Askew

Neto's highlights are amazing. Hope he pans out.

Meanwhile highly acclaimed OL coach and recruiting witch Mario Cristobal sees Williams as having a higher ceiling than Banks. You drop 40 lbs of fat and offset with 10 lbs of added muscle. Speed and agility magically increase. All of a sudden you have a nimble 6'7 340 tackle prospect with massive wingspan and hands big enough to palm a football helmet. Definition of a high ceiling.

I agree. Although it's gonna be such a crazy close to this thing that he might commit and sign on Wednesday before the class is fully decided. Sark clearly wants that RB2 , so Red is benefitting from demand.

Does it look like he lost weight?

I'm excited to be proven wrong on this ongoing debate of whether "numbers matter," but we don't have the numbers for this. Based on 33 counters. We sit at 22 HS recruits. We take: Agbo Campbell Red S (Mathews/LTG) CB (Harris/Brice) WR (Winfield) That's 28 HS recruits. We would take Brooks. We would take Stewart. We would take Perkins. But call it 28. That leaves 5 spots for transfers. 4 after Ewers. I want WR, OL, LB, DB. Sounds like DB (Watts) and OL (Dunlap) are in the bag. So 2 open spots. However you slice it, it looks like were taking 2-5 transfers. We also need to process out 8 more current schollies to open those spots, but thats a separate debate.

Apt that Ketch is talking about "little birds" tho

Re: replacing Kobie: Red has too good of hands and route running to be an LB. His value is APB. He is the Jamarion Miller replacement. He also has value as a wildcat if Sark starts seeing that as an ongoing wrinkle. I like the idea of 210-pounders who can do standing backflips on offense. TJ Dudley would be ideal. Tea leaves, I could see the Terrance Gibbs offer being the staff front-running the Kobie de-commitment. Gibbs has LB snaps on tape, his coach has said he plays D and O, and looks like he's around 210-215, if not more. Let him develop as an LB while he heals from the injury. Still don't like the take. I think we take also take an LB portal. I loved the UNLV guy's tape. Staff will probably be patient until after NSD2. Longshots would be Jacoby Mathews or Perkins, both tweeners. Not holding my breath.

I don't necessarily disagree. However, for this class in particular I would lean away from taking flyers on injured guys with long recovery timelines. We need contributors all throughout the depth chart, ASAP. I could see keeping this guy warm until NSD2, but even then I would rather look to the portal. Also need more durability on the roster.

Gibbs had a season ending injury his junior year. The decline in his tape from sophomore to senior is horrifying. He's a jag at RB, at best. Hopefully this is an LB developmental take. Even then I don't get it.

I'm not disagreeing with your first point. But having a certain mantra before OU doesn't mean that that's the same mantra now. I think the coaches clearly misjudged the state of the roster last summer. So going into what they thought was going to be a 9-3/10-2 season, their plan could very well have been to focus more on transfers this cycle and plug any remaining holes. But after the, as you so aptly describe, "4th or 5th buttfucking in a row," I would assume their mindset changed to needing to tear this thing down to the studs and rebuild from the ground up. If I'm a coach, that means shifting to a focus on HS recruiting to get as many fresh-faced dudes in here as possible--I'm not sure you can do a full teardown/rebuild with transfers. And as you point out, I can't think of any good reason for keeping transfer announcements under wraps, except for their focusing being on landing HS recruits--at the risk of losing transfer commitments. To your second point, the basis of my post was on a 33-man counter. If roster rules are no longer relevant--which I have not seen any evidence for that being the case--then yes, anything is possible. Otherwise, I'm working off 25-man counter, 7-man transfer surplus, and limited EE count-backs. I would love to be shown evidence that roster rules no longer matter.

