Know When to Sit Down and Shut Up

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Let's dive in.

Last night, Twitter user known by most of us Chappy shared some tweets from an absurdly long thread. With a thread this long, you'd think it was about something important like vaccine distribution, or solving world hunger, or conference realignment. But no, one "Post-Culture Review" took to the tweet-waves to pontificate about pick-up trucks.

Here is the thread it is way too damn 25 tweets long

The entire piece revolves around pickup trucks being clown cars that 99% of people who buy them will never need. Let's review a couple of his points:

He starts by saying people only buy trucks for commuting and in a survey 75% said they only tow something once a year or less and 70% say they went off-road once a year or less. You could argue for renting something the times you need it instead, but since those numbers aren't 99% it does appear that people buy them for a need. And it also completely ignores just moving crap around. Not having an enclosed cargo area is extremely valuable, trust me, I moved across the country in a mini van twice.

After saying a mini van with the seats down is as good for hauling lumber as a truck, he continues to say that outside of "a few fifth-wheel campers, most trailers could be hauled by smaller vehicles". This is dangerous advice and should not be listened too. On said cross country moves, I saw many vehicles pulling overloaded UHaul trailers with the tongue barely off the ground. Don't be that guy.

The thread got so bad that Spencer Cox chimed in after this one:

The author is from Eugene, OR and hosts a podcast about "death, dying and the dead" whatever that means. In summary - this was a great example of the Dunning-Kruger Effect and the embodiment of "better to be silent and thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt".

The ultimate conclusion of the thread was that most people who buy trucks get them for show and because they like it (there's nothing wrong with that) when they should rent them the one off times they need them. You can tell by the tweets that they are misinformed, but found a couple numbers and latched onto them and think they have it all figured out. Surprisingly, they never once talked about the tax code and why there are so many F-150 fleet vehicles.

Either way, this is ridiculous. Don't make 25 tweet thread - that's a blog post. Don't make threads that long about other people's life choices - it's their money and their problem. And as a general rule of thumb, if you live in a large city and are talking about anything agricultural on Twitter - you're probably wrong. You don't understand the nuance of how things work.

TL;DR - do not go off on things - it's easier and better to sit and listen and learn.

Now this sort of applies to BYU today

As we are all aware of the pending conference realignment scenarios with OU and Texas leaving for the SEC - we find ourselves with a "Little 8" that is similar to this thread: they act high and mighty driven by a decent but not substantial following and despite using a lot of words, they bring relatively little value compared to their peers.

Ultimately, I expect the Big 12 to expand. The B1G and PAC-12 are no going to expand for expansion's sake - "keeping up with the SEC" means adding value not adding bodies. The PAC-14 with Texas Tech and Oklahoma State really doesn't say "oh yeah, we're right there with you, Sankey!" Nor does number of TV sets and having a media market matter in 2021 like it did in 2010 - everything is streaming and available nationwide now - you aren't worried about carriage numbers as much. And people often say "we need to add them to get a recruiting in-road" - kids go everywhere now. It's not 1985 where you stay close to home, or games are only available on a local channel so you need to stay close if you want your family to be able to watch you play in person or on TV. Planes exist and travel is cheaper and with NIL here, soon enough parents getting room and board for games will be a benefit. Plus, in a 16 or 20 team conference, how often are you actually going to play in that random place you added?

Times are different, but in this scenario, BYU is an F-150: not a Ferrari, but worth more and more useful than a Prius and will always be there, nationwide - both in the city and the countryside.

And some of the fans of these 8 schools left in the Big 12 are that twitter user - scoffing their noses at everybody else while failing to realize they having been riding the coattails for decades. Now, should a Big 14 (or Big 12) happen where BYU, Cincinnati, Houston, Memphis, UCF and SMU/Boise gets made - that is a power league. It's not the Big 10 or the new SEC - but it is firmly "middle class" and on par with the ACC sans Clemson and the PAC-12 (in which Oregon and USC are sitting where OU and Texas have for the last decade). It would cripple the AAC - as well as the MW if Boise was part of the draw.

But the reality is, BYU, UCF and Cinci would be 3 of the top 4 brands in that league - which isn't a terrible thing, but it is a thing that those 8 schools need to come to terms with. People made fun of the AAC - but now almost a decade into the CFP era, everybody thinks it's de facto P6 - especially with the expanded playoff down the pipe. The remaining schools should be proactive, expand to 14, build a good, but not elite football conference, an elite basketball conference, and get to work. You start winning games, the stock will rise. The SEC and B1G have always been constant but the strenght of the other 3 power leagues (6 if you include the Big East days) has always ebbed and flowed.

Tieing it all together

This whole thing can best be summarized in terms of BYU's utility value as something not flashy but worth the investment by this screenshot that I received from hellion Mike Poulson this morning:

I could write the commentary, but I think Mike's text says it best:

Against ranked Iowa State? Plenty of tickets. Super villain Texas? Please buy more. Perennial playoff contender and also villain Oklahoma? Pick your section. BUTT bowl opponent? We have extra to use as toilet paper.  Independent BYU who isn’t invited to our falling apart conference? Hold on. High demand. One at a time.

Bowlsby and Co should've made their move in 2016, instead they got played by OU and Texas. They should've made it in 2012 and gone back to 12 then - instead they sat pat at 10. So now is your chance to go get a pickup truck. There will be some people who for off the field reasons will hate it, just like our twitter friend, but ultimately nobody will care and you get to use the truck whenever you want and the truck is useful to have.