closetojumping

I agree that he made some solid defensive hires. That will help, but I don't see a real reason for 10-2 levels of optimism. 1) The main flaw with a Lincoln Riley program is that he truly doesn't give a shit about defense. He will continue to call the game he prefers and that will continue to put his defense on tilt due to pace. 2) USC lacks dudes right now. Per NFL scouts and college observers visiting practices, they don't have a ton of NFL talent the way they usually do. It's kind of a Texas 2010-2021 issue but with a genius offensive playcaller. 3) You are not giving their schedule its due, in my view. LSU on neutral ground requiring travel to open will be draining. Utah State is a multiyear bowl team and well-coached. Michigan will still have dudes in Ann Arbor. Wiscy, Nebraska, PSU and Notre Dame will all be fistfights. Minnesota, Rutgers, Maryland and UCLA will all be around bowl eligibility. There are a lot of ways to see them losing 4+ with that schedule. When a well-coached regular bowl participant from the P5 is your biggest lay-up, that's a tough 12 games. I will be surprised if they're better than 8-4 in the regular season. Vegas has their total at 7.5 so I guess they'd be pretty surprised as well.

This is all glorious. Wait until SEC Media Days if this is how much they’re going to follow every Texas speaker. Holy shit. I love seeing the questioning of how Texas is going to fit in socially with the SEC. Uhh, we’re not going to and will not give one fuck what any of the other fanbases think. When we’re rooting against other SEC teams because it serves UT’s interests in some loose manner, it’s going to be awesome to see/hear their consternation about it.

Would have been better to avoid the pederast, IMHO, but otherwise solid work in this thread, gents.

Lots of good shit in those screenshots. Numerous tropes: -Texas will apparently out-arrogant SEC people -Texas isn’t ready for the manliness of SEC football -Texas trying to get the SEC HQs moved to Dallas for some unexplained valuable reason Attempting to compare the RRR to the milquetoast atmosphere of the Georgia/Florida game is comical and new.

You've chosen a bizarre hill to die on and I find it entertaining. The Lamborghini people aren't UT people. They'll tell you themselves that what they're doing works for their business. That's straight NIL, guy. No one is arguing that things haven't changed. We helped bring about the fucking change. No one here needs a lecture from an ignorant clown on such subject matter. The players don't "need" to become employees. I'm sure that will all get sorted, but one thing is certain at this moment in time - being an athlete, especially a football player, at Texas has never been better or more lucrative. Your pining for some sort of retro move to an egalitarian structure in which rulebreakers get to go back to running amok while everyone whines about their invisible handcuffs is some of the dumbest shit ever posted on this board. It's honestly headscratching. I don't work in or with Bellmont.

You’ve been wrong a lot about this stuff, but at least you haven’t been in doubt. The Lambo people are measuring an ROI on their leases and sales have been up substantially since they started the program. Don’t say shit out of ignorance when you should straight up fucking know that people on this board are directly involved with how all of this works. Christ. Collectives won’t be going away because schools like Texas have now tasted blood and will not ever be letting that advantage slip again. This isn’t the pros. The affinities and access function differently. We should place a bet on this. As to tiering based on wherewithal, I really hate this kind of fucking whine from idiots on the Texas boards. That shit already was tiered for almost 20 years and most of you just acted like it wasn’t happening. We lost and suffered during that era. Fuck fixing anything now. Go hold hands with putzes on the Bama, LSU, and Clemson boards if you need a more receptive audience.

Your reading comprehension sucks and you have the sensitive nature of a teenage female. I’m not the one who needs a grip. You’ve taken equivocation to an art form in threads on this forum over the past few weeks.

Nailed it. As sensitive as you appear to be about it, kind of seems like an accusation that could also be an admission.

He can't. His only viewpoint is the simpleton angle of "we could do worse, look at football!". You and the @Balcones Pierce dickrider are like the combined echeese chimera of the baseball board. Just looming like gargoyles over several threads, waiting to swoop in and shriek when anyone deigns to posit reasonably that Texas could and should do better than continue on with an aging, angry midget that can't get it done at the highest level. It's pathetic to watch. You guys should be relegated to a David Pierce Hagiographer thread where you can echochamber yourselves into masturbatory fanfic about the accomplishments of your tiny hero. Bakich or Canham could be had for roughly what Pierce makes or less. Both are in bad spots regarding team/conference alliances. Bakich resurrected Michigan and took them to the CWS finals, which Pierce hasn't done. He's young enough and he's an excellent recruiter and developer. Canham hasn't made it to the CWS yet, but he's won a regional and he's coaching a national seed this year, and he's 39 years old. People covering OSU have raved about him. People can talk about Vitello or other SEC coaches, but any SEC school trying to swipe a coach faces a path to success that is fraught with peril, risking public egg on the AD's face along the way.

