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statsman

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Everything posted by statsman

  1. I wouldn’t swear by Blevins’ credibility, but …
  2. Sure. Arbuckle was hired on 12-2, by OU. The portal opened on 12-9. I know Mateer is likely to sign with the Sooners, but this is 12-18 and there is not a single good reason for this not to have been complete by last Friday. Time is not on OU’s side.
  3. He’s probably making a little over a million per year at OU, and would get over twice that as HC at WSU. Also, I’m sure it’s not lost on him how precarious his OU job is past one year. Venables could be done in November.
  4. The WSU coach being hired by WF… You would think Arbuckle wouldn’t be a candidate for the WSU job, except that he might come with his own (returning) QB… This is one hell of a wild card. It’s fun to see how it’s played.
  5. I am just guessing, but…if a school like Tech overpays for a good-not-great DT, won’t the NIL agents get in the ears of other (good to great) DTs languishing on rosters without retention funds dedicated? Wouldn’t that drive more DTs out into the spring portal?
  6. That’s an interesting premise, but even if they manage to SMU their way to the top 10, … how are they going to get the attendance and TV ratings that are the true differentiators?
  7. I thought this was interesting- I remember, on Hornfans around 2001-2002, there was a lot of talk about Florida wanting to hire Stoops to replace Spurrier. I remember reading about it coming to a head during a big OU recruiting weekend, and how his announcement that he was staying at OU seemed staged and timed to help the Sooner recruiting. On the Sooner board discussions about Mateer and the portal, a few guys referred to that time, and said that Stoops and Florida actually reached an agreement. According to the Sooners, Stoops wanted to coach Florida, and tried to work it out so that he would leave his staff in Norman, and for his brother, Mike, to take over. Evidently, per this telling, Castiglione told theStoopses that he would have a national search for a HC replacement, and Mike wasn’t getting it, and that caused Bob Stoops to decide to stay. I have to say- that sounds more logical reading it, on Sooner boards, than writing it on a Texas board.
  8. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, “Texas Tech is the program of tomorrow, and it always will be”.
  9. 95% foregone/likely. The other 5% possibility, that Mateer signs elsewhere, leaving OU holding their (metaphorical) dick in their hand, not having a QB or receivers after the first portal period, is what has us all interested. As I understand it, when a portable clicks the “no contact” box on their enter, it means they know where they are going. If not, they are accepting offers. Evidently, Mateer did not click that box.
  10. I really, really hope the Sooner spring reports say things like, “This looks like it will be the best defense OU has ever had!”
  11. The Sooners are excited. Last night, Mateer told his WSU teammates that he would not play the bowl game. This morning, it is reported that he is expected to enter the portal. Look, 95% chance he signs with OU, and they then go on to build a portal class of offensive players. However, OU is not the only school that wants Mateer, although it is the only school that hired his OC and QB coach. Miami wants him as a replacement for Cam Ward. Odds are he signs with OU, but if it was a sure thing, he would have done so already. It would be delicious beyond belief if he signed with Miami.
  12. Years ago, a co-worker with a son playing football for a FCS school told me that college football was a very low paying full time job for players, with the only thing making it worth the effort being the prospect of getting on the field and playing. It seems clear, now, that it is a real job for FBS players, with real pay. I think that is why we see so many more players enrolling early, in the spring- the paychecks don’t start until they’re on the team. They are like all of us, wanting to start work right after graduation, because we don’t get paid until we do. Similarly, wrt the portal. When any of us seek a new job, we wait to give notice until the new one is officially offered. We ask our new employer to allow us to start after we have given notice. This is all in order to keep the checks continuous. Why is the first portal so popular, even with guys on teams where the season isn’t over yet? Because they don’t want to risk spending the spring without a job any more than you do. They want to nail that down.
  13. You have listed a lot of guys that improved (or intended to improve) their draft position by returning. Which was what I said. Before 2023, Whittington was an UFA at best. Fans were still hoping Jones would be replaced at Tackle. Barron came back to play CB, not Star. Sweat would have been drafted mid rounds, at best, before 2023, in potential.
