a) Joey McGuire was steering recruits away from Texas when he was running shit at a football factory. He negative recruited Texas at Baylor in ways that were dishonest. Then he went to Tech and ran his fucking mouth. Don't give yourself too much credit. Those of us who follow recruiting have disliked that drunk motherfucker for a long, long time.
b) We're Texas. You're Tech. We're not "coping" about shit. I'm pointing out the level of commitment it takes to sustain being nationally competitive in this era. Texas is and will be fine. You seem confident in Tech doing same. Clearly, the guys talking to The Athletic feel the same. Good for you guys.
c) I didn't mention ATM, albeit others did. I tend to agree with your thoughts on them relative to anyone else, Texas Tech included.
Today's practice report from a noticeably nervous Carter Karels. I assume that The Elk's media secretary was standing over Karels as he wrote this, holding the Aggie247 media credentials over a small vat of acid.
Highlights:
-Terry Bussey isn't making any sort of move to win the 3rd starting WR job and Karels is hinting that they're thinking about moving him back to the secondary. Let's see, 5 star "ATH" on verge on making second position switch in two years while not making starting lineup. Is that good?
-He tried to paint Reed as performing better and then goes off the rails and highlights him being a member of the Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight while trying to complete passes beyond the 15 yard area.
-Zuhn continues to get highlighted by the aggies playing Center. There's not going to be a good way to spin things if that goes to Center, Fatheree is a starting OT and Nabou replaces somebody at OG.
-Generally speaking, as I've been saying, it looks like it is starting to dawn on these guys that their WR room pretty much sucks. TK Norman, who they have been hyping all offseason as a workout warrior, can't catch a cold. Some guy named Ashton Bethel-Roman might win WR3 by default. Jerome Myles is coming off of severe injury, Bussey we discussed, and then after that, it's a few guys named Bob.
- @Longhornfrenzy and @JesusSweatDuck if you guys pick up any actual practice or team reporting in your work on Texags, please add it here so we can compare notes between the sites and find some actual truths about their outlook in there.
You are perpetually insecure about discussing Tech. No one is saying you don't have a chance. There's also no "message" to come off of here. Tech has never won a fucking thing and until they do, they're an easy target to mock. It's fun and you shitting yourself each time we do it only provides the chemical hit in our brains that we're looking for when we write this stuff.
I, for one, do not wish to ever see Tech close up shop. I enjoy rooting against Tech and making fun of their ongoing ineptitude as an athletic department. I don't know how this will all end with the moneywhipping and not winning, but I do know that it will be hilarious in unintentional ways.
We've broken this down and watched it for years in the recruiting forum. "The only problem for Oregon is that, well, you can't move Oregon." Same holds true for Tech. You guys can find recruits and transfers to moneywhip, there is no doubt. There is also no doubt that the vast majority of recruits and players do not want to live in a dust bowl located 6 hours from anything. At least Eugene is pretty.
The Norman reference doesn't work. OU built their program by cheating. They leveraged their competitive advantage - an ingrained, core-DNA level lack of integrity or shame - to achieve outsized results versus the competition. Their willingness to buy players was often a bridge too far from where Texas or others were willing to go. That's a bygone era.
Being able to pay as much or slightly more for given players isn't really a competitive advantage. When Oregon and Texas go head to head and they both really want a guy, it's like a 50/50 split on who wins. Michigan overbids and still loses guys. Same for Bama or Georgia. Yet those places all have tradition and many not named Oregon sit in hotbeds for talent.
Tech has a chance to put a fine roster together, that is not being disputed. Sustaining that and then actually achieving anything with it deservedly being disputed. You guys have never won shit and you have a dipshit for a head coach. Start with a conference title. Hell, just get to the game for once. Then maybe talking beyond that looks something less than laughable to the rest of us.
Also, I know Campbell and the other guy are billionaires, but Texas is fielding a $40M+ roster this year and a big chunk of that is corporate, not only revshare or collective. Tech's going to get virtually zero support from the corporate side. If Tech is fielding a $40-50M roster each year, because that's what sustaining success is going to take, those dudes are going to burn some net worth. They're not Phil Knight or Larry Ellison rich and they don't have the collective wealth of both the UT base and the UT AD.
