the tindog coffeehouse

You might be thinking based on my recent “Longhorns Inc.” post that I’m biased against college football because of the commercial aspects of the game. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Despite the commercialism, I still love college football, and this week is a perfect example of why.

Tomorrow the No. 1-ranked Texas Longhorns head to my hometown of Lubbock to face off against the No. 7 Texas Tech Red Raiders. Both teams are undefeated and ranked in the Top 10, and both are led by Heisman-worthy quarterbacks. As the Austin American-Statesman said, “Yep, it’s a big one.” Seems like we’ve heard that a few times before this season.

Anyway, since the “Longhorns Inc.” post focused on a lot of numbers, let’s look at a few others:

• 8-2 – Mack Brown’s record against Tech. Both losses occurred in Lubbock.
• 2002 – The last year Texas lost to Tech.
• 4 – The Longhorns ranking coming into the 2002 Tech game. They had already lost to OU, and the loss to Tech would keep them out of the Big 12 Championship. It’s fair to assume that a loss this year would keep them out of the National Championship.
• 2005 – The last time Tech was ranked 7th in the BCS. It came the same week the Red Raiders played No. 2 UT. UT won that game 52-17 and would go on to finish the season undefeated and win the National Championship.
• 2006 – The last year Texas played the Red Raiders in Lubbock. They won that game 35-31 after overcoming a 21-point deficit. It was Colt McCoy’s first visit to Raiderland.
• 493 – The average number of passing yards racked up by Tech quarterback Graham Harrell in the last two Texas games. Despite the huge number, the Horns won both games.
• 262 – The average number of passing yards racked up by Texas quarterback Colt McCoy in the last two Tech games.
• 335 – The number of yards averaged by Colt McCoy over the last three games. He’s completed 85% of his passes, scored 8 touchdowns, and had only 1 interception. He ranks 2nd nationally in pass efficiency.

So what do all these numbers mean? It means that Tech does have the potential to beat the Horns, but it’s not going to be easy. Tech’s offense has basically one play, and that’s to pass. But accumulating hundreds of passing yards doesn’t necessarily guarantee a victory.

That being said, here’s the one last number:

• 41-7 – The score of the game, as predicted by NCAA Football 09 for the Wii, with Texas claiming the win.

Personally, I think the score will be a lot higher on both sides, but the Horns should still be able to add another victory to the Win column.

Hook ‘Em, Horns!

Real Score: 39-33, Tech. WTF?! Yeah, I knew the predicted score wouldn’t be close, but I’m still stunned by how poorly Texas played through most of the game. And then after everything, it came down to a dropped interception with 8 seconds left that would’ve given the Horns a 1-point win! Crap! Well, time to regroup and just be thankful Texas didn’t fall too far in the polls. The National Championship is probably no longer an option, but there’s still a lot football left to be played, so anything is possible. Unfortunately for Texas, though, their fate will be decided by how everyone else does.

I guess Ted Stevens was wrong. Turns out the Internet is actually a camel.

Texas Monthly has an outstanding cover story in their November issue on the big business of The University of Texas athletics.

It’s no surprise that there’s a lot of money being made in college athletics these days, particularly football. But as they say, everything is bigger in Texas, from UT’s massive $8 million scoreboard (the Godzillatron), to it’s recently expanded north end zone (NEZ) of Royal-Memorial Stadium (at $176.5 million).

With its massive laid-brick turrets and cantilevered deck, the NEZ has transformed Royal-Memorial from what was merely a first-class arena into arguably the finest football facility in the country. It also represents the crown jewel of a decade-long construction spree that has cost $348 million and rebuilt or refurbished most of the university’s sports venues. If that seems like a lot of money, then consider this: When Brown was hired, in 1997, the budget for UT’s sports program was $21.4 million. This year the figure is expected to hit $126.8 million, the largest of any university in the nation. …

If you divide UT’s total sports budget by the number of athletes, the per-athlete figure is $170,000. No other college in America comes close to that amount. …

Including the new suites, club seating, and additional seats at all three venues, UT will make a total of $23 million this year, of which roughly $14.5 million is consumed by debt payments from construction costs, leaving $8.5 million in profit. When the debt is eventually paid off, of course, the profit will be 100 percent. UT believes that the NEZ project will generate $318 million in the next thirty years.

