Paul Wesley

I could put this "told you so" observation on any of about 20 different threads, but I'm putting it here. For nearly four fucking years, every single fan of an SEC school that I know has made it a point to mention to me how "Texas is in for a big surprise," "Texas just doesn't have the linemen to compete in the SEC," "Texas doesn't have the depth to compete in the SEC," "It's a different caliber of athlete," etc. etc, etc, etc But here's the thing that none of those people took into account: Once Texas joined the SEC, there were a whole bunch of 4- and 5-star kids who would have gone to an SEC school instead of one in the Big 12, but suddenly Texas is going to be signing those kids, because they no longer have to weigh the advantages (great city, alumni support, top-tier public university) against the disadvantage of playing in a 2nd-tier league. So yeah, the Texas teams of the Strong/Herman eras would have been outmatched. For fuck's sake, they were often outmatched in the Big 12. I'm not predicting any kind of 17-0 seasons or whatever... the odds are overwhelmingly against that happening. I'm just pointing out that our detractors (and there are a lot) never took into account the fact that SEC Texas is likely to have a monster roster in a way that Big 12 Texas was never going to build.

Yeah, I was just thinking that he's not gonna make it to Austin this year.

Yeah, with the timeout in your pocket, you try to get some real estate

Ha ha. I was just scrolling the music board to get caught up, and I got all excited to respond to this thread title. And then I realized the thread was started by... me. So, let me just say this:

Just an aside here, but that example speaks to the absolute transformation of our roster under Sark. Under Herman, how many 1-score struggles were we in with the Baylors, Iowa States, and KUs of the conference, and we'd have a critical 4th-quarter possession, and we're running out there with a scrappy walk-on at one WR, and on the other side, we've got Epps? In 2024, if we have a 2nd-half possession and (for whatever reason) we wanted to rest our starters, we'd be rolling out there with some combo of Wingo, Golden, or Bolden. The talent level and depth of some of these position groups is just crazy... RB the last couple years, WR this year.... you're talking about a room full of guys where the 4th-man-up has NFL potential. It's Alabamesque.

Ah, OK. Apparently you lose a ton of ground when you mostly suck for over a decade.

Also, I just had a chance to re-watch the game, and it was even more of an ass-kicking than I remembered. I mean, two possessions into the 3rd Q, and Texas had 24 points while Michigan had 10 yards of offense. That's the kind of box score disparity you see when a great team plays Southwestern Tallahassee Night School... except we did it on the road against the defending national champion. Crazy.

I think Colt had the record of career wins for a starting QB - and he only held that record for a year. I'm not sure if we ever got into the top-2 or -3 as a program.

Hmmm. I sign up for everything using a gmail account, but maybe that's it. Maybe ESPN isn't defaulting to gmail once it verified my cable provider. It's probably been a decade since I set it up.

I tried to use the ESPN app on my phone to watch one of the late games yesterday, and it blocked me. In the past, the app has asked who my cable provider was (it's ATT). So even though I had turned off the wifi on my phone and was using a cell signal, it *STILL* gave me an error message saying, "your provider is not available" or something like that. In other words, just because they're having a fight with the company that gives me cable television, they decided to completely block **all** ESPN access on my phone EVEN THOUGH I WASN'T AT HOME AND WASN'T USING ANY ATT WIFI. Such bullshit. I feel like this could be cross-posted in the "great enshittening" thread.

Yeah, he's pretty clearly grinding an axe. I think he was one of two people who had Notre Dame ahead of Texas last week... which was already absurd had you watched either of those teams play.

Last week vs Aggies, the network was putting up ND schedule, and pointed out "favored in every game the rest of the way!!!" It was laughable in real time. Anyone who had watched that game would have projected 2 or 3 losses, minimum.

Worst call since the Oregon onsides kick?

Looks pretty indisputable to me

Klatt has been generous when speaking of us for a long time now. He has a ton of affection for Sark, and for Sark's support of his sobriety.

Both teams in playoffs last year. Michigan sends 13 guys to NFL. Texas sends 11. Only one of these two teams looked "gutted" (as described by ESPN). We went out and completely reloaded our WR room. Added Mukaba, who was everywhere today. I know coaches must hate having to recruit every player in the country in every off-season (including their own roster), but since teams have to address their *immediate* needs every off-season, it's gonna be only slightly less consequential than recruiting high school kids.

Yeah, Michigan was "gutted" by the draft, but apparently we weren't.

Since the lead story on ESPN is how Michigan lost 13 guys to the draft -- we lost 11.

I see 9 and still think "Kwame Cavil."

Fox has to be totally hoping for Manning just so viewership doesn't go to zero.

exactly

I have never seen targeting on a LB hitting a RB between the tackles

Makuba is everything we hoped Catalon would be

Hello, Mr Makuba

We're gonna block a punt today