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1. dedfischer said:

   August 12th, 2008 at 7:39 am

   I like that obligatory shot in there at the Aggies about the football stadium.

2. Black Scholes said:

   August 12th, 2008 at 7:41 am

   It’s pure genius, in it’s own sad way.

   And he’s all ours.

3. Mack Fatigue said:

   August 12th, 2008 at 7:51 am

   How many times has Stoops used the “They’re just a bunch of fucking pussies” line in a recruiting battle against Mack?

4. Huckleberry said:

   August 12th, 2008 at 7:51 am

   I am personally very thankful for Bill Little. It’s quite possible that he alone prevents me from being the most pedantic ass in all of Longhorn fandom.

5. Vasherized said:

   August 12th, 2008 at 7:51 am

   Some gems:

   fraught
   adjective 1. (Informal) tense, trying, difficult, distressing, tricky, emotionally charged

   i.e. It is not a team fraught with household names, but it is a team of talented players.

   Thank goodness those household names like Limas Sweed and Jamaal Charles have moved on.

   “The toughest ones to win are always the best ones to win,” he said.

   I’m gonna ponder that for a few hours and get back to you, Bill.
   
   “Now, folks describe the Longhorns as “under the radar,” even though most polls have them ranked 10th nationally. We do have a gift for getting used to success.

   Donkey punch!

   “It certainly always helps to win your bowl game, because that gives the off-season a jump-start of hope. All of that matters.”

   See how by inserting random hyphens that sentence just become latent with sun-splashed, cloud-splitting hope? Sign me up!

   “Perhaps the most significant part of the team could be best reflected by another Olympic coach, basketball wagon master Mike Krzyzewski.”

   If by ‘wagon’ he means a black Merced Benz SL65 AMG. And ‘by master’, he’s alluding to the greek word for “getting bounced in the semis”.
   
   “Football, by its nature, is a hard game. Summer heat and long practice hours can make it harder.”

   But not always. For example, the 1963 national championship team made it all the way through conference play before drinking one drop of water. Salt tablets people.

   “The bonds between the coaches and their players are strong, but Brown has made it clear that there can be a stern delineation between liking the person, and respecting his work enough to put him on the field when the game hangs in the balance.”

   Around Belmont they’re calling him ‘Billy Big Board’. It was actually his idea.

   And finally, one of the best crafted sentences the English language has ever seen … it needs no further commentary. Bill Little ladies and gentleman!

   “And the beginning of two-a-day practices on Saturday, coupled with the fan interest in the open practices last week, served to stoke the fires of excitement that is tinged in equal parts of wonder, and wondering.”

   Wondermently.

6. HenryJames said:

   August 12th, 2008 at 7:56 am

   Another factor certainly comes from the completion of the North End, a metamorphosis which will transform Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium into the largest football stadium in Texas, and should produce a tremendous sound chamber for a sea of burnt orange, making a tough road experience even tougher.

   That’s gold, Jerry. Gold!

7. coach Callahan said:

   August 12th, 2008 at 8:41 am

   um, wow.

8. Don King said:

   August 12th, 2008 at 9:29 am

   Fantabulous execution of hyperbolic language-ination.

9. Spider said:

   August 12th, 2008 at 9:35 am

   Peggy Noonan wishes she could be Bill Little.

10. Magic Unicorn of Wonderment said:

    August 12th, 2008 at 9:46 am

    Bill Little makes me want to shit a rainbow.

11. Princeton Horn said:

    August 12th, 2008 at 9:47 am

    Fatuous

12. EyesOfTX said:

    August 12th, 2008 at 9:49 am

    “I think he’s saying that it would be really cool if the Olympics were on Christmas Day so every Longhorn football player could get a medal.”

    Isn’t that the function of the annual banquet?

13. RansomStoddard said:

    August 12th, 2008 at 10:09 am

    Hey Bill, drop the thesaurus and just walk away

14. Stuck in MN said:

    August 12th, 2008 at 10:14 am

    Outlined against a blue August sky, the Four Longhorns rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as famine, pestilence, destruction and death. These are only aliases. Their real names are: McCoy, Miller, Shipley and Orakpo. They formed the crest of the Austin cyclone before which another fighting Aggy team will soon be swept over the precipice at Darrell K Royal Memorial Stadium as 95,000 spectators peer down upon the bewildering panorama spread out upon the green plain below.

