Ketch's 10 Thoughts From the Weekend
- Thread starter Ketchum
- Start date
I used to think the same exact thing. I believe the opposite to be true now.
I'll ask around this week. I think they will be starting from scratch.
I'm guessing a call is made to Oliver Luck, just to check.
Since Gus wasn't relieved until July 15, yes, it would have been extremely difficult to hire Augie two months prior.
Ya think?
Ya think?
He was the hitting coach at Rice when they won the NCAA championship. He then has taken Sam Houston and Tulane (not huge programs) to the NCAA Regionals every year. I would like to think with a big program for him to recruit he would tear it up.
Ketch,
I feel you are way off base on Perrin. Do you know for a fact any of the coaches deciding to stay at
their current schools were offered the job? Mike bleeds orange big time and will do everything in his power
to return UT to the top. He never intended to make a quick , knee jerk hire. Taking the time to properly vett
the possible candidates shouldn't be seen as failure. You've been around this long enough to know how a
high profile hire like this works. I know Mike and am obviously biased in his favor but he is doing good things for UT.
I feel you are way off base on Perrin. Do you know for a fact any of the coaches deciding to stay at
their current schools were offered the job? Mike bleeds orange big time and will do everything in his power
to return UT to the top. He never intended to make a quick , knee jerk hire. Taking the time to properly vett
the possible candidates shouldn't be seen as failure. You've been around this long enough to know how a
high profile hire like this works. I know Mike and am obviously biased in his favor but he is doing good things for UT.
I mean, yes I can always strive to be better. But thata such a universal statemebt its not fair to make that statement in that situation. Its such a broad brush it has little meaning.
I really hope you are a hot chick. Not big on dudes being obsessed with me. No offense.
Uhhh, I acknowledged that in the article. It was luck that it happened after the season. The point I made is that luck or no luck, it would have been harder to hire him with his season ongoing.
This is his first rodeo. Rookie mistakes have been made. He's done his duty with class and honor, but now it's time to hire someone that is at the top of the class in that profession.
As a collective group, us men have not done nearly enough to protect women and take abuse seriously.
Not much has changed between 1995 and 2016.
Uhhh. No kidding. But you act like it was some plan or strategy to wait 6-weeks after the season while giving quick mention to the fact Gus was still employed 6-weeks after the season. Seems to me THAT was the reason.
I acted in no such way.
If you believe me to be mistaken, feel free to quote the part where I suggested as much.
You're debating yourself at this point.
You realize those two things aren't remotely the same thing.
Who could argue otherwise?
Good grief.
- Thanks for getting me up to speed on the baseball search.
- Buechele appears hungry enough to learn from anyone. His work ethic is very impressive.
- The LeBron slogan is so true today.
Everyone may have a different opinion of what they are witnessing. I feel like we're witnessing greatness.
- Buechele appears hungry enough to learn from anyone. His work ethic is very impressive.
- The LeBron slogan is so true today.
Everyone may have a different opinion of what they are witnessing. I feel like we're witnessing greatness.
I do plenty by not abusing women. And I think those that do should have their dick chopped off. What more do you want me to do? You can't just claim moral superiotity because you say "be better men"
The sound of destruction was so loud that I remember just freezing in the dark of my home as disgust for myself started to build.
I might have said a twelve-letter word. Hell, I probably said it twice.
On the other side of the doorway leading into my garage was a loaner from my Mercedes dealership that I had picked up while taking my car into the dealership’s repair shop and I had just closed my garage door on the rear end of the car. I hadn’t been able to pull the car into the garage all the way because earlier in the day I had been cleaning the garage out.
The combination of it being late and dark didn’t help, but the bottom line is I simply forgot that the car needed to be moved in a little more when I hit the garage door button. Before I could completely gather my thoughts, the noise from the new wreckage started to increase, as the garage door was grinding into the back of the car in pursuit of the garage floor.
In an effort to stop the damage, I immediately pushed the garage door button again to stop what was occurring, except that instead of stopping, it reversed itself upwards towards the ceiling and repeated in grinding against the part of the car that it had already assaulted.
As if from a scene in a comedy, I stood there in absolute disbelief.
