closetojumping

Napoleon House is a good lunch stop. You’re in the thick of things, great history, great people watching. Agreed on the muffuletta there.

Yeah, I forgot to point that out. Karels got in trouble for not attributing a source previously to the Owens injury information since Elko refuses to offer a timetable on it. It's fucking hilarious. Yeah, I was talking earlier about this with a buddy and, if all of this is roughly accurate, the program has three choices: 1) Let the best man win the role and damn the consequences. - The aggies cannot actually do this and be hoisted by their own pitard. They couldn't handle looking that obviously stupid since appearances are a huge insecurity of theirs in the first place. 2) Modify the offense to fit Weigman's needs and hope for the best. - Klein left a place where someone was reigning him in. 3) Run the offense Klein wants to run with Weigman at the helm until he's bludgeoned into requiring the next man up, at which point Weigatron sucked anyways and no one cares that he goes somewhere else and becomes the next Haynes King. - I view this as the most viable path forward. Choosing this route means you only have to listen to Weigman's parents bitch at you a few times and still get what the program believes it now needs.

I posted this update in the aggie 2025 recruiting thread too, as I can't figure out which thread has more people interested in the actual 2024 aggie season versus just the ongoing banter about aggie stupidity and such, so for those interested in a team update from 247: I feel like I'm getting a feel for diciphering Carter Karels coded messages being sent into the atmosphere for the outside world while captured deep behind The Elk's occupationist lines. I've spoilered the full post from a Wednesday practice update, but here are highlights, as far as I know them from reading his code plus what my friends are hearing or knowing as well: -They're starting to softpedal the notion that Marcel Reed is a better fit at QB for Klein's offense. I'm starting to see this pop up from both mods and also posters known to have some access. The logic is as basic and stereotypical as we would expect (which does make the cynic in me pause) - they don't have speed at the skill positions and they're going to need a mobile QB to make the offense click. Klein wants to run the QB, a lot, and they cannot comfortably do that with Weigatron. This is something to keep an eye on. If Liucci starts touting Reed before the ND game as well, the dam is breaking. -In spite of all of their efforts regarding bringing in guys from the portal, they're about to be playing Sanford as the LB next to York. York is undersized and slow. Sanford is very fast but, if prior reports have any merit, tends to just run around a lot. -Another similar instance is at CB, where the second starter is lining up to be Jayvion Thomas, rather than any of the portal transfer such as Ricks (5 star) and Lee (the esteemed KSU savior). There is no spin capable of washing off the stains of the claims made for the others. Hell, Liucci was talking all of them up on the radio yesterday. Right. -They really, really lack offensive speed and they're starting to realize it. One guy is yearning on their boards for the tiny true freshman to play and he has trouble finding the fields for practice. None of the older WRs can beat anyone deep or out of a cut. Actually the one guy who can do that isn't close to healthy and might not play this year (the transfer from one of the FCS schools they were touting in the spring). They have no one at TB that can get around the edge consistently. -Gabriel Brownlow Dindy has shown up healthy for the first time in his career. These guys seem to believe that that pussy will stay that way. Color me dubious. -Depsite DJ Hicks having the 5 star pedigree and being paid $1M per year, Regis is outplaying him. Karels could never say this, but Hicks is the definition of "dead money" if he's not starting and playing regularly. Elko wants to play Regis. This is a coaching/booster conflict waiting to happen and worth watching this season. -Outside of the QB hinting, the OL update is the biggest and funniest shit I've seen from them. ---Fatheree is nowhere to be found in the starting lineup and may not be running second team at RT. He still "isn't the same" since his mysterious injury like 18 months ago. I think this guy is being pushed through the program to get his degree and move on and they'd rather not have him publicly leave as another OL bust. ---The presumptive starting RT is the former KU guard that transferred in after being processed by Leipold. This is really fucking hilarious. ---They "need" Bisontis and Nabou to be badasses at both G positions because of problems at RT and C. This OL is going to be one of the worst OLs in P4 and they're going to get QBs killed. Defenses will not have to play off the ball with concern toward anyone getting behind them or any TBs beating them to the edge.