Assuming the 33-counter number is accurate and my understanding is correct that those 33 counters can all be used on HS recruits, I think we need to pump the brakes on how much the portal is going to be used this cycle. Looks like Sark is really trying to rebuild the team/culture the right way, and that means bringing in HS recruits and developing them. It's also clear that Sark is going to keep powder dry to shoot his shot with 5-stars and address the OL, which means he will mostly wait on transfers until NSD1 and NSD2 are over. We're at 21 counters right now. From the offers that are out and how the staff is pushing guys, it looks like the staff is going to address depth needs with HS recruits. That likely means they'll take an additional S (LTG), RB/APB (Red), and CB (Brice or Harris). That's 24. OL depth is going to be addressed through HS recruits. We absolutely need more HS OL. They're going to take 4 more OL at least. That's 28. The only portal guys I'd pencil in to that right now are QB (Ewers) and OL (Dunlap). Takes us to 30. Of the remaining 3 spots, I guarantee Sark will reserve spots until NSD2 for any 5-star or any OL left on the board. Banks, Campbell, Cam Williams will all have spots saved. So will any of Perkins, Law, Dewberry, Greene, Stewart, should they magically want in the class. Just with how the board currently looks, I could see a scenario where QB (Ewers) and OL (Dunlap) are our only transfers. I think we max out at 5 transfers.

If you had some pithy commentary or implicit meaning in your post I quoted, you may want to take anther swing at expressing it. You're not exactly Earnest Hemingway at this point in your writing career. But go ahead and keep blaming the reader.

Have you actually watched Red's tape? Or Winfield's? Theres a huge difference between "better players" and "higher rated players"-- it's not a coincidence that Winfield's rating is consistently dropping and that he doesn't have many committable offers at this point. Sounds like you're one of the star chasers that would happily take Dele Adeyoe over Terrell Bernard, because ratings.

As a contingency, is it crazy to want Savion Red over Winfield? Red's a dog and has more natural athleticism. Could also fill in as an APB. Reminds me of Jarvis Landry. Chain mover. We desperately need more of those.

You understand that 30% of the roster is only 26 players right? That is pretty much complete with the outgoing transfers and graduates. Pretty much all of those guys are useless. You saying we should keep more of Herman's awful evaluations now, but also should have processed BJ Foster last spring, is hypocritical. And dumb.

This. And the 2019 class is an absolutely dismal assembly of poor fits and bad mental evals. Safeties that cant cover. Linbackers that cant diagnose or drop coverage. No edge players. Positions of need filled from Juco (edge and OL). TEs that never blocked in highschool. QB that cant throw. WRs that either cant run (Washington, Lewis) or lack pure skills (Smith). With how poor the roster management, evals, and retention has been, it's not just about upgrading talent. For some positions it has literally been filling the position with bodies. We essentially didn't have an edge group going into this year (the most important position in most defenses, especially PK's)--we had Jones, Dorbah, and Bush (not sure how that is possible after 4 top-10 recruiting classes, but Orlando really fucked us). We filled that group with bread through the portal. We get bread results on the field. We are now recruiting a 2-deep across the entire DL this 2022 class for a reason.

The Alfred Collins situation is a positive. For this season, recruiting, and the future of reshaping the roster. Collins was reportedly and visibly showing poor effort and mental intensity during the spring and early games this season (that Bijan run that got leaked on instagram by a recruit is exhibit A; didn't see him flash at all during the spring game). I would venture to guess that the spring rumor floating around of "a talented player who hasn't really done anything but is acting like an NFL pick already" would feature Collins as a prime suspect. That dynamic probably led to the smoke from Gerry at IT about "Collins and this staff not being a marriage that would last." The coaches were unwilling to reward that behavior by playing him early on. Instead they gave him a choice to buy in or not. I think it's pretty clear he's buying in, the coaches are slowly rewarding him with marginally more snaps rather than anointing him the 'chosen one' immediately (even with Jones' injury), and he's now starting to produce on a level that could match his elite potential. This is a great example of meritocracy for the current team. It's also good to show recruits that youre not going to be rewarded for diva behavior and have to come in and work regardless of ranking. And it's good for jettisoning dead weight/ bad locker room guys to make space for the future roster.

