I had a chance to talk to my source again, who broke the Vatican City meeting. Like I previously mentioned, he's well connected on the ins and outs of pretty much everything. We'll refer to him as the Big Assgar going forward. He's a little of both. I cornered him on potential LHN programs since high school football was temporarily on hold and here's what he had to say:
"Since many of the non-revenue sports that would fill air space don't kick off until the spring, a big concern for us was what to run for the fall. As you well know, conference realignment has dominated the headlines. Dodds has basically traveled the entire U.S. at this point trying to glue this conference back together.
It's nothing short of day-to-day chaos and pretty much anything that can go wrong, will go wrong, but Dodds' perseverance has been nothing short of spectacular. Back in August when the Aggies first started shaking their flapjack tits at the SEC, we pitched an idea to ESPN about a show heroizing DeLoss in his daily efforts to save the remaining programs in the conference. They loved the concept, but both ESPN and the higher ups at the University had some reservations about casting.
First of all, we didn't think our target audience would relate to a 72-year old man flying around in a Learjet. The higher ups weren't convinced casting an old, ugly carpet-bagger from Kansas was the best way to protect the Texas brand. Dodds has their 110% vote of confidence regarding all business matters for Longhorn sports. Let's just put it this way, he's not our face guy. They wanted to cast a young guy representing more of an imagery figure of Dodds. Rugged, heroic, trail blazer, etc. You know, the Texas Brand.
Secondly, we had burned through the budget in the promo video, so McConaghey was out. However, this being Austin, we weren't concerned about finding spare actors. We liked the mountain man concept and the ESPN idea of the character traversing the countryside on the iconic Bevo versus a horse. This was great in theory, but finding a less than lethargic longhorn broke to ride proved more difficult than anticipated. We had to settle for a buffalo. Less than ideal, I know, but we didn't have any better options and the final production was nothing short of outstanding.
Last, we didn't want to offend the other remaining programs in the conference, so we decided to rely on symbolism throughout the script. Filming couldn't have gone better and the first show was scheduled to air in mid-September. Given the distribution issues, that didn't happen of course. It's done though, and the administrators are so excited about the product, they've started leaking trailers to a selected few connected to the Program. Of course, you know I'm one of those guys, and since I get a kick out of your little Barking Carnival thing, I'll forward what I received via email. You can thank me later."
So without further a do, here's an exclusive preview that you won't find on any paysite or blog: How Deloss Dodds Saved The Big 12, or....