Stampeder

Agreed. And it's not as if we're completely whiffing on D either. Really like the athletes on that side of the ball and the coaching they receive.

Makes sense if it was a level playing field. Bama, LSU and Georgia are all willing to play the game a different way.

Get enough of the top '21 guys jumping on board and it might actually help with the '20 class as well

SIAP: For those wondering about T. Feaster, it looks like he's officially down to Va Tech and the other USC. Not sure we had any real interest.

Solid points. I'd just offer that expectations are at times unrealistic given the circumstances. We didn't hire a coach with a national rep (Saban / Jimbo) and immediately credibility. We also don't have recent success/stability on our side (i.e. Riley / Day). Not defending all things Herman. He has his flaws and there's an argument to be made we could've capitalized more on various things. But, given the circumstances I think landing Top 5-10 classes at this point is doing quite well. Give it another couple years of 10 win seasons, B12 championship games/titles, etc. and cruising in the Top 5 in recruiting rankings should become automatic.

To the extent we're talking about strong player evals irrespective of recruiting services rankings, maintaining continuity on the staff and working toward ridiculous facilities, I'd say he's following Swinney's model to a T. He's also publicly stated he leans on Swinney quite a bit as a mentor. As far as any of the other influences, I have no idea.

Agree with most of this, but the title winners don't all hit the top 5 every year. See Clemson.

Unless we completely regress on the field this year it's hard to imagine a scenario where we don't end up with a Top 10 class. If things fall the right way (i.e. Johnny Wilson, Ringo, Robinson eventually come around) it could be Top 5. Either way, if you're stacking three Top 5-10 classes in consecutive years you're going to have championship caliber roster.

Interesting. I'm all for adding talented players to fill out the roster, assuming assimilation to the culture is probable.

The Samples news is disappointing. Don't blame him or Texas at all, but disappointing nonetheless given our struggles in DFW. Overall, it's hard not to be very bullish on the trajectory though. No question.

For Texas or elsewhere?

Noted TH mentioned today how long it took both Mack and Dabo to reach championship levels. I believe it was 7 years for both. Said he thought we were ahead of schedule, but needed to remain patient and build the program to last. It's times like right now I have to keep reminding myself to remain patient and not react in the moment. Not a ton of good news of late.

Didn't BC have some supposed heavy flirtations with Oregon and LSU at one point? In the end, it appeared to be posturing to obtain the salary/title bumps. Always got the impression TH was in on it and needed the leverage to secure the raise for him. If this has to do with Samples I hope it's similar in nature.

Up from 45th...

Some good perspective in there re: recruiting/program momentum

No clue if they pay or not. My only point is until the last year or so their recruiting rankings haven't been on the same level as Bama/UGA. They're somewhere around the top 10 every year and have been for the last decade, but haven't regularly camped out in the top 3 spots. BL: You don't have to have a top 3 class every single year to be in the CFP and win NCs. It's not some automatic relegation to 2nd tier status. The UGA game last year is case in point.

Simply not the case. There's more than one way to build a program. Bama/UGA do it one way, other teams like Clemson do it another. It would be ideal to land errrbody, but not doing so doesn't automatically relegate us to 2nd tier status. Take a look at Clemson's recruiting rankings the last 10 years.

Lots of discussion about the inability of this staff to maximize resources/opportunities. The counter to that is the possibility TH doesn't view it the same way and instead sees staff continuity, culture and program as the key to long term success. The chart below depicts Clemson's rise under Dabo. As most have read, he's been very loyal to his assistants and notorious for valuing staff continuity and culture/program above all else. I'm not trying to say TH will have the same success, just offering there's more than one way of building a program. Bama/UGA do it one way, Clemson did it another. Year Rec Rnk Wins Bowl Poll 2009 36 9 Gator 24 2010 27 6 Music City NR 2011 10 10 BCS 22 2012 20 11 Chick-Fil-A 9 2013 15 11 BCS 7 2014 16 10 Russel Ath 15 2015 9 14 L NCG 2 2016 11 14 W NCG 1 2017 16 12 BCS 4 2018 7 15 W NCG 1 2019 10

For some perspective in terms of number of committed recruits for teams ranked in the top 50 in recruiting: Avg # of committed recruits: 15 High: 22 (Michigan, Minnesota) Low: 7 (Texas) Pre-season Top 10 teams # of commits: Clemson: 18 Bama: 20 tOSU: 19 UGA: 14 OU: 14 Michigan: 22 LSU: 20 Florida: 17 Texas: 7 ND: 16

We had momentum if we wanted to take those willing to commit on the spot (or close to it). Pretty much my point. This staff appears to be shooting for the stars across the board and unwilling to accept fallback options at this point. That would imply they're willing to bank on a stellar season convincing the higher-rated recruits to head our way.

Assuming Lindberg, CTJ and Dorbah join the fold in the next month or so we'll increase our composite score to 205 and jump from 43 to 19 with a per recruit score of .9379. So, there's that. How we're going to go about filling the other 10-12 spots remains a mystery at this point. It would appear this staff is comfortable with shooting for the stars and taking their chances on a lights out season providing some momentum.

K. Dixon? He's 2020

K. Dixon just committed to Arky https://twitter.com/kelvontay3/status/1146803655921848320?s=20

I used to have much more hatred toward OU than A&M. And then I actually attended several games against both opponents and felt much differently. The only fanbase anywhere close to as obnoxious as A&M is Tech and they don't win enough to matter. A&M is by far the biggest threat to our long term progression along with being unquestionably the most annoying. I want them to lose every game they play.

It isn't our choice and I just don't see TH making changes without a subpar season.