I’m as big a fan of the Longhorns as anyone, but I would agree that college football has become too commercialized. Just look at the BCS. The bowl system isn’t really designed to determine the best football team in the country; it’s designed to make money. Corporations spend hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising and corporate sponsorships every year to plaster their brands on stadiums, bowl games, and even the yellow first-down line. (I found one source from 2006 which listed the cost of a 30-second ad during the Rose Bowl as $800,000.)

So why not funnel more of those profits to other areas of the university? Tuition is rising about 5% a year at UT Austin, and higher at other UT campuses. Seems kind of hard to justify that while the Athletics Department is spending $15,000 a night for the football team to stay at a hotel before each home game. (That $15,000 would pay for roughly two years of undergraduate tuition for a UT student.)

Still, when was the economics of higher education ever logical? I mean, you could spend about $8,500 a year in tuition at UT Austin or $43,950 a year to go to Bates College in Lewiston, Maine.

And Bates College doesn’t even have a football team!

This old White Heart song from 1992, “Who Owns You”, popped up on my MP3 player this morning on the way to work. Seems strangely relevant today.

I’m being swallowed by America
Losing my soul in America
I can’t keep up in America
‘Cause now they’re selling dreams in America

Livin’ in the malls of America
Deals made behind the walls of America
Try to find my face in America
Now you gotta buy your place in America

Tell me who owns you, baby
Tell me who owns you now
Tell me who holds the key to your captive heart
Tell me who owns you, baby
Tell me, do you even know?
Who is the one who unlocks the dreams of your soul?

Come stand with me in this holy place
Let the mountain breeze run over our face
And cleanse the shame for what we’ve done
‘Cause we’ve been livin’ our lives for only one

Gotta wash the wounds of America
Step out of the tombs of America
We’ve gotta find our faith in America
Love one another in America
Love one another in America
Love one another

Tell me who owns you, baby
Tell me who owns you now
Tell me who holds the key to your captive heart
Tell me who owns you, baby
Tell me, do you even know?
Who is the one who unlocks the dreams of your soul?

We were watching TV the other night, and a Barack Obama commercial came on. Then out of the blue, I hear a small, angelic voice announce, “That’s who I voted for!”

Huh?

Turns out the girls’ elementary school held a mock election, and Megan and Erin both voted for Obama over McCain.

Interesting.

I asked them why they voted for Obama. Megan didn’t know. Erin (the angelic one who made the announcement) said it was because she liked him. I guess that’s about the most political analysis you’re going to get out of a five-year-old.

The school hasn’t announced the winner of the mock election yet, but Obama did win Nickelodeon’s online Kids Pick the President poll (51% to 49%). (The poll has been run every election year since 1988 and has correctly predicted the winner in 4 out of 5 races.)

Erin’s proclamation reminded me of when I was in first grade way back during the 1980 election. I don’t remember voting, but I do remember hearing an announcement over the intercom that Ronald Reagan had won. I was so happy, but I honestly don’t know why. Maybe it was something I had picked up from my parents or TV. Maybe I just knew how great a president he would be.

Since we certainly haven’t endorsed Obama, I don’t think the girls would’ve picked him because of us. My guess is, it has more to do with aesthetics. Obama is a tall, slender 47-year-old while McCain, at 72, is battle-scarred and about 7 or 8 inches shorter than his opponent. And since 1900, the taller candidate has won two-thirds of the time.

So the good news is, the girls’ votes don’t necessarily indicate a life-long affinity for Democrats. But the bad news is, they probably correctly picked the winner of the real election.

Today’s Rudy Park cartoon:

Hmm… I wonder how bad the economy will have to get before I can buy a new HDTV?

There seems to be a lot of debate on the Interwebs these days about whether good-ol’ American free-market capitalism is still alive.

First the Washington Post declared it dead on October 10th:

The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression is claiming another casualty: American-style capitalism. …

“People around the world once admired us for our economy, and we told them if you wanted to be like us, here’s what you have to do — hand over power to the market,” said Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist at Columbia University. “The point now is that no one has respect for that kind of model anymore given this crisis. And of course it raises questions about our credibility. Everyone feels they are suffering now because of us.”

The Post then clarified its remarks on October 20th by saying, no, it wasn’t really dead because the market was never free to begin with:

Is this the end of American capitalism? As financial panic spread across the globe and governments scrambled to contain the damage, reality seemed to announce the doom of U.S.-style free markets and President Bush’s ideology. But this is wrong in two ways. The deregulation of U.S. financial markets did not reflect only the narrow ideology of a particular party or administration. And the problem with the U.S. economy, more than lack of regulation, has been government’s failure to control systemic risks that government itself helped to create. We are not witnessing a crisis of the free market but a crisis of distorted markets. …

Government-sponsored, upside-only capitalism is the kind that’s in crisis today, and we say: Good riddance.