15. Scipio Tex said:

    August 12th, 2008 at 10:26 am

    He had a baby face, it is true, but his eyes had the steely stare of a tested warrior. The multiplicative certainty of his decision making calculus reined fire down upon the secondary of the Florida Atlantic Owls, who mused unabashedly that they were being hammered at the anvil of Hades himself. No Greek God here Longhorn fans, though his sculpted shoulders belied this, but just a small town boy from Tuscola, his heart bursting with pride and decency – a man who had saved another from a watery grave while still a boy; who had volunteered in the Austin DARE program. That, is, we must all agree, the meaning of the Real McCoy.

    Though the play was called back by a spurious holding penalty, the Florida Atlantic Owls knew that they had met their match that day. Soon, the shadows lengthened. The fiery orb of Apollo began its descent, eager to bathe the stadium in the half twilight of a Burnt Orange Sunset.

16. Ag_in_TX said:

    August 12th, 2008 at 10:30 am

    I would gladly send y’all Dave South in exchange for Bill Little. Dave South has been a heavy yoke on my existence for years…

17. Scipio Tex said:

    August 12th, 2008 at 10:33 am

    Ball caught by J-Train! 14 yard gain and the chains will move! First down, Aggies! Wait…the ball was dropped. Second and 10, A&M. Now the officials are conferring. It’s a fumble! 1st down Baylor Bears!

18. bill little's revengination said:

    August 12th, 2008 at 10:36 am

    And lo’, whilst the Carnival-ors sat and barked at him, the imposing shadow of the Littlest Bill fell feebly amonst the ruinous ruminations of the interwebs.

19. HenryJames said:

    August 12th, 2008 at 10:38 am

    McGee drops back to pass. Avoids the rush and throws deep to Bennett in the corner of the endzone. Touchdown Aggies! Wait, McGee was sacked. 4th down.

20. Nordberg said:

    August 12th, 2008 at 10:58 am

    Nothing is worse than watching South do a baseball game. Texas/A&M game on FoxSW last fall: I was watching it happen on TV, and listening to South describe what was happening… and still didn’t know what the hell was happening.

21. Beergut said:

    August 12th, 2008 at 11:08 am

    I’ll take South over Little any day.

    South doesn’t speak like he just shit a thesaurus.

22. Nordberg said:

    August 12th, 2008 at 11:13 am

    That’s for sure.

23. Ag_in_TX said:

    August 12th, 2008 at 11:14 am

    You guys are killing me…

    “The QB drops back and here come the Aggies – THEY GOT HIM..

    (and yet the mysterious lack of cheering from the Kyle Field crowd gives me a foreshadowing of what has really occured)

    and the pass is complete for a first down…”

24. BrickHorn said:

    August 12th, 2008 at 11:45 am

    More than any other team in recent history, this Longhorns team brings the combination of leadership from some established veterans and the flash of talented youth who will be unveiled when the season opens.

    That may be the strangest claim I have ever encountered. The very idea of computing (or measuring) the degree to which “established veteran leadership” and “a flash of talented youth” are combined – and then comparing the product of this calculation to similar data characteristic of each and every “team in recent history” – makes my head spin.

    What does this even mean? In what way would one combination of these two things be “more” than any other? Does ocean water bring the combination of salt and water moreso than does chicken soup? Or is it the other way around?

    Either Bill Little is a mathematical genius whose work represents a giant leap forward in our understanding of statistical theory or he’s a buffoon who makes a living randomly weaving big words he doesn’t understand into absurd tapestries of Belmont-approved sunshine. Does anyone have an opinion on which alternative explanation is the right one?

25. Nordberg said:

    August 12th, 2008 at 11:54 am

    More than any other team in recent history, this Longhorns team has freshmen, sophomores, juniors, and seniors on it.

26. Black Scholes said:

    August 12th, 2008 at 11:57 am

    The question you posit is rhetorical, yes?

27. Huckleberry said:

    August 12th, 2008 at 12:20 pm

    More than any other team in recent history, this Longhorns team brings the combination of leadership from some established veterans and the flash of talented youth who will be unveiled when the season opens.

    Shhhh. Don’t ask him about 2005 and all the experienced talent, plus the expectations we had for freshmen like Jamaal Charles, Henry Melton, Jordan Shipley, Quan Cosby, George Walker, etc.

    Some of those are funny in retrospect.

28. BrickHorn said:

    August 12th, 2008 at 12:40 pm

    While the 2005 Longhorns certainly brought a combination of leadership from some established veterans and the flash of talented youth who will be unveiled when the season opens – maybe one of the top 5 in this category, all-time -, they did not bring this combination as much as does the 2008 Longhorn football team.

