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GoldAppleCorps

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Everything posted by GoldAppleCorps

  1. I too used PSVue for my cable replacement. At the time, it was very cost competitive and had the best lineup. It was easy to use across a wide variety of devices. The fact that it also had LHN was a major bonus. Now, obviously I'll be shopping for the best of breed replacement. However, the ability to get the LHN won't be a determining factor. It's a great time filler, but not exactly useful for much. By tying it to a cable provider, options are greatly limited. Frankly, those "providers" are really lousy. Having LHN available with an ESPN+ subscription would likely entice me to keep it, or even available with Disney+. Considering their cost challenges within ABC/Disney in particular and the broader trend on packaged TV in general, ESPN really needs to decide how much they want to support LHN. It either needs to be licensed to the broadest possible carrier set (and have pricing reduced commensurately), or let it die and fold the Texas content into the ESPN+ agreement that supports the rest of the Big 12.
  2. Obviously, the devil will be in the details. I don't think the NCAA is backing "open the checkbooks and recruit to the highest bidder." In case you're wondering, Texas will always be the highest bidder. We have more cash, more potential to earn and generate cash, and more deep pocketed donors ready to fund anything than any other team out there. We've bemoaned the SECSECSEC bagmen because we didn't want to play the "against the NCAA rules" game (at least publicly, to that degree - my naiivete has its limits). If there are no restrictions, we won't lose on money, ever. If the limits are set high, it will cause the cannibalization of other sports at lesser funded (that is, all the rest of them) schools. I'm not certain how many schools in the Big 12 could support that kind of financial crush before abandoning the concept.
  3. Digging in the recesses of selective memory, I want to say it was 2010 when Texas played Nebraska in Lincoln. Their defensive strategy for that game was to put as many defenders on the LOS as possible, then have the selective few drop during the play. Crucially, the pressuring defenders favored gap integrity over straight line pressure. The result confused the Husker OL and prevented Taylor Martinez from escaping left or right. He wasn't fast enough mentally to diagnose coverage after the snap, and had no room to roll in order to buy that time. Hurts is a great QB, but not the meth-addled cockroach runner that Murray was. Scipio documented the weak links on the Sooner OL and how to exploit that. If Keondre Coburn consistently causes a road accident pileup in the middle, Texas has the athletes and scheme to force the issue. It will take more than one player to bring Hurts down, but hitting the opposition hard is something the Texas defense excels at. OU isn't an offense that can go one-dimensional and live. If the Sooner OL isn't winning battles for the run game, then defending it becomes a matter of keeping CeeDee Lamb in front of you. Concede FGs rather than jog-in TDs. Are they still using the backup kicker, or do suspensions not apply when the fan base gets antsy?
  4. I've always loved this. Mostly, because Tyson's longtime trainer and friend, Cus D'Amato, knew that physicality was only a small part of the equation. Usually, both fighters were physically trained. It was unlikely that one man was going to be so superior in his training and ability that he would win the fight on those attributes alone. A fight like this ends up being a mental one. If Texas has an edge, it's that they know what's coming. LSU hit them hard. They had to get up off the canvas, put their marbles back in the jar, and compete. oSu showed them they can't let mistakes derail the mission. WVU made them play under a hostile crowd with raw players. Texas has been tested. They know the process works, and that when it gets ugly, trust your training and play the game. How does OU react when pressed? When "the usual stuff" isn't working, what does Plan B look like?
  5. I watched this game from McLane stadium. Tell Brock Purdy to look someplace other than the 5 yards in the middle of the field. Baylor's defense is credible for once, but they let the RB leak out to the side uncovered EVERY PLAY. However, the QB stubbornly refused to do anything besides attack his TE or slot in the middle over and over again. As a result, he either got 15 yard completions or, usually, found his team in 3rd and long. These two teams were, unsurprisingly, evenly matched. Neither can generate a pass rush without committing extra defenders. Neither can defend a pass if the pressure doesn't disrupt the QB in under 3 seconds. ISU was surprisingly less physical than I was expecting. They seemed to be thinking rather than playing.
  6. Jerry Jones charges an extra $10,000 for non-contract space debris entering the stadium.
  7. Maybe I should have said "against conventional wisdom". It's been working for over a decade for oSu (with all the great receivers mentioned), so clearly there's more opportunity there than most QBs are comfortable with.
  8. The oSu QB has wheels! I'm thinking that the Cowboy OC is, right now, installing more sweep and option packages. He's still a freshman and is learning, but that offense will be very dangerous once a given play has more than one target. Right now, when he starts the play, it's either a pass or a run. If it's a run, it's going to the RB. The defense can therefore sell out to stop it. A lot of his big completions were oSu vintage style. By that, I mean he completely misread the defense, threw an ill advised pass to a double covered receiver - who then out fought two defenders for a big catch! He's got a lot to learn, but pure speed covers up a ton of mental errors.
