"Carnack" Stockel

First, sorry for the mistaken post earlier. What kind of site are we running here?: I hit one wrong button and whoops! there goes everything.

More importantly, we are now 3 games into the college football season. SLAE was founded, in part, to allow us to make bold, visionary predictions that would be cherised for all posterity -- and subject to endless ridicule when inevitably wrong. In that misanthropic spirit, I went back and reviewed David's pre-summer prediction thread regarding the Horns.

My god, David, what is in the water over there at Legge Farrow!! Let's review:

Game Pick Score

UL-Mon Tex 55-6 Tex 59-20

Wyoming Tex 45-14 Tex 41-10

Tech Tex 49-24 Tex 34-24

So, after three games, including 2 against garbage opponents where picking the score is compromised by meaningless end-of-game points, you are: within 4 points of our score against ULM, within 4 points of our score and Wyo's score, and dead on with Tech's total (a huge surprise given we haven't held them to 24 points since 2005.

What's more, you said we would beat ULM by 39, and we did. You had us beating Wyoming by 31, and we did. That's just sick accuracy!! I seriously hope you laid some money in Vegas because... well... SLAE has its eye on a hot Cisco server and wants to show her the bling-bling. If your trend continues, things definitely bode well for the Horns (and you should quit this law thing and start up a Phil Steele-esque phone line).

Predictions asside, what we saw from the Horns left a lot to be desired. The D was excellent. Say what you want about the second half passing yards, but Tech is going to get those yards no matter what, and holding them to 24 is an accomplishment. The O....not so much. I've been to CLE's with more action than our offense showed in the first half. I don't know if the flu really got to Colt, if this season is going to be 2007 redux, if he broke up with that hottie of a girlfriend or what, but he is just not the same QB as last year. That might be fine if our offense utilized any other weapons besides him, but ... as they say ... live by the spread offense, die by the spread offense.

Something tells me this team starts to gel in the next few weeks, and that game with OU becomes a monster. I know that if the OL doesn't get its act together, I'm going to get an ulcer watching OU's D-line.

Showdown at the OK Corral

Its getting near time. The weekend is fast approaching. One of the participants is a brash upstart, talking a little trash and hoping its swagger will help it win the day; the other is an old powerhouse, the establishment, the tried and true that is confident...nee cocky?...in its prospects. Who will win out? We will see this weekend.

Wait... what?? You thought I was talking about Texas vs. Wyoming. Hell no!! I meant Comcast (parent company of Versus) against DirecTV!! Unfortunately, this ridiculous business brouhaha is likely to prevent me from watching our Horns go off against Wyoming and its long football tradition of ... well, even my in-depth internet research can't turn up any players I've heard of, so it must not be much of a tradition.

How in this day and age is it possible that we can't watch this game!?! Come on people. It is frigging Versus network! I have more leverage with my pregnant wife than they do with DirecTV. How many people really sign up for DTV with the hope of catching the Versus channel nightly? Now that the NHL is back from the hinterlands, what is even on Versus? Mountain biking? Custom hot rod design shows? Extensive late night infomercials?

I can't believe an agreement hasn't been reached between Comcast and DTV on this, but I guess it just goes to show that the anger and bickering we see on TV every night is actually governing the businesss of TV also. I am jealous of those (brilliant) among us who will be dining on Cowboy Saturday evening in Laramie. Wait, that didn't come out sounding right....

Oy Vey!!

If this keeps up, I may just start using SLAE to talk about health care reform...

It is bad enough for the Dodgers to lose a baseball game, especially in the midst of what is shaping up to be an historic collapse in the NL West, and especially on a night when the Rockies magic appears to be fully taking hold. But to lose a game when your ninth-inning reliever commits a throwing error on a simple grounder, then walks in the winning run, that is just stupendously infuriating.

The faith that I once had in this team is nearly entirely gone. I feel like each goal I set for the team is being systematically broken, one by one. I am reduced to satisfying myself with the reality that (in all likelihood) we will still make the playoffs; then I want to puke at the thought of settling for the Wild Card. Each day feels like one tiny failure after another, which is horrible because we are still in first place. Imagine what happens if (when?) the Rockies pass us. I can't imagine how the team can have any confidence left.

Remind me, why do I follow sports?

And So it Begins....

I hate to think, but am starting to believe, we have this to look forward to all season:

1. Fozzy Whittaker will be a game time decision on Saturday.