sushihorn

If you use 2020 as a baseline for turnout, you will be very disappointed. Without mass mail balloting, turnout is down pretty much everywhere. Here in Texas, that is less of a factor since we didn’t get elevated numbers from mail but return to normal early voting will have an impact here What we are seeing is depressed urban turnout, which reflects national trends. Target Smart has our early vote as 32% rural, 37% suburban and 31% urban. By comparison, the 2020 early vote 13 days out was 21% rural, 35% suburban and 44% urban. That’s an 11 point shift from urban to rural, with another 3 points bleeding to the suburbs. A swing state example: the early electorate in NC is 6.6% more rural than in 2020. Two thirds of that is at the expense of the cities. That same trend in NV is driving the wild EV numbers out of that state.

Bama still hasn’t figured out the delayed blitz.

I don’t know about good but better than Bama for sure. I’m probably overreacting to the offensive shot show.

Neither team is passing effectively. D-Lines are legit. O-Lines, not so much.

Unlike FSU, Pussy is still undefeated.

Michigan shutout of Iowa looks much more impressive now. 😂🤣

As a diploma mill, I don’t think it’s any worse than OU or Mississippi State. I realize that’s a low bar but…

Organizations built to operate under Black Market conditions rarely maintain their position as that market sector is legalized. Free markets require very different skill sets.

Bush. And I don’t mean the president. no CR

I focused on UW in the other write ups since I’m writing for Texas fans and figure that most of us know our own team:: UW Offensive Line UW Defense

I don’t see UW having any consistent running between the tackles. Their off tackle runs are going to require their OL to get good movement against our edges and combo up to the LBs. If our play side DE and LB can force the run wide, I like the odds of pursuit and safety support stopping Johnson from turning the corner. Remember Reggie Bush bounced stuff outside and turned it up for big gains all season in 2005. When he faced the speed of Texas he couldn’t do that and Lendale White became the bigger threat. I expect that sort of effect if our defensive front can avoid giving UW a soft corner in the run game.

Salary caps can only exist under a true cartel arrangement. Those arrangements are only possible in pro sports because the league structures sit above the teams and have special antitrust exemptions granted by Congress. 1) The big boys of CFB aren’t going to let anyone dictate to them, much less impose parity. 2) The NCAA created NIL to organize a system that already existed as a Black Market. It’s recognition of reality rather than an exercise of power. 3) Lack of parity is one of the things that makes college sports so great. Low expectations and high upside incentivize Have Not programs to take risks. Think 1970s BYU, Air Raid at Kentucky and Texas Tech or the Spread rushing attack at WVU.

I wish this was a complete joke but FSU is already talking about private equity partnerships. Foreign sovereign wealth funds is a short step from there.

I know it’s Vance Bedford but there’s some good Xs and Os here:

It’s a return to their glory days of the Chase Daniels years. 😂

Quinn is definitely underrated as a passer but he’s not better than Penix. The Longhorn receivers’ superpower is YAC and our coaching staff creates a lot of favorable matchups and coverage busts. So Ewers gets a lot of receiver running (especially screens) tacked on and easy pitch and catch to wide open men. Penix gets help from his guys but he’s having to get the ball downfield with high accuracy just to create the jump ball situations.

They are statistically #1 after facing dog crap offenses week after week. Michigan has a good defense that looks other worldly against their schedule. We can all point to very low scoring offenses on your slate. Tell me how great the top 3 offenses are that Michigan has faced. Mizzou held the Buckeyes down more effectively. Ole Miss was mot quite as good vs Pedo State. But those are the statistical comps vs your best opponents.

Haven’t seen a televised pounding like this since Oz went off the air.

FSU defense started with a bang before opting out.

They’ve been fighting Kasserine Pass over and over since then…

Did you watch your own video? The guy gets pushed towards the runner by the block while the RB is stumbling. DTs need to be explosive and this dude takes 4-5 steps to really get going, even with a push start in the right direction from the OL. I’d hate to see how slow he would be if forced to change direction or accelerate on his own. USEFUL Speed for linemen is measured in the first few steps, not at the end of a 40 yard dash.

