Sandbagging Steve

There will be a merge or two, but they can still get in with an expanded playoff. I'm not sure that many are arguing otherwise. I could be wrong.

I don't think that conference is worth as much as the Big 12 raiding the PAC. Why wouldn't the Big 12++ offer Pitt, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Memphis or maybe one of the others gets left out (NC State, VT, Miami.) I could see it if the Big 12/PAC merge and leave WVU, Cincy and UCF out of it. I think your scenario is more likely under these circumstances. If it's the Big 12 raiding the PAC, then later down the road adding Pitt, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Memphis and/or maybe another with WVU, Cincy and UCF makes a lot of sense. I just don't know if Oregon, Washington and maybe Stanford are long term options for the Big 12. I think the B1G may come calling at some point. It may be a short term answer but not for the long haul? Big 12 teams + 4 or 5 PAC schools + 4 or 5 ACC schools to get to 20 or 21. Play an eleven or thirteen game conference schedule. 20 teams + 11 conference games: PLAY: 3 teams in your division + 2 teams in Division B + 2 teams in Division C + 2 teams in Division D + 2 teams in Division E 4 best teams in the playoff You play every team in your conference twice every four years. OR 21 teams + 13 conference games: PLAY: 6 teams in your division + 4 teams in Division B + 3 teams in Division C 4 best teams in the playoff You play every team in your conference twice every four years. This stops the cupcake games and leaves the schedule in the hands of the conference. I could see one OOC games to be played against a rival in the Power 2.

If this happens, I may die of laughter. Stanford in the Big 12 would take the cake as the most wtf move in the history of realignment.

If the Big 12 raids the PAC 12, or the two conferences make some kind of merger, I could see the Big 12 raiding the best leftovers of the ACC one day. Maybe 2 or 3 programs to add to the eastern side? Georgia Tech? NC State? Miami? Virginia Tech? Louisville? Pitt? Any of those programs could be left out and good additions. I see Oregon, Washington and maybe Stanford all moving the B1G at some point. It could be a while but I think it will eventually happen. If West Virginia is smart, they see the long play here. That's if the Big 12 raids the PAC or they merge.

You sound like the big orange orangutan, so this will be my last response to you. I'm not allowed to go back to work yet. It's not my call. I know that's hard for you understand. And I don't have to do my own yardwork. I call your wife to do it for me.

I'm sitting at home coughing up fluid after testing positive for Covid a couple of weeks ago. I've been posting more than usual since then because I have nothing else to do. But good conspiracy. You sound like me on the previous page.

I can't see anyone leaving for the ACC. Everyone knows that conference is going to be raided at some point. It could be in a year or it could be 2036, but they aren't going to make it. And the bottom half of that conference is maybe the most worthless of all the Power 5 Conferences. The top half of the conference is very solid. For the Big 12, it's pretty much take the best PAC12 schools, merge the best of both conferences, or no expansion.

They're actually playing a big boy schedule for probably the first time since moving to the SEC. I would imagine when they scheduled Miami they figured it would be an easy win against a somewhat helmet school. But Miami found a QB. They might not be good, but they will be one of the few teams with a pulse in the history of ATM's OOC schedule since joining the SEC. I will be tuned in for that game. I'm not sure Jimbo's offense can score enough points to beat a team with an offensive pulse. SEC as a whole has always had great talent but lacked good coaching. The Big 12 is the polar opposite of the SEC. The second and third tier programs in the SEC have done a good job of hiring coaches the past 2 years. Leach, Kiffin (weirdo but good fit), and Sam Pittman (surprisingly good fit) to name a few. It will be interesting to see how Jimbo the dinosaur holds up against the more forward thinking head coaches in the league. He now has competition in the second tier of programs.

I thought they would be average his first few years and that's probably an accurate assessment. I thought it would fall apart last season. Does Wake Forest beat them if given the chance? It should count as a forfeit. Jimbo has won a bunch of close games against average competition. It will be interesting to see how long he can maintain it without Elko. He bought his "future" defense if they all stay on campus. Can he hold it together long enough to keep them on campus?

I agree. I have one ATM grad in my family. I should have known. Elko held the program up and he's gone. His main bagman from Georgia is gone. You can add Dameyune Craig and Antonio Cromartie to the rap sheet. It could fall apart this season. I'm not sure the QB room holds up on the field. Any thoughts on Max Johnson for this upcoming season? I'm curious how you see their season playing out?

I didn't mean pay for ticket in that way. I agree with you there. This situation just seems weird, even for ATM. They have the pool party every year and this year they accidentally scheduled them as OVs. It just seems odd, even for ATM. Maybe with some of their staff heading to Oregon business is in disarray.

