sushihorn

It appears that Herman and the staff are deliberately limiting the potential of the offense in the name of protecting Sam Ehlinger. The box score vs Oklahoma State shows Sam with 10 carries but only 4 of those were designed as QB runs or potential runs. The others were all scrambles from the pocket. During the first drive Sam ran QB counter. He later ran a QB draw and one zone read play. Lastly was the bootleg keeper for the final 1st down that allowed Texas to kill the clock. I think the coaches are right to protect Sam since he is the heart of the offense. I'd still like to see him used as a running threat early in the game. At least keep the ball in his hands longer at times to force the DBs to turn and run downfield instead of coming up in run support immediately when they see the ball handed off. By turning almost exclusively to a conventional running game, Texas loses the extra blocker and allows the safeties to have an easier read and less conflict between coverage responsibilities and run support. I REALLY hope Mensa makes Sam more of a running threat against OU. Grinch likes to stem, stunt and slant his front which often leaves seams to be exploited by the running game with quick inside handoffs. This can be compounded by the base quarters coverage scheme they employ. It's tough enough to get good run fits with it under ideal conditions because 4 DBs have deep coverage responsibilities. Get them to turn and run with the WRs and there will be very little support at the 2nd level and almost nothing behind the LBs.

That view is reserved for their dead dogs...

Your focus is too narrow. The demographic trend is not a metro area or even state-specific issue. It's a huge regional trend that's been in place for 35 years at least. The Great Migration of the early 20th century has been partially reversed for a number of reasons. But what is important from a sports recruiting standpoint is that the African-American population has been moving back to the South for a couple of generations now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Great_Migration BOTH Michigan and Ohio State have to recruit outside of their region to bring in highly ranked classes. Ohio St has been quite successful at that; Michigan has not. Look at the #2 2018 OSU class: 5 players from OH and 5 from FL. 2 each from VA, MO, TN and 1 each from GA, TX and OK. Half the class came from the South as most people would define it and the top 3 players were all from FL - all of them 5 stars. More than twice as many of OSU's recruits came from the South as from their own region (5 from OH and 1 from PA). Michigan's geographic recruiting distribution was similar to Ohio State's but they were unable to get numbers of top shelf out of area recruits. Thus their best recruits were regional (1 MI and 1 IN) middling 4-star players and their class was ranked #22 nationally. Michigan got zero players from Ohio and OSU got nobody from Michigan. But that wasn't important at all. The real difference is that Ohio State has the brand name to pull good recruits from other parts of the country - especially the South.

One really nice thing I noticed while watching the replay was how often the Texas and OSU players would help an opponent off the ground after the play was over. You don't see that degree of sportsmanship much these days - much less as a regular thing throughout the game. Good to see the mutual respect there between the teams as well as the fanbases.

Those kids clearly don't understand what they are watching. The coaches are obviously game planning to protect Sam from taking too many hits. When they can do that against a team as good as OSU, that tells me they have a lot of confidence in the rest of the offense and the O-Line in particular to open holes for the conventional running game.

Rewatching OSU it became clear just how dominant the O-Line was. The left side got caved in frequently using straight zone. On power and counter the pullers were blowing open huge holes with their kickout blocks. The Cowboys rarely got penetration, as reflected by only 3 TFLs (each for 1 yd) and ZERO sacks. I was a bit surprised that Texas averaged only 5.0 YPC but looking at the stats, the 2 kneel downs in victory formation took the YPC from 5.4 to 5.0 and the former is more reflective of what the OL did on Saturday.

This seems like an odd place to complain about "butthurt" and UF rankings. I specifically said "the jury is still out" on them and for much the same scheduling reasons you cited. I just have a different take on Miami than you do.

Dear Jimbo:

Rapid improvement of the OL has clearly increased Beck's IQ to near-Mensa levels. That plus a couple of healthy RBs could do the same for Drayton.

Don't care. (Still) stuck with Jimbo...

Very on point. Willingness to bring briefcases to a recruiting battle while fellow crooks look the other way ensures that most of the many prime athletes in the region play in the SEC - even for the bottom feeders. This leads to the self-fulfilling prophecy in the NFL draft as the talent is drafted on potential and measurables even if their college program failed to develop them. Those same players could be drafted higher by going somewhere they could improve and showcase their talent but hearing the same party line from every sports media outlet has the predictable effect that saturation bombardment propaganda usually does.

217 yards rushing. 5.0 YPC. ZERO sacks. Other than the rushed play on the failed 4th down conversion, the Texas OL owned the LOS.

Watching the flow of the game, Sanders was terrible the last couple of drives before OSU started to run the ball almost every down. I suspect this is what Mullet was thinking: 4 straight incompletions including an INT probably told Gundy that his freshman QB wasn't going to win the game for him. After some nice runs to start the next drive (at 5:00 left in the game), Sanders further confirmed Gundy's prognosis: His QB couldn't win the game throwing the ball. Gundy went with the best of his bad alternatives at this point.

With the respective student and alumni bases, a giant Needless Markup credit card would be about right...

Absolutely correct. Virtually every SEC team plays 3-4 overmatched OOC scrubs. There are so many legitimately bad SEC teams that even the mediocre ones are guaranteed bowl eligible. The West gets Ole Miss, Arky and MSU. aggy specifically gets S. Carolina in addition. The East has Tennessee, Vandy, Kentucky and South Carolina. Mizzou gets Arkansas every year out of the West so it's nearly impossible for them to miss a bowl as well unless they go sub .500 vs the scum of the East. The truth is there are MOSTLY easy weeks in the SEC. That doesn't even fully account for the November bye week they schedule every year.

