Morning Coffee Is Posted In The Morning!
by Peter Bean on Oct 29, 2007 6:09 AM CDT
in Texas Longhorns Football
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The Longhorns are creeping back towards the Top 10 in the human polls, but as Suzanne Haliburton notes, Texas doesn't crack the Top 25 in any of the six computer ratings. We spend a good deal of time on ranking stuff here, so this shouldn't surprise anyone; Texas' on-paper resume is pretty thin. Of course, understanding the computer rankings is a whole issue of its own.
SMQ was in DKR's stands on Saturday as a fan for the first time. His impression:
There's a reason AW and I have nicknamed DKR "The Library."
Pumped up about next week's #4 vs #6 showdown between Arizona State and Oregon? Temper yourself, football fan. The revolution shan't be televised. I hesitate to be hyperbolic (that's a lie), but... this is a miscarriage of justice. From what I can tell, fans with the GamePlan TV Package will get to see the game, but the vast majority of America will not see one of the most important games of the entire 2007 season.
The Gregory Gazelles picked up where they left off on mid-week, sweeping Colorado in Boulder on Saturday night. The Gazelles host a Halloween match Wednesday night when #21 Oklahoma visits Gregory Gymnasium at 6:30 p.m.
--PB--
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If DKR is "The Library"
whats the Erwin Center? The Half-Empty Morgue?
by the other Andrew on Oct 29, 2007 9:02 AM CDT reply actions
Re:
If DKR is "The Library," the Erwin Center has to be "The Aquarium." If you ask real nice, maybe they'll even get you a t-shirt on your 21st.
I guess I'm sometimes on the other side
of the argument on the "crowd atmosphere" criticism debate.
Places like The Shoe or SEC venues are so loud, because they are filled with thousands of trailer trash redneck retards who shave their body hair and spray paint themselves with school colors. These are the same people who burn cars and fling their own fecal matter after losing games. Attending a college football game validates their existence, because it makes them feel better about dropping out of high school and living on cinder blocks.
IMO there are clear cultural disctinctions b/w the loud college football crowds and the rest of us in human civilization.
I attended a Tenn/Florida game 8-9 years ago. A few rows down, over the hallway entrance, I watched an opposing Florida fan pee in a cup and then proceed to toss said urine filled cup on a Volunteer fan below.
How do you compete with that? Is it really a surprise they are capable of making more noise?
I will say this though. I think that a Wisconsin Camp Randall-esque crowd atmosphere would be a happy medium. Maybe the stadium renovations will move DKR in that direction. They are loud, but in a fun normal sort of way.
I agree with EOB's points
re: tOSU and SEC schools and loudness. While the UT fanbase is not bereft of drunken morons, the % is not as high as the "loud" schools' respective fanbases.
Peter:
How loud is Notre Dame? Obviously this season probably isn't the best measure of that, but how loud were they early in the season, before their spirit was completely broken?
by Old Tex29 on Oct 29, 2007 11:25 AM CDT up reply actions
this kind of classless action...
...is acceptable only when used against oklahoma. I am told it is comparable to a shower north of the Red.
by UTHomeSearch on Oct 29, 2007 11:28 AM CDT up reply actions
this is ridiculous
Many of the schools in the SEC are not far behind UT in terms of academics- Georgia, FL, Auburn, KY come to mind. Yet stadiums at these schools are rocking every Saturday, while DKR remians comically un-loud and intimidating.
To cite the fact that people at these schools are 'redneck trash' seems really vain and ridiculous to me. These are the same 18-21 year old educated kids that are at Texas. Remember, most UT students come from places other than Austin, and I hate to break it to you, but Texas isn't exactly a hot-bed of culture, class, and progress outside of Austin. Don't be such a snob.
The real reason is students here seem to think its uncool to make noise and let loose at the games.
by Michael Bean on Oct 29, 2007 12:03 PM CDT up reply actions
Texas
Remember, most UT students come from places other than Austin, and I hate to break it to you, but Texas isn't exactly a hot-bed of culture, class, and progress outside of Austin. Don't be such a snob.
I think your post comes off as at least as snobbish as the previous poster. Houston has plenty of culture, class, and progress - whatever that means. Not knowing a ton about Dallas, I would assume much of the same for it.
sure
Houston and Dallas, like most big cities are diverse enough in what they offer. My point was that acting like the state of Texas is just sooo much more civilized than these other 'barbaric' places in the South is absurd. Texans are just as bat-shit crazy as people from Alabama, Florida, etc. Not saying that's a good thing or a bad thing.
I just don't think it's fair to say our citizenry is so much more high-browed than the rest as an explanation for why we can't get some noise in DKR.
by Michael Bean on Oct 29, 2007 3:13 PM CDT up reply actions
It has nothing to do with
Texas versus Miss or Georgia. Class vs. no-class states. Academics over brain donors.