“You gotta be shitting me,” I remember saying to myself.
Looming over the entire proceedings was a decision I had made earlier in the day. As was the case every time I’d left the dealership with a loaner, I had been asked on the way out if I wanted to pay the five or 10 bucks to add on extra insurance in the event anything happened to the exterior of the car while it was in my possession.
In the half-dozen or so times before, I had always taken the extra insurance, but for some reason on that particular day, I decided I didn’t need it.
“What’s going to happen in a day?” I remember asking myself.
Attacking the car with my garage door was not among any of the considerations when I answered the question in my head and when I looked at the damage the next morning in broad daylight, it was abundantly clear that my decision to assume everything would be ok because more times than not, everything ends up being ok, was a huge mistake.
Sometimes you just have to learn the hard way that there might be a price to pay for full security that seems pretty damn high, except for that moment in time when it is really needed.
Having a first-rate, ultra-experienced, top-of-the-food-chain athletic director turns out to be very similar to that insurance that the rental car folks push on you before you drive off with their car. You don’t really need it … except when you do.
From the moment that the University of Texas dismissed Steve Patterson from his athletic director’s office, it has treated the position like I treated that extra insurance.
What could happen?
All interim AD Mike Perrin needed to do to be a success as a short-term answer at the position was shake hands, make people happy, do what the powers above him wish for him to do and hope that no garage doors come attacking in the night. For most of the past year, having an “acting” athletic director hasn’t been any kind of an issue, as Perrin has seemingly answered the call that the bare basics of the position require. As such, there’s been very little urgency in getting a full-time first-rate, ultra-experienced, top-of-the-food-chain athletic director inside of Belmont Hall.
After all, again, what could happen?
Well, I suppose the answer to that question is that a complex baseball hire could emerge out of thin air.
What the moment ideally calls for is a search spearheaded by an athletic director who has all his ducks in a row from the moment the starter’s pistol fires on the search. That means knowing the lay of the land from every direction. It means having researched all the candidates of interest and vetted all the special conditions needed to navigate its pursuit. It means knowing which coaches have agents and which coaches don’t.
Ideally, it means having the most skilled and prepared person in the conversation pulling the strings.
Make no mistake about it, Texas is going to get itself a very good baseball coach when it is all said and done. It’s not as if the Longhorns are going to be coached by Daniel Stern’s character “Brickma” from the movie Rookie of the Year.
However, is it going to get the kind of elite of the elite, no-doubt-about-it hire that is befitting of one of the top two or three baseball programs in the history of the sport? Well, if you believe that the answer must come from a list of the consensus top 8-10 coaches in all of college baseball, the answer is probably not.
Too many little mistakes have been made and a little too much bad luck appeared at the wrong time when a deal in place for one of those 8-10 coaches appeared in the bag. However, when Oregon State’s Pat Casey turned Perrin down, the timing issues that killed any chances of realistically pursuing Brian O’Connor or Kevin O’Sullivan stood out a little more than it otherwise would have. The same is true about the zig-zag pursuit of John Savage, a coach who thought on Tuesday of last week he was going to be the guy, only to see Texas turn to his archrival Casey in the days that followed and then circle back around when the Casey deal dissolved.
The look-at-me, I-want-a-raise-too stunt by LSU’s Paul Mainieri was nothing more than a needless distraction, one that could have been avoided with the proper vetting. However, when that vetting didn’t occur and Mainieri called last week, what were they going to do? Not take the call? It just added more mud to an already muddied water.
At this point, there’s no crying over spilled milk. Perrin and the rest of the decision-makers at the school need to regroup and go close the deal with the best remaining option. At this point, they might as well take their time and get it right.
The bigger message here is that when the search is complete, the time will have arrived to begin the process to find a full-time athletic director, the kind that isn’t going through his first coaching hire on your time.
It’s time to purchase the kind of insurance that’s only needed when it’s really needed.
Like the time when I closed the garage door on my rental car.
Like right now.
No. 2 – Time to hit the reset button on the Playstation...
What’s the rush?
In the wake of seemingly most of the top 10 coaches in America taking their names out of consideration, I think it’s time for Mike Perrin and Co. to slow down and completely regroup.
