Sandbagging Steve

Dodds and Swarbrick were friends. This works the same way everywhere. It's been reported that every president of the leftover Big 12 is talking to the presidents of the PAC. This is more excuse making.

Texas can't assist in setting up a payment plan to elite players but the administrations at every other blueblood sets up these well done payment schemes? They've been doing it for a century. Any actions by the NCAA and state politicians is nothing more than grandstanding. These aren't lawbreaking schemes. The "rules" are not only morally wrong but ambiguous and unenforceable. It's not a moral or ethical issue to pay people what they are worth to do a job. The average Joe doesn't fund these type arrangements. The former governor of Texas and the ATM Chancellor (a former lifelong Texas politician) helped setup all of this for ATM. It's been a work in progress. Alabama, Georgia, tOSU, Oregon, all these schools had help in initial setup of their payment system. It's almost impossible to organize it any other way. UT can't do the same? It's up to the poor average Joe on a message board to fund the players of a program approaching $200,000,000 in revenue per year? It's up to the donors to try and organize all this on their own? This isn't how the rest of our future conference mates play ball. This isn't how college football operates. These are the excuses of some members of the UT administration. If you really think ATM has more motivated BMDs, you'd be wrong IMO. They have a more motivated administration. It will be interesting to see if Texas will help Sark land an elite OOS pass rusher and a linebacker. He's going to need them.

I loved Poona. He had freaky long arms for his size and played running back. He also put on the weight. And he was still somewhat of a gamble, but it paid off. You usually need arm length to make up for lack of size at that position. I have no idea if Brown has that or not. Maybe the info is out there somewhere. I wasn't evaluating Brown's talent. I haven't even watched this kid's film. It seems he either had it planned out to commit to Ole Miss right after the visit or Texas went another way. We aren't getting near as much profile info, it seems, since Covid. I've semi checked out because it's just that much harder to make a judgement on talent with more incomplete data. And even before Covid, there's only so much info available and it's usually incomplete on half these kids. I've noticed most of the time Alabama, Georgia, tOSU, etc., won't recruit many kids unless they have all the measurements and track and field times to go along with the film, etc. When you start making assumptions in evaluation without having the hard data, that's when it can go off the rails.

Didn't we get a report that he measured 6'1" on the visit? If so, that changes things a bit. He's going to need to play DT at that height. Does he still only weigh 270? Arm length? I would imagine he made the visit with the full intentions of making this commitment to Ole Miss afterward, or he showed up and measured 6'1", which made Texas hesitant and he then committed to Ole Miss. We will probably never know the real story and I'm not too concerned with losing him. He may turnout to be a great player though. At his height, it's going to come down to how much weight he can put on to play DT.

Increase the number of conference games and total games played and it will not only be a fair process with a proven champion, it will make every bit as much revenue as making it a 16 team playoff. We don't need more than 6 to 8 teams in the playoff. 11 or 13 conference games and only 1 or 2 OOC games against P3/P5 quality competition. The conference champions and a few automatic qualifiers in the playoff. You eliminate the nonsense cupcake games and unbalanced schedules and make the regular season matter again. You create a much fairer process in determining a champion.

We've seen this game a million times from Jimbo at FSU and A&M involving guns, rape, violence, drugs and much more. All covered up by police departments and you know who. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/12/us/florida-state-football-casts-shadow-over-tallahassee-justice.html https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2227721-fsu-tallahassee-police-reportedly-hindered-jameis-winston-investigation

Good article. One issue with the survey is there's probably not 50 guys worth a guaranteed, large NIL deal per class. Many of these kids answering these questions aren't the one's being offered mid six figure and seven figure deals. In the state of Texas for 2023: 1. Anthony Hill 2. David Hicks 3. Rueben Owens (not counting the possible off the field issues) I'd say those are the 2 or 3 worth big deals. And there's a small group of players below those three worth some coin as well. (Cook, Muhammad, Hunt, etc.) For the majority of college prospects in the P5 landscape, I think the survey holds true. But it's the type of prospects I mentioned above that win championships. It's hard to win period, at a blueblood, if you're not landing them. I think we are heading to a point where players will be paid compensation directly from the schools. It's one of the reasons for all the consolidation right now. It's probably the only fair way to do it.