The fan behavior and what is generally accepted and perpetuated at SEC stadiums is vastly different than what goes on elsewhere.
Even friends of mine from SEC schools (or tOSU) will be the first to say it is a circus.
They embrace being redneck hooligans.
As an SEC fan
I can say this. Many SEC fans are sore losers and even sorer winners
But they get supercrazy at games ... especially late afternoon and nightcappers
inaccurate generalization
There's always going to be a contingent of drunk obnoxious people, but this whole "redneck living on cinder blocks" idea is taking it too far.
For example, most of my family consists of LSU fans, and I was told that my uncle (an orthodontist in his 50's, who lives in a pretty nice house) "went completely nuts" when LSU won the BCS a few years back. They definitely take football VERY seriously in the SEC.
It does disappoint me that the Texas fanbase hasn't yet grasped the notion of getting loud when the opponent is on offense, and being relatively quiet when the Longhorn offense is trying to call a play and snap the ball. It happens sometimes, I think we (the crowd) generated at least one false start for Nebraska saturday.
DKR was rockin' for the TCU game, aside from that it's been relatively tame for the rest of the home games.
I see what you're saying
but if venues like Autzen stadium and Happy Valley can get jacked up like its the SEC, I think DKR can as well.
Places like Austin and Ann Arbor suffer from a "royalty effect." This comes from dominating your region since the dawn of college football and never having suffered an inferiority complex to any rival. It is characterized by docile crowds and a strong sense of entitlement.
I went to a game a few years ago in Tuscaloosa and it was pretty much the same. It didn't feel particularly SEC, in fact it was almost EXACTLY like attending a game at DKR. But Bama is also part of the original royalty of college football.
by BrooklynHorn on Oct 29, 2007 12:36 PM CDT up reply actions
yeah, you see this a lot...
...in relation to rivals. the "little brother" in football prestige terms (also generally in academic prestige terms) is way more fanatical than the big brother. a&m is more fanatical than Texas (and texas tech is more fanatical than both - at least in terms of crowd behavior); ohio state is more fanatical than Michigan (that's less of a "little brother" situation, but Michigan is certainly the more prestigious school); auburn is more fanatical than alabama; mississippi state is more fanatical than ole miss; etc.
So you are saying that
couch burning and urine throwing goes on in Austin?
There are certainly a fair share of hooligans at DKR, but nothing compared to the circus in Baton Rouge or Gainsville.
BTW, many of my roommates right after graduation came from schools like Ole Miss and LSU. Much of my opinion has been formed from their stories. Most SEC fans and BIG Ten fans who visit the Shoe will be the first to tell you there is a stark contrast in fan behavior compared to other places.
There were...
Does that include
the 5000 empty seats at the start of the second half becuase all of the club level seats were empty due to them all finishing up their drinks in the club? That looked really bad, I hope it was not shown on TV.
Most of the TV shots of the DKR crowd...
...seem to be of 60+ yr old alumni, cute kids with face paint and drunk/confused looking frat boys and their equally clueless/on-the-cell-phone "dates."
Not the loudest subset of our fanbase.
by Useful Idiot on Oct 29, 2007 11:28 AM CDT reply actions
we have the loudest INTERNET FANS in the NATION!
screw the games and the stadium, we rule the internet!
by cortexas on Oct 29, 2007 11:45 AM CDT reply actions
The Library
And Deloss is the librarian. That damned screen could be so useful for starting/managing cheers (like, could we count down for Texas-Fight so it doesn't peter out all wimpy and can end with a really loud "TEXAS FIGHT!"?). Instead of that, though, he uses it to play static ads. The whole right and left sixth of the screen may as well be a painted wooden billboard, because all they show on it is Dr. Pepper or Wells Fargo. If it was a regular TV screen, those ads would be permanently burned on, so that even when they cut to the full screen American flag, you see the stars and stripes waving gallantly in the shadow of the Bengal's Coffee logo.
Wanna know why its so quiet?
Because the majority of the students who go are there to socialize rather than watch a football game. Many of the fratties and dates go solely to hang out with each other, and they're so drunk they don't pay attention to the game (not all, just an observable majority).
Yup, exactly...
by Sweed4Heisman on Oct 29, 2007 4:26 PM CDT up reply actions
I don't mean any disrespect to them
I have many greek friends who are passionate about UT football. But when they all get together in the stadium, after a morning/afternoon of drinking, more often than not their backs are turned to the field so they can talk to their friends. At least in section 32.
That is so true
The reason that places like Ohio St., and other SEC schools have hostile crowds/enviornments is b/c there is nothing to do but go to the game and get drunk.
