Monkeypox

Do you have a job? Do you have any aspect of your job you don't like? You chose to be a sports fan, so I think you shouldn't complain about things in sports you don't like.

1) I don't think that his owning a professional sports team makes him responsible to anyone but himself. He's the OWNER. I also believe that he has no obligation to the public other than to attempt to provide them with the best Mavericks basketball product he can. And he does this. 2) I,too, think it's ridiculous for the person who's being asked dumb questions by reporters to be the one to complain about it. It should only be people with no interest or involvement or context with these questions to complain about them. That makes much more sense. 3) Yeah, I can't stand those celebrities who want to do those bad things like EAT and WALK down the street without having a camera shoved in their face. Why would anyone complain about that? 4) If the public didn't want a person with Mark Cuban's personality to be a public figure, they shouldn't have made him a public figure. 5) The sheer irony of a person willing to spend pages and paragraphs complaining about an owner of a sports team (of which he's not a fan) complaining about things that actually pertain to him is mind-boggling.

I think for it to be a rivalry, both teams have to consider each other as such. SMU has a rival in TCU. We don't have a non-conference rival. Do we even have a conference rival?

Who said it was a man that ratted him out? Now, I'm not going to overlook the possibility of a jealous male party that overheard, but, while it might get me labeled a misogynist, I'd put odds the tattler here was a girl. I went to a certain accelerated program which had fairly strict visitation rules. The boys and girls lived on separate floors, or, on the first floor, entirely different sides of the dorm. Needless to say, we were young and fairly clever, so this rule was probably the most broken rule in the program. But we had a sytem. Rule #1 was: You never break visitation on the girl's floor. I know, it's tempting. Their place is cleaner and smells nice, and in the meantime, it allows you to maintain your OWN space, but the dangers far outweigh the benefits. Why? Because girls don't have The Code. See, even if I hated a guy, even if I had no other aspirations in life but to see him suffer... if I saw him trying to sneak a girl, I was obligated not only to turn a blind eye to it, but to help. Because a man shall in no way block. A victory for one is a victory for all. Girls don't have that. My guess on the tattler? A buddy's girlfriend.

Yeah, I'm right there with you. My first comment reading this was that the only crime I see here is tattling on a woman who should be nominated for sainthood. As a teacher, I think she probably had a few very valuable lessons for him you don't normally learn in the classroom.

Or, you could have left the snide political comment out, which you KNEW would get a reaction and intentionally put in there to get one. And please... PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't try and make it out like you had some high-minded cause in this. You just wanted to engage in a juvenile argument, not teach people to think for themselves. In the end, I agree with GreenBat. The difference between a thread about a tree and a thread about politics is that politics (or religion) are bad mojo and an invitation for flame wars. You know it, I know it, the admins know it.

I have no problem with the number of bowls. I do, however, have a problem with people who still wish to use them as a benchmark.

They were saying IN SEPTEMBER that Wilson wasn't going back to Arkansas. September's pretty early in the football season. Why do you think that was? Was it because they so badly wanted him to come in and take over as the starting QB, and he didn't feel like it? If he was EVER considered a replacement for Matt Jones by Nutt, he wouldn't be playing here.

No, it's not unfair to say that any QB recruit during Matt Jones' Sr. year is a potential replacement. However, to say that a QB recruit they're looking at as a DB WAS considered a replacement for Matt Jones is hyperbolic at best, and to then to claim that this never-established idea "speaks volumes" to his ability as a QB is just plain silly.

What I'm saying is that at no point was Nutt considering him a replacement for Matt Jones. Not when they recruited him as a DB out of high school, and not after he'd played half a season at Coffeyville. When he was first recruited, even were he considered a QB, he would've been the #2 of the recruits that year, behind Alex Mortensen. Of the QBs already on their roster, he would've been considered a distant 3rd, because the "heir apparent" at that time was RS-FR Robert Johnson, right behind Matt Jones. As for this year, no SEC or Big 12 school was recruiting him as a QB. That IS part of why he came here, and he certainly wasn't being considered the replacement for Matt Jones. Not when Arkansas has two QBs already in their system who played for them during the season. Mustain is expected to compete, but even he's not necessarily the front-runner, after Casey Dick performed admirably at the end of the season. And as for the timing with Mustain, he didn't come on board with Arkansas until January, when there were articles in September saying Woody wouldn't be going back.

That would be odd, since Woody was a 2004 recruit, and Mustain just now committed to Arkansas. Woody was listed as an athlete/DB in their recruiting report.