In reading these various threads and similar content elsewhere, I’ve developed real disdain for Utah as a random CFB fan. I look forward to rooting against them and seeing the looks of disbelief on their fat faces when someone shows up and plays just as tough as they do. It’s all they have.

I’d wait until the hunger pangs were unbearable and I’d separated enough salt from the sea, then gut her with a conch shell and left off of the cured carcass for months until rescued.

Had it the whole way.

We went through this awhile back. Someone should find it. The post above just tracks guys from NS, but I went through guys that the big boys actually cared about and recruited. The guys that actually did a fucking thing in college that anyone wanted were Chaisson and maybe George, and then it goes back to like Chykie Brown. There are a whole lot of worthless, high profile guys between Brown and right now. Sanchez can go be a cancer somewhere else. He’ll be at UTSA or SMU in 2 years after blaming someone else for his problems.

I think the simplest way to think about the future is to first realize that no one knows much of anything at the moment. Charlie Baker is considered an excellent politician and well-connected on Capitol Hill. The NCAA is going to use the payouts as proof of their goodwill with athletes and they're going to pursue anti-trust exemption. An institution that has basically violated anti-trust laws more often than Standard Oil is pushing to get an exemption going forward. If they do so, they're going to use that in an attempt to manage all forms of payment made to players and regain control of the sport. That would then fully unlock the bag game, part deux. The payouts are going to spread across athletes of all sports and genders. Doing otherwise would create title IX issues and open a new round of court cases that schools and the NCAA will lose. To be clear, $20M spread across multiple programs ain't going to cut it for competitive programs at the top. Collectives will be around for programs that like winning, unless they're somehow actually barred. Thinking otherwise is folly. This isn't the NFL. Alums aren't going to sit around and watch their rivals lure players on board and win titles.

Outstanding. I’d forgotten some of the details to the Warehime/WalkerLittle story. Didn’t realize that reddit had saved Shaggy posts. Probably a ton of good shit in there.

To build more on where ND sits heading into 2024 after the portal has closed, I'll say your thoughts and mine above are founded at least somewhat in reality. On offense: QB - Riley Leonard is a good get if he's healthy. They have a back-up named Angeli that they're high on. TB - They don't have a clear cut guy at TB that is viewed as a terrific replacement for Estime. They have a highly ranked room though. WR - Greathouse is a budding star. After him, they have guys like Beaux Collins that have made some plays in the past, even if somewhere else like Marshall and Clemson, but they're not scaring anyone here. TE - They lost the presumed starter to the portal (Tenn) and none of the candidates for the starting role are getting anyone excited. They don't have a prototypical ND TE type to just step in and kick ass. OT - Total rebuild after losing 2 high draft picks on either end. IOL - I think they return 1 starter, but this is a work in progress too. The writers covering ND feel like the OL overall is a key risk factor for this coming season. Not good. On defense: DT - They return both starting DTs and those guys are good. This is a strength on the team. DE - Looks like a shit show. They have a bunch of guys that ranked well and have yet to really produce. LB - They return a starter who was decent in Jack Kiser, but he was no doubt buoyed by having two other LBs playing next to him who are now in the NFL. There are highly ranked candidates to win the roles and Freeman's crew knows development on defense, so I assume this group will do well. CB - Likely their deepest position and returning a single starter. ND pundits do not appear concerned about this group. S - Watts returns and he'll be a preseason first team AA, I presume. They'll have someone new next to him and there is jagger risk. ---- In short, Notre Dame has 1 offensive starter out of 11 that might start at Texas in 2024 - Greathouse. It sounds arrogant if folks don't follow recruiting and the portal closely, but I don't know if there are many ND starters on offense that would be second team at Texas. The ND offense will be their soft spot in 2024 even with Denbrock and Leonard on campus. Defensively, ND is going to be very good and we would absolutely take their two tackles, Kiser, Watts, and Benjamin Morrison (CB), and likely some of the younger talented guys as well. The game is likely to be tight and low-scoring. I don't necessarily think Elko is some excellent gameday coach, but I feel like Freeman is not a good one, yet, at least. I could see ATM winning this game, which will piss me off. @notre dame joe and @BlueGreySky or any other domer that posts on this board in case they have an opinion or wish to fact check due to greater team familiarity.