The counts in Little League are strictly enforced these days. The same is true for select tournaments. I get the skipping back and forth, so if parents are idiots, I guess that's a factor. I know I don't let my kid pitch more than once a week unless the first appearance was minimal, but he's almost always a starter so that isn't often.
I can go along with most of your well-balanced and reasoned post with the exception of one really glaring item.
Your argument regarding the WR situation is the same one I hear every year from people about PSU, whether in the media or in the magazines. Phil Steele last year, paraphrasing, "last year WR was a weak spot because the receivers failed to get separation. this year they bring Julian Fleming (VHT #1!) and I expect them to be improved." If I felt like it, I'd grab the 2023 and check it as well and I bet he'd be saying something similar then, too.
Pena from Syracuse was a fine WR last year. The dude from Troy is supposed to be electric. The guy from USC is more fool's gold. Is that enough to lift the passing game above the fray? I don't see it, and that's especially true when you consider that Warren had a dream season. The next guys at TE might be pretty solid, but that would still be a huge drop off.
In any event, the real issue isn't WR or the OC or anything else other than Franklin himself. He's an obnoxious choker. He gets tight and his team's get tight and then he turtles the playcalling on offense. His record in big games is historically bad. Mack Brown looks at his record against Ohio State and thinks he needs to loosen up. In general, the guy is an overpaid pussy. You guys will never win a national title with that uptight penis-head running your program.
My son is now 11 and these past 12 months in his select world (12U) and Little League (11U+12U), we've been around 6-7 kids with "little league arm" which is basically the pre-pubescent version of serious elbow problems. I don't get it. This isn't an overuse thing given all of the pitch count and rest rules for kids these days.
I've heard it's a burgeoning epidemic in high school, even. In the 80's and 90's, it seemed like maybe a couple of guys a year would tear their UCLs and require TJ surgery. Now the Astros alone have like 5-6 guys going through the process.
Whether it is true or not, some folks I know who've seen Clark at practice seem to think he looks good and healthy. Achilles injuries, similar to but not on the same scale as UCL injuries, are becoming more common. I think the NBA saw more this year than something like the last 5 seasons combined or something. As those injuries become more frequent, repair approaches should improve recovery as well. What I'd like to understand is how both types of injures can also be better prevented.
Regarding LSU:
1) Nussmeier did incur a knee injury at practice yesterday. Initially, reporters were lied to and then did their own lying, claiming nothing was wrong. Since, the answer has become "it's nothing serious". Chris Hummer reported that to Geaux247 earlier today. That's then followed with "he is likely to miss some practices to rest up", which sounds like it's not nothin'.
2) The front 7 has been blowing up play after play during media time. The OL looks so bad that one of the homers has published a story (spoilered below) claiming that some of it is learning curve with 4 new starters, 2 positions of which (RG & LG) the starters still are not known, but a lot of is LSU's newly dominant DL. Right. Nothing to see here, folks. Clemson doesn't have a very good DL for the opener, so LSU should be a-okay.
3) LSU has lost 5 straight openers, several in bizarre fashion including last year's loss to USC. They're about to lose a 6th straight with a shit OL and a gimpy QB.
If you know how to read Tarp, you'll understand that the article below is telling his audience his anxieties about what he's seeing and hearing regarding the secondary's ability to play the run, specifically since it was so terrible at it last year.
Okay, come on. Context matters here. Baylor was an absolute backwater program by the time Briles got the job. They were the bottom of the college football barrel. A complete shithole program. That is not where Tech was when McGuire got the job. Not even close.
McGuire inherited a fucking bowl team. Briles took over a program that hadn't had a winning record in 12 seasons. Baylor went 3-9 the year before with wins over juggernauts Rice, Texas State, and Buffalo. They went 0-8 in the Big 12 and lost in those games to finish the season by a combined score of 352-108.
Thanks for forcing me to somehow sound supportive of or sympathetic to Art Briles.
Not one of those guys would take a job that reports to a guy like Nagy, but the bigger overall issue is that a coach needs money to win big and OU just doesn't have it. There is no cavalry coming.
I don’t think a heads up is out of line. If someone has options and is traveling with kids, maybe they pick another hotel.
