closetojumping

TMI does a similar thing with the offense and Al Borges akin to the defensive side and Vance Bedford. Not much Texas talk, but a good examination of the Fresno game. -Borges cautions about the need for time together in real games before you can truly expect an OL to gel. The Michigan guys are all sort of desperately hoping that there is an enormous jump in OL performance between week one and week two, which Borges doesn't buy. -Borges reinforces their hope that the playbook was held back. He calls it "vanilla Michigan" and then says the lack of a reverse or flea flicker indicates this. They're so myopic in their worldview that they all seem oblivious to the notion that vanilla Michigan is Michigan. No one is sandbagging an offense due to not running a single reverse or gadget play. That's idiotic. They ran their running plays out of various formations, but those are the Michigan running plays. -A lot of the mistakes can be corrected because "they were technique errors", so, you know, just get that technique right in 7 days after spending all offseason working on such matters. -Borges graded the overall offense a C+ and that's largely because he's being paid by a Michigan site for the output. He didn't have a whole lot of conviction in that grade.

Here's a regular segment on the Michigan defense versus the upcoming opponent's offense with Vance Bedford from The Michigan Insider. I've spoilered it due to length, but here are a few items that are helpful in reminding me, at least, why Vance Bedford is no longer getting coaching gigs: -Steve Sarkisian is apparently a "gadget guy" because he uses screens and RPO in his playcalling. -Texas no longer has speed at WR. -To his credit, he does pick Texas to win 27-17, so he doesn't go full heel.

Hell, no one is really talking about the dogshit that is the Michigan offense overall. -They have one certain future NFL guy across 11 positions and that is the TE. -The QBs are a fucking joke. -The WRs wouldn't make the Texas 3 deep. Not one of them would have been recruited to Texas. -The tailbacks are more smoke than fire. Edwards can blast through an open hole with the best of them, but if he has to move, he's fucked. The other TB is plain as grits. -The center was a 3 star love affair recruitment for Harbaugh and is playing ahead of 2 top 250 guys. Other guys are transfers or new starters and collectively they all looked mediocre against a front 7 that has zero future NFL players on it. Apparently none of that matters because the Michigan defense is the college incarnation of the 1985 Bears. It's fucking ridiculous.

Conner and Majors have never been good runblockers, but the same shit was said last year ahead of the Bama game. Bama will bully Texas, Texas won't be able to run the ball, Bama will dictate the game outcome by owning TOP, etc. Hell, maybe all of it is true for Michigan this time, but I doubt the Texas OL, or any unit, isn't amped up for this game and ready to get hats on hats and move the ball.

What the fuck is this line of thinking? We wandered for 13 years in the wilderness and don’t even talk like this.

He has Benjamin Button hair. It’s energizing his brain and invoking his wrath on a mediocre Big 12 and the college football playoff bracket.

You aren’t worth the heat of my piss, dipshit.

Good lord. Tasing scrotums, eating their own shit, what on earth is happening with these idiotic CFB fans? Why can’t people just stick with shitting objects made of gold and setting random other bulletin board posters on fire?

What’s weird is that I thought he was yours.

82% of the bets have been on Texas, as has 73% of the money. Known sharps have so far put money down on Texas. This is per my subscription to the Action Network. Others may have something better. I'm not a big bettor unless I am in Vegas or somewhere like it, but I find the data informative. Experts tracked by TAN for their purposes have all picked Michigan to cover and some on the ML. More usually happens on Th-Fri, I think.

The Bama 2023 defense just had 6 guys drafted from it and Caleb Downs was paid $1M in NIL to transfer to Ohio State. That defense inarguably had more talent on it than what this Michigan defense is fielding.

Yeah, they lost 9 starters on defense and the NB. 1 DT, 2 DEs, 3 LBs, 1 NB, 1 CB, 2 safeties. Graham is back, Johnson is back. Those guys go early. The backup DT who is now a starter, if he can show that he can overcome his Sydir Mitchell-esque conditioning issues, is allegedly a top 50 guy. The rest? Well, well, well, just rinse and repeat and the new guys are as good as the old guys. Transfers at LB that were not lauded lesser Big 10 programs are suddenly amazing. The program is touting Barham as a high draft pick because he’s a Big 10 thumper. I guess we’re gonna find out. Anyone accusing this Michigan defense as the best defense Texas has faced lately or will face this season is basing that take on what that other Michigan defense did with 3 of the same guys. Similarly, anyone worrying over the Michigan offense is doing so solely off of what they saw from other Michigan offenses in other seasons. They bring one starter back in Loveland. Fully new OL, including transfers, unknowns at QB, lowly rated new WRs, and Edwards (Corum’s backup) and unknowns behind him. The premise that this Michigan is that Michigan is laughable. They had a wholly separate offseason approach from prior seasons, they have a new DC, and they’re replacing Jim fucking Harbaugh. No one should really be expecting a blowout, but no one here is a buffoon for thinking that -7.5 makes sense or even looks good.

Your post doesn’t address how he handled personnel regarding staff and administration. Can he fix how pathetic he was in these regards at Texas? Similarly, his staff’s ability to evaluate well when it comes to roster building would also have to be different as well. Seems like a couple of big asks.

