Monkeypox

Not to answer for Jim, but I've read it and was unimpressed. The Sun Belt now is way better than it was in our upstart days.

Saying it were an equal $2500 paid out to me, you know what I would do? I would pay down some of the debt I'm working on. Yep, that's right. It would go right back to those banks. So you'd have the same payout to them (at least as far as I'm concerned), except I'd actually get the credit back. This way, I'm getting to pay them twice.

I hope you're kidding about the return. You won't get near that for Michael Young. You're talking about a 32-yr-old shortstop of average capabilities entering a 5-yr, $80 million contract extension. You get a B prospect and you hope you don't have to eat too much of the salary. That's why the idea that this move is a money-SAVER (as some have implied) is simply ridiculous. They're on the hook for this contract the same they were for A-Rod (except, of course, A-Rod was the best player in baseball). They're not doing this because they're ready for Andrus. They're doing this bc they have no options at 3B but a lot of young talent at SS and moving MY was gonna happen eventually one way or another. Also, they think (mistakingly, IMO) that the club will be in competition mode in 2010, and you won't do that if you're breaking in a whole lineup of young guys, so they'd like to get more guys acclimated to the bigs this year, with the expected growing pains. What the Rangers SHOULD do is tell MY they will attempt to trade him, and that they will wish he reconsiders a move to 3rd base. Say it as sweetly as possible. And when he refuses AND you can find no suitable trade offers (both highly likely), you sign yourself a solid defensive stopgap SS and you pencil him in at 3B. He plays or he's out millions of dollars. It all comes down to this. The Rangers crowned MY the FACE OF THE FRANCHISE for whatever reason, and as a PR move signed him to an ill-advised contract extension that many rightfully thought would come back to bite them in the butt. It has. Now, people want them to, in ANOTHER PR move, keep MY at a position to which he is ill-suited so they don't hurt his feelings. Well, I for one would like it if they would start making sound BASEBALL moves and forget about PR, and that means moving MY to 3rd base and either signing a stopgap SS (much better options out there than 3B) and/or letting Andrus get his feet wet in a year where there's really no pressure.

I was gonna say sunglasses... Monkeypox doesn't see color. It's why they wouldn't let me into NASA.

Replace Michael Jordan with something that no one cares about and you're onto something.

It's perfectly in line. It's a different animal, indeed, bc we're not getting paid millions of dollars on a guaranteed contract. Even as it is, if your boss tells you to do something, you do it or hit the bricks. That's your choice. Saying "well, it's bc they TOLD me to do it instead of ASKING me to" makes you sound like a spoiled child. That's what I believe it comes down to, as MY has been a vocal critic of any attempts to rebuild (and understandably so). I believe the reason they are asking him to move is that they indeed wish to rush Andrus, and, perhaps, more to the point, they have absolutely no answer at 3rd and there's nothing worthwhile in free agency. They're kicking the tires on Joe Freaking Crede. If the options are a) 3B Crede/Metcalf/Spare + SS MY OR 3B MY + SS Andrus, i think it's an easy choice. I'm not on board with rushing Andrus, personally, but the decision makes sense from an organizational standpoint, and most within the organization feel Elvis' MENTAL makeup is ready, even should he come up and falter. I just think MY wants out of the rebuild. Gonna be hard to move him, though, without giving up more than you like or taking on salary. I think the best case scenario is to do what the Nats did (and we should've done) to Soriano. You can play where we tell you or you can not get paid.

GG is a popularity contest. No one is crowning Andrus the 2nd coming. I believe the only way you must believe that is by thinking Michael Young is Baseball Jesus.

Actually, Young is not pretty good all around, and never really has been as a SS. Defensive metrics show him being below average, and that's fairly generous. More fans will drive to see a winner than they will to see Michael Young. Period. And this team is no more likely to win with him at this point than they are otherwise. Nobody's saying you crown Andrus a superstar, but for a team not likely going anywhere in the next few years, committing to MY at his current position when he's (1) Not very good there and (2) potentially blocking a young prospect you need to develop, this is a no-brainer. And, again, they don't WANT to trade MY. They want to move him to 3rd base. He would rather be traded somewhere where he can still play SS. I don't know if there will be many takers on that. In terms of moving Andrus to 3rd, you are significantly decreasing his value as a player, and his value to the franchise. SS defense is more of a premium than 3B defense. These are basic principles. This is a smart move by the Rangers, unpopular though it may seem.

