Mack Brown in Fort Worth

Yeah, I'm a big college football nerd. Here I am with my daughter and our good friend, Mack Brown, at Joe T. Garcia's on Monday night at the Longhorn Foundation shindig. He signed my Mack Brown Wheaties box. And my Rose Bowl ticket. And my Big 12 Championship game ticket. And my daughter's hat. He's just a good sport that way.

We had the big Mexican feed and sat at a table with Jack Rattikin, who was a really cool guy. He's pals with Dan Jenkins, he was in Dan's first wedding and told us a story about being in the book Baja Oklahoma. I also saw my old Startlegram boss, Gary Hardee, one of the nicest guys I know.

The speaking portion of the evening wasn't much I hadn't heard before. However, there were a few highlights:

"There aren't any particular games y'all are interested in?" Mack joked. He knew damn well there was one game we in Fort Worth were very interested in: TCU on Sept. 8. He told us about what a good team TCU is, fast, well-coached. He's a big Gary Patterson fan. He said that it was important for the team not to take the Horned Frogs lightly.

Some asked about Henry Melton, but the answer could have applied to the recently DWI'ed Sergio Kindle. "We don't want to embarass the kids by talking about there private business any more than we have to. But trust us -- the team punishment is serious and severe."

Regarding future schedules, he said that a lot of teams say they want to play UT publicly, but in private, they have no interest in playing at all. He didn't say it, but he means you Michigan and Notre Dame. He said the Irish didn't even return the phone call.

Mack says he favors a playoff but doesn't think it'll happen anytime soon.

Former Longhorn Michal Ungar, the special teams tackling artist from Fort Worth Trinity Valley, was there. Evidently, he had a recent bout with cancer, but is doing fine now.

That's it. Hook'em!