State Farm Lone Star Showdown update - May 2, 2009

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Bill in Sinton

5,000+ Posts
The score is now UT 8.5 A&M 7.5. Our lead has decreased but this was expected in later spring. I just wish we could have had it cinched with Men's Tennis and Golf points. The Aggies have got the last 3.5 points and that has hurt us.
The three events left is Baseball next weekend and the Big 12 Men and Women's Outdoor Track and Field events on May 15 to 17.
If our baseball plays like they are capable I think we will get that point and at least get a tie for the cup which would be better than losing even though the Aggies get to retain the cup for the next year.
I don't think we will get the point in Women's Track and Field but I think our men have a fair chance at getting the point in Men's Track and Field but it will probably be very close.
We will see. First let's hope our baseball team will get us at least a tie in it.
 
Let's not kid ourselves, Texas sports are becoming an abomination. We have football cornered for now...which is great. But I am also a fan of the minor sports and the past few years have been like nothing I've seen. For aggy to resurrect dead programs is amazing. For UT to see some of its sports fall off the map is inexcusable. Heads need to roll...NOW. aggy is at least going to tie us this year and it's not a fluke. We need to make sure we don't lose to them in this thing again by cleaning some house.

What's worse is that these are not aggy programs that are going to fade away after a brief rise...they went out and poured money into facilities and great coaches. Ask yourself: what kind of return on investment are we getting? We're outspending them and still getting beaten.

As for the rest of the points...aggy T&F are going to sweep us. The women are ridiculous favorites to win the national title and the men "only" mild favorites. Their teams' Penn Relay performance was amazing.

The best thing we can hope for is a tie, if aggy has a hitting breakdown in baseball, which they tend to do. Their pitching is going to be great regardless.

Bottom line is that we have now officially been passed by aggy sports. This was our year to reclaim the title and we should have at least doubled up a&m on points given how young most of their teams are. Top to bottom I can not think of ONE a&m team that is getting any younger next year. This spells DISASTER for us.
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To be fair.......UT sports are not getting extremely bad. We are just not competing to our potential against A&M.

I can assure you that TEXAS is going to rank high in the Sears' Directors cup and aggies are not going to be close.


Just like last year when the aggies took the lone star trophy. TEXAS still had the far superior athletic program in the end.

It is very annoying to lose to them when clearly we are better....example, softball today, men's tennis, men's golf.

We need to beat them in baseball and hope for a point in track.

We are running out of time. We can't pull the performance of our baseball team against our Kansas rivals in this trophy thing.
 
"It is very annoying to lose to them when clearly we are better....example, softball today, men's tennis, men's golf."

That's not accurate. We are better at softball, but men's tennis and golf are a push at best.

We will indeed finish higher in the Director's Cup. We have some consistently good programs that generally are locks for Sweet 16 at the least. But to say we will run away with it is a little misleading. We are good (at the least) across the board. They are good, with the exception of a few sports. If they turn around 3 struggling sports (volleyball, W tennis, football, for example), they stand a good shot at passing us. Don't fool yourself into thinking the all-sports lead we have is at all comfortable.

The bottom line is the legacy guys like Reese, Thornton, Brown, and Garrido are carrying the weight of the entire department on their shoulders. Ask yourself...what is going to happen when they start retiring? What happens when a&m puts together a few good seasons? Garrido and Thornton are already seeing the consequences of an improved a&m. I hope I am wrong but, one year from now, I see absolutely no way we are talking about how impressive our teams performed. We should still take football (which is all that most people care about), but we will be lucky to get to 6 or 7 points in the LSS, in my opinion.
 
Realistically it is over. I know Bill is holding out hope for the baseball point and an upset in track but unlike indoor track where aggy was only a favorite, in the outdoor season they are a huge favorite and absent a complete meltdown it is all but impossible to see Texas picking up a point. The showdown was lost when the men's tennis and golf points were lost. Any last hope went out with the 6 run inning given up last night in softball.

The last two years have shown that there are some programs at Texas that need to be upgraded. The best facilities in the country are located in Austin there is no reason we shouldnt be able to recruit the best athletes. $Bill Byrne has focused on improving the so called lesser sports that Texas used to dominate in and while he is making a joke of the aggy football program everywhere else he is catching or passing Texas and that should be a clarion call to the Texas Athletic department to wake up and realize this isnt the 80's and Texas cant just roll out a team and expect to win. But for upsets like the tie in womens soccer, men's indoor track and women's softball we would be looking at getting blown out in the showdown this year.

I know many on this board (probably most) dont care about this competition but if they keep score in it then its important and you can be certain that aggy will be using it to go after better athletes in the sports where they have gotten competitive.
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The bottom line is that aggy is a Woman's school and they are riding out a hot streak by their Women's progams, period. That will have to sustain including a turn around of football and other sports.