With the College World Series as a back-drop, the Longhorns need to keep their presence away from the headlines while they reconsider their next step.
Although coaches like Brian O’Connor or Kevin O’Sullivan have said no or signed extensions, would they take your calls if you make them? Is no forever or just for right now? Maybe you do the same thing with John Savage. By all means if you have an interest in someone currently coaching in Omaha, don’t so much as glance his way for the next week.
It’s important to note that when Texas hired Augie Garrido, the college season had been over for six weeks. Of course, a lot of that had to do with the circumstances of Cliff Gustafson’s departure, but the bottom line is that hiring Garrido would have been more difficult had Texas tried to approach him two months prior.
Timing is everything, a truth Texas has learned the hard way in the last week or so.
If Tulane's David Pierce or Houston's Todd Whitting, two guys who have never been to the College World Series, are as good as it gets at this point, there’s absolutely no reason to rush. Both of those guys would likely walk across glass to take this job, so there’s no reason to let them control the process.
Perhaps it’s time to think outside the box.
Whatever happens, Texas can’t settle for being the guy who is taking his little sister’s best friend to prom because the first five girls he asked all said no. This program simply cannot look like it would be in better shape if Augie Garrido had simply kept his job when this thing ends.
No. 3 – Next year’s satellite camps ...
On Sunday, Jim Harbaugh picked up a commitment from the nation’s No. 4 defensive tackle and No. 91 overall prospect.
The kid’s name is Aubrey Solomon and as fate would have it, Harbaugh’s Wolverine program held a satellite camp at Solomon’s high school this week. After visiting with the coaching staff while it was on campus, Solomon decided Michigan was where he wanted to attend college.
Boom goes the dynamite.
Yes, it’s possible Solomon will change his mind and perhaps he probably will, but the purpose for Michigan bringing a camp to Georgia in the first place was to open up the recruiting map in a way that expands possibile pipelines. In landing Solomon, if even for the moment, the first flag in a Georgia pipeline has been opened.
Over the weekend, Charlie Strong held satellite camps in Houston and Dallas, with the results being lukewarm for the most part. Very few prospects of any degree showed up in Houston and the returns in Dallas were much better, but still not the type of events that elevated the program’s visibility the way you’d like to within these new rules.
Moving forward, it should be a core value to take the show on the road to New Orleans and Miami, which means not sticking to it should demand consequences for the offending party. Whatever the reasons, the Texas football program left some created momentum in key areas on the table this month by not being ready to strike while the satellite camp iron was hot.
Is this a really big deal? Probably not.
Is it the kind of big-picture thinking the Longhorns program should be committed to?
When the Longhorns respond in a year from now with out of state camps in spots that a little profile boost might serve well, we’ll have our complete answer.
No. 4 – The best advice that I can give Shane Buechele ...
Kid, if you haven't already done so, reach out to Vince Young and Colt McCoy.
It was in the summers of 2005, 2008 and 2009 that championship-caliber teams were born, as both quarterbacks took the teams over when no one was looking and made them into the beasts that they became.
Those two men made those teams their own and every player on those teams would have thrown themselves in front of an entire opposing team for them.
Call them. Take notes. Do what they say.
Don't defer to a single soul. The moment for action is right now.
No. 5 – Buy or sell …
(As always, all of these questions were submitted by actual Orangebloods subscribers.)
BUY or SELL: Too much respect in College baseball for Augie by top coaches, and the fear a "short leash" if coaching at Texas, as being demonstrated with CS?
(Sell) Augie isn’t an issue. Timing, bad planning and bad luck are the current issues.
BUY or SELL: UT has a new, permanent AD in place by 1/1/17??
(Buy) I believe there will be a sense of urgency in the coming months.
BUY or SELL: UT baseball finishes in the top 25 next year?
(Buy) Sure, why not?
BUY or SELL: The Cal game is the most important game on the schedule before the season starts?
(Sell)
BUY or SELL: NCAA hands down sanctions against Baylor and one of the sanctions is releasing all 2016 signees from NLI that have requested a release?
