wablty

ASU is nothing like them. ASU doesn't have oil money, doesn't dress up as fake soldiers, doesn't think success is owed to it and has actually won 10+ games more than once since 2000.

If ASU can't run, ASU is going to get annihilated. Even if ASU can run, I just don't think we have the dudes. You'll need to give it to us or we have to get fancy. Or both. I know one missing player shouldn't matter, but ASU not having Tyson is a major problem. He was the guy who could always get open. ASU has plenty of guys who look the part, run the part, occasionally make plays at WR, but the consistency... We'll see. We weren't even supposed to be here.

Thanks.

I wanna talk shit, but I know ASU is in for an uphill fight in this one. That's fine. We were picked last in the Big 12 and won the bitch with like 35 of our 2 deep coming back. All of this is gravy. Even if you whoop our ass, to quote Obi-Wan: The sand people are easily startled, but they will soon be back and in greater numbers.

FPI is predictive, not a description of merit. If you wanted to know there are more 4 and 5 stars in the SEC, you don't need a stat. I'm not very familiar with FEI, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess FEI, like FPI, integrates talent composite. Also, those games weren't all that close. ASU had 3 score leads in the 2nd half of every game. They opted to get cute (and almost screwed themselves) against BYU instead of scoring again when it was 1st and goal from the 4, annihilated Iowa State and were up 24-0 and coasting against K State. Like I do agree Texas has a likely much stronger roster and there's a great chance the Horns roll ASU, but pretending ASU hasn't played anyone is silly.

And BYU and Iowa State are ranked higher than any team Texas beat up until today. Ditto for Penn State, Indiana, Notre Dame, SMU. Boise too. Not disagreeing with your point that Texas's line of scrimmage is going to be a potentially overwhelming advantage for the horns, but Sagarin is iffy.

Glendale. Fiesta Bowl was just a bowl swap away.

They might dick ride if we win or make it competitive but I can tell they already don't like us. Except Tech. Texas Tech seems cool.

FWIW, ASU was up 30-3 against Miss State and coasted, and Leavitt didn't play @Cincinnati. Bearcats didn't score the entire 2nd half, but it didn't matter because ASU's backup is Jeff Simms. Kansas was just weird in that they were preseason top 25, choked 2 games to top 25 teams (UNLV and Illinois), kept on losing, then got feisty for a bit. They almost beat ASU, almost beat Kansas State (8-4) and did beat 3 more teams that finished in the top 25. They're 3-3 against top 25 teams. But they suck. They're basically Vandy I guess, in that they can do scary shit but are bad.

I know this isn't an overall playoff thread, but I'm enjoying Tennessee finding out that the rickety broken thing they thought they were approaching was, in fact, a fully functional Death Star.

Heard Cliff fucked up the landing and just told you that. Fat friends lie.

Leavitt is actually pretty fucking good, especially for a freshman. The biggest issue is Jordyn Tyson is out. He's better than Pearsall or Badger were. Probably ASU's best since Aiyuk. It'll be more an issue of is anyone actually open for him.

I admire the talent that's been built up in Austin, but I honestly think ASU has got you beat. Unless you're talking about football players. Then Texas comes out on top.

The biggest issue for ASU is more WR's. Jordyn Tyson was by far their best WR and he went down for the season in the last game of the regular season. He's the only one I think can go against your top DBs and still win with any degree of consistency. They'll need the old man brigade that's their WR depth to step up, and that's if your DL isn't just devouring a strong but not especially athletic OL. ASU is outmanned. Best hope is Sark does Sark stuff. Sark had better teams than ASU most of his time in the Pac 12 and still went 1-4, with the only win being the occasion he was apparently drunk.

That's not new. He went 1-4 against ASU when he was in the Pac 12, and the only time he won he was apparently drunk.

Our top WR is out. He's probably the only guy I think can reliably beat your single coverage against your DBs. You can smother the running game unless we can get over the top and I don't think we have the dudes right now. Skattebo will get his, but... I don't think we have the bodies. We need Sark to fuck it up.

