Bobby Burton

My wife and I watched the softball game last night. It was the SEC semifinal against a Georgia team that defeated an OU team the night before. Texas went up 3-0 in the third with two homers. Georgia then tagged Texas for four runs in the fourth. Georgia batted around in the 4th and went 7-9 in plate appearances. An amazing throw at the plate early in the inning is probably the only thing that kept the floodgates from opening on Texas. At any rate, Texas battled back to tie it in the bottom half of the inning. Texas eventually walked it off in the 7th with a two-out single. The reason I’m writing this is two-fold: 1. This team doesn’t seem to be as “outstanding” as last year’s. Not exactly sure why, but some of it has to do with pitching. Kavan just hasn’t been as dominant as a year ago. 2. The grit the women showed yesterday was legit IMO. It’s hard to go up 3-0, then lose the lead, then battle back to tie it and then win it with a walk off. I don’t know how far this team will go, but the focus they showed through some real adversity last night was encouraging. They play Alabama for the SEC title this evening on ESPN.

Very much so. People remember the Ohio State game. He was a vastly different player against the Aggies and Michigan. He was as good as any QB in the country IMO.

I think you hit on the point. Let the SEC and BIG 10 break away in football. Ask others if they want to join and go from there. Pooling rights might make sense for 32-40 teams, not 130+.

I think we’ll see major pushback from the SEC and Big 10. Some of the ACC and Big 12 schools, through their own mismanagement, have gotten themselves into financial trouble and that’s why they’re taking private equity. Asking the SEC and BIg 10 to cede control of their futures to people who have screwed up in the past and who are desperate just doesn’t make logical sense.

The presidential commission surrounding college sports issued its first form of potential guidelines yesterday. You can read them in the tweet I linked below. It’s a comprehensive list of reforms. As should be expected, there’s some good, some bad and a whole lot of work to be done. But at least someone is attempting to move things forward. Perhaps the biggest news? They are suggesting an entirely new form of governance, one largely outside of the NCAA or perhaps without the NCAA altogether. Other major line items of note: - A phased pooling of rights if 75-percent of colleges agree to it. (They don’t say which 75-percent have to comply). The ACC is called out here because some of their rights don’t renew until the mid-2030s while other conferences renew sooner. - Absolute minimums for women’s sports. - Caps on player compensation with the intention of strict adherence. - The potential of tiered media compensation. So Texas might make more than SMU, Houston, etc. - The creation of a managing board and an executive director. ** My general take is that this is a major overreach. Rather than simply allow all schools to spend what they want and how they want, they suggest allowing the 75-percent to dictate and force what the 25-percent can do. Here’s the problem with that. In college sports, at least from an advertising/money perspective, the dollars are very much about the top 25-percent not the remaining 75. Some of these ideas are a starting point for sure. But it’s definitely not an ending point. As currently considered, it cedes way too much to the schools that actually don’t generate much revenue. It’s cloaked as helping maintain funding for women’s sports, but it’s really just a redistribution of wealth. This proposal, as currently constructed, would not be good for the University of Texas. It would be good for Texas Tech though. And therein lies the problem. **

Bowl game. Rewatched this week. People underestimate how good Arch played in that game. Throwing and running and leading. A couple of games this year, I felt like he had that “wasn’t going to be denied” gene in him. Michigan was one.

Felt like that was happening.

If you think they're special...

If he gambled on his team, and somehow gets a judge to allow him to play, then Tech needs to be kicked out of the NCAA for allowing him to play. It really is that preposterous.

I like this!

Let's do this!

I wrote about my personal experience with Kessler this morning. I don’t know if he’ll be able to do anything but I wouldn’t put it past him.

Thx for the explanation.

Texas leads in four of the five matches against Loyola Marymount.

An update from Rick Vavro who is there…

Hard to have a real problem with that list. I'd probably put SMU above A&M. 😉

Interestingly, the Big 10 tiers its revenue distribution unevenly. Ohio State made more than everyone else, including Indiana who won the national championship.

Tell your friends about OTF. 😉

Patience.

Just saying.

Completely agree. Great chapter up there.

Recruiting. It hasn’t been front of mind for many given spring training just closed, but it is really starting to heat up behind the scenes. Texas sits at nine commitments. That’s a solid amount. Yet with the month of April coming to an end, we will likely see that number at least double in the next 60 days. So naturally, recruiting is a primary focus inside the building. A few recruits will make decisions in the next 15-30 days, while most are targeting a June decision. A few others will take it into the football season. For Texas over the next month, it will be about closing out a couple of those major recruitments while getting ready for the large recruiting weekends in June. It’s all about setting things up right and then getting it all to the end. As of now, I like where Texas sits with this recruiting class. And more importantly, they like where they sit. ** Many of you have asked about the new indoor facility and the timing of its opening. The current plan is to have the indoor facility ready for football’s regular season. A grand opening is tentatively planned for the week before the football season opener. That means the Horns will use the Denius practice fields in August before rotating into the indoor facility come late August, early September. Texas will be able to show off parts of the new facility during recruiting weekends. View full news story

So there will be 10 first round picks in the 2027 NFL draft on the field at the same time on Sept. 12. Gotta be some sort of record for a single draft.