They want to beat us in everything because to them it means more than life itself. It is what they live for, what they strive for. We like to beat them because we don't want to hear them yap their jaws as much. They yap even when they lose so when they do manage to eek out a win or two here and there it gets more annoying. aggy is not important to us or the scope of national athletics. They are a joke, a cheating joke.

I do loathe the day when they may manage to place higher in the Director's Cup. I don't think it will happen but boy will they ever be a load to handle then. They lose the Lone Star thing every single year up until last year and they pretend the other years never happened. A tie for them is a victory. They are a sad sack program of wannabe's and never will be's. I pity lowly aggy.

No I don't.
 
Our women earned the points this year.....so no, A&M is not a women's school.

We also have to remember that our women's golf is under direction of a new coach and she probably hasn't had the recruiting she needs just like coach G.

Like I said....we should not have lost the men's tennis point, but the aggies had not beaten TEXAS in so long it was bound to happen in College Station.

Men's golf is extremely young and they will be a force in a few years.

Because of Pat Henry, he must focus on the other teams now because Aggie track will be hard to beat unless we start recruiting better in the women's side.
 
Compare to the past. The gain of women's sports is why they are even close in this. They are a Woman's school.
 
I hate to sound like Chicken Little or an aggy apologist, but some of these posts have been ridiculous.

I have no doubt that l00p's anger is a result of aggy beating us. I'm pissed too, but let's at least recognize the problem instead of just pissing and moaning about how we SHOULD be superior to them. Suggesting that last year's aggy win and this year's tie (if not another win) are a fluke is ignorant...you sound like DeLoss. Face facts: aggy has caught us in all but a couple sports, and completely passed us in even more. You can claim to "pity" aggy all you want, l00p, but face it: we've got problems! I think the athletic department's biggest problem is that they have the same outlook as you: "let's just pity a&m and maybe we can continue beating them!" Bill Byrne has taken a philosophy of hiring the great coaches, upgrading facilities, and taking this rivalry seriously. I would love to have an AD like that at UT, instead of the two we have who would rather "pity" a&m. They have proven that they don't need our pity!
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"We also have to remember that our women's golf is under direction of a new coach and she probably hasn't had the recruiting she needs just like coach G."
Are you forgetting that aggy has a new coach too? To be beaten as badly as BOTH our golf teams were this year is flat-out embarrassing.

"Like I said....we should not have lost the men's tennis point, but the aggies had not beaten TEXAS in so long it was bound to happen in College Station."
Again, the philosophy of taking our losses as a fluke is going to bite us in the ***. Steve Denton (as great as he was here) is recruiting like a madman at a&m. They are NOT going to fade away in M tennis, they are putting together classes to be top 10 for years to come. As for us taking 2 of 3...after Grigorov was added to their team, they took it up a notch. We're .500 after that addition.

"Because of Pat Henry, he must focus on the other teams now because Aggie track will be hard to beat unless we start recruiting better in the women's side."
Kearney was one of the few bright spots on the women's side of the department. Pat Henry has embarrassed her since he got to a&m. Honestly, we might as well close down our track programs and put that money into football. If our 6-time national title winner can fade into oblivion that fast, we have major problems.

"Compare to the past. The gain of women's sports is why they are even close in this. They are a Woman's school."
Let's count which men's sports aren't competitive: football and men's S&D. Five years ago, which men's sports weren't competitive? Football, men's S&D, M golf, M basketball, M T&F. You can bury your head in the sand all you want, but the tide has already turned, and I'm pissed.
If Sherman actually turns out to be a decent football hire, we're going to see a lot more people saying exactly what I am...aggy has a better run athletic department and by the time you all come around, it's going to be too late to do anything about it. Hell, it's already too late. Just looking at the damned LSS and you'll see how the tide has turned.
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The baseball games with the Aggies are this coming weekend. Hopefully we will get the point which would be great but also we need to win to get a good seed in the Big 12 Tournament.
 
Time for an update, Bill.

With the glorious results of this week's baseball series versus aggy, we get another point and can now do no worse than a tie, which would still leave the cup in aggy's dirt-encrusted digits, but I suppose it's better than getting whipped outright.
 
Softball's lame showing at home against a terrible aggy team will come back and bite us in the butt.

That half a point would have sealed the deal.

Maybe Bubba and Co. still can beat the Ags in track.
 
We are just in a little bit of a lull right now in a couple of sports which should turn around very quickly. We can't dominate every year. They may be more motivated at times as we hold a recruiting edge in everything which is why this state farm thing is kind of a no win for us and really only helps aggy, kind of like Arkansas playing in Texas; all it does is help their recruiting.
 
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