There is a joke at Ohio State that 90 percent of the people at the games are truck drivers and the other 10 percent are students. Most of the people at the game are alumni and just upper middle class people who don't really live and die for the horns.
If Texas loses it is not life or death like it is here at this. We just don't have that passionate of a casual fanbase like other schools do. Part of is b/c Texas has gotten much harder to get into so you see more nerds and minorities like Indians and Asians. A majority of those kids were not raised on football or don't care about football. For them, going to the games is just the thing to do and see what all the fuss is all about. They don't have that passion instilled for the football like alot of us have had since we were little kids.
There are exceptions to every rule and in general most of the students don't care and we don't have that fanbase of people that have never been associated with school like the schools mentioned above that go to the game. That is why in SEC country the atompshere and passion for their teams is at another level compared to ours. Most fans in Alabama or LSU or any other big time SEC school only care about the football team and that is their pro team.
What other places have 90,000 people show up for a spring game.
Also the stadium is a huge factor. In DKR the fans are extremely far away from the action and they are not on top of the field like at Ohio State, A&M, LSU, Florida and other notorious home fields. That is also why Michigan does not have that great of a home field edge b/c all the sound leaves the stadium.
One of the most overlooked reasons for us not having a good gameday atompshere is that we rarelly play elite teams at home and have big games at home. All of our conference games are at 2:30 and there is just no good atompshere. We rarely have an elite team come to austin. Ohio St. was the exception last year and before that i can't think of an elite/top 5 team coming to austin.
Baiscally our season is a one game season and that is played up in Dallas and that is where the best atomsphere in allo of college football is.
I am a true fan and i good get season tickets for every home game but i don't b/c it is just not economically sound. Most of the time we play scrubs for a nonconference schedule, and the games are over at halftime and then we play the other also rans of the big 12 and those games aren't competive. I just get tickets for OU, A&M, Tech and sometimes OSU.
Any other games that suddenly happen to be important i get them off ebay.
by longhorn4life3 on Oct 29, 2007 6:41 PM CDT up reply actions
Let me try
I think what he MEANS to say is that there was a time when a majority of the Texas student-body grew up as longhorns, were legacies, were more traditional, were die-hard football fans, etc. Today, however, the University attracts international students, out-of-state students, and students who just plain want a good education and don't necessarily care about football.
But that would have been a tactful way of putting it. dHab-the-2nd instead chooses to creep us out by naming two specific minority groups that, in a free-association, deeply revealing sort of way informs us that he is very AWARE of how many Asians and Indians are currently on campus.
by BrooklynHorn on Oct 30, 2007 3:09 PM CDT up reply actions
no, it seriosuly is Dhab.
he keeps getting banned and then adding a number to the end of his user name and re-registering. funny guy.
I think...
It would be a neat running joke to keep a counter on the side of the main page. Something like "00 days 00 hours 21 min 12 sec since last banning of Dhab". Although that's probably promoting it more than anything. You're right, PB, casual banning is its own running joke.
Am I mislead by your tone
Or do you enjoy this just a teensy-weensy bit?
Also
TCU game was amazing, the crowd actually cheered the players as they left the field at the half, even though we were shutout. K-State game was amazing when it rained. The students went nuts at halftime for the band playing in the rain, then we stayed nuts as the players came back out, then went even more nuts as we marched down the field and scored. I personally almost exploded with glee when the damned godzillatron started flickering and almost went out. Then, rain stopped, foundation members returned to their seats, freshly armed with lots of food to sit and devour, crowd went away, Colt threw an INT, game was lost. Total coincidence, right?
I don't buy it
SEC stadiums are filled with frats, dates and donors and those places are extremely loud every week
Well, then...
We have shitty frats, dates, and donors.
Not because
I don't like them. I really like a lot of the old 'Horns in the foundation, they have a lot of character, and I have no grudge against the frats. The problems we have are people telling us to sit/settle down when we're being loud for the defense, cheering Texas Fight, etc. I have personally sat in the west grand stands with my uncle and had multiple people griping at me to sit down, even when the OSU offense was in our half of the stadium. I sit in the south end zone, now, usually, and there's almost always a group of people with greek letters on their shirts chanting "U-S-A!" or booing, or screaming about Colt/Davis/Charles/whoever just made a play, if they're making any noise at all. I mentioned all of this because I wanted it to be clear that I'm being rational about this, and not just griping about frats or donors for the sake of it. You've got to admit that after the first series, the entire west grandstand is sitting for nearly the entire remainder of the game. People are sitting elsewhere, too, but the west grandstand holds the largest majority of sitters. Those seats are empty 5-10 min. before the half, and they don't fill back up until after the third quarter is started. They're actually no worse than the rest of the stadium about leaving before singing The Eyes, but since almost everyone is gone, "no worse" is basically "atrocious". Whatever the cause of their actions, personal experience and visual evidence on my part point toward these groups as the cause of some of our problems. Please don't think I'm being irrational, because I always try to base my opinions on some kind of evidence.