  14. I don’t know about Taaffe, but a general observation about the program right now: -whatever “development” is (S&C, focused coaching, intensive drills), it is happening at UT like we have not seen for decades, if ever. Players know that they will develop here, and it helps recruit. -the work that goes into “development” is hard enough that as soon as a player sees an opportunity for greater pay in the NFL, they are gone. As soon as they see they are not going to play, they are gone. Both can be true (as they were at Saban’s Alabama)- there is no better place to be developed as a player than Texas, and the work is too damned hard to do for free or reduced pay. The days of draft-eligible players returning are over, unless they can be convinced that a return would, at low risk, dramatically improve their draft position.
  15. I don’t know if this link is readable for everyone https://www.on3.com/boards/threads/for-fun-collective-bargaining-agreement.1676081/ It’s Sooners imagining how a CBA and salary cap, with limits on player movement, might work, because they do not find the modern college game enjoyable.
  16. Your Sooners should have realized, when they hired a defensive guy as HC, they were going to have to overpay at QB. You really need two that can play some. You might sign Mateer, and if he gets hurt, you’re playing Hawkins again.
  17. It’s like they have no idea how their program was built…
  18. There was an OU Drumm/Thune podcast, where they bemoaned the portal and NIL. They said Mateer would cost them $2.5M(!) They were also saying that players were insisting on big paydays, because revenue sharing would reduce the size of future NIL deals (I don’t think that is so). I think guys were insisting on big paydays because market prices are set by competition, and market prices don’t care about college football blue blood status or Sooner Magic TM.
  19. This is a recruiting thread, so hopefully it’s ok to note that Venables seems to have still not learned the rule of the modern game- “your most important recruits are the guys already on your roster”. All he is doing his repeating the best practices of the last quarter century of Sooner football, the Stoops Era. These practices were integral to producing hard nosed physical teams. He hasn’t figured out that a whole lot of that doesn’t work when there are not only no barriers for players leaving, but actually enticements to leave.
  20. I have a guilty pleasure- I go to Sooner Scoop and read the Sooner fans’ laments: ”NIL has ruined college football” (actually, it has only been bad for programs that used to spend under the table and can’t afford the price of poker now that it’s legal) ”This can’t go on! Something will have to be done e!” (It can go on, and something’ doesn’t have to be done) It is all driven by a sense that the universe shares the Okies’ angst, that OU being a mid team is unbearable. (It doesn’t) It gets pointed out, when they call for a salary cap, that collective bargaining would have to happen first. The Sooner advocates respond, “Great! Bring on collective bargaining!” It occurs to me that it is more likely that new associations of like minded schools would form first, to voluntarily manage the system. An example would be the Ivy League. They do not provide athletic scholarships (I know they have a lot of work-arounds, but they do not adhere to NCAA rules and regulations on athletic scholarships), and it is voluntary. (Presumably, they could be NIL monsters, but they choose not to be). Anyway, it seems more likely, to me, that new conference associations would form, based on NIL willingness (a top league with no cap, lower leagues with voluntary caps) than for the NCAA or CFA to institute caps.
  21. On Sooner Scoop, they’re optimistic that they will reach a deal to retain him. (Which is hilarious, that they have to dig deeper to get their slot possession receiver, with less production than Drake Stoops, and who was injured most of the year, to return).
  22. In two weeks, they play Navy. Now, a month ago, OU probably had a significantly better team than Navy. Now, they are down to Hawkins at QB, the receivers are injured or in the portal, and I have no idea on who is sitting out. Navy, like a typical service academy, actually wants to win the bowl game and will be at full strength. This will be fun
  23. Mateer would be a fool to come to this program, and play behind that line and throw to whatever receivers might be there. Surely he is getting better advice than that.
  24. Yeah, the WSJ had an article a couple of weeks ago, kind of a “here is the illicit drug that is real popular in the ME that you have probably never heard of, but will know about it soon”. The connection to OU recruiting- it’s the meth of the ME.
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