Attoning For Past Mistakes

This picture has nothing to do with the column, but any time you can put up the original TCB team, you've got to do it.

One of my new found ways to kill time/delay doing school work is reading old posts on this and other blogs. (For a comprehensive list of said blogs, scroll to the post a few days ago. Yep, still no password)

It is fun to read thoughts, observations, and comments from the past and see how they turned out in real life. For the heck of it, here are some interesting points I came across, as well as some corrections for totally wrong predictions.

From a post about the Cowboys signing Pacman: I endorsed Adam coming to Dallas. I thought that was a good idea at the time, and would work well for the Boys. I was wrong.

From a post talking about the upcoming 2008 NCAA football season. I did not include Colt McCoy as one of the top QB's in the nation. Granted, he was coming off a very mediocre 2007, and there were even some UT fans calling for John Chiles to start, but looking back, that was one of my (thankfully) worst misses ever. And that includes the baby-blue thrift store suit I wore to freshman formal at ACU.

Not interviewing someone from the Real World when that mysterious commenter said I could if i wanted to last spring. Weird sequence of events, but I should have been more proactive.

In a post about UT's basketball uniforms, I mentioned how many teams had gone to Nike's System of Dress. One year later, and even more teams have gone the Dress route. Even Davidson started wearing it in the NIT this year, along with Gonzaga in the NCAA's. Just terrible, someone has to stop Nike.

Saying that Texas would 'probably' miss Jamaal Charles in 2008. Um, yuh think so, Doctor? Yes, they had a great '08, better than anyone, myself included, expected, but how good would they have been if JC was in the lineup? Their biggest offensive woe was not having a reliable running game and, as Shirley Q Liquor would say, "I shudders to think" how potent the offense would have been had Jamaal come back.

At various points, I talked about being a Tech fan. I don't know what it is, but since we've been here, I like them less and less. Before coming to Lubbock, I could stand the Raiders to a degree, as long as they weren't playing Texas, but now, I really can't bring myself to root for them. Of course, this may have something to do with it.*

It was sad to read in post how excited I was about the Cowboys upcoming season. At some point, I claimed that, unless they AT LEAST reached the Super Bowl, it would be a disappointing season. Umm. The way things turned out, it wasn't that bad when they missed the playoffs, because you could see it coming since November, but still. To have such high expectations and fall so short of them is...well, it's being a Dallas Cowboy fan.

Back when Jig posted, he predicted a six loss season for the New England Patriots. They lost five times, but it was still a great prediction.

At one point, I talked about enjoying golf. I have since not done much enjoying, but the Masters is right around the corner, so maybe I'll get back into it. At least for one weekend.

In one of my first posts about Lost, I called Juliette a harlot, and talked about how I didn't like her. Juliette, I'm sorry. You're not a harlot. In fact, I like you a lot. She has her heart in the right place (I think) and the Juliette/Sawyer pair is significantly better than Team Kate/Jack.

I can't think of anything else right now. As the days and months go along, I'll definitely made observations and predictions that will turn out to be completely off-base, and when that day comes, please dear reader, call me out. Until then, so long.

*Watching that video made my stomach hurt. Granted, that could have been the two cups of coffee I drank, but I digress. The clip didn't show UT scoring with 20 seconds left on the play clock (mistake #1)**, but it did show their terrible kick coverage after the kickoff went into the end zone (mistake #2), then the rest of the drive, in which UT allowed Tech to do pretty much anything they wanted, including running the game-winning play a first time, around midfield, with the defensive back not looking at Harrell the entire play. Sound familiar? Then, of course, was the non-interception, that I still think will be caught every time I watch a replay. What makes it even worse that it already is, on this video, is the Tech radio guys talking about how the pass was picked and the game is over, only to realize their team still has life after watching the replay.

**Actually, mistake #1 was the running play that resulted in the safety in the first quarter. Mistake #2 was Shipley dropping a wide-open bomb that would probably have resulted in a momentum-changing TD for the Horns. Those two plays set the tone, and all in all, there were about 20 different things that, if just one or maybe two go UT's way, they win. Someday, I'm going to get over this, I promise.