Gerry's posted plenty lately while roadtripping through AL, FL and GA: -seems like he thinks Lacey is still a good pickup -says the state of Georgia is loaded at DT this year and he's bullish on UT's prospects for landing a few of them -he is sky high on Mbatchou after watching him practice in person. Texas has a legitimate shot here and this guy has 5 star upside. -due to Georgia already mostly filling up at the position, the possibility of landing 2 of these guys in Georgia is real -Baker is connected at Grayson, which is a GA high school power, and also where multiple prospects are. -Tyler Atkinson is probably the best LB in the 2026 class and at Grayson. Texas is late to that party but already in the top 5. That one may wind up being one of the nastiest recruitments of the next cycle. -Charles is in play. -Brandon Brown would only be in play if some crazy shit happened with Bo Davis at LSU -Texas is still dead set on taking 4 DTs from the HS ranks Anyway, not all of that is exactly what Gerry said, but I'm divining some things having read his posts.

No one is shitting on him. Are you actually his mother? This post reads like it.

Hate to go on a tangent but this reminded me of a similar issue to the "aggie front 7 is going to be a force!" talking point heading into the season. Just as the FSU DL was touted, in retrospect hilariously, as the best DL in the nation during the offseason, the LSU offensive line was called the best offensive line in the country literally right up to kickoff (Booger McFarland referenced them as much in the pregrame show). Whoops. That OL was manhandled at times. Campbell had two different false starts, Jones got his ass beat on multiple occasions, and the team rushed for 117 yards, 39 of which came on one play. When they needed push in the second half, they couldn't get it. LSU was opting to throw on 3rd and short and to punt on 4th and short late in the game. That was against an improved but likely still mediocre USC defense. I'm sure the rest of the LSU schedule will be more gentle.

Right. Irrespective of outcome this weekend, the UTSA game next weekend might very much look like the Wyoming game last year. Texas is a year older as a program under Sarkisian, so maybe less so, but still to some degree. As to Michigan and that premise, there are issues with the Michigan program that likely play a much larger role than them holding anything back in terms of what we saw with the Fresno game. They lost one of the all-time great head football coaches, his DC, the S&C guy, 18 starters, and several other assistant coaches. Further, they haven't recruited like a typical national title contender. Their rankings average somewhere between 10 and 15. They use the portal intelligently, but they don't use it voluminously - they brought in 8 guys, multiple of whom now start, and lost 22. That all considered, everything about their program is about development. That's great and all until someone leaves ahead of schedule and the replacements aren't ready. I'll argue they got caught with their pants down on that matter at QB. Also, how has that development process changed with the exits of all of that key personnel as well? There is no argument that can credibly made that nothing changed, so did it get better or worse? Given Harbaugh vs Moore in that comparison, I know which direction I think is more likely.

It never impressed me. Texas itself will recruit a top 10-15 class for a staff of complete rubes. Getting to the top 5 is a far bigger deal, and Herman’s crew did that. But as we know, that can be more of a function of how the rankings are calculated than how valuable the class really is. Ohio State is the current embodiment of that and I think those chickens are coming home to roost and have been for a few years. They’re over ranked due to WR, DE and DB signings while basically ignoring the OL, interior DL and LBs. When push literally comes to shove against comparable talent, I’m taking whoever that opponent is to cover against Ohio State.

To be fair, Tarp is basically the only aggie writer in the offseason that would even vaguely hint at what we’ve been hammering here the whole time - the value of the guys coming in from the portal didn’t even vaguely compensate for the talent drain leaving the program. To me, that will get examined more and more as the season goes on and the same asshats who promoted their “portal prowess” both directly to aggie netdom and also at the national football media levels will suddenly be showcasing their eurekas about the imbalance between the incoming and outgoing. Like they’ve discovered it and knew it the whole time and what was anyone else but them thinking in the offseason? Right. The aggies went from being unranked and unconsidered in the “way too early” polls late last winter to ranked #20 to open the season. Nothing changed. They did very little in the late portal cycle. So what happened? The aggie PR team, led by Liucci, talked themselves into their usual “don’t sleep on the fighting Texas Aggies!” narrative, while pointing at the 247 portal ranking, and then fed it straight to Pate and others, and, magically, ATM became a media darling as a playoff darkhorse.

That too, but that is in the more subjective realm, to me, at least. People around the program last year were allegedly frustrated by his aversion to contact. There are guys on here who could add their thoughts if they wanted, in terms of how real or not they think that concern was, but I’m not calling them out to post on it.

This is actually really cool. Please post this weekly. I wouldn’t be surprised if this starts to influence both the committee and the talking heads, making it somewhat important.

His problems are way deeper than that. Reading defenses, being a statue, winding up mechanically - those are all big deals. There are measurable issues with the guy that supercede concerns about the ethereal. Northwestern has a pretty good defense, relatively speaking. We’ll know a lot more about how Murphy is developing after this weekend.

AI isn’t needed. The answer is “yes” and it was posted in this thread at the time about two years ago minus a week or two.

a) what you’re doing is fruitless b) i can’t wait for another big school to take a chance on Herman after he wins 10 or something at FAU. “it worked out well for Ole Miss with Kiffin!!” will be the mindless media refrain. right, same coaches, sure.

I’m going to quote it later when I’m in front of a computer, unless you do it first, but he posted a damning article about big picture thoughts after thinking about the ND loss. You have to know how to read Tarpley, but it’s great when translated.