Hubbard was averaging 6.92 YPC coming in. He ran for 3.27 YPC with a long of 13 yds vs Texas. He also was TFLed 6 times for 17 yards in losses and 4 times for no gain. Sanders' passer rating was 181.79 with 7 TD, 1 INT through 3 games: 117.23 vs Texas with 0 TD and 2 INT. Wallace averaged 26.0 yds per catch coming in. He had 16.6 YPC vs Texas. Prior 3 OSU opponents inflicted a total of 2 sacks, 13 TFLs and 7 PBUs. The Texas defense virtually equaled that in one game: 2 sacks, 12 TFLs, 6 PBUs.

The difference between spectacular success and spectacular failure is much smaller in the passing game than the running game. Shifting from the later to the former produces far more volatile outcomes and thus makes upsets more likely. That's one reason why the major powers in the SEC stuck with run-based offenses for so long. There are tons of implications their fans haven't even realized they need to think about yet.

There are 3 very good teams at the top of the conference: Alabama, LSU and Georgia. There is one good team below that group – Auburn. The jury is still very much out on Florida. Sure they are highly ranked and undefeated but they’ve played no one of consequence. Their best win was over Miami. Based on the ‘canes other games, Gata is a lot better than Bethune-Cookman and comparable to UNC (in football anyway). The situation with aggy has some parallels to Florida. Loss to Clemson says they’re nowhere near the top tier. Wins over Texas State and Lamar indicate they are well above rock bottom. Unlike UF, aggy has played a good team (Auburn) and lost in rather humiliating fashion. They shouldn’t be ranked and probably won’t be once the polls are in for this week. Historically aggy is the definition of mediocre and there is reason to believe this year will be more of the same. What sits (mostly) below aggy is just dog crap. 4 of those teams have shown themselves to be on the level of FCS / G5 by losing to teams of that description. And only Mizzou @ Wyoming could be classified as a true road game. Tennessee losing to Georgia State and Arkansas to San Jose State, the worst team in the Mountain West are both going to leave a mark. After those dregs, there are 3 other SEC teams that already have losses to lower-tier teams from other P5 conferences. Not only did Vandy lose to Purdue, they handed the Boilermakers their only win this season. South Carolina of course suffered defeat at the hands of Mack Brown and the Orange Slice Boogaloo. That is looking even less impressive now since the ‘cocks couldn’t match the obvious institutional advantages of Wake and Appalachian State. Those who watched KSU beat Mississippi State saw the Wildcats seriously outplay their opponent but kept them in the game with butterfingers. While Ole Miss was already part of the non-P5 loss crowd, we need to add the Cal loss to the ledger. While Kentucky hasn’t added to the list of embarrassing non-conference losses yet, don’t give up on them. They close their season with Louisville so they still have a shot to contribute. At least half the teams in the SEC would be near the bottom of any P5 conference and have proven it on the field. 4 of those 7 teams have gone down to G5-FCS level opponents – multiple times in the case of Tennessee. Kentucky also looks really bad but their schedule was weak enough that they were able to pull out wins over Eastern Michigan and Toledo. They SEC is not a strong conference. They have a few strong teams sitting on top of a huge, steaming pile of manure that composes the majority of the conference. No one with a brain will argue against the strength of the top 3 in conference this year. But the image of the conference being strong is highly misleading and mostly false. Even a mediocre aggy team is virtually guaranteed a bowl every year with 3 pathetic non-conference scrubs, Arkansas, Ole Miss, South Carolina and MSU on the schedule every year. The top of the SEC is formidable but to make the case for the conference as a whole, ESPN and others have to hide a whole bunch of weak to horribad teams. From the front it looks really scary. The rest of it, not so much.

So far this year 5 of the scheduled auto wins have turned into losses. Wyoming of the mighty Mountain West over Mizzou; FCS Georgia State and BYU beating Tennessee; Memphis defeated Ole Miss. Yesterday probably the worst team in the MWC beat Arkansas.

Add Arkansas to the list with their loss to the mighty Spartans of San Jose State. SJSU was 1-11 in the Mountain West last year.

Game plan was an A. Bring enough edge pressure and force Hubbard to run straight at the DL who mostly dominated the LOS. Mostly play zone behind with 3-4 man pass rushing aiming to contain the QB and force him to make throws. Mix in a few blitzes to create quick pressure. Execution was a B+ IMHO. The D faced sudden change situations 3 times. Stopped OSU cold after the interception. Couldn't stop them after the 2 muffed punts. Stuffed Hubbard on critical short yardage plays several times. Got good pressure on the QB late. That created the 2nd INT and made Gundy unable to trust his QB. I think that's one reason he ran the ball so much even trailing in the 4th Q. That and Orlando aligning the D with 4 or 5 man boxes and daring him to run it at the DL again. OSU's offense was gifted the 2 muffed punts and some really marginal major penalties. Without those I'm not sure they even score one TD. That's a good defensive performance in my book.

I have no doubt CJ would have been out there. Probably at least 3 of his brother Kirk, Stearns, Foster, Overshown, Green, Thompson and Jamison also.

Jimlin? Little White Sumbo?

You should. Your QB played out of his mind for a good part of the 2nd half.