(Sell) The NCAA might rule in favor of the players in this LOI squabble, but there won’t be any widespread sanctions. In general, the NCAA isn’t in the business of actually helping its players. That’s just a false advertising campaign during March Madness, which it uses in hopes you won’t notice the billion dollars that the players involved don’t get a piece of.
BUY or SELL: Given the losses to graduation and injury, Notre Dame is in rebuild mode outside of the QB position, thus Texas has a real shot to pull the upset and start the season with a bang?
(Buy) It’s important to note that the Irish have a massive quarterback edge going into the game (kind of reminds me of the Troy Smith/Colt McCoy match-up of 2006), but this game is certainly winnable. It’s definitely not a lost cause.
BUY or SELL: At the end of the year Texas will finish with both the best WR and RB groupings collectively in the Big 12?
(Sell) This is a very talented set of skill players that the Longhorns will have to work with this season, but projecting both units to be the best in the league is expecting a little much.
BUY or SELL: Chances Texas lands Devin Devurnay is 60%?
(Sell) That number seems a tad high for my taste.
BUY or SELL: If Shaka Smart stays at Texas for at least 10 years he wins a National Championship?
(Sell) Winning national titles in college basketball is really hard to pull off and the smart money would probably be on it not occurring, although I believe Smart is one of the best in the country. Hell, Tom Izzo is as good as it gets at the college level and he hasn’t won a title in the last decade.
BUY or SELL: In 25 years, due to the concussion issues, trending lower rates of youth participation and changing demographics, soccer will overtake football as America's favorite sport?
(Sell) The popularity of football, even with all of the concerns surrounding the sport, has never been more popular. Exhibit A: My wife asked this weekend when our fantasy draft was taking place.
No. 6 – Six on Six: OJ: Made in America…
After a week of reliving the OJ Simpson story through the eyes of Ezra Edelman’s O.J.: Made in America, here are six last thoughts from more than seven-plus hours of documentary running time:
1. I just feel awful all over again for the families and friends of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman after watching the entire mini-series. Their murders served as pawns in a race-squabble that was decades in the making. There was so much angst, anger and animosity over what had transpired in that city over the years leading up to the trial that it was impossible to view the trial through the lense that didn’t involve race, at least for many that lived in that city and experienced so much discontent. The focus should have been on justice, but justice lost out to so many other things.
2. There’s no getting around the disaster that was often the investigation and the prosecution. From the presence of Mark Furhman to the transportation of evidence to the crime scene to Christopher Darden allowing for the glove scene to take place in front of the jury, there were just too many reasons in front of the jury to say not guilty.
3. We’ve done very little to improve the way we pay attention to domestic violence and make an effort to protect women. What happened 20 years ago was too similar to what happens today. Men, we have to start being better.
4. There’s no such thing as transcending race. As Greg Howard wrote in the New York Times Magazine, “This is the same fraudulent race-blindness that remains widespread today, found in people who claim that they ‘don’t see color’ or that “‘All Lives Matter”’ it’s a nasty bit of gaslighting — the denial of racism through the denial of race itself. At its best, Edelman’s documentary reveals what made Simpson unique: not simply that he tried to outrun his blackness, but the herculean efforts he made to do so. Simpson, with his team of friends and hangers-on, erected a self-contained, race-free universe, one he inhabited for much of his adult life.”
5. Say what you want about Juror No. 9, and I’m sure she made some of the viewers watching cringe throughout her portions of the show, but that woman kept it 100 every second she spoke. By the end of the documentary, she felt like the most genuine person involved.
6. If I never hear the name OJ Simpson again, it’ll be too soon.
No. 7 – It’s LeBron’s world and we’re all just living in it...
After all of the criticism for so many years, LeBron James can sleep well for the rest of his life.
He did it.
Against all odds, LeBron James put the city of Cleveland on his back and carried it to a championship. Down 3-1, it didn’t matter. Facing a game seven in Oakland? It didn’t matter.
In winning his third title on Sunday night, James has crossed over into the final realm of NBA superstars… undeniable immortality on the court.
All of the detractors will have to shut up forever…
He did it.
No. 8 – Eternal Randomness of the Spotty Sports Mind …
… Way to go, Dustin Johnson. In what was an otherwise forgettable year at the US Open, you getting your first major felt right.
