While WPIX-TV in New York City may have been the first TV station to show the "Yule Log" for Christmas. It's now been topped.
And yes, people actually turn on their TV's and just have the shot of a fireplace log on it.
Uh...anyway....
The Longhorn Network will take the "Yule Log" and put a Texas twist on it. Or so to speak.
The all Texas Longhorns TV channel will show five hours of commercial free video of the Longhorns mascot, Bevo the Bull, roaming on his ranch.
Yes, really.
Supposedly the network will pipe in Christmas music as background. And hey, it just might work.
Heck, we're guessing if the Alabama Crimson Tide had their own network, they could show five hours of a Nick Saban photo with a Christmas sweater, put music behind it and it would be the highest rated show in the state.
So, it's been pretty interesting over the past couple of days to see the reaction to first the news Texas wanted to hire now former Louisville football coach Charlie Strong, then the wait while Strong insisted on telling his boss, Louisville Athletic Director Tom Jurich that he was leaving and then the reaction from the folks in Texas.
Actually, it's been kind of funny.
Last night, Louisville confirmed what everyone already knew, Strong would move to Austin and take over the biggest budget football operation in the state (College Level).
Notice, we didn't call them the best, as they've arguably been passed by Texas A&M and by Baylor in recent years.
But the hire of Strong is a good one. He's had a ton of success at Louisville, which strangely was his first head coaching job. He's universally respected and most outside of the crazies in Texas believe he will be wildly successful with the budget he's about to be handed.
That's why this column in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram by Gil Lebreton is pretty funny (not in a good way)
Lebreton called it "Firing Jay Leno and hiring Aresenio".
Really?
No, Strong may not be a "Type A", Nick Saban/Steve Spurrier type, but anyone who thinks he won't be successful is crazy.
Yes, he's going to have to deal with the apparently omnipresent "Longhorn Network" (which nobody outside Texas cares about) which will intrude into his life and job like nothing he's ever experienced before.
But again, despite the arrogance and perception inside that Texas was the "Job of All Jobs", they actually got this right…they hired the right guy.
Which quite honestly, should scare everyone else.
Expect the official announcement on Sunday afternoon.
According to a report by Kirk Bohls of the Austin American-Statesman, the Longhorns 76-year old AD will announce on Tuesday that he's retiring at the end of the season. (A polite way, we're guessing of asking him to leave)
And the countdown clock on Texas football coach Mack Brown has picked up speed.
Dodds, who has run the schools athletic department for 32-years hired Brown and has been in front of the schools exponential growth in the world of Sports.
Bohls says the University's president wants a replacement in place by December 1st. Interesting.
This folks is the beginning of change for the once-mighty Longhorns. Over the past couple of seasons, despite the "Longhorn Network" funded by ESPN and lining the athletic department coffers, the football team has been an abject failure.
Really they haven't been relevant since the departure of Vince Young in 2005-06.
In that time, they've seen arch-rival Texas A&M not only leave the Big 12, but become wildly successful as a member of the SEC. They've seen their other arch-rival, Oklahoma continue a consistent run of BCS appearances.
But the Longhorns, not so much.
There's already been talk they will and have reached out to Alabama coach Nick Saban, the biggest fish in all the land. We'd be mildly surprised if that happened.
The new AD, whomever it is, will have their hands full trying to quell a restless donor base not fond of being a less big fish in a really big pond. Combine the action in Austin with the Lane Kiffin firing at USC, just 5 weeks in and, well, we can't wait for The Coaching Carousel to begin this December...
((Note--Reports already are circulating this move is to get the process started on a coaching search. Texas appears to have become concerned USC will have a large advantage and early start before Carousel begins))
Here's Dodds, just two weeks ago, denying this would happen: (Thanks KXAN-TV)
Wow! Just when you thought the hubub over the University of Texas's Longhorn Network had subsided, there is this.
A report on RedRaiderSports.com today says that Texas Tech is threatening to cancel their game with Texas State because they are under the impression ESPN is going to broadcast the game on the Longhorn Network.
The cancellation would give the Red Raiders 11 games instead of the 12 that most teams play. And they can do that if they choose.
We kind of get the point Texas Tech is trying to make here. We can't criticize it. But they also need to remember that ESPN, the creators of the "Longhorn Network" now controls pretty much all of college football. And especially the Big 12 (Who are only 10)
The guess is that others will follow in Tech's footsteps and it begs a few questions. The biggest being where the 4-Letter (ESPN) is going to put all of their programming?
They paid millions...and in some cases billions to get the rights to pretty much all the BCS Conferences, but there are only ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Classic and ESPN News to put them on right now. Somebody is going to get shuffled out. The Big 12 is competing with the SEC, ACC and Big 10 for TV space.
The Big 10 at least has their own network for overflow games and ESPN has subcontracted the SEC Games and ACC games to Fox Sports South. ESPN went into partnership with Raycom for regional ACC games.
But they aren't on any school's network. And no competing school in their right mind wants to be on another competitors network. We totally get that.
So what will happen here? Either option A--ESPN finds another home for the broadcast or B---Tech follows through. In the crowded landscape that is college football, we don't know if a lot of people will notice. And right now, we couldn't tell you at this point which way this will go....
