Tell that to the 2010 Rose Bowl team

That's rich coming from a rival who used to recruit over our guys every year. We developed LaDainian Tomlinson and Andy Dalton because we had to, not because we wanted to. If the portal existed in the 90s, we'd have used it to compete with the big boys sooner.

That QBASE nonsense reminds me of when they said Colt McCoy couldn't handle pressure. Our front seven has been rebuilt with speed, just like the '09 unit that terrorized the Mountain West. Nussmeier will see ghosts by the third quarter.

The Battle for the Iron Skillet meant something before realignment killed it

This guy clearly never watched the old Border Conference days when we had real rivalries stolen from us. TCU versus Texas A&M used to mean something before conference realignment tore it apart. Oregon building something special rmeinds me of when we had Davey O'Brien under center, a true program quarterback. You think St. John's knew loyalty? Try LaDainian Tomlinson carrying the Frogs for four years when he could've gone anywhere. Great programs have always reloaded with talent, that's just football.

You think you invented heartbreak? Try watching the Southwest Conference die.

Coach Dooley had his moments, but let's not pretend he invented program building. We had legends like Abe Martin and Dutch Meyer building something real here long before that. Dooley's success came in a different era, before the portal and NIL tore the heart out of the sport. What he built wouldn't last a season in today's cllimate where loyalty is dead. Our 2010 Rose Bowl team had guys who bled purple for four years. That's a lasting program. His tenure looks better now only because everything around it has gotten so much worse.

You're talking about building a program, but I remember when your bunch couldn't hold a candle to us in the old Southwest Conference. We built champions with guys like LaDainian Tomlinson who grew here. You think focusing on spring battles makes you noble? We've been doing that since Dutch Meyer was drawing plays in the dirt. Your staff is just copying a page from our book, the one we wrote when we were winning the Rose Bowl and the Fiesta Bowl while you were middling in the old Big 12 South. That defensive front you're worried about? We'll rebuild it like we always have, with tough kids who become men in our system, not hired guns. You keep praising your own culture, but real culture is forged in rivalries you people abandoned. We remember what this sport is supposed to be.