My wife and I went to NOLA for a long weekend once and stayed at a hotel on Canal Street because we liked the deal and we don’t mind the area.
Well, this particular weekend, that hotel and several others were hosting an annual event called “Nawty In N’Orleans” - a swingers convention. The thing included timed sessions in conference rooms discussing aspects of swinging. It was surreal. These people attending were not the lookers you’d be hoping for in that situation. A ton of olds, fatties, and hillbillies. Getting talked up by people in every elevator ride got old really quickly. Would have been nice to have had a heads up so we could have picked something in the garden district.
Here's a link to the All American team from the Sporting News. Bill Bender wrote it. Article is spoilered below as well. He was on Off Campus/Meathead Radio today on XM 84. He's on there regularly during the CFB season and I think he's a good listen.
The Meatheads today, Hester, Carpenter, and Manual, were somewhat blown away by a few picks, the main one being the 1st Team QB. NGL, I am as well. Also, they made a good point about the LBs on both 1st and 2nd team - this is an amazing year for LBs in CFB.
https://www.sportingnews.com/us/ncaa-football/news/sporting-news-2025-college-football-preseason-all-america-team/cb368a9b8f7bc0563eaba1b7
Today's practice write-up spoilered below. You can tell that there was a talking to with the media because today there is zero mention of injuries. Or maybe ATM is the only team in the country to have gone through 6 practices so far and yet not a single player is dinged up.
I think you should do it. There are a lot of ingredients with all of this for hilarity in those discussions at times. Also, numerous game thread posters would be in there weekly the first time Texas punted on a 3 and out, decrying that game as being the next catastrophe with 3 minutes left to play in the 1st.
If so, he was a late riser.
Spoilered below is a write-up about the freshmen performing thus far in camp from Bobby and Gerry.
It really is starting to sound like Littleton could be big time. This is class gets really deep if one of the last and lowest ranked takes becomes a true freshman starter.
My wife had a friend who was pretty hot and was an unabashed Disney Adult. Her husband sort of went along to appease, I guess. I thought it was weird. Then one night we were having dinner with them and the other wife proposed that we have a couples swap. Out of the blue. So I've always attached "Disney Adult" to that gambit, for better or worse, I guess. Shockingly, that couple didn't make it.
He's the closest thing to a real life version of Jonah from Veep that I have ever encountered. It can lead to high entertainment when he's triggered properly.
****
On a semi-serious matter, Kreul really does have a very high opinion of himself apparently, and he's also got a lot of Florida Man in him. I'm hoping that Texas lands him and he becomes our version of Brian Bosworth and just perpetually embarrasses and infuriates both our fanbase, and our opponents.
There's some sort of pathological need in our hivemind here to self-flagellate in public here.
We need to bring up Charlie Strong and be reminded of his 3 consecutive losing seasons and losing to Kansas.
We need to bring up Tom Herman and be reminded of multiple losses to Maryland and flipping off a national tv audience and crying on the sideline and not knowing how to swing a sledgehammer and being a condescending fucktard.
We need to pay penance for Late Mack and taking Taylor Doyle in a wheelchair and signing guys like Chet Moss and Kyle Kriegel and avoiding QBs like the plague around Garrett Gilbert in order to avoid a Gale Gilbert rape risk.
Mix in the Cotton Bowl on 1/1/1984, running Colt McCoy up the middle in the Rose Bowl, and 66-3 and that'll do it for the day.
I changed the thread title so we don't have a write a new thread every year. Given limited interest in the discussion, seems like a valid time saver.
Due to the emergence of the portal, I certainly the old way of thinking about this award needs editing. You kind of did that in this post by including JRs who haven't played much. We have very few actual seniors who aren't a walk-on, multi-year two-deep guys, or new transfers.
My thoughts:
-Guilbeau - maybe he's played too much, but I don't really see that. He hasn't been a core part of the secondary in the past, at least, after his injury.
-Robertson - he's played sparingly and now he's OG3 and C2. He could wind up being pretty important.
-Umeozulu - presumed starting LG.
I'm taking Umeozulu out of that group of 3. I sure as shit hope he lives up to the award's namesake this season.