I didn't know he was fired, or don't remember it. One of the best in the business. RIP

Can anyone explain to me why Brett McMurphy was fired at ESPN? Of all the blowhards that work there, they fired him? He seems to be a no nonsense, just do my job and get out of the way kind of reporter. I guess that isn't valued anymore.

It's over and they know it. Kids are going to be paid at some point soon. We don't need 2, 3 and 4 week gaps between games in December.

The whole conference championship thing is the B1G trying to force Notre Dame to join. They've already pretty much admitted there's going to be consolidation, so what is the reasoning for conference champions being involved in the playoff? In the future the SEC/B1G are building here, conference champions in the playoffs is a formality in most cases. And I hope Notre Dame is forced into a conference. A few pages back, I was discussing the idea that ESPN/SEC should just relinquish ND to the B1G in return for North Carolina. SEC is probably never getting Notre Dame and North Carolina is really the only toss up. Right now, ESPN/ACC has leverage, but I'd imagine if ESPN/SEC and FOX/B1G all worked together (wink, wink), they could blow up the ACC right now and make the settlements worth it.

West Point is a top ranked military college. You have to go into the military. I think that's a completely different game. You're now talking about life and death and serious issues. Aggie's honor code has no such meaning. It's just more fodder.

Quoted the wrong person. I was trying to quote the idoit message board poster.

He's been brainwashed for many years by a cult. He's convinced himself that these sorts of things really are true. He truly believes them. It's a skill that takes much practice. You can live life in a bubble and convince yourself to change a narrative that best fits in your worldview. This is very much like the the Aggie Code of Honor. "An Aggie does not lie, cheat or steal or tolerate those who do." Which really is cover for: a diehard Aggie lies, cheats and steals in order to protect the grand purpose of his 'brothers and sisters" and tries to cover it up. If you have to write that in your honor code, then you're admitting guilt.

Thanks. It's still hard to believe that move. How long is an undrafted free agent guaranteed to be on the practice squad?

So his brother signed an undrafted free agent contract with San Diego and that makes mom feel comfortable sending him to LA? How long is this guaranteed? Don't many undrafted free agents get cut? Even if he's on the practice squad, it may not last that long.

I appreciate the data, even though we are all aware of it. But talk about reading what you want to read so you can create your own narrative. We've been discussing good TE prospects for the last page. Not one person compared Finley to Pitts. We were discussing good college tight end prospects coming out of high school who can play the receiver position. A 4.67 at his size, and with his overall athleticism and ball skills, is exactly what we are discussing here. Finley, if I don't recall, was also a good basketball player in high school and wanted to play receiver in college. It shows on the field. Not only is a 4.67 fast for a college TE, but he shows athleticism that can't be measured. He was well on his way to a great NFL career before a nasty injury. Finley was a freakish receiving TE. He fits the description. Again, why are you making direct measurement comparisons between these players? And stating they shouldn't be in this discussion? You don't seem to understand the discussion. We are simply discussing great tight end targets. Bennett belongs in this discussion. The poster who brought him up is exactly right. Bennett was a freak. Should we only discuss Pitts and no one else? Should we just leave out Pitts from the discussion of great college TEs because he's too good to be great? What's the logic here? Twenty years running and some dudes still don't understand what a comparison is in the recruiting world. The two major recruiting websites make them for every blue-chip prospect. It's a comparison in style of play. It has nothing to do with predicting a high school prospect is going to become that college/pro player. Kyle Pitts played college football. Duce Robinson will play college football in the future. Jonathan Gray's comparison was Emmitt Smith, but Gray was average at best. Anyone who watched him play should have been able to tell you he wasn't all that good. He had no burst through the hole and no balance. But his patience and running style, outside of the balance issue, was comparable to Emmitt coming out of high school. It doesn't mean he's going to be Emmitt. With that said, Duce's film is really damn good and he was running 4.7s as a sophomore. You have no idea what his testing numbers are going to be when he gets through college. A 4.7 kid as a sophomore can easily be a 4.5 kid by his senior year. I already stated Pitts wasn't a highly ranked prospect (#167). He probably should have been highly rated. I don't know his story, but the services are really bad at their job. And all the northern states are overlooked to a certain degree. Some of the NFL draft numbers: We have much better training these days than in the old days. It allows NFL prospects to prepare like never before. There will be another Kyle Pitts and it won't take ten years either. Just like quarterback records are broken all the time in this era. BTW, I believe the comparison was a poor man's Kyle Pitts Poor man's —used to refer to someone (such as a performer) who is like another person in some ways but not as talented or successful