I'm not saying buy the plane ticket in a literal sense, but pay for the trip once they show up. And, yes, that happens all the time.

Many of these schools pay for UOVs, yes.

I'm not saying it's happening that way. It just wouldn't surprise me. Jimbo will do just about anything if he thinks it will give him an advantage. I just don't understand why you would schedule OVs for that weekend when you know it's against the rules and you're not willing to break them? They have the pool party every year. Maybe it's an attempt to save face on recruits not showing up? I didn't think about that, but that makes sense.

I think it was done on purpose, knowing the way Jimbo operates. I think they plan these visits as OVs to get recruits to lock in their schedules to ATM for that weekend. When we get to the very last minute, notify the recruits that OVs are not allowed but offer to buy the plane ticket. This gives them a higher probability to keep the UOV and then they can set up an OV during the season. It allows them to get an extra visit from some of these top ranked recruits that may have visited somewhere else that weekend. But they are sucking so bad on the recruiting trail and it may not work so well. JMO after observing that snake operate at Fake Army.

Sure, we can talk about someone like Foster. And he was coming off an injury. There's been very few issues like that. At least no more than any other program. It happens everywhere to some degree. The TE we picked up from Bama hated Saban so much he didn't give him the effort. And Saban played him anyway. He played hard for Sark the year before. I think Herman's kids played as hard as any team in the country. He just didn't have the recruits or the staff to win. He also was a talented but inexperienced coach who refused to learn on the job. But no one played harder than Herman's Longhorns, give or take a game here and there. He just wasn't a great coach and didn't have the talent advantage afforded at some Blueblood programs to make up for it.

The kid he was talking about is a damn good kid who had a down year under a new system. I know that kid is working his butt off. The kid who made the statement was just venting. He's tired of losing. He thought he was giving a coach speak answer and it went too far. If you have to speak to the media about all this stuff, you're just trying to find something to say. Sometimes it doesn't come out right. These kids and coaches aren't politicians. Heck, politicians can't even keep from stuff coming out wrong. It's why Mack always just gave the same answers over and over again.

This is one dumbass post. Just a fan of a midget program talking shit on someone else's board. We are used to it. The player is tired of losing. Under those circumstances, people are just looking for answers. They say a lot of shit. It happens. He was just trying to fire up his teammates. Texas kids aren't skipping practice anymore than Baylor or any other program in the country. It's just coach speak. He overstepped coach speak by mentioning a friend or two. There's nothing to see here. That player had a down year trying to make the switch to a new defense. He's a good kid and it has nothing to do with entitlement.