We (ASU) lost our best defensive player for the 1st half because we were playing him up 5 TD's. Pull it. You can always put them back in. There's no style points for keeping them from the back door TD's.

I'm an ASU fan. I don't like this. I don't like this shit at all.

Omeire and Jake Smith get some action, maybe more now with their star WR out for the season. J'Mond Tapp is back in the portal. Swanson actually plays in the DT rotation and will have a reasonable chance to be the 1st team NT next year. Prince Dorbah gets a lot of run and while his stats this year aren't great, he's been decent. Xavion Alford is the former Horn that's a true standout. He's healthy and has become one of the better safeties around. 1st Team All Big 12 this year. Texas did Swanson a favor, even if the way he's describing it might suggest whoever told him to leave could work on their bedside manner. Might not see it that way now, but he will.

He wasn't eligible. He's a depth WR for ASU now. Not good, not bad. ASU basically overhauled everything once the good players left after the NCAA stuff and took in a bunch of formerly high end recruits as reclamation projects. He's been kind of ok. Xavion Alford and Prince Dorbah have actually been pretty damn good for them. Clayton Smith too (OU but from Texas), though he just got a babyshit soft targeting that's going to keep him out of the 1st half of the Utah game. Some dudes just need a clean start. It's kind of a trip watching dudes that weren't panning out elsewhere be kinda nice in Tempe after watching Daniels, Pearsall, Wilson, Gentry, et al bounce (understandably, NCAA shit). I hope Jermayne Lole gets some run for you guys. He should have gone pro like 3 years ago before the neverending injuries. Totally different player than he was 2019 and 2020, but hey. Still plugging.

There is no hedge. ASU can dick around and wait and wait and wait, and they'll still be able to walk into the Big 12 whenever/if ever they feel like there's nothing else on the table. The same reasons for the potential lack of a B1G or SEC invite apply both ways. It is an enormous school with an enormous alumni basis in a top 10 city (and the ONLY university besides for profits in said top 10 city, which is extraordinarily unusual). That's why I think they'd rather go Indy with the elite academic Cali schools and "Figure things out" for a few years. It may be more beneficial for them, and other schools in the remnant Pac, to take some time and improve their marketability and brand when they're at a low. This is the absolute doldrums for the fanbase. They've gone through a series of bad hires since Snyder. At some point, a school that is the only show in town (actually the only university in town) is going to do a few things right, and maybe once they do a few things right they won't be in a situation like they are now, when the last 4 star recruit from their home base was in 2019. And that guy wound up fighting back from medical retirement, being a 2x All Conference DE, and then essentially ended his career after a minute in the CFL because he's too hurt to play. Cable and ESPN are diminishing every year, but the base isn't going to change that much. 60 year olds that wanna push the remote button and watch football aren't leaving. They're just going to get increasingly annoyed when they're told they have to subscribe to X # of systems. ASU happens to have an enormous retiree base from the midwest in its back yard. Sure, Bob the retired engineer in Scottsdale might be a Michigan fan, but he's still probably going to watch ASU too, beyond the normal ASU fanbase... which is diminished and suffering under the Cardinals presence, but they did hold off the Cards on attendance and fanbase until the Glendale stadium opened up. I just don't see a model of CFB that, in the end, decides ASU is on the same tier as, say, Iowa State or whatever. If the numbers aren't there, it's because someone hasn't sold the product properly yet. Thus, they'll wait it out as long as possible to figure out why they currently might not belong. At the end of the day, there's just too much value to go along with "Ok, our new rival is Kansas or Texas Tech."