Like Star Wars, these kind of movies eventually have to stay true to the theme. There's way too many PG-13 rated movies with wars, fights and a villain with superpowers. Doesn't this all have to turn dark at some point? I waited 40 years for Darth Vader to show me Darth Vader and there's very little of it in the franchise. You can't just keep making kids movies with major conflicts about heroes and villains and not expect adults to get worn out at some point in the process. At least mix it up with some dark themes while maintaining the PG-13 ratings. Batman franchise since Nolan has done a good job with that. Despite the reviews, I enjoyed the newest installment, The Batman. (I haven't watched this movie yet. I'm just getting burned out on Marvel and Star Wars giving me the same type movie over and over again. I don't feel the characters are ever truly in any danger. The rare instances where there is any such activity, it happens off screen. And the jokes were great the first few years but this bit seems to have run its course.) As long as the adults keep showing up with the kids, it will continue. Revenue is the bottom line.

Asian? I see he likes to cosplay as the biggest Asian. Aggie will make him a carboard Samurai Tachi and he can swing it at halftime or before the game with Fake Army. They will then retire the sword and rewrite history with countless traditions. The cardboard will be worshipped forever. THE END

And that's approaching two decades ago. Jermichael Finley was another player within the state with serious receiving skills. Finley should have been used even more at Texas. I think Duce could be a poor man's Kyle Pitts type of athlete. Pitts was also underutilized at Florida. I'm wondering if these college tight ends are underutilized because teams have difficulty finding another in-line TE on the roster to run 12 formation? Or is it just a matter of keeping the receivers happy? These guys all produced good numbers, but all three guys could legitimately play the receiver position. Finley ran a 4.67 Bennett ran a 4.68 Kyle Pitts has been clocked at 4.44 and there are reports he's gone lower than that. Duce Robinson ran a 4.7 as a sophomore. Just looking at frame and highlight tape, he's going to get faster IMO. All these guys could beat most of our receivers under Herman and Strong with 50 to 60 extra weight on their frames. Damn, I'll just forget I ever thought of that. Rage.

This is where you need TV numbers from the beginning of full cable viewership and other stats that give a clearer view of real program power. The reason Louisville is so high is because it includes 3 years of Lamar Jackson and 3 years before Lamar that went: 11-2, 12-1, 9-4. Meanwhile, North Carolina had 4 losing seasons in that stretch. With that said, Louisville football does have some support. It's a little bit of a sleeper, but it's not that high on any long term, well researched list. The TV data being thrown around is just too incomplete on many levels. It's much more complicated and you can't take them at face value. With that said, this guy made the best attempt at trying to be unbiased and he's not getting paid for it. The media that gets paid to this sort of research is more concerned with churning out as many crap articles as possible and kissing their sources ass. They don't care about diving into the numbers and spending a week crunching real data. And the corporate bosses encourage this kind of lazy setup. A journalist today spends most of his time reading and watching sports/his industry for fun, kissing up to sources that fit their bosses agenda and going on vacation; maybe sleeping in after partying all night with other's in the industry. That's the vibe, anyway.