Some of the bowl games have been so dull, I watched some Washington regular season games on my tablet during them. A few observations to add re: their Defense. The D-Line plays pretty straight up against the run. They try to control their gap and hold their ground - not a lot of penetration. They are honoring their gap responsibilities and eating up blocks. Because they don’t penetrate much it’s much harder for them to transition from run defense to pass rush. I suspect that is a major reason why they have such a low sack total: 19 in 540 Attempts or 3.51%. That compares to 6.45% for the Horns. I’m fact, the Texas D-Line alone has more sacks than the entire Washington Defense. Because of their difficulty transitioning, play action tends to be more effective slowing their pass rush. Not only do they have to switch from holding their ground to penetrating, they also lose a lot of the games they use to generate an effective pass rush: stunting, looping, fake pressure and zone drops. They are limited to pass rushing in the gap they are assigned for run defense. Their pass rush is a completely different animal when they have to play the run first.

I’m struggling to control my optimism. CFB is largely confined to regional cells, isolated from each other. It’s hard to compare records, stats or even SoS when there are virtually no common opponents and few second degree comparisons until the end of the year. Now we are getting data Frankly, Texas’ opponents have performed much better than Washington’s have. The difference has been so great that it’s tempting to regard UW’s season stats as fools gold. I’m more focused on the defensive results which are less likely to be severely skewed by a few opt outs than offenses. And frankly the PAC-12 slate plus Boise have looked bad. Arizona smacked Oklahoma’s scout team but they gave up over 200 rushing yards and 350 passing yards to a Freshman quarterback seeing his first real action and a 3rd string tailback playing behind a salvage yard O-Line. 363 yards passing and 111 on the ground doesn’t look that impressive now, does it? Boise faced UCLA which UW did not this year. The Bruins had slightly lower offensive output than Washington but with a hugely different distribution. UCLA had 280 rushing to (78) for UW and 230 to (478) passing. Oregon St gave up 110 rushing 162 passing to UW vs 232 and 236 to the Domers. Cal surrendered 256 passing to Texas Tech vs to (389) for UW and 128 to (140) rushing. Utah v Northwestern: 225 (332) passing, 65 (125) rushing USC v Louisville: 141 (256) passing, 220 (316) rushing Oregon vs Liberty TBD TL;DR - With a bunch of decent teams matching up, UW’s offense looks pretty comparable to their schedule’s bowl matchups. Their offensive results are clearly superior to Louisville and Northwestern but inferior to ND. Running results are very similar to TTU and OU’s replacements but way below UCLA. Not suggestive of anything more than an average ground attack.

Casual fans and shallow analysts focus on offense and especially on spectacular big plays. The long jump balls by Penix and company are tailor made to appeal to this crowd. Same for the over focus on the 2 games against an undisciplined UO making people think Washington will run the ball well. When we look at line play and running game, those less understood aspects are definitely against UW. No one has run on Texas other than OU and they needed to get most of their rushing yardage from the QB position. Even the most optimistic see Penix as a borderline serviceable runner, not someone who is going to require a dedicated spy. The UW DL plays very conservative in run defense. It’s gap sound but tough to convert into a pass rush if there is play action. There’s a good reason why they get relatively few sacks and TFLs. Considering the number of pass attempts they have faced, 19 sacks is a very small number. Their OL will try to run enough power and inside zone to keep our DTs at home. But they will probably rely on runs outside the tackles to produce drive sustaining yards. We all saw how easily Oregon surrendered the edge at the line and how often Arizona did the same in the Alamo. That Husky O-Line is going to face a totally different challenge trying to kick out DL who are already shooting gaps.

Washington’s OL is good because of coaching, precision and teamwork. If they get angry because of bulletin board comments they are likely to perform worse, not better. That’s especially true if they try to get aggressive with bigger, stronger, better athletes on the Texas DL.