Then the Ottawa Citizen (yes, from Canada) chimed in on the 22nd, opining that this is all irrelevant, that we just need to throw out the fallacy of the laissez-faire capitalist economy and accept the fact that, like every other developed nation, we are a liberal democracy:

Look at the world with a little historical perspective — even a mere century would do — and it’s obvious that no country in the developed world comes anywhere close to being “socialist,” at least not if that word is used in any meaningful sense. And no country remotely resembles the genuinely “unfettered capitalism” of, for example, the late-19th century U.S.

Every one of them is a liberal democracy. Every one of them has an economy built on free markets. Every one of them regulates those markets. And every one of them constantly expands, contracts and otherwise fiddles with its regulations.

It is that fiddling that constitutes the largest part of modern politics. Conservatives generally want less regulation and intervention; liberals more. Americans tend to favour less; Europeans more. In the 1990s, those on the less-regulation side usually won these arguments. Now the wind has turned.

But apparently that memo hasn’t reached Steve Forbes, who argues that not only is free-market capitalism still alive and well, it’s the only thing that can save us:

The world is flush with cash. It’s frozen because of fear, but the cash is there. Productivity gains are burgeoning.

So, will this global boom resume next year, slowly at first and then with increasing momentum? It should. Whether that happens, however, depends on the next, highly dangerous phase: the political aftermath.

Will we and other countries pursue policies that hinder growth and retard or abort a full-blown recovery, e.g., regulations that stifle innovation and taxes that harm the creation and deployment of capital? Washington politicians are asking: If the federal government can bail out banks, why not other battered businesses? …

If we have the kind of policies that marked the 1980s and not the kind that marked the 1930s and 1970s, we will be in for a dazzling era of innovation and economic advances. Free-market capitalism will save us–if we let it.

So who’s right? Is Adam Smith’s idea of a laissez-faire free-market economy a fallacy that needs to be put to rest in today’s modern world? Or is the Reaganomics of the 1980s the model we should be following?

In a way, it’s a little of both. Yes, tighter regulation of U.S. financial markets is necessary, especially in the short term. But the government is not the best decider of supply and demand; just ask the Soviet Union. So in that regard, we need to give the market plenty of room to sort itself out.

After all, it’s the American way.

Here we go again.

Another week, another match between a Top 10 undefeated Texas Longhorns team and a Top 10 undefeated Oklahoma team. To quote the great Yogi Berra, “It’s like déjà vu all over again.”

Well, except for the fact that this week Texas is ranked No. 1 in the nation and is playing at home against the No. 6 Oklahoma State Cowboys. (You know, the same Cowboys that are 0-10 against Mack Brown’s Horns. Right, that one.)

Of course, give the Pokes some credit. On the same day Texas crushed Bob Stoops’ dreams (such a good feeling, isn’t it?), the Cowboys defeated a Missouri team that at the time was undefeated and ranked No. 3 in the nation. And they did it on the road in Columbia.

And yes, this is the same team that has very nearly knocked off the Horns in recent years, requiring massive comebacks and a last-second field goal.

So how will this week’s game end? To answer that question, we throw it over to NCAA Football 09 for the Nintendo Wii. And the Wii says: Texas will win it 27-10.

Right. There you have it. Based on recent games, I’m thinking the actual score might be closer to 57-10, but who knows. As Yogi Berra once said, “In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is.”

Hook ‘Em, Horns!

Real Score: 28-24. Ugh. I hate these Oklahoma State games! Oh, well. Let’s just hope it was a wake-up call for the Texas offense, which had a hard time protecting the quarterback and a harder time establishing the run. And let’s hope the defense will be ready by next week to face Graham Harrell and Michael Crabtree in Lubbock for what promises to be another offensive shootout between the Horns and the Red Raiders. Look out for the tortillas!

Forget everything you’ve heard from Forbes, BusinessWeek, CNBC, whatever. You wanna know the real reason behind the current financial meltdown?

It’s Pluto’s fault.

Astrologically, Pluto is a bit like PCP, inspiring you to just do things no matter how bizarre or self-destructive, while also allowing you to harbor delusions that your behavior is perfectly normal. It was Pluto in wildly impractical Sagittarius for the past 13 years that got us into this whole mess.