  9. Since that's about the only place you can legally try to tackle a QB, the news shouldn't affect much.
  10. Psh! Keep posting it. We forgot where we came from once. We forgot what it took to get to the top. Season after season, the players rested a little bit more on what everyone else did. The coaches let them. Very quickly, we're all standing around wondering how it all happened. It happens when you're comfortable where you are. Thou art mortal.
  11. Well, how many of those game would we have lost when the RB coughed up the ball on the edge, or the swing pass was picked, or there were 2 more minutes on the clock at the end? It's all very easy to say, "We should have tried for a first down there!". Certainly, but doing so increases the risk of turnover or easy score. The odds really ramp up when a desperate opponent starts slashing at the ball - prioritizing turnover over securing the tackle. In the past, the defense has been the Horns calling card. We were more confident stopping the opposition drive than continuing our own. In that case, we were right to milk the clock whenever possible. This season, Herman may want to revisit his calculus a bit, just because we have more plays to run that don't unnecessarily create risk. Our last offensive play Saturday was an example of that. oSu knew we would run the ball. Sam ran a protected bootleg, starting the flow one way, then cutting it back. He had multiple options, even a pass, but oSu covered everything but him. He powered forward and, surprisingly, did not slide once he'd earned the 1st down. I really think he wanted to score, but decided against dishing pain (likely knowing the coach would chew on him for it). It must be, once again, emphasized that we don't even really have this discussion if a veteran player DOESN'T ATTEMPT A DIVING FAIR CATCH of a give-up punt.
  12. I agree that Herman is going to have to get a better feel for the accelerator at Texas, but he hasn't really gotten the opportunity in seasons previous. Our offense has typically been a liability to the point that bleeding the clock with a lead and playing defense from an advantageous position was a better strategy than risking turnovers. If our returner understood that that last punt DID NOT NEED TO BE CAUGHT at all, and that a ball rolling dead somewhere on the field under Texas' possession iced the game, then the strategy was once again valid. We do, though, now have a dynamic offense which should be trusted to get 1st downs under duress.
  13. Sometimes people just won't do what they say, or say what they mean. In those cases, one thing leads to another...
  14. I'm thinking the "injury report" segment is the thing that's gonna determine my mood for a few days...
  15. This does remind me that the Texas Longhorns can exorcise another ghost of bitchassedness past on Saturday. The 2010 game against Rice in Reliant Stadium was the day the Longhorn Nation knew we had an actual problem that couldn't be ignored. The first quarter featured a 14 play Rice drive that ended with a FG. The Texas drive was 12 plays. It covered 57 yards. It ended with a TURNOVER ON DOWNS!!! Read this link: https://www.espn.com/college-football/playbyplay?gameId=302470242 Pay special attention to the part with "1st and goal from the Rice 4", "2nd and goal from the Rice 3", "3rd and goal from the Rice 1", "4th and goal from the Rice 1", "Cody Johnson runs for a loss of 4 yards" It's your obligation as a Longhorn fan to realize that, one game after playing Alabama for a National Championship, we could not run for 4 yards in 4 tries against the Rice Owls! It's your obligation because we forgot this once. We thought that the Burnt Orange logo would make the other team move. How many players watched their talented futures crash on the Forty Acres in the ensuing seasons? How many TVs were destroyed by beer bottles? It happened once. It will happen again, unless you, yes YOU, realize the value of having really big angry men on the roster who like slamming people into the ground!
  16. You don't need a PlayStation to use PSVue. It's an app that runs on Amazon FireTV, Android, or just in a web browser (to be cast to Chromcast if you prefer). No one gets a hate on for Rice because they're a bunch of obnoxious brainy nerds who obligingly lay down and get clobbered as a football team. It's a fun game in Houston.
  17. Rice has an endowment large enough that they let most students go for free. They can certainly make that call any time they want and not think twice about it. Texas isn't the team that they used to be. I don't understand betting lines on games like this, because Texas can make the score anything they want (except 1-0 for you literalists out there). This will be a scrimmage game to see who's been listening in meetings. The proper result of this game is to host some recruits locally in Houston and return to Austin without adding to the injury list.
  18. Burrow was going to have to ace the master class in playing spread to win. He did. Texas and LSU played one heck of a rough game in the non-con. We need more schools willing to schedule these matchups. Here's the ugly part. If both schools keep playing like this, we're either going to play each other again, or the selection committee is going to have to really screw someone over.
  19. Texas uses their DBs for everything because, at some point, there's just a bunch of DBs on the field. It really just becomes a breakdown of nomenclature. There's certainly a DT. He's designed to cause a traffic accident in the middle of the field. After that, all bets are off. Might be some DEs. Might be up to 3 LBs, but probably 2 or 1. At any rate, they just kind of look like bigger safeties, which is OK, because the safeties a pretty big, too. Really, the genius of Orlando's D is that anyone can do anything. The offense doesn't know what's coming until the ball is snapped. The guard can be absolutely blocking the LB only to find two safeties (or nickel, or joker, or whatever) running by him. The run called for "4 in the box" suddenly finds 7 defenders run blitzing. Texas plays with the same 11 players. It has its vulnerabilities. However, if you're not POSITIVE what you're seeing, a "quick pass" becomes a turnover.