It would be nice if there was a way to take this data and make it work since the beginning of ESPN 2 and FSN broadcasting all the college football games. If you could then somehow take into account the size of the fanbase played against and the overall record of both teams at the time they played. If you could then add a curve to include a team's success over the past 60 years or so in order to attempt to predict possible future TV viewership under equal circumstances. I'm sure the television networks have all this and much more. With that said, this is the best data I've seen so far that is open for public view. When it is all said and done, we don't need any of these stats being posted the past month to know who has the bigger fanbases or which teams bring the most value to what conferences. You can take the list I posted a few weeks ago, or someone else's list of top programs, and make some slight adjustments. At the end of the day, diehards know who the most valued teams are, even if one team's numbers aren't currently where they should be and some other program is outperforming their long term potential. I think Oregon and Washington would already be takes for one of the Big 2, if their geographical footprint was in the state of Colorado than way up in the far northwest corner. B1G wouldn't risk waiting for ND because there would be a higher likelihood that the SEC may snag them under that scenario. There's also the possibility the B1G could be pausing and waiting for any potential issues with the newest additions before moving forward with another move. Any stupid lawsuits they must defend and who knows what else. And I know as much as they want to be THE conference, they don't want the perception out there that they killed the current model. It's kind of silly, as they've always been the conference that wants to swallow the rest of the college football under their power. SEC has extra spending capacity with the addition of Texas that the B1G won't get until it adds Notre Dame. In other words, Texas brings a few million bucks per team in additional revenue that can be spent to add other solid programs. In fact, with the large number of big schools in the SEC, the addition of Texas and OU may, long term, bring way more value than just a few million. It adds a lot of big fanbase vs big fanbase games across the board. It's a testament to not only Texas/OU, but the balance of large fanbases in the SEC. The B1G has more juggernaut fanbases but then the bottom 40% of that conference is weak. The bottom 40% hurts the bottom line. IMO, they are trying to make up for this with markets. Flagship programs with large state populations and good academics. This will not only help boost prices in local markets, but build enough inventory to be a channel that can stand on its own in the streaming world. Big 12 would be wise to take any team that brings close to equal value of the current Big 12 while bringing a competitive program and a new market. Get as many new markets as possible that don't hurt the bottom line. The Big 12's biggest advantage is stability and location. They offer a CST that could benefit from expansion on either coast. For a conference like the Big 12, or the long term winner of conference #3, a balance of different strengths to cover up some weaknesses can go a long way. More markets and more teams leads to more eyeballs invested in all the conference games. The additions also give a network more inventory to find a Tier 1 game worthy of a good time slot. If you bumped up your conference games to 10 or 11 games per year, you add even more good inventory. Then there's the possibility of a small conference network, if you get to 20 to 22 teams of solid programs from coast to coast.

It's hard to draw your fanbase with 4 losing seasons in that stretch. They have potential to be better than that. They bring a new television market to the SEC/B1G and they are one of the most successful basketball programs of all time. They also have good facilities. Markets do in fact matter for the Power 2. It not only increases prices in local markets but it adds inventory across the country to eventually charge a higher set price across the board. This helps with streaming services down road. It also draws in more new fans from a new area to watch (more invested) conference games that does not include their team. If North Carolina is in the SEC, more eyeballs in the state of North Carolina are going to be more interested in following Alabama, LSU and Texas and less interested in other members of the ACC that are not in the SEC. If Kansas football showed any potential in markets, facilities and competitiveness, their basketball would move them up the ladder. Unfortunately, they have very little potential at this time. They can't seem to turn the program around and there doesn't seem to be any light at the end of the tunnel. They play in a stadium that Allen High would hold their nose at and their market is small. There's a huge list of schools with very little separation when taking viewership at face value. The small things add up. It's about what the value is to the new conference, not what the value is right now.

So some rando on Twitter proves to have better info on the subject than several of the most well known media members in college football. Why am I not surprised? Media has turned into complete trash. Sports, politics, you name it. These dudes get paid to be lazy, uninformed puppets of their sources.