Oh
I agree that our crowd is not very loud. I just don't think it is because they are in a frat or are a donor to the university.
That's fine
I just wanted to make sure you didn't think I was trying to say "Frat boys and old geezers need to be barred from the stadium because they suck!" That's not me.
Getting back to you on email pretty soon.
Tickets
I think it would be interesting to play one game where all the tickets are open to the public and not just to donors. This would allow for a more diverse group of people and would help determine if the lack of noise is due to the ticket holders who attend the game or the make up of the entire fan base.
Yeah
there are a lot of wealthy people in the stands at DKR. And contrary to what EOB seems to be implying, wealthy does not always mean classy.
Sometimes wealthy just means asshole in more expensive clothing who tells kids in front of him to sit down and shut up.
Or at least thats what it usually means at DKR.
by BrooklynHorn on Oct 29, 2007 12:56 PM CDT up reply actions
Also interesting in the A-AS
Was the two-part piece on athletic academics. UT spends $2 million a year ($4000/student-athlete) on tutoring, counseling and helping them in class.
The story is about how colleges have been able to lax their academic admission standards for athletes but the NCAA demands them be better than what they are
I don't have the link. I read the print version this morning
Don't forget the "Texas Fans Make Us Proud"
Part of the non-hostile environment of DKR stems from the AD's office. The emails I get about "Texas Fans Make Us Proud", simply makes me sick. No booing other teams, no profanity, no changing the words of the school song. It's one thing to respect the other team and their fans (which includes not pouring bodily fluids on them), but it is an entierly different issue to courteously welcome other teams to our stadium. I'm not saying college kids should be heckled like J.J. Reddick was by that one sick idiot, but booing is part of sports. I am strongly against booing one's own team for any reason, but the opposing team should be booed at every opportunity.
Perrilloux at it again...
Backup quarterback Ryan Perrilloux and linebacker Derrick Odom are not expected to play for No. 3 LSU against No. 17 Alabama on Saturday because of their part in a nightclub brawl.
Coach Les Miles said Monday they will not practice this week.
Via SI
Good thing they've got Jarret Lee on the roster
Cuz I doubt Perrilloux survives (or stays out of jail) long enough to ever be the official starter. Another phenomenal waste of talent. Remember Todd Marinovich?
by patienthornsfan on Oct 29, 2007 3:58 PM CDT up reply actions
Keller Done For The Season
Nebraska quarterback Sam Keller is out for the season with a shoulder injury and Joe Ganz will start this week against eighth-ranked Kansas, coach Bill Callahan said Monday.
Sam Keller was hurt with 2:37 left in Saturday's 28-25 loss at Texas. It's the second time in his college career that his season has ended early due to injury.
It's the second time that Keller has had an injury prematurely end a season and another blow for a program that has spiraled downward after reaching the Big 12 championship game last season.
by patienthornsfan on Oct 29, 2007 4:45 PM CDT reply actions
Sucks
I love NU. It should be Texas vs. Nebraska every year for the XII championship. Only two really respectable programs in the Big XII (With the possible exception of Tech, but they need to quit getting horribly crushed by inferior teams on a regular basis).
NU
I think the Big 12 should pull a page from SEC book and have a natural rival in the opposite division
That way, you could have NU-OU every year (home and home and home and ...)
CU-Texas
Neb-OU
Texas A&M-KSU
Mizzou-Texas Tech
Okla St-Iow ST
Kansas-Baylor
every year in the SEC:
LSU-Florida
Alabama-Tennessee
Ole Miss-Georgia
...
It creates a hated rival that your team is granted to get up for every year
I'm pretty sure
If we did that, I would want K-State. No one hates anyone in the North more than them, at least in my circle of friends. I understand about the 2001 Big XII championship, but 70-3 was plenty of revenge, right? We have a losing record against K-State. That's got to be enough to hate those bastards.
CU-Texas
Has a healthy series dating to the pre-Big 12 days. It's two traditional powers and not who's hated now. That's how I devised that list. K-State vs A&M solely because of the 1998 Big 12 title game.
Plus, Texas can beat Colorado 9 times outta 10. Not so sure about KSU
I think if the conference had a natural rival in the opposite division it would close the gap between the North and South that always seems to be there
I'm down for that
and it is not becuase I like seeing CU get the beat down, but it would give me a reason to go back to Boulder more than once every 4 years.
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