Our shooty hoops has a bad history with Vegas, but football is fine. Just the normal occasional murder, rapist and pedophile. If gambling can somehow keep west coast football from disintegrating in the way it's heading, and largely because Larry Scott somehow fucked up an easy win when it was offered to him, great. My preference is the Pac 12 just becomes the Pac 10 and makes enough money to compete. I just don't know if that's possible without the LA schools. Seattle, Phoenix and Denver are obviously big deals, and Oregon = Nike, but... That's not enough on its own. Not without SoCal. I think everyone's just tapping the breaks and waiting to see if the big 2 conferences are going to make an offer. As CFB shuffles the teams around, the Bay Area, Seattle and Phoenix aren't going to be left out in the grander schemes. There's just too much money in the areas, although the Bay doesn't really care about its teams.

If I were a young construction worker with enough knowledge and bucks in my pocket to be start a small construction/demolition business, I'd move to Duluth. Like now. A bunch of the old houses fucking suck. As money and people flood in, there's going to be an endless fuckton of renovation on the old buildings, and some will need to be torn down. That city is potentially wonderful, but its money faucet really dried up for a long time and it never really modernized. I'm 6'3" and have size 12 shoes, and it legit felt dangerous going up and especially down the stairs of the two houses we rented last year when we were doing North Shore things. My feet didn't fit on the stairs. Heel or toes, depending on which way you were going. The doors are weird and tiny too. However if you can buy a cheap house on a decent lot, remodel or just start from scratch, it's a wonderful place to relocate to. Superior is basically a small ocean and you can go out and have fun- Just know that it's choppier and waves are more bunched together. Plus, y'know, all the other less choppy lakes in the area. It's cold in the winter, yeah, but there's like 5.8 million people in Minnesota that get by just fine.

I just kind of ignored Oregon State and Wazzu because they seem destined for Big 12 if they can get it, or ostracized to the MWC. They just haven't grown like the other schools. I'm assuming Oregon and Washington are going to get offers from the Big Ten at some point. Washington is a mortal lock and I think Oregon probably is too unless Uncle Phil doesn't leave them the billions I assume he is.

Really late reply, but I was at that game. Made the mistake of getting a little tipsy beforehand. It was one of the biggest backlashes of my life. When it was 21-3 ASU at halftime with Leinart knocked out (literally), I felt fantastic. And then the heat and bodies just weighed on you, and then Bush and White kicked in and the game mimicked how you felt. They didn't actually run out of water, though they were absolutely sending people away. But you couldn't walk to the bathroom without someone at the stairs on a card table forcing a bottle of water into your hand as you passed. By the end of the game I was sick to my stomach because of the 2nd half collapse and probably a mild case of heat stroke. It might have said 100 or 102, but with 70 whatever thousand other people around you, it was outright dangerous. Got to AC, still wound up hurling when I tried to eat a good 6 hours after my last drink. TV sensibilities aside, it is irresponsible to have day games in Arizona, especially in the Valley, early in the season. The place is an oven. You don't even know how much you're sweating. As for ASU in conference realignment, I think they very much want to avoid the Big 12. Crow, for all his faults, has fought long and hard to bring ASU into the upper echelons of research schools and their association with the Cali schools helps them a lot. They sat on the outside looking in at the AAU despite being qualified forever due their low general college admission standards, despite the actual colleges and R&D side being strong. Now it's basically on par with Michigan State, except they haven't had a medical school for in state political reasons. Both AAU and the medical school changed within the last 6 months. They got in and they announced the opening of a new medical school, which is an enormous R&D driver. With their pre-existing relationship with the Mayo Clinic, I wouldn't be surprised if Arizona State expects to be a top 25ish or higher research school within the next 10-15 years and, consequently, they very much want to be around their peers... Which the Big 12 doesn't have. Arizona State very strongly feels they are a better fit with the Big 10 (they even play D-1 scholarship hockey now) or the newest versions of SEC which include UT, Aggie, Florida, Vandy, Georgia (still waiting for their AAU invite I think), etc. If the Pac collapses, I think it's almost more likely they and like Cal, Stanford, Utah, etc. try to go indy for a while.