Stupid dwarf planet!

Hold on.

I’m still catching my breath from last week’s Red River Battle Royale that left Bob Stoops and his ridiculous visor sulking back to Mobile-Home-A and Mack Brown pretending his Longhorns aren’t the No. 1 team in the nation. Whew!

OK, I think I’m ready now.

This week Colt McCoy and the Horns are back at home to face off against Chase Daniel and the rest of the Missouri Tigers. Had it not been for that other team from Oklahoma, this game would most certainly be between the No. 1 and No. 2 teams. But instead we’ll have to settle for No. 1 vs. No. 11 (or 12).

Yeah, right.

As you hear every election year, polls don’t mean squat; all that matters is the final score. And Mizzou has every intention of scoring more. They also have the talent to pull it off. Of course, Texas has Colt, Quan Cosby, Jordan Shipley, and an explosive defense that averages 3.7 sacks a game.

So here we go. According to the video game soothsayer that is NCAA Football 09, the final score Saturday night will be Texas 21, Mizzou 17.

Now, let me just add that I personally disagree with that score. Like last week, this game is all about the quarterbacks. Both McCoy and Daniel are phenomenal quarterbacks that are dual threats to run and pass. So I think we’re going to see another high scoring shootout between these two teams. I do, however, agree with the Wii that the score will be close, probably closer than the 10-point gap of last week’s match.

But what do I know?

Hook ‘Em, Horns!

Real Score: 56-31. Wow. Well, we got a high scoring game, at least from the Horns, but Missouri was a mess. It’s hard to say if Texas was really just that good or Mizzou was just that bad. Either way, the Horns are still number 1 in the polls and are one step closer to the Big 12 Championship, if not a BCS bowl.

It’s not like anyone could really expect the Dallas Independent School District to do anything right. But the abrupt termination of hundreds of teachers as a result of an $84 million budget shortfall has got to be the single worst thing ever to come out of the district.

It’s heartbreaking to read some of the comments on the Dallas Morning News site from teachers who were fired and those who weren’t (yet):

Our principal was nice enough to let us go this morning. I composed myself and went to tell my children that I was “chosen to move to another job” and I was so proud of them and knew they would be hard workers and love their new teacher.  … I made it through my speech without crying. Then the kids started to bawl. I could not even get them to get up to go to PE (which is their favorite thing in the world). My heart broke and I began to cry with them.

Hi, I’m one of the “lucky” teachers who was transferred to another campus. Even though many of the “lucky” ones are celebrating upon hearing that they are moving, I can not celebrate. You see, my heart is breaking because I’m taking a RIF teacher’s position. Even though I don’t know her name….I want to say “I’m sorry and I will treat your students well.”

Mr. Warner said he had to walk back to his class after getting the news and collect his belongings. He said his students, who were still in the class with an assistant, were aware that he’d been fired.

Kindergarten teacher Vanelle Akers, a 23-year vet, was released this afternoon. Rather than go home, she finished out the day.

Late today, she stood outside the school with the last of her students who remained waiting for the bus. Tears welled in the girl’s eyes, and her cheeks were red from crying. She held a white poster board titled, “All About Me.”

As the bus arrived, Ms. Akers asked the girl if she was ready to go home. She then took her hand and passed the girl to the bus driver.

“Make sure she doesn’t forget this,” Ms. Akers said, handing the driver the poster.

“Are you safe?” the driver asked the teacher.

“No, I’m not,” Ms. Akers replied, before turning around and heading back into the school for the last time.

And yet DISD Superintendent Michael Hinojosa still has his $379,000/year job.

Incredible.

Over-enthusiastic Tennessee voter Mark Ciptak took his support for the McCain/Palin ticket further than most by recently naming his new baby daughter Sarah McCain Palin.

Of course, he didn’t bother to tell his wife first.

A blood bank employee for the American Red Cross, Ciptak said he chose the name to show his support and to encourage others to vote.

But Sarah McCain Palin is not the name Ciptak and his wife, Layla, originally agreed upon.

“I sort of secretively went behind her back and changed the paperwork,” Ciptak said.

Ava Grace was the name originally chosen by the couple.

Fueled by his new idea, Ciptak caused a distraction and some confusion at the hospital by using two separate birth certificate forms.

“With the stress of everything going on, she, I guess, didn’t realize that a new form was printed with my handwriting because my handwriting is very noticeable, very unique,” he said of his wife.

The baby reportedly looks exactly like Tina Fey. Who woulda guessed?