Let me start by saying I have some respect for Texas. Mack Brown opened up the Longhorns' program to Joe and the other coaches sometime during the dark years, and it seems Joe et al. got enough good ideas to pull State out of those dark years.

That aside, the homage and eulogies being paid to Darrell Royal have me grinding my teeth. "They" are talking about his innovations and how he made Texas football into a national power. During the one report I heard, NOTHING was said about the Longhorn student-athletes, or their graduation rates, or any of the important stuff. Granted, Royal's career (1956 - 1978) spanned the wild, wild west days, when kids were provided incentives to pick certain schools, scholarships were offered to players just to keep them from attending a rival, etc. -- maybe a football culture situation? (Royal's coaching tactics were profiled in "Meat on the Hoof", an expose written by a former player (Gary Shaw) in 1972.)

I'll leave unmentioned the fact that Royal and Texas were the beneficiaries of Nixon's gift of a NC. (Ooops . . . )

So the endpoint of this rant is to say, Joe was cheated of his accolades because of last year's shit storm. "Success with Honor", high graduation rates, no cheating -- all those positives were wiped out. (And, please don't try to persuade me that 61 years of service and dedication should have be offset by what seems to be minor involvement in IT.) We were sanctioned because of our football culture, which seems to pale in comparison to that of Texas. Irony . . .