I think it has more to do with having no good options at 3B, a rising star at SS, and a serviceable but overpaid and aging SS in MY who profiles much better at 3rd.

Why the hell would you move a plus defender at a position in order to placate a bad (defender)/aging/declining one?

Actually, NOTHING like Pudge, who was a plus defender at C, so even at his diminishing offensive abilities, he was worthwhile. MY was an outstanding 2B who they foolishly moved to SS for Soriano's lead glove. He profiles much better at 3B, where his footwork won't get him into as much trouble, but he can still take advantage of his arm strength, and it's currently a need for the Rangers. Also, Pudge's contract was coming up, and he felt he should be paid like an elite C. After coming off of knee surgery, Pudge was demanding A-Rod money and a contract that they'd still be paying on today. What he got in FA was a one-year deal with the Florida Marlins for half that. Yes, he won a World Series with them, and he's still an outstanding player and person, but he's not a player which you should be paying $15-20 million for today. His offensive skills have diminished substantially, and if they had given him a long-term contract for that kind of money, they'd still be under it today. Michael Young is a guy they overpaid to extend (which wasn't the case with Pudge, who gave them a nice hometown discount) and are now stuck with. His defense is poor and his offense is simply serviceable. Then you get to the point that Texas is FINALLY sticking to a true rebuilding plan and that, despite a number of early boneheaded moves by Daniels, has managed to put together a top farm system, and just one of those elite prospects is knocking on the door at SS right behind MY, and this type of move makes sense. Note that it ISN'T the Rangers wanting to trade MY. They want to move him to 3rd where he can best help the team. A spot which they have open and into which he can fit. He doesn't want to and has asked to be traded, which is easier said than done, since you're looking at a 32-yr-old SS who put up a .741 OPS in a hitter's park last year.

Reality is Young is a likeable but not elite player with questionable defense at SS and an albatross of a contract. Moving him to 3rd base is the best thing for the team, but if the Rangers can find someway to unload him, they'll be better for it in the long run.

As a person who works right next to TCU currently (and was out buying liquor at King's that day), I can tell you the attendance figures for this year's bowl game were pretty accurate.

Unless you count bombing pharmaceutical plants in the Sudan.

Oh, the Big East is definitely a bigger joke than the MWC.

Isn't that your job? But why convince anyone? I think I'd rather just point to their undefeated record and whine about it on a message board while continuing to funnel money to the "powers that be."

How about we take the Tennessee Titans and make them play in the NFL? And then we'll take the Cleveland Browns and make them play against my nephews pee-wee league. Your new National Champion Cleveland Browns? What I'm hearing is: "The BIG BCS schools get all the money and media attention. However, none of that media and money make them better at football. And we refuse to recognize the championship system in place." Which begs the question: "What exactly are you whining about, if you don't think the money and media makes them better at football and you don't recognize their championship?"

Wade = good assistant coach, crappy head coach. The end.

maybe just a NT fan. it hurts... i know, it hurts.

Geez, no kidding. This program could've taught Walt Disney a thing or two about Mickey Mouse.

Since I came to the school in '94, but I don't see what that has to do with DeLoach doing no better than a 1st year coach straight out of high school in WAY over his head, a guy for whom there was "NO EXCUSE" based on sheer statistical stinkyness of the team. Now, all of the sudden, because he's DeLoach, there are excuses coming out of the woodwork. DeLoach ain't Bobby Flay. DeLoach is a guy who gave you a few great meals some years ago, and who just today served you a cold, greasy crap sandwich. You want to eat it up, fine. I'm not saying fire the guy. I'm saying he's coached a couple of years of great defense, and now he's got one of the worst ever on his resume. That's far from Dick Lebeau. Heck, it's not even Gary Gibbs. I believe DeLoach CAN turn it around, but I'm not about to give the guy a pass for the atrocity that was our defense this year, NOR am I going to listen to any excuses drummed up by people who "know things." And I also believe he CAN fail at turning it around, because the sample size of his GREAT defenses is not significantly larger than his sample size of bad ones.

