tennessee high school football coaching legend on the Gordon Brown scale. Nice sentimental touch for Mack as he nears the end.
2. Beating a big reputation SEC school helps Texas’ perceptions and may help us from losing a BCS voting argument against a one-loss SEC team if it comes down to it.
3. Most importantly for Mack, Tennessee looks like it may really suck for some number of years to come. Combine a looming NCAA investigation with years of Fulmer’s lousy recruiting, with Dooley’s current lousy recruiting, with a state that produces only about a dozen SEC-level recruits per year, and mix-in Saban, Urban, Richt, Petrino, etc..coaching the competition and you’ve got a recipe for Tennessee to suck for the next several years. The easier the opponent, the more likely Mack will schedule it.

For selfish reasons I’ll be rooting for Boston College, as I like Boston and may eventually live there.

re: a neutral site game with Notre Dame would hurt the bottom line

Really? I thought that Texas makes more money from having the RRS in Dallas than they would by hosting it in Austin every other year. What would make a game with ND different?

I agree that it would be very unfair to season ticket-holders.

I love Boston but have you ever been there during football season? Boston is awesome from about April to about the second week of September. If we play up there I hope its the first game of the season.

You don’t play Maryland for Maryland. You play them for all those kids at Ballou, DeMatha, Good Counsel, Eleanor Roosevelt, etc.

If they happen to be good and Texas loses, then you didn’t deserve it.

Maryland in DC is a great idea and one I have advocated before. Good recruiting ground, good for national exposure for awards/votes etc, good for east coast fanbase, and lastly…I think Maryland might be pretty good. There is no reason they shouldn’t be a better program than they are and may very well be by then. At worst they will be a 7-5 type team.

Scip- You’re getting paid right? … cuz, damn, another example of excellence in Longhorn Sports Coverage.

Hodad, don’t be a pussy.

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