SB Nation User Blog: Robertpz

UT Fan Appreciation Day...

Robertpz — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:07:03 -0000

I just talked with someone at UT Athletics and they just informed me that the UT Fan Appreciation Day which usually coincides with the end of summer practice for the football team will be on August 22nd. I am guess that it will not coincide this year with practice ending as that would appear to be two weeks later than normal. Not sure the reason other than maybe avoiding the heat, but whether it's the first of August or the last, I would say it shouldn't matter. Anyway, I am off to get my Colt stuff ready for signing! Reply if you plan on attending. Always nice to see friendly faces...

Saving Grace

Robertpz — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 02:08:55 -0000

I am not sure how many of you guys and gals watch "Saving Grace" on TNT, but there is some very funny sparring between the characters focusing on the OU vs. UT rivalry considering one of the cops (Butch Ada) is a former UT quarterback. The show itself is fictionally set in Oklahoma City so that explains the emphasis. Anyway, this week's episode had Butch asking the other officers "What do marijuana and OU football have in common?". After a few seconds, he replied, "They both get smoked in bowls!". It was a good laugh...pass it on!

Let's get Kurt Russell to throw out the first pitch next game...

Robertpz — Wed, 27 May 2009 13:08:51 -0000

Because when you think Kurt Russell, you have to think Tombstone! Since attendance is already down this season, Uncle Drayton can't blame wanting to keep butts in seats as the reason for not giving our youngsters more playing time. After the All-Star break, we need to start focusing on next season:

-- Trade Miggie, Lee, and/or Pudge for whatever you can get. Lee and Tejada would be dangerous DH players in the AL for a team looking to make the next step and Pudge would be a good veteran backstop player for either league. Trade them and get what you can for them because they only have a couple of years left anyway.

-- Bring up Chris Johnson to start playing 3B consistently as he can't be any worse than Blum. Get him some quality playing time for next season.

-- The Four Horsemen - No matter what anyone tells you, you have to keep Pence, Berkman, Oswalt, and Wandy. Roy is a below market priced ace, Wandy is your best #2 or #3 pitcher option on a shallow pitching staff, & Pence/Berkman give you a core IF and OF player to build around. Anyone else on the MLB squad is fair game.

-- Houston has never had a clearance sale, but then again, we have never gotten less out of more before. Times have certainly changed.

-- Fire Cooper - Nice guy, but right now heads need to roll if you want to get any ounce of motivation squeezed out of the players right now. They need to know that the next few months will be a period of new faces coming thru the clubhouse. If you want to be able to see them, start playing better!

I love the Astros, but I don't want to go thru another couple of seasons of below average records because Uncle Drayton wants to put butts in seats vs. wins in the record column!

Cedric Benson: A Horn of a different color?

Robertpz — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 15:00:47 -0000

As many already know, Cedric Benson is in Houston this week visiting the Texans on his first leg of his FA tour of the NFL. While the Texans have made what is seems to be a corporate initiative to steer clear of 98% of Texas Longhorn football players, Kubiak may finally be softening. After talking with a good source privey to the visit, it appears that Cedric will soon be a Texan by weeks end and the tour may be over before it started. My source told me that both sides have agreed on a number (i.e. salary) as of late Monday and, if all of the talks and interviews between Benson and team officials go well, it would appear likely that the Benson will be back in the great state of Texas playing football.

Personally, splitting the backfield with a great young RB like Slaton AND making close to the same money as starting in Cincy, I think it is a great choice for Cedric Benson. The wheels are falling off in Cincy while the wheels are just getting aligned for the Texans with back-to-back 8-8 seasons. Moreover, it appears most of the great NFL teams these days have a 1-2 punch at RB and Slaton & Benson offer two different styles which should allow them to have their own opportunities at success. Plus, Cedric could make a paycheck for a lot longer in the NFL by not wearing down his body so soon.

Hook 'em!

-- What say you?:

Agree?

Don't Agree?

Don't care?

We do not need any cheese...