I think the jury is still out after presiding over that atrocious defense.

If anything, I was saying I DON'T want the past to be the standard. That is a past that involved a coach's shuffle and helped facilitate the ideas to the general public that 1) you can't win here and 2) even if you could, you won't be given long enough and 3) the program has NO idea what it's doing. All I did was point out that coaches are NOT going to be eager to turn this thing around if they see they won't be given a chance to. Even a confident and competitive coach could feel like the situation here demands more than a couple of years, and there's little guarantee they'll get it. What you're saying is the equivalent of "HEY, the top athletes in the nation should come here because it's more of a challenge, and by choosing to be a backup at USC or UT or UAB they're just showing that they're not competitors!" Bottom line is they have career goals. Dodge is obviously in over his head and something needs to be done. We can certainly turn it around, and we can certainly get a quality coach, but WHOEVER IT IS will be a gamble, and then in two years people will be right back on here moaning about how we didn't hire Urban Meyer when we had the chance and instead we went with an assistant coach from a big school. All I'm saying is be careful what you wish for, and point out potential negatives of constantly shuffling coaches, and I get "WHY DO YOU HATE NORTH TEXAS?!"

You can certainly aspire to that, but many inexperienced head coaches (assistants at big programs like Peveto) will look at our school and say "man, that's a pretty cruddy situation to step into, especially if i'm not even going to be given any time to install my system or experience growing pains, get paid a ridiculous sum, or be coaching in a premier conference." Now, that is not to say that the desire to rid ourselves of our current albatross is unwarranted, you simply have to accept that it's not all gonna be rainbows and candycanes. We're a freaking embarrassment and it's been an abject failure. But don't think that setting up a coahing carousel is any way to gain consistency and success, should we do what everyone wants, fire our current HC and install some random assistant coach just as likely to fail. And I disagree that the message is always to WIN IMMEDIATELY, bc sometimes people are aware that it's going to take a significant housecleaning before stability and consistent success can be achieved. It's not like coaches come in and don't want or expect to win games. Everyone involved is a competitor or they wouldn't be doing it. I'm just saying you HAVE to expect it to turn some coaches off if you don't seem willing to give them more than a couple of years. At some point the "it's a bad situation to try and coach in" becomes legitimate NOT because it's real, but because it's an easy perception to make given the last bit of forever here. A coaching carousel will only reinforce that. Improvement isn't the same as success, and unlike the NFL, we don't get a draft. The constant harping of "the rich get richer" is pretty loud around these parts, and we aren't the rich. That inexperienced head coach is gonna look around and see the Schnellies and Blakeneys and the likes and think "okay, I have two years to take the absolute worst football team in Div 1A and win before I'm shown the door." And that guy knows if he DOES fail here, it's a quick trip to nowheresville. It was a problem with our school before Dickey, and it will be a problem after Dodge if we continue to shuffle through coaches.

Peveto (whom many LSU fans want fired anyway) was once a successful DC at Northwestern State (as well as other schools in the same conference like SFA) and currently recruits the area, so he's naturally a candidate, covering his bases also in case Miles gets the boot or there's shakeups in the staff. This is far from us pulling a successful assistant out of a successful program somewhere else in the country. I agree on the premise, that a good assistant coach would come here to be our HC (pay raise is important, IMO), but it's not so simple as to point out one guy as an example. A VALID argument of opposition is that if you go about firing a new HC after two years (deserved though it may be), then the message to a new coach is WIN IMMEDIATELY. And a guy going to his first HC gig might look at us as a current bottom-feeder in college football in every place where it matters and wonder why he the hell he would consider our school and let himself be put in a position to fail. And that is exactly what you do when you invite an assistant in here. Who qualifies to our school the way Peveto does to Northwestern State? Kenny Evans, who's 1-11 at Northeastern State (Okla)? Bruce Chambers, TE Coach making $175k at UT? Peveto hasn't taken the job yet, anyway. And is he the caliber you're considering to turn this around? I mean, we have had some Div 1A assistant coaches at various positions in our own coaching staff, and their performance has been pretty questionable, so it's not like they're not gambles in their own right. The two most important things for a HC in my opinion? Putting together a staff and recruiting. You do those things, you win. You struggle doing either of those things, you fail.