Woody was recruited to Arkansas as a DB. Doesn't mean he can't play QB, but they weren't really considering him as a replacement to Matt Jones.

In as much as a person recruited as a DB is considered a replacement for your QB.

The only problem with that is, if they're not able to block the run against UT, then I doubt they'll give any of our QBs enough time to throw the ball, especially downfield. It takes time to get the ball down there, so unless you're setting it up with the run and play-action, I don't see that happening. It's possible that we catch them napping, but that's maybe one play, not really a gameplan. Too many times they just stack the box and stop our run or run over our O-line. The WRs have 1-on-1 coverage, but it doesnt matter because the QB is running for his life or already on the turf. But, there's a chance that a relentless short passing game early on with screens and slants could soften them up and get them on their heels a little bit. Then you go back to your draws and counters. Then you hit them with play-action. Either way, I think you will have to be aggressive against teams like UT. I'm not saying to abandon the run or just keep airing it out, but you don't want to give them time. In fact, maybe I'd go no-huddle to open the game.

Yeah, he started working on it last year. He's always thrown a variation of the pitch they caled the "Thing", which was an out pitch for him. I think part of his problem is he throws the knuckler a little too hard, and mixes in too many of his other pitches. You've really got to throw the knuckler MOST of the time for it to be effective. He gets a handle on it and he'll be able to occasionally blow people away with that 89-90mph fastball, pancake-flat though it be.

It gives me the brain hurt.

RA pitched well today. Personally, I just think his knuckleball is still a work in progress, though it is somewhat telling that the last guy to have an outing as bad as his last was Tim Wakefield, in a season during which he still won 12 games. A knuckleball is baffling when it's on, one of the most annoying pitches to deal with as a hitter. When it's not on, it's BP. And there's not much a pitcher can do to adjust it, no pitching coach that can help you with it. It either is or it isn't.

5-7 or 6-6.

Yep. At this point, I have to consider it a smart hire. He was a solid player who understood the game. I'm hoping it helps us do some recruiting in our own back yard as well. Only time will tell.

Do they have any that say: "I came to hopefully keep it close..." or "It wasn't my idea" ?

Uhm, I haven't looked closely at the Gamecocks logo, but there are two types of spurs on gamecocks - their natural spurs, and then the metal kind which are taped on for competition. Now, some fights go without the metal kind (naked heel). Typically, they last much longer and are, believe it or not, MORE brutal. The metal spurs are more efficient for killing, yes, but it's like using a sword to dismember someone compared to, say, a butcher knife. SO, if the logo shows the gamecock with only its natural spurs, then PETA's suggestion to remove them promotes the idea of physically mutilating animals. You might as well remove the horns from any ram logo or the talons from eagles and claws from tigers. If the logo shows metal spurs, then their suggestion promotes the more brutal form of cockfighting. So excellent job promoting violence, PETA. Don't they have some animals to euthanize or something?

Wow, the excuse train keeps on rollling along. Now it's "the Big West" doesn't count. Well, as for relevance, neither does the Sun Belt or its bowl game. As a conference, we do very poorly OOC, enough to show that our only skills are in beating up on each other. Heck, we were the flagship of the league by demonstrating an ability to ONLY BEAT OTHER SUN BELT SCHOOLS. Like it or not, it's a joke and will be until SOMEBODY can show a consistent ability to beat other teams around the country. And while having more bowl games provides entertainment for many of us, it has made one's placement in a bowl game useless as a measuring stick of success. YES, back when there were 12, it actually said something about your team. Now that the only requirement is you beat half a dozen of the worst teams in Div 1A football... notsomuch. And you can't deny that the Sun Belt spawned from the Big West is moronic. So if the Sun Belt is such a grand place, then we should credit our time in the Big West for bringing it about. Funny, though, that a number of people argue that we should be in the WAC, which is basically the other side of the Sun Belt coin. But, if you want to arbitrarily cherry pick things to make our situation at the root level of the totem pole look better, you might as well just disregard all years of the Sun Belt before we lost Idaho, Utah State, and NMSU, since they were members of the Big West. Our record since we ditched all the nonsense teams of the Big West is 2-9. Love your methodology.

Ditto.

That would only make it worse. At least if he blows them off there's an excuse for how we fair.

Larry Allen's been a guy riding reputation alone the last 3 or 4 years. Unless all he had to do was lean forward and fall on somebody, he really hasn't been getting it done. Couple that with the fact that he's been (one of?) THE highest paid OL in the league, it's not surprising he was let go. About time, IMO.