… As good as Johnson was all weekend, man, the field pretty much did whatever it could to hand him the damn thing.
… Every time I have doubts about Ben Simmons, I just watch this…
… USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!
… Argentina will almost certainly beat the USMNT on Tuesday night in Houston, but making the semifinals of the Copa America is one of the biggest accomplishments the program has achieved in the last 100 years of major tournaments. If I told you that the team would be competitive against Messi and Co. on Tuesday and turned around and won the 3rd-place game, you’d have to take it if we were playing Let’s Make a Deal.
… Mexico suffered the equivalent of 66-3 on Saturday night in a 7-0 loss to Chile that felt more like 10-0. Careful poking the hornet’s nest this week.
… Is the Rusney Castillo contract Boston’s version of the Ryan Howard contract?
… I can’t help but wonder how the American press would handle Cristiano Ronaldo, who missed a penalty kick on Saturday and was hugely responsible for Portugal tying Austria and pushing towards the brink of elimination in the Euro 2016 Championships. Can you imagine the New York tabloids? He’s more vain than A-Rod, but without the steroids.
… Spain looks really good right now… really, really good.
No. 9 – Game of Thrones - Live blog stream of conscious thoughts...
The following are my stream of conscious thoughts on season-six, episode two of Game of Thrones.
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a. Here. We. Go. Bastard Bowl I,
Ramsay opened up as a -300 favorite last week, but the line has dropped down to -150 going into the episode. Lots of late money of the Starks.
b. There's no way Ramsay dies tonight. No way.
c. Oh, Dany. That's quite the frightening-ass army you've assembled. Consider me impressed.
d. Man, I haven't heard the kind of shit-talking coming out of Ramday's mouth since the Warriors won game four of the NBA Finals. Did Ayesha Curry just tweet that Jon Snow doesn't know what a high-road looks like?
e. "You're going to die tomorrow, Lord Bolton. Sleep well."
That might be my favorite line ever delivered in the show. I heart you, Sansa.
f. I feel like I'm getting ready to watch Battle of The Alamo.
g. Jon Snow needs a Hype Man. Is Sam his version of Bundidi Brown?
h. Girl power! Also, am I crazy or was there a little chemistry between Dany and Asha?
i. Geez, the score for the scenes right before the battle made me feel like I was watching the movie Seven moments before the box arrived from the UPS driver.
j. Ramsay really is a sonofabitch.
k. The shot of Jon Snow facing the entire Bolton army right before the battle begins is one of the best visuals of the entire series.
l. What a freaking battle.
m. Littlefinger + Sansa = new BFFs.
n. Wun-wun went out like an OG.
o. Ramsay took an old-fashion beat-down from Jon, I mean...Ramsay didn't even get a jab in,
p. Holy hell, Sansa fed Ramsay to his own dogs. Bwahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. That is so just.
q. GOAT!
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No. 10 - And finally…
It’s a little late, but I wanted to thank all of the fathers and grandfathers out there that have helped positively shape the lives of the children they created and wish them all a very Happy Father’s Day.
As the father of 2-year old twins, I understand now mo
Black Lives Matter? That's a racist, hate group if ever there was one, and should be denounced as such, but no one has the balls to do so....i.e. "Pigs in a blanket, fry em like bacon!" "The only good cop is a dead cop." REALLY? The horrific ,terrible irony is this group says & does nothing about the mayhem and slaughter of blacks by their very own kind in ghettos across major cities in America. Neither does Obama. Neither does Jackson, neither does Sharpton. Why? Because sadly the "politics of race. and the phony narrative perpetrated by the Race Industry is actually more important than Black lives. These race hustlers have done more to set back race relations than anyone. Outrageous hypocrites to the nth degree! Where's the media? Where's the press? Where's the outrage?
That way I win.I acted in no such way.
If you believe me to be mistaken, feel free to quote the part where I suggested as much.
You're debating yourself at this point.
Just don't see the relevance of the timing of the '96 hire compared to the current situation. Apples/oranges.
Yes, with the success in Louisiana recruiting....a Nawlins, and maybe a northern LA, camp would seem to make a lot of sense.