    In fact, below are the (partial) results of a computer code I designed to rank teams based on which has the highest combination of leadership from some established veterans and the flash of talented youth who will be unveiled when the season opens:

    1. 2008 Texas Longhorns football team
    2. 1984 Chicago Cubs
    3. 2005 Texas Longhorns football team
    4. 1974 Northside High School ladies’ lacrosse (Worcester, MA)
    5. 1985 “Apaches,” Cy-Fair Sports Association, Dad’s Pitch age level

    Nice to see two Texas teams made the list. Of course, my rankings are heavily based on Bill Little columns, so that might insert a bias into the methodology.

29. Nordberg said:

    August 12th, 2008 at 12:50 pm

    Your list is horseshit without the 1977 Portland Trailblazers. You clearly do not accurately remember their remarkable ratio of established veterans to talented youts (which, I believe, were unveiled when the season opened).

30. BrickHorn said:

    August 12th, 2008 at 12:57 pm

    No, no. Your analysis is incomplete. The Trailblazers had a plethora of both established veteran leaders and a soon-to-be-unveiled flash of talented youth. But the team did not bring a combination of these two components more than any team on the Top 5 list.

    And, FYI, the Trailblazers checked in at an impressive #18 on the full rankings.

31. Stuck in MN said:

    August 12th, 2008 at 12:58 pm

    I know a couple of years ago Huckleberry ran some numbers on historical levels of combination of leadership from established veterans and the flash of talented youth, but I forget if the latter group was controlled for whether or not they were actually unveiled during the subject season (accounting for redshirts, injuries and the like). Huck, do you have that handy, and can you please run a new report including 08 Texas?

32. Huckleberry said:

    August 12th, 2008 at 1:08 pm

    Yes, I have the results. The conclusion of the study was not as decisive as I had hoped, though.

    What I found was that every team except for our first squad in 1893 combined veterans with talented youth. Inputting controls and variables for the level of talent, veteranness, establishedification, and flash factor caused the program to crash.

    So the final results resulted in a ranking set

    #1 (Tie) – All seasons except 1893
    #115 – 1893

33. BrickHorn said:

    August 12th, 2008 at 1:14 pm

    Huck – Wasn’t there a JV team until the early 70’s? If that’s the case, it seems like the rankings would have at least three, not two, tiers. After all, the removal of such a significant structural barrier between veteran leadership and the flash of talented youth (presumably to be unveiled when the season in question begins) must necessarily lead to a stepwise increase in the combination of veteran leadership and the unveiling of flash-like youthful talent.

34. srr50 said:

    August 12th, 2008 at 1:17 pm

    He had a baby face, it is true, but his eyes had the steely stare of a tested warrior. The multiplicative certainty of his decision making calculus reined fire down upon the secondary of the Florida Atlantic Owls, who mused unabashedly that they were being hammered at the anvil of Hades himself. No Greek God here Longhorn fans, though his sculpted shoulders belied this, but just a small town boy from Tuscola, his heart bursting with pride and decency – a man who had saved another from a watery grave while still a boy; who had volunteered in the Austin DARE program. That, is, we must all agree, the meaning of the Real McCoy.

    Though the play was called back by a spurious holding penalty, the Florida Atlantic Owls knew that they had met their match that day. Soon, the shadows lengthened. The fiery orb of Apollo began its descent, eager to bathe the stadium in the half twilight of a Burnt Orange Sunset.

    Scipio, I served with Bill Little: I knew Bill Little; Bill Little was a friend of mine. Scipio, you’re no Bill Little

35. Vasherized said:

    August 12th, 2008 at 1:19 pm

    [Cobalt/C++/DOS/Vista/:-/++/{-VY10}output= 10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason10winseason

36. Dr.Venkman said:

    August 12th, 2008 at 1:38 pm

    These are basic tenants of the “Little Assertion”:

    If one computes the integral of the combination of established veterans with a flash of talented youth who will be unveiled when the season opens with respect to the intriguing quotient of ability to believe in each other, and to be supportive of each other one finds that, without question, much of the excitement of this 11th season of the Mack Brown era draws its spirit from the roots of success.

37. coach callahan said:

    August 12th, 2008 at 5:28 pm

    what if there was a combination of established youth and a flash of talented veterans that would be unveiled when the season opens. Or what if they unveiled all of this for the third game of the season? Would that cause a black hole to form in Austin?

38. SizzleChest said:

    August 12th, 2008 at 6:16 pm

    Yet another season-opening tome from the master where he fails to use the word the “cunt” in the piece. Dis-uh-pointing.

39. DBH said:

    August 13th, 2008 at 6:06 pm

    Little Bill should name his column “Clockwork Orange.” Orange for the obvious marketing effect. Clockwork for the annoying persistence of his Brown-nosing homerism. And most importantly because I feel like Alex, strapped in my seat with my eyes pried open while being forced to read his shit.

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