I feel like I'm getting a feel for diciphering Carter Karels coded messages being sent into the atmosphere for the outside world while captured deep behind The Elk's occupationist lines. I've spoilered the full post from a Wednesday practice update, but here are highlights, as far as I know them from reading his code plus what my friends are hearing or knowing as well: -They're starting to softpedal the notion that Marcel Reed is a better fit at QB for Klein's offense. I'm starting to see this pop up from both mods and also posters known to have some access. The logic is as basic and stereotypical as we would expect (which does make the cynic in me pause) - they don't have speed at the skill positions and they're going to need a mobile QB to make the offense click. Klein wants to run the QB, a lot, and they cannot comfortably do that with Weigatron. This is something to keep an eye on. If Liucci starts touting Reed before the ND game as well, the dam is breaking. -In spite of all of their efforts regarding bringing in guys from the portal, they're about to be playing Sanford as the LB next to York. York is undersized and slow. Sanford is very fast but, if prior reports have any merit, tends to just run around a lot. -Another similar instance is at CB, where the second starter is lining up to be Jayvion Thomas, rather than any of the portal transfer such as Ricks (5 star) and Lee (the esteemed KSU savior). There is no spin capable of washing off the stains of the claims made for the others. Hell, Liucci was talking all of them up on the radio yesterday. Right. -They really, really lack offensive speed and they're starting to realize it. One guy is yearning on their boards for the tiny true freshman to play and he has trouble finding the fields for practice. None of the older WRs can beat anyone deep or out of a cut. Actually the one guy who can do that isn't close to healthy and might not play this year (the transfer from one of the FCS schools they were touting in the spring). They have no one at TB that can get around the edge consistently. -Gabriel Brownlow Dindy has shown up healthy for the first time in his career. These guys seem to believe that that pussy will stay that way. Color me dubious. -Depsite DJ Hicks having the 5 star pedigree and being paid $1M per year, Regis is outplaying him. Karels could never say this, but Hicks is the definition of "dead money" if he's not starting and playing regularly. Elko wants to play Regis. This is a coaching/booster conflict waiting to happen and worth watching this season. -Outside of the QB hinting, the OL update is the biggest and funniest shit I've seen from them. ---Fatheree is nowhere to be found in the starting lineup and may not be running second team at RT. He still "isn't the same" since his mysterious injury like 18 months ago. I think this guy is being pushed through the program to get his degree and move on and they'd rather not have him publicly leave as another OL bust. ---The presumptive starting RT is the former KU guard that transferred in after being processed by Leipold. This is really fucking hilarious. ---They "need" Bisontis and Nabou to be badasses at both G positions because of problems at RT and C. This OL is going to be one of the worst OLs in P4 and they're going to get QBs killed. Defenses will not have to play off the ball with concern toward anyone getting behind them or any TBs beating them to the edge.

That graphic, those logos, oh man.

How about you imbeciles wait until the actual new layout, replete with a logical plan for the press, is publicly announced and put on display? Maybe after that, if you need to whine and plea for the fucking media, your arguments might have a prayer of making sense.

Here’s the thing they’re not discussing: Ffrench has around 20 family members in Baton Rouge. Some of them are apparently directly attached to the mom in ways that a guy going to college isn’t going to relish. Getting a home cooked meal? Sure. Getting narced out to mom about girl chasing or being late to class, no fun. So, sure, I won’t be surprised to see him visit Baton Rouge again either. It’s a good reason to see family and catch a great CFB atmosphere. You all saw where LSU’s collective has hired a guy with the aspiration of raising $14M by next summer, right? They’re so far from NIL competitive in football that they don’t even know what tail to chase. I’m not saying Ffrench signs with Texas. I’m just saying that he is not signing with LSU.

There were no bigger shills for Fisher during his reign of error in aggieland on the national media level than Jacob Hester and EJ Manual. Both played for him and were completely incapable of seeing or discussing any chinks in the armor. I like them generally and would just turn the channel when they started touting or apologizing for whatever was happening in BCS. Now, they brush everything that happened aside as sort of a weird, unexplainable mystery that cannot be fathomed. No one can fully figure out the intricacies of the Fisher Era. It just sort of unraveled. That’s it. They actually went down that path after getting off the call with Liucci. Mostly, there was zero examination of all of the mistakes made during the Fisher tenure and more a questioning of what it is that goes on in College Station that leads to no conference championships in a quarter century and no national titles in 85 years. I’ve heard many media members discuss the Fisher failure since he was fired. The biggest actual mystery is how none of them can beyond a very superficial analysis of Elko as part of the Fisher era. He carries no blame whatsoever for the culture, the roster, or the outcomes. Anything good that happened, that dude was clearly part of it. Anything bad? Well, it all fell apart when The Elk migrated elsewhere.

