sushihorn

The attention to detail and perfectionism in designing and coaching defensive schemes doesn't really lend itself to choosing the (inevitably flawed) humans to run them at times.

Hey aggy, Tom's your Old Hickory.

They got the new coach bump in the 2019 class and now think that's how they will recruit every year. Just like "beating" LSU at home in multiple OTs with a ton of help from the zebras means they now will beat Tigah every year. Anything bad that happens to them, no matter how many times in a row is an anomaly. Anything good that happens to them once is the new normal.

I'm pretty sure Looch is a sub to Texags...

aggy hypocrisy unchained. When they get a couple of decent commits it's "ZOMG! We gots MOMENTUM!!!!"

We've only seen a couple of Tom Herman's recruits at this position hitting the field so far. Cosmi and Kerstetter have performed well above their recruiting service rankings. I'm really looking forward to what the 2018 OL can do now that they've had a chance to redshirt and learn how the position is played at Texas.

The really great hatreds in history are often between people who are very much alike and can't stand to admit it.

It's easy when you've been dealing with irrational numbers your whole life.

Carpetsider? Innerbagger?

Lies lies lies, yeah...

It's pretty wildly out of character. Since 2015, they've taken exactly ONE 3-star OL. It's quite strange to see them take 3 of them in one year. It's also fairly deep into the 2020 recruiting cycle so these aren't early evaluations either. I would bet on one or maybe two of them being significantly underrated.

It's Fatball(TM) par excellence. The problem is that they are trying to counter Bama's defense from 5-10 years ago. It's like nobody noticed that Saban just jammed up the interior running lanes using a 290 lb DT. Did anybody notice that Texas stuffed a much better running game than LSU's with a front four weighing 255-310-275-245? Georgia had a quicker and more athletic line than LSU does. They were also even bigger: 340-320-308-335-330. None of that helped them much.

At least he can feel confident the kid is his. FIFY

One correction (addition really). The list of extremely talented teams that Texas has faced recently should also include USC. The 2018 Trojans feautured the #4, #4, #10 and #2 recruiting classes in the nation and also were dominated by Tom Herman's Longhorns. The 2017 Trojans needed OT to pull it out against a much younger and less talented Texas squad. Superior talent and ordinary schemes are not a formula for success against Herman-coached football teams. LSU has a small talent edge and a frankly poor offensive system. It will take an extraordinary performance from their defense to overcome that.

[narrator voice] It's not. [/narrator voice]

Good for Caden. Too bad there's not a Jack Tatum Award. If there were BJ Foster would definitely be on the list.

Observations are based on last season and a bit of their spring game. I've been working on this in my spare time for a couple of months. The detailed unit breakdowns are not done yet but I wanted to drop this now since surly seems to be getting antsy with peak offseason in effect. ==================================== LSU has some excellent athletes but not much better than Texas overall. Starting with the 2019 recruiting class, LSU was ranked #5, #15, #7 and #2 nationally. The Horns will field the #3, #3, #25 and #7 classes so their talent will be comparable but younger. I have to give LSU the edge here because their upperclassmen are very highly rated and their DEVELOPED talent will be superior. But the SCHEMES are very different and the most relevant comparison of players probably isn’t LSU v Texas but LSU v UGa. From the 30,000 foot view those programs are very similar. LSU’s recruiting is excellent but clearly below Georgia’s (#1, #3, #6 and #6 classes as of the 2019 Sugar Bowl). Both run pretty conservative run-centric offenses with enormous offensive lines. Georgia has more athletic OL and a much better passer at QB; Burrow’s mobility can only partially offset that. The Bulldogs also had REALLY good RBs; LSU is good there but not in the same class. WRs are a wash. I’ll detail these areas in the breakdown of the offense. The bottom line here is that LSU’s offense is much less dangerous than that of UGa. The only area of advantage is the QB’s ability to make some off schedule plays with his feet. We have a fantastic defensive coordinator who majors in shutting down one-dimensional offensive schemes and LSU is a textbook example of that. Their offense is not something to be greatly feared. The defense is really LSU’s calling card. Their DC is outstanding and they can be VERY disruptive at times. While they may have less talent on paper than Georgia, I expect them to do a better job of stopping drives. LSU’s D creates a lot of sacks, TFLs and turnovers. It’s the last that concerns me the most because turnovers and field position can make their pedestrian offense look effective. For example the Tigers scored 36 points on Georgia but they needed a massive win in TO margin (+4) to do it. The defense is very dangerous to LSU’s opponents and somewhat dangerous to themselves as their risk taking also means they give up big plays. That risk-taking and high variance in possible results makes the range of potential outcomes much wider and the most likely result is less predictable than was the case against Georgia’s read and react style of D. If LSU goes +4 in TO margin and doesn’t give up multiple big plays they win going away like they did against UGa. For you stat geeks, I’d characterize LSU as a somewhat lower mean with a significantly higher standard deviation then UGa. If they don’t get big plays from their defense and ST, I expect a comfortable Texas win. If turnovers and the kicking game are fairly even, I expect a close win for the Longhorns. People will say that the Longhorns have not seen this level of talent and technically they’d be right outside of the Sugar Bowl. What those people ignore is that Texas has seen equal or better schemes on the defensive side of the ball from TCU and ISU. The Horns have seen FAR superior schemes on the offensive side of the ball – often executed with near the same level of athletes. But the reverse is far from true. Aranda himself is probably the only DC in the SEC who comes close to Todd Orlando’s level in terms of disguising coverages and blitz packages. And no one in the SEC combines a highly accurate passer with a power spread ground game. For me the bottom line is that LSU is not as good a team as Georgia but they have the potential to be more dangerous because they are more disruptive on defense. Texas dominated UGa because of +2 in turnovers but probably wins a close game in a zero margin scenario. The Horns have a better set up against LSU, especially adding in the home field. This game is Texas’ to win but they need to avoid multiple turnovers (or have the Horn’s defense match them) to make that potential a reality.

