I don't remember exactly what brought this on today, if it was the situation at Auburn or...No, I think it was reading (again) that Texas A&M got SEVEN five-star recruits. Hadn't thought about it in a few days and sometimes when something is out of mind and you have cause to think of it again you get a reaction, something not massaged by thought. Mine today was: "That's impossible without cheating." And I meant, even in NIL time, how is A&M able to "afford" NIL's that land you seven five-stars when Alabama (Alabama!) is not? But I then watched Jumbo Fisher's statement on it. No, he did not deny! Yes, he disputed only the amount! But man it was impassioned and convincing. So I don't know what to think on that...
Then, and I didn't even fucking know this, there was some blurb on ESPN about "Harsin...Auburn". So I read that. The coach, Harsin, is either a dictator like Todd Graham who verbally abuses players or a guy caught in a "power play." Then I read Saturday Down South on "Harsin...Auburn," then another article on ESPN. The Espenoids used a wording that I alerted to on first reading and then came back to after I had finished. "Auburn... [is] a school that has built a reputation for unorthodox leadership and emotional decision-making when it comes to the beloved football program." I didn't know about "unorthodox leadership." What that means on the Plains is that the president doesn't govern how "the beloved football program" is run, not even the athletic department does. Who then? Boosters. Ah jeez, back to the A&M situation. The writer for Saturday Down South said he has seen with his own eyes the ledger that former coach Terry Bowden was given by an assistant on the outgoing staff that had the names of players and the amounts of money still owed them. Oh, and this was long before NIL, this was in 1992 or something. Oy Vey.
I don't want Pitt to be in this company. I don't want us to be mentioned in the same sentence, as we are in a Power 5 conference with schools like Auburn or Texas A&M or PSU. Nor do I ever want Pitt playing teams from schools like that. We'd get slaughtered! Texas A&M will win a national championship with just this incredible class of recruits. A normal school, i.e. one not operating the "Auburn Way" cannot compete with this stuff going on, legal or not! I'd rather we play William & Mary than Texas A & M. I hope the Slave States and their northern fellow travelers just break away and play their own game and compete against each other for the Golden Ball and Chain or the Golden Shower Head trophy or whatever they want to call it. I wish the rest of us would just refuse to play.