Liucci was on Off Campus yesterday with Hester and EJ Manual. It was quite the hoot. Liucci took turns: pimping the secondary as a strength, downplaying the loss of Reuben Owens as a nonfactor, touting the talent on the OL, lauding The Elk and his herd as the perfect salve for their ails from the impish and clearly (Looch thinks that anyone paying attention “knew” that Jimbo just wasn’t getting it done) incompetent Bilbo Aggins, and, of course, preaching the virtues of Weigatron as a Heisman candidate. The highlight for me was when he named the LSU game as the game this year that all of the aggies are circling.

Yes. He had more money on the table to stay than any offer presumably out there by a wide margin.

The sooners scrimmaged again yesterday and the offense still sucked. They're dealing with a lot of injuries on the OL and at WR, but they're not calling any of them serious besides the WR that went down for the season. They're also apparently canceling the third scrimmage scheduled this weekend because they're having wide spread depth issues and injury concerns. Here's the update from Sooners Illustrated: With just over two weeks remaining ahead of the season opener on August 30th, Oklahoma held their second official scrimmage of fall camp on Wednesday afternoon in Norman. Intel is coming into Sooners Illustrated on how things went, so without further delay let's get into it: – The top question everyone is going to immediately have, of course, was if this scrimmage was more balanced than the first one, in which the defense virtually dominated from start to finish. To put it simply, this scrimmage was more evenly matched than the first one - but still heavily led by the defense. A source described the action as still being "dominated" by the defense but with the offense being more overall productive than the first time, with them breaking through into the endzone "a few times" as opposed to just the once on Friday. – Quarterback Jackson Arnold, similarly to the offense, also had a better day overall but still with some struggles mixed in. Arnold threw another interception at the very beginning of the action, but in total had a better outing. This is all to be expected for a first-year starting quarterback going against an experienced defense - without starters at both offensive line and wide receiver (more on that below). It's all a learning curve for him right now. And no, there is no quarterback controversy here. Arnold is 100 percent the guy in Week 1. – Some important context to all this to keep in mind as well is the offense is extremely banged up right now - in particular along the offensive line. True freshman Josh Aisosa got the start at center on Wednesday in place of Branson Hickman, who is one of a medley of guys dealing with some "bumps and bruises" as Brent Venables termed it on Tuesday. The wide receiver room is also dealing with some injuries as well, so Oklahoma is playing it safe with that position following Jayden Gibson's season-ending knee injury. – With all that in mind, I'm told there is a very real possibility that OU will skip out on what is supposed to be their third and final scrimmage on Saturday. That is not set in stone, by any means, but is possible as they try and keep guys rested. None of the injuries, outside of Gibson, are serious but the Sooners still want to be cautious and doing so wouldn't be unheard of by any stretch. We'll see if they end up electing to go through with it, but the fact it's a discussion should give everyone an idea of the how banged up some spots are and how physical this camp has been this month.

Yeah, I read that dude's post and noticed, outside of many other fantasy takes, that he's added star rankings to both Bisontis and Dewberry. Neither guy was a 5 star by any service.

He was just using the discussion to insert some manipulated A Few Good Men dialogue.

Please just shut the fuck up with this uninteresting, tired pedantry. Christ.

For those who care, I've posted and spoilered below a comical practice update from ATM 247's Carter Karels. The guy tries, but if you read just this article, you can see how kowtowed these guys are by Elko and his staff. The guy can't really say anything at all. He doesn't mention that Terry Bussey has been moved full time to TB even though the word has leaked all over the place. Similarly, they had a few other injuries that were serious enough for guys to start missing practices, even if they're not out for the year. Who? Don't know but it sounds like someone on the OL. You can see Karels try to work around it. How healthy is a program if the staff is this paranoid about anything being said about this team? The restrictions are fucking absurd.