So that report over the Summer along the lines of: 'there is a talented player who hasn't really done anything, but is acting like a top draft pick already' at first sounded like JTS, but has to be Alfred Collins, right? Gerry's comment on IT + him not getting any snaps is my evidence. Both reports might be bullshit, but him not getting snaps is certainly weird.

What's crazy is the game was essentially a blow-out in the end, but think about what would have happened if UL had failed to convert even one of those 4 fourth-down conversions inside their own 40/30 (iirc?). They were hanging on by a thread and surviving by the thinnest of margins. I will say this reflects well on PK, because he wasn't really worried about selling out on 4th down to get a stop and risking a breakdown and explosive play, he was confident in his bend but dont break.

Two game takeaways: 1) Despite shitty fan experience, the heat + 3:30 kick turned out to be a major, major home field advantage for us. Midway through the 3rd quarter, we have a long drive right when the shade starts to cover our sideline; meanwhile, their sideline continues to bake until the fourth. After that drive we go up 28-12, their D starters were gassed, their depth was cooked, and it was over. Probably won't get this again this year, but it was huge to cement this dominant first win for Sark. 2) Looked like the guys were having a lot of fun, especially DMO and Luke. Haven't seen our LBs playing off each other and slapping pads like that in a while. Great energy. One thread takeaway: 1) Dont think I've seen the word "Coleman" in here yet. 🤔

This is a great look at why Card is a more natural thrower. You can tell Casey is jerking through motion to put more velocity on the ball: shoulders over-rotate, side bends his body into the throw, brings his right leg through his rotation late and unnaturally. This is all trying to overcome his lack fluid release through his elbow/wrist snap. Contrast with Card whose body/rotation is synced with his hips. Great elbow extension and wrist snap to release the ball. Looks pretty effortless. Ironically, Casey motion actually looks "faster" but you can tell that less velocity is transferring through the ball. He's swinging too hard at the golf ball. Casey doesn't look bad by any means, but when put side-by-side with Card, it is noticeable. If Aaron Rodgers's motionless wrist-flick motion is the ideal, Card is a lot closer to that.

If Casey retains his seeming advantage in composure, pocket presence, and ability to throw a catchable ball and hit the checkdowns, what you described is a pretty perfect argument for inserting Casey as the starter. At least to begin the season. If Card eventually beats him out this year or next August based on upside and arm talent, good. But for now seems like we need a game manager to lead the team and get Bijan the ball.

Those same fans will shit on the SEC West, and at the same time say that "Fayetnam" is such a tough place to play that they wouldn't be surprised if Arkansas beat us.

Interestingly enough, it's nearly impossible to recruit above the level Herman did in the three-year stretch of '18, '19, and '20. Development aside, all we really need is to recruit comparably to that level and make better evaluations. Best example, I don't care about the DB ratings of the guys we got in '18, you don't take a class with 5/6 DBs that lack elite NFL measurables. Sterns, Foster, Green, Cook all had high technical floors at the high school level, totally exposed in college. DMO was a LB playing safety. If we had replaced june 1 guy in that class based purely on elite measurables, we probably are looking at a much different secondary outlook right now. I especially trust PK to turn that evaluation trend around.

The consternation about Sark being a "guy's guy" and brilliant mind but not a closer does have a silver lining: profiles for better long-term results, despite possible negative effects for this current cycle. Judging by the Noah Cain (?) story, Herman was a pushy closer. So extrapolating to his 2018 'pre-results' class, he probably pushed and closed a good amount of guys, especially the 2018 Houston crew that was gangbusters at the time. But, you get 2-3 years in and Herman's true character starts to show. The guys on the team hate him, results start to sour on the field, and recruits start to shy away as early as 2019 despite getting the hard sell; by 2021 his closing ability is essentially dead. Also re the support staff: the fish stinks from the head down. Once Herman was revealed, the support staff was useless. I trust Sark to figure out the staff once things settle in. So, I think i'd prefer Sark's true character/culture to start translating to exponentially better recruiting results in 2-3 years rather than peaking early. And in that time work to develop a recruiting infrastructure that fits his culture. The Dabo model.