Robertpz — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 05:49:25 -0000

to go with our whine nor do we need a split title. I was at the game last night and was a little overwhelmed by all of the "split title" talk by fellow Longhorns. Let me say by the way that I was also pleasantly overwhelmed with all of the pre-game festivities and how OSU and their fans proved to be up for the challenge. Now back to the split title...that ship sailed when we were denied access into the Big 12 Championship. Let OU and UF battle it out Thursday night for the 2008 title and let's focus our passion and hopes on 2009. Utah is the only program outside of the BCS Title game participants who can honestly gripe about being denied a title or title shot. In fact, I hope Utah makes all kinds of stink about it and it gets a lot of pub and maybe even a little Congressional talk (not that it matters in today's world). The reality is that until the majority of conferences (which is mostly non-BCS schools) rally against the current system, it will not change. Every three years when a non-BCS conference school gets denied a chance at an unbeaten record meaning something it is also one more chance for the fires of protest to begin to rage.

As far as Texas, I have said repeatedly, both on this website as well as talking and blogging with Houston-area sports people, that this team is eerily familar to the 2004 Texas Longhorns. Just like them, the 2008 team beat a Big-10 team in a BCS bowl game in dramatic fashion. Just like them, the current team will be losing a few, but meaningful seniors, but will also have a core nucleus intact to strengthen going into the following season. The 2005 Longhorns and the 2009 Longhorns have the same conference schedule as the year before. Key players from some of those conference opponents from the prior year are no where to be found the next. This Longhorn team is set up to make an incredible push for the National Title in 2009. I am excited and can't wait for opening kickoff against ULM to start that journey.

However, in the meantime, I would hope that fans can be passionate, yet reserved when discussing what could have been in 2008. That, and all of the drama with it, is out of our hands, yet 2009 is in our collective grasp! Thanks to Colt, the Longhorn Dynasty will add another notch in their belt in 2009 as the keys to the car get turned over to Gilbert in 2010 much like they were with Colt in 2006 after VY helped win the title for us in 2005.

Hook 'em!

Fiesta Bowl Gameday Activities Thread

Robertpz — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 13:46:05 -0000

I thought I would start this thread to see if fellow fans or local alumni might provide more information on any pre-game or post-game festivities for the Fiesta Bowl. My buddy and I are flying in the morning of the game and have tickets to some sort of pre-game tailgate, but I am not sure how good of a tailgate it will be. Plus, meeting up with some fellow BON'ers might be more fun.

Anyway, any insight as what a Longhorn fan can do on the day of the game would be much appreciated. We are hanging out one more day after the bowl to get in a few rounds of golf, but what else is one to do in Phoenix when not watching the Longhorns beat up on OSU?

Hook'em!

Robert

The greatest Christmas Day ever for a Longhorns' fan...

Robertpz — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 05:38:38 -0000

It started off by opening a gift to discover my best friend and my wife went in together to get me a plane ticket and a game ticket for the Fiesta Bowl! I am meeting my best friend, who is flying in from Denver, to go the game and then spend Tuesday playing golf! This will be my first Longhorns' bowl game since the '98 Cotton Bowl, which was Ricky Williams last game. Anyway, the surprises didn't stop there! I then learned my wife and I are going to have a boy, which we have picked out the name "Jackson Tyler"! While either would have been great, obviously having a boy gets the old male pride booming!

The day is almost over, but I am still stoked from the double-shot of blessings I received today. I hope everyone got what they wanted for Christmas and I look forward to hanging with some fellow BON'ers on January 5th!

Merry Christmas to all!

2009 is The Year of The Colt

Robertpz — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 23:59:51 -0000

I am not surprised to hear that Colt has already announced his intentions to return next year for the 2009 campaign. I also would not be surprised to learn that Sam Bradford is going to cash in his Heisman to enter the 2009 NFL Draft. Especially with the potential Rookie salary cap looming in 2010, any automatic first rounder will be jumping off the ship after this season to make extra dough that they would miss out on in 2010. As much and as long as I have been on the Colt Bandwagon, I think if he has a stellar senior campaign, he is still a 2nd rounder at best with 3rd round being probably the area he lands in. Thus, the rookie salary cap doesn't affect him nearly as much if he returns for one more year.

