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Props To The Athletic Department

Posted by Scipio Tex on October 26th, 2008 under Football

We at BC like to have our fun with Bill Little’s Hallmark football essays, but Bellmont and the SID office deserve recognition for having have put together the best college football program homepage (Mack Brown Texas Football ) in existence. I like to read up on other schools and nothing compares.

Aside from the richness of content found in the archives, history, and daily features, you can find press conference transcripts, daily practice reports and videos, player features, highlights, and a film room breakdown of key plays from each coordinator. The photo essays after each game are also visually stunning. And yes, if you like Bill, he has some stories for you about twine or a special pony and how they relate to Orakpo’s swim move.

My favorite feature is the Film Room. The Okie St version with Davis and Muschamp is excellent. Muschamp’s personal accountability is as refreshing as it gets. You also gain some insight into the degree of autonomy Davis gives Colt and his WRs.

It’s a phenomenal tool for selling the program and for keeping the fanbase informed and enthused.

I’m also sure that Bellmont doesn’t mind the fact that they can deliver product directly to the consumer without the spin of the media. Neither do I. I read far more interesting opinions from engineers, doctors, lawyers and UT students in thirty minutes visiting the right places than from credentialed local media in one month. Now that the Athletics Dept feeds me the raw info I need, why exactly do I need the Statesman? Watching pay sites pass of publically available info from Texassports.com as “scoops” is also odd. Uh, I read the same transcript as you guys.

Do Not Look Behind The Curtain!

Enough of my Bellmont shilling. What are your thoughts? Has the presence of that platform changed any of your consumer habits?

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11 Responses

  1. 8straight said:

    October 26th, 2008 at 7:40 pm

    The film room is an excellent idea. I too watch it regularly. Most of our news in the future will be of the “unbundled” variety where we go directly to the source for our information and not count on someone else to aggregate the information and mold it to what they think we should to know. The media needs UT much more than UT needs the media now that there is a direct conduit to the public. BC is a perfect example of a place that people can go to to pick up info that in years past they would have had to wait for the 10pm news or the next day’s newspaper.

  2. Crown & Coke said:

    October 26th, 2008 at 7:52 pm

    MBTF is an absolute godsend. In addition to all of the articles and video features that are full of great info, the weekly webcasts like ‘Kickin it with the Horns’ are always a ton of fun to watch.

    Even with practices closed, it’s really cool to still have a means of connecting with the players and getting to know their personalities.

  3. CrazyJoeDavola said:

    October 26th, 2008 at 9:34 pm

    My appreciation for it actually comes from something extraordinarily pedestrian, relatively speaking.

    Sometimes, as an argument solver, or just as a time-waster, I browse through the history section. I LOVE being able to see game-by-game results from every year of the program’s existence, to see all-time results against opponents, and track down UT-specific records.

    Compared to other team sites, it’s unbelievably easy to find this stuff - no more than two, maybe three clicks to get to.

    Texas’ history section isn’t a bandwidth or storage suck - it’s all clean txt file type stuff.

    I’m sure money is a big help, especially for the multimedia content, but they don’t skimp on the simple and cheap stuff, like intuitive site navigation.

    Ditto on your statements about the local media. Newspapers have always sold themselves as bastions of fact-checking who have the one thing no one else can offer: Access. The Texas SID office has completely flipped that equation.

    I suppose you could argue it’s a bad thing, that the SID has circumvented a trusted check and balance against possible disinformation. That would hold if the local media ever truly decided to “speak truth to power”, especially regarding sports. That’s the case with any exclusive access arrangement: The group that’s benefiting from that access won’t ever do anything to threaten it.

    See also: Eason Jordan and Saddam Hussein.

  4. PB @ BON said:

    October 26th, 2008 at 10:46 pm

    Given the wealth of information available, it’s shocking people still pay $100 a year for the pay sites.

  5. EyesOfTX said:

    October 27th, 2008 at 3:33 am

    The site is outstanding - this is just another reason why the dinosaur print media is having trouble surviving. It’s a direct competitor for Orangebloods and InsideTexas as well, and a damn good one.

  6. srr50 said:

    October 27th, 2008 at 5:09 am

    I think you can credit Nick Voinis for a lot of what you see. Ever since he took over the senior commonumications role the program has been forward looking in its design and content. Nick oversees all aspects of the communications department (SID, publications, new media) and is smart and full of common sense and those two qualities are not always in abundance with folks.

    Jim Sigmon came to Texas as a photog but he too gets it, and he is in charge of the media production services.

    Donna Goehring is the web manager, and obviously knows what people want in terms of availabilty and looks.

    As far as the film room, this is nitpicking, but the field camera work does not match the rest of the site. Love the endzone view, but the field level camera is probably run by a student intern - it is (IMO) out of position in relation to the action a lot of the time, and a little shakey.

    It’s just an area that has always been a focus for me, but as I said, that is strictly nitpicking.

    Love the site.

  7. ATXHornsFan said:

    October 27th, 2008 at 5:48 am

    Agree with you all. It is head and shoulders above almost every other college football site I’ve visited. I spend a lot of time researching each week for an e-mail about the game I send to some friends. MBTF is the major source. The “Game Notes” for each week is really loaded with facts and trivia.
    Now if I can just concentrate on my job for 5 days…

  8. Schembechler said:

    October 27th, 2008 at 5:51 am

    The one thing you can get from the print guys can’t you can’t get from the raw pressers is their side chats with the players and coached. Granted most of these are off the record, but they do inform to some degree the print articles and to a greater extent the print guy’s attitudes about the team. Witness the bevo beat chats.

  9. Stuck in MN said:

    October 27th, 2008 at 5:56 am

    You also miss out on entire pages of witty puns. Try pulling up a Woody Paige article sometime. When I lived in Denver, I’d try to read his column in the Post if it was on a subject that interested me, but it just became too difficult. It honestly looked like a junior high kid was writing the stuff.

  10. BRAGGonUT said:

    October 27th, 2008 at 6:21 am

    You can now sign up for texts from Texassports.com to get breaking news.

  11. Vasherized said:

    October 27th, 2008 at 6:44 am

    You can now sign up for texts from Texassports.com to get breaking news.

    They’re really covering everything too.

    Bill Little going with the burnt orange turtleneck and blue blazer today in honor of the surprise cool front that swept through Austin and invigorated a beaten and bruised, yet still undefeated, Longhorn nation.

    I never knew about the film room. Great resource.

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