What is your problem with beer leagues, sir? That Friday night game will be the beginning of the end for a one Stanley Drayton. Temple looks like a bottom 15 G5 team this year.

People who never played WR will see a guy have a bad practice or two catching the ball and assume that that player is a problem. If the player has always dropped passes, sure. If not, it's nothing and ignorable. Nothing crystallizes your position like an enemy on the horizon. Getting into game mode will cut and clarify for someone like Cook.

Juan Davis is absolutely this year's David Aaron/Courtnee Garcia type who is all set to have all kinds of stats springing to life with his fucking breakout year. It's super exciting and believable to see this!

I hated Woolfolk being awesome at OU. It was a pleasure seeing him bust in the pros.

Oh JFC.

That motherfucker is going to have them winning again. I simultaneously respect it and despise it. I’d love to see a home and home with them in the future. I don’t think they have the heart or the cajones for it, but it would be fun. I listened to Adam Carriker on XM 84 earlier this week talking with some hosts about Nebraska and their outlook this year. One side tangent they got on was old rivalries and such. He said that “I know I’ll catch hell for saying it here in Nebraska, but I miss playing Texas and I think most players would agree” and even the hosts were shocked.

Anyways, I have a friend that is a bit of Georgia honk with friends on that staff. I was surprised to hear him tell me recently that Smart is in Urban Meyer at UF territory with that team if he's not super careful quickly here. They're bringing in guys that are harder to focus and control on critical developments at hand. Hope that's true.

The pollsters have particularly lazy and uncreative this year. I'm guessing the realignment has created some level of uncertainty, so voters just gravitate towards big brands. Unless you're Washington, then you can fuck off. There are several schools that should absolutely be ranked and aren't: Auburn - everyone hates the QB and remembers the NMSU loss to a level that merits them hardly getting any votes? They had one of the worst WR corps in the country last year. Freeze has recruited well and stocked well from the portal. Irrespective of his issues, the guy can fucking coach. This is year 2. They have Bama and Georgia, but the schedule is otherwise either favorable or manageable depending upon your view of the SEC as a conference this year. ULM, Vandy, Alabama A&M, New Mexico - that's 4 automatic wins (NMSU jokes aside). They can and should beat Cal, Arkansas and ATM at home. Between OU, @Mizzou, @ Kentucky, you don't have to squint too hard to get to 8-4/9-3, which would either be well inside the top 25. Memphis - they return basically their entire offense and 6 of their starting front 7. They catch FSU at a good time and otherwise should have 10 or 11 wins. They could be 12-0 with the right breaks. Boise State - Outside of a road game to Oregon, their schedule is favorable, they have a ton back, and the new regime allegedly knows what they're doing well enough for everyone to be excited. Virginia Tech - This one actually baffles me. They have a standout QB, a soft non-con, avoid FSU, UNC, SMU, ND, NC State, and Louisville in conference. They return 20 of 22 starters on the two deep. That's a team that should be solidly in anyone's top 25. Other thoughts: -Georgia Tech returns a bunch from a solid team and they don't even get a single vote. -Utah basically has like 2 games on their schedule that present a challenge. They're an old team that is tough and talented. They should be well inside the top 10. -FSU is a lazy, lazy pick. They lost a ton of talent, the QB has been a fucking joke his whole career, and their schedule is brutal. I don't expect them to be ranked by season's end. -ATM is an even lazier pick. They lost way more talent to the portal than they gained, they're razor thin with depth across the board and they have a ton of unknowns with a new regime. Everyone is giving those idiots the benefit of the doubt with a turnaround for no actual, discernible reason. Because of the 247 transfer rankings? Liucci blowing harder than ever? That The Elk is talking tough about cultural turnaround? They're staring down the barrel of 6-6. -Everything I just said about ATM outside of regime change is applicable to Miami and USC, except both play tougher schedules than ATM. Terrible voting.

I really sense an undercurrent of passion between the three of @Scholz, @Pdawg88 and @ChiTownDoc. I feel like there could be some real fireworks if these three got together in person and bonded.

That's a stretch, but correct directionally.