So with that said and using the "Sam Bradford leaving" theory, in 2009 Colt would play the same conference schedule as 2008 facing Mizzou, OU, TT, and Kansas with new quarterbacks. As far as the Big 12 South goes, only Okie State would be a team to worry about. Throw in Georgia, Alabama, and USC all with new quarterbacks and you could see why 2009 looks golden for Colt McCoy and the Texas Longhorns. The cherry on top would be Tim Tebow who might decide to leave early as well although Florida quarterbacks are as successful in the NFL as . The upcoming Fiesta Bowl game pitting UT against OSU could actually be a rematch in the making for the BCS Title a year later.

With a solid redshirt class getting their chance to contribute in 2009 along with the returning players, I like our chances at supporting Colt McCoy for a bonafide Heisman Trophy run as well as a BCS Title run. Of course, I think Colt kinda already knows that...

"Stoop"-ing to new heights

Robertpz — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 14:42:51 -0000

As a bona-fide Longhorn fan thru and thru, I begrudgingly applaud Stoops on using the system to his advantage. Using an old saying in concerning bad relationships, “Nothing gets you over the last one quicker than the next one!”, Stoops knew he had plenty of time to make voters and pundits forget about his loss to UT by demolishing a very soft middle part of the schedule leading up to tougher games against TT and OSU. While I do think it a tad much to overvalue OU’s “quality” wins over TCU and Cincy when the Sooners also played a Div I-AA one win team and a no-win Div 1-A team, the system is the system. Either way, Big Game Bob had plenty of time to get the wheels rolling again. Heck, Bob probably pulled out the old tapes of Mack in 2004 campaigning for UT to be in a BCS bowl game with their one loss to future BCS runner-up OU being better than California’s one loss to future BCS champion USC and knew he had plenty of wiggle room left. The truth was that UT’s gauntlet of four games from OU to TT gave Bob the potential opportunity he needed to jump UT provided the Longhorns stumbled, which they did. In the end, Mack got “out-Macked” by Stoops since OU had 6 games to rebound from their loss while UT had less than 3 games to do the same. I say that about Mack and Bob half-jokingly as head coaches should do everything in their power to defend their players and their programs even when the best defense turns into a great offense!

For my final thoughts on the BCS matter, I do think Bob has a stigma to overcome this year that will become very permanent or go away depending on the outcome of their game vs. Florida. While Bob has done a fantastic job of getting to the "Final Five" bowls in the last ten years, he has done a poor job in doing anything with those opportunities. Since losers like to say it’s better to have lost in a big game than to have not gone at all, the reality is that people do remember losers especially when they appear to lose a lot. Scoreboard shows Bob and Mack both having 2 BCS wins with Mack batting .1000 in appearances while Bob is a respectable .333 (respectable in baseball that is) in BCS games. I guarantee that if Bob loses to Florida, then the potential .286 BCS losing percentage will slowly begin to overshadow his .826 overall winning percentage (scary that it’s the same three numbers?).

I will say it one more time, the Texas Longhorns 2009 BCS Title campaign begins in Jan.5th!

Just can't beat a Mack....

Robertpz — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 15:14:27 -0000

Mack Brown		Bob Stoops
11	Seasons at school	10
11-1	Current record	12-1
3	National ranking	2
114-26 (.814)	Career record at school	109-23 (.826)
1	National titles	1
1	Big 12 titles	6
11	Bowl appearances	10
2 (2-0)	BCS appearances	6 (2-4)
7-3	Bowl record	4-5
3-6	Head-to-head record	6-3
21	Longest winning streak	20
3	Longest losing streak	2

Nice to see Bob has as many BCS wins as Mack. It would appear that one of the coaches is positioned to break that tie with their respective team's bowl appearance in January. I guess some would argue it's better to go to a BCS game and lose than to not go at all, which seem to be what losers say alot. Then again, winning ain't bad either when it comes to alumni supporters, overall bowl records, and smack-talking. It will be nice to see Florida hold the National title before we win it in 2009 vs. the other way around in 2005 vs. 2006....

Hook 'em!

PS Stats pulled from October article from Houston Chronicle. I believe I updated all of the stats thru this past weekend's championship game.