Chris Del Conte

I doubt if I see them all.

Really good friends with Chris Del Conte.

You know, I love the guy.

You know, he and I got to be buddies when I was at Texas and he was at TCU.

All right, so there's Rick Barnes.

The right answer.

Fond of Texas, loved his time here, and loves Chris Del Conte, but I'm rooting for the Vols.

Has to.

Yes.

And, uh, and said, "Look, I, I'm pulling for the Tennessee Volunteers." Uh, has had a lot of, made a lot of great friends and great times in, in Texas, including giving a shout-out to Chris Del Conte, their former AD, uh, uh, uh, their, their, hi- his former AD there at Texas.

And so, uh, so yeah, it, um, hi- his, the, he's not...

It's a, it's interesting because he was at both loca- he is at, uh, has history with both, but, uh, he's at Tennessee, so there's, uh, there's really n- no mixed feelings or, [laughs] or anything like that for this game for him.

Texas going 9-3 in the regular season, that's a disappointing season considering the return on investment.

I asked Chris Del Conte at SEC spring meetings, how do you measure return on investment? And Chris gave a very typical, you know, filibuster answer.

But I think, truthfully, Jared, if there's one thing I'd point to, I think With them getting to number one this year, at least so far, through two games at least, and Ohio State was a big game, all of the pieces they've brought in have played an impact, at least in that game, and they appear to be what they thought they were getting, right? That wasn't the case a year ago.

So if you ask me specifically with them being number one as we sit here on September 16, 2026, I think the fact that they spent money and seemingly it's been money well spent, I'd point to that.

This is what his general manager is making.

This is how much money is being spent on this.

What's the ROI, right? And the ROI can't simply be, as Chris Del Conte said, well, what were the circumstances? Were players hurt? So on and so forth.

Yeah, that's true.

And so... you know a testament to you know what sark has done and what the staff and the uh and the athletic department has done down there and uh yeah i put it up there as number one

well so that is continuing to be a drumbeat uh and it's credit to chris del conte for having the vision for drew martin and the team for executing it but yesterday on the show we talked to a friend of ours from golf week tim schmidt and we weren't talking golf we were talking about the fact that last week On Saturday, he's an Arizona State grad, but he has UT season tickets.

So he went down to A&M, went to the A&M game, drove back, came to his tailgate, went to the Texas game and stayed to the very end.

He did admit that like many of us, when they went forward on fourth and nine, had they not converted that, a lot of people were going to head for the exits.

But when he converted it, everybody stayed because they had had a long day in the heat.

And Tim said, you know, I've been a season ticket holder for 11 years.

And I just want to shout out Chris Del Conte and what they've done.

The scene, I said this when we went on the air at On Texas Football for the watch along, we said, I've never seen the place so full at kickoff.

Like, it was a, it was a, uh...

You know, and then I, I sat there and watched Greg Sankey, um, was waiting for Chris Del Conte, um, and, and, and they walked back to the locker room together.

And, um, you know, you could just, you could tell that was a very, very big win for what Texas is trying to do.

So I give them a lot of credit.

Obviously, he had to endure the first three quarters to get to the enjoyable part.

But just the scene, the game day atmosphere, I mean, Chris Del Conte's done a pretty incredible job.

And to see that on the night with game day and the win, that was quite a spectacle that Texas had on Saturday night.

Absolutely.