Jimbo would need to be a much bigger man to piss that far down his leg.

Nice classical reference.

I'm simply responding to your statement that Texas needs a top 5 recruiting class every year. That wasn't an ambiguous statement on your part at all. I agree that those rankings can be flawed which is PRECISELY why I put the QBs into the ranking structure that YOU demanded be used. Now you want to come back and attack the rankings and pretend it's some sort of disagreement with me. You are all over the place here and not making much sense at all. I've responded to your statements point by point while trying to avoid making it personal. But this is really reaching the point of absurdity.

I agree that Dabo does more with less. Tom Herman also has a record of doing that though not at the top level yet. He beat OU and FSU with top 60 recruiting classes at Houston. The talent remaining on campus in 2018 was likely borderline top 20 excluding the true freshmen. They played like it at times but they also thumped much more talented teams in Southern Cal and Georgia. They split with a CFP bound OU. JUCOs are already accounted for in recruiting rankings. You might argue that they are undervalued but they aren't ignored. As for the OU transfer QBs you have a point but again it's not a major impact on the rankings. Baker Mayfield was a low 3-star coming out of HS. If he'd signed with OU originally that would have LOWERED their class ranking. It was superior evaluation by Tech and OU. Kyler Murray was top rated so let's see what would have happened to rankings if he had gone to Norman out of HS. Murray's 247 composite score was 0.9855. OU's 2015 class averaged 0.8820 in a class of 29. Adding Murray would have brought the average of that class up to 0.8855. In terms of ratings, Murray would have barely moved the needle for 2015, not moving the average per recruit more than one spot for that year. Over an 8 year period that impact would be a rounding error. Including Mayfield and Murray in OU's signing classes would have almost no effect - which is a demonstrated weakness of recruiting rankings. That's one reason I'm not stressed over #6-10 vs top 5. Georgia was a clear top 5 talent pool. USC was also a top 5 talent pool with classes ranked #2, #10, #4 and #4. Both were not just beaten but DOMINATED by a Tom Herman team that was far less talented on paper. Top 10 every year and top 5 half the time ought to produce a really good team under this coaching staff. With back to back #3 classes that seems like the floor right now.

Clemson moves up somewhat if you re-rank by avg instead of total class ranking. But they are still not anything like consistently top 5. Clemson's 2013 recruiting class would not move at all if ranked by average - still at #15. Their 2014 recruits would be #15 instead of #16. 2015 class becomes #12 instead of #9. 2016 goes from #11 to #9. 2017 2017 is the big mover from #16 to #5. 2018 goes from #7 to #4. By this criteria, they won the 2016 NC with the #15, #15, #12 and #9 classes. That's an average well outside of the top 10 again - much less the top 5. Clearly some combination of evaluation, development, coaching and scheme is more than sufficient for the #13 talent pool based on average to beat the clear and overwhelming #1. You have a better case for 2018. Average rating would be #8 (12, 11, 5 and 4) so even there we are talking top 10, not top 5 and the talent was heavily skewed to the younger players. That actually looks a lot like the talent situation in Austin now, with a bigger gap to make up with the upperclassmen.

Good point. I was only looking at the CFP era. Tressel also fits the mold of what Dabo has done at Clemson.

Very common and getting more so actually. I know a dude from San Antonio who looks like Benicio del Toro and sounds like Ross Perot. Proudly refers to himself as Hickspanic.

That's mostly true but there are some really big exceptions. Clemson fielded the #9, #11, #16 and #7 classes with their most recent team. Not one top 5 class. Their 2016 championship team had the #16, #9, #9 and #11 classes. OU hasn't won it all but they've made the CFP 3 times. From 2011-2016 they didn't have a single top 10 class - much less a top 5 class. They got a #8 class in 2017 and #9 in 2018; still no top 5 classes. OU usually has ranked in the 11-20 range. It's always better to have more talent rather than less. But the only schools that meet the consistent top 5 criteria are Alabama, Ohio State and Georgia, maybe LSU. Clemson and Oklahoma have better results than any of the last 3. The issue for Texas isn't that recruiting classes have been "only" top 10. The program suffered from poor recruiting on both lines and then overall depletion of talent due to 2 coaching changes. Herman's 2017 transition class was ranked #25 but it's contributing as much or more to the OL as the #7 ranked 2016 class.