I'm from Missouri on the guy, personally. Let's see his output from his charges during the season and then let's see how he closes on his targets in recruiting and the portal. However, anyone covering the program or around the program seems to really like him as a hire. There's a belief that he's evaluated and targeted the right guys and that his players really like playing for him. He's got great connections in the SE and those are expected to bear fruit this cycle in big ways. "We'll see" said the zen master.

Regarding Florida - Texas is a sandwich game for them on the road. They'll have just played rival Georgia and then rival LSU follows the Texas game. Prior to UGA, they have an off week but will be recuperating from UCF, @Tenn, UK (who pummeled them last year). There is no rest for this team in 2024. The one game late in the year in which the normal human reaction to just not really show up, due to some level of exhaustion, is the Texas game. They're 100% not getting up to play Texas with that schedule structure. Y'all wringing hands about that game is laughable. Regarding Texas A&M - The Texas team that should be sweating their UF game is ATM. They play them early, in The Swamp, with UF coming off a scrimmage against Samford and likely pretty healthy. ATM's roster is massively overrated. People are looking at quantity and one of the service's dumbass team transfer portal rankings and just assuming that ATM somehow upgraded their roster. How is losing a bunch of highly rated players in exchange for a bunch of mediocrities leading to this notion of ATM being worth a fuck? Adding 20+ dudes from FCS and G5 plus a couple of good players from the likes of Purdue spurs confidence in a perennially failing team? It's truly bizarre. People worried about jihad shit with ATM are ignoring history. The upset in this match-up is rare. It's rare because the rivalry isn't misunderstood by anyone, ever. Sarkisian is going to hear things regarding ATM at a fever pitch heading into that game and so will everyone else associated to the program. Regarding Arkansas - I was in Fayetteville in 2021. I can attest that this match-up was not understood by the staff or team at the time. I don't see that being the case this time around for the staff. I understand the handwringing on this one, but this is game will involve a massive talent disparity, and that wasn't true in 2021. Arkansas returns 5 starters on each side of the ball, with key losses on both sides. Their returning offensive production ranks 99th in the country while their returning defensive production ranks 115th. They added 15-ish guys from the portal, but I dare you to try to name more than one of them without cheating. In effect, Arkansas is rebuilding with a coach on the hot seat and a bunch of jaggers that wouldn't play for Texas on their best day.

Texas feels good about landing at least 3 (Brown being one of them) of the national badasses. Seems like scoring more than that is either improbable or unwanted (PT issues, NIL management, etc.) and they might consider room for a 4th as a project. Might. Getting 3 of the big names is mostly a numbers game - bust ass with 8-10 guys, budget that into the total NIL mix, and land 30% of them. Frankly, if you hang on to Brown and close Williams, it comes down getting 1 of like 7-8 targets. There's really good reason to feel positive about landing a great DT class when you consider it all.

DJ Sanders isn’t a “battle” in that it’s not even clear that he could commit to either program right now. He’s a project and his whole body will have to be reshaped by the S&C program. He’s the fourth guy in a four guy DT class. If Texas takes him, that means one of two things: 1) they’re getting the 3 big time guys they wanted or 2) light the cigarettes, because we’ve already been fucked. As it pertains to Brown and LSU, they’ll have to divert NIL from other places to make that work, even if Brown was seriously thinking about a flip. I worry more about other schools in his area than LSU. Regarding Battle, what do you guys think? I haven’t heard that Texas was seriously interested. I guess I’ll ask around. I feel like Terrell left some guys off of his list that Texas is seriously after in Florida, Georgia and California but maybe I’m mixing Edge prospects with DTs in my head.

Notre Dame doesn’t really have the dudes to compete for it all, but they’re talented. The biggest issue with ND outside of the lack of elite skill talent is that Freeman is proving himself to be a buffoon with his in game decision-making. ND will be a more talented team than ATM. I expect either a comfortable Notre Dame victory or a close match-up that Freeman fucks up somehow and Elko gets the win.

Well, I guess when you come at it from that perspective, it all makes sense. All I needed was someone skilled in the art of subliminal gay messaging from the 1950’s to figure it out. In reality, I just thought it was weird that they were using an old guy as the UT athlete, looking like an idiot, to boot, and that they were implying he was about to have some good fun in the act of cannibalism.

What is “rsfc”?

I do that with Phil Steele. I bought Wadlington’s magazine last year and enjoyed it. I’ll do it again this year.

I didn't say anything about your first X post on this very page of this very thread. I guess you really, really wanted to make sure we all saw it.