  20. <emphasis added> This is a thought. The analyses I've seen (very good ones) seem to show Burrow's success almost exclusively off his primary read. Burrow is clearly not a tomato can. He obviously studies film and knows the process. His mechanics aren't terrible. When the play happens the way he thought it would, he can execute it. When GSU managed to muddle his first option (either by design or blind luck), his decision making seemed to devolve. The passes floated. His mechanics got goofy. Worse, he seems to always want to make a play - and that play should be in the middle of the field (after all, that's where you have the most guys, right?). Sam's biggest advancement last season was the realization that sometimes the defense wins. Burn the ball out of bounds (no problem missing long on a back shoulder fade - use the sideline to your advantage). Tuck it and bash. Heck, taking a sack reserves the right to another play. What makes the spread so deadly is the progression of options. If the defense took away option #1, well, they don't probably have enough guys for option #2. That option tripped on his shoelaces. Option #3 got blocked by his man. At this point, a good spread QB knows he's out of time. If option #1 hasn't miracled himself open, then aim for the Gatorade table.
  21. No realistic Texas fan doubts the LSU defense. This may be the most complete defense we've seen in a long time. Last week, Texas fans saw that their OL could hold up against token competition. This week, of course, limits will be tested. No one expects a flawless performance. LSU's defense will win a fair amount of plays. What you need to remember about the spread is that the play is won before the snap. The spread, well, spreads out the defense. The QB is in shotgun. The offensive alignment is designed to stress every area of the defense, and isolate them into 1 on 1 matchups. When the defense aligns, the QB and receivers are supposed to recognize the alignment. When the play is run, the QB attacks the part of the defense where the offense wins the matchup. The 5 Texas OL don't have to win battle after battle against 5 LSU defenders. They will add TEs or sweeps until LSU spins down another defender to attack outside with swing passes. They just have to be credible. The secret to defending the spread is to not stop moving. The offense wins before the ball is snapped by reading alignments. If the defense doesn't align, the offense can't read it. UGA learned this last year against a vastly inferior (we allege) Texas OL. Texas would not win against a straight up, push-them-around, he-man football. Fortunately, we don't aim to pit strength on strength. I'm in no way predicting an easy day for the Texas offense. Quite the opposite. This will be a long, grueling effort focused on ball security and first downs.
  22. During the course of a game, the OL is probably going to let someone get by. That happens. Sacks are no fun, but at least you usually still have possession of the football. What that video shows, and maybe it's an isolated incident or I'm not seeing the whole picture, is Joe Burrow burying his head in the face of pressure and hucking the football towards his last known good passing option. This is a cardinal sin in the spread offense! The spread doesn't come free. It operates on QBs reading the defense, WRs reading their coverage, and both knowing (without overt communication) what the route is supposed to be. Things happen REALLY quickly once the ball is snapped, so this has to be evident before the snap. Once the ball is snapped, a good QB will read his keys to confirm what he knew, then execute the play (either run or pass) that the defense presented. Things are bad enough when a WR blows his assignment. There's a decent chance that the defender followed him, and the QB just fires a pass into dead air. However, when a QB (typically under pressure) just guesses and wings the ball into the middle of the field, count on hearing the other school's fight song in short order.
  23. I think the visitor's bench is gonna roast during warm (!) ups and the 1st half.
  24. I felt bad for Coburn. Firing out of his stance into a double team over and over, only to have the QB take 3 steps and pass. He was effective, since LaTech quickly gave up running at all and just started winging it to the flats. Still, I imagine it takes a lot of mental fortitude, plus a healthy fear of your position coach, to keep up those reps.
  25. LSU has a ton of talent. Their defense is for real. The Texas OL showed up bigly against LaTech, but we'll start to find out now if it was them or the opponent. The Texas defense is no place to learn the spread. I know the Tigers fans are giddy over seeing a pass thrown and more than 2 receivers on the field at once. Here in the Big 12, we call that "Saturday". It literally happens to us every week. Every team, for the last 10 years, plays at least some type of that game in the Big 12. We've built a defense to stop literally nothing but that. The best spread offenses, collectively, live in the Big 12. A previous post said we wouldn't pressure Burrow without well timed and well disguised blitzes. You just described Orlando's standard defense. Like, every play. We're one DL and an assortment of guys ranging from fast and strong to faster and stronger. A strength of the spread offense is counting the defenders and attacking where they lack numbers. The Texas defense doesn't stand still to be counted. It's just impossible to tell who's covering or who's rushing until the ball is snapped. "Getting the ball out quickly" is all fine and good, but if you miscounted, then we'll see if Joe Burrow is faster than Joe Ossai. I'm not gutsy enough to predict an easy Texas win. The Tigers are a for-real opponent, and winning will be earned.
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