Damn, I didn't notice that. I really didn't look at it much after noticing it was so flawed. I will say the LA market does make USC worth more than they should be worth. Wisconsin is a very underrated program $$$ wise. It's a b I would love for you to explain to me what you know about Texas entitlement. This is going to be fun! While you are at it, tell me all about the development issues you are well aware of. Please go in detail and let me know all about it. I bet you can't give me legit data to support your claims. I've never once stated coaching wasn't part of the issue at Texas. But I'm laughing my ass off at someone who actually thinks nerds who never played the game worth a damn (very few of them did) and have little to no training whatsoever can evaluate players. I'm laughing my ass off at someone who can't see the continued trends that happen every single year. The patterns are out in the open and there's over two decades of data. It's so well documented and easy to dig up, I don't feel the need to research it. Just one example: If a kid decommits from Baylor and attends Texas? He eventually rises in the rankings. Kid stays at Baylor? Highly unlikely he rises in the rankings much. This happens all across the country every single cycle. Kid gets legit interest from some large fan base? He rises in the ranking.. Rinse and repeat. One of the idoits who runs one of the services even admitted he ranked many of the Texas kids high because they played at Texas! Told you straight to your face and you're still making excuses. When Mack was fired, some of the Texas kids that lost their spots ended up not even attending a Power 5 Conference. Yet, they were once ranked 4-stars and committed to big, bad TEXAS!! I believe he's actually one of the very few who left the industry for a real job! This stuff happens right out in the open and ppl are still brainwashed to believe team rankings. At least before the online recruiting services, Texas fans admitted to themselves that recruiting was terrible under McWilliams and something had to be done about it. They indirectly went scorched Earth on the cheaters of the SWC. Now they're brainwashed by conmen like Ketch, Farrell and the rest of the lowlifes that run these services. I wasn't impressed with many of our classes over the past decade. I stopped attending high school games because very few of the good recruits were going to UT. Recruiting has been in the gutter at Texas. Last year was major improvement and it still doesn't meet the standard. Most posters don't have a clue how to evaluate talent. It's almost impossible for even the recruiting services to have all the necessary data to make a very good eval. You need to take into account how much missing data is there when you evaluate a recruit. And there's a lot of missing data on most of these kids. I'm not even factoring in a lot of the shitty 40 times for the Texas recruits under Charlie and Herman. If it's not on the track, it's obvious by just watching the tape. We play a much more difficult OOC schedule than Baylor/OKSt and have way more pressure on our kids to win. You cannot compare winning at a Blueblood to winning at a small school. It takes two completely different approaches in order to succeed. It's why Herman was successful at Houston and failed at Texas. Yes, you can make the top 10 in the recruiting rankings by landing primarily top 200 to top 350 players without landing many top 100 players. Trust me, Texas has done it several times. And not all top 100 players deserve to be on the list. BTW, the Texas average recruiting ranking is like somewhere between 10 to 12 over the past decade or so. It's not even in the top 10. Josh Pate had a video on this a few weeks ago. And that's factoring in all the major recruiting bumps for the largest fan base in the county (along with Ohio State) With the internet and modern recruiting budgets, Baylor can find talented players not even ranked on the services. They will quickly get ranked once they pick up offers though! And then if they end up committing to a large fan base, they get another recruiting bump! Baylor evaluates well and grabs a lot of speed. Their offense has more speed than Texas in many years. Most of their success has to do with one really damn good football coach who happens to be one of the worst humans on the planet. Briles also loved him some steroids. It's well known since he was at Stephenville. Baylor plays THREE Allen High Schools a year in football. Since Briles left, their success comes from winning very close conference games. It's the same things happening at Iowa State and Oklahoma State. Texas as been losing a ton of close games. As explained in my previous post, those cupcakes matter a great deal as the season wears on. It's not an even playing field when Texas plays a significantly harder schedule than the Baylors of the world. Baylor has no fans. They can throw all their young players on the field and let them get experience. If they lose, no big deal. They can build a team for the future. Texas doesn't have that option. The talent is so down, Sark is actually going to get one of those rebuilding years coming up. Typically, at Texas you don't get to just throw the young talent on the field and lose some games in the name of the future. Texas has way more pressure on them to win. These are 18-22 year old kids. Under immense pressure to win. They are expected to beat Baylor. If they beat Baylor, it is no big deal. If they lose, it's a very big deal. Baylor is not Alabama. Baylor is not LSU. Texas must out-recruit the Baylors/Oklahoma States by a very large margin or the pressure is going to cave in on the 800 pound gorilla. This is not an "entitlement" issue. It would happen to any Blueblood under the same circumstances. In fact, Texas seems to have less (winning) standards for their program than Bama, Auburn, LSU, tOSU and the rest of the Bluebloods. There's even more pressure to win at those places. I never said coaching wasn't part of the problem. Charlie was a terrible head football coach. Herman was a decent coach, but arrogant and unable to learn on the job. Herman could have won with a paid roster. He's a better coach than the Cookie Monster and Grass Eater Miles. He's probably better than Kirby Smart before he hired his new offensive coordinator. It's hard to attract great coaches when they know your recruiting is not at a Blueblood standard. Sarkisian's offensive talent last year was fucking terrible. Especially without Whittington. It's been that way for a long time. You could even see from his game plans that he understands the offensive side of the ball. And we still struggled on offense. The defense has no one who can rush the passer. I'm not saying there isn't coaching issues on defense. But there's also a talent issue. The young, talented safeties should help this year. A second year in the system should help. Can we stay healthy at linebacker? There's very little behind them. There's no excuses for the Kansas game, but OU lost to Kansas and the refs gave them a win. Sark was in year one. Lincoln Riley had all his own players and was one touchdown away from winning the conference. If Sark had Alabama's athletes, he wins this conference last year. It was a very down year. He breaks records on offense at Alabama and USC and looks like shit while calling the plays here. Yep, all the talent in the world. I guess you think Casey Thompson was a 4-star quarterback!!! Swoopes was an awesome quarterback prospect!! All our 4.7-4.8 receivers are 4-stars! Our runt, slow linebackers are so talented! If we could just develop our players. You bet, that's the only issue. We need to develop those players and do something about that mythical thing some idoit on the internet made up: fix that entitlement. You're about to see what a difference talent means. It's coming in the next few years. It could happen this year, if the QB grows up, we stay healthy and get a pass rush. We don't have depth, but at least Sark upgraded the starting line up in a major way. I wish we could stay in this shitty conference just a little longer to shut up all these midget fan bases that come on here acting like they know our program.

They simply rank the large schools at the top. It's not hard to understand that the great teams and the best recruits will typically always come from a certain percentage of those Bluebloods programs. Just rank all the largest fan bases at the top. They know they can get away with it. You can always make the numbers look good for you. And they need those $$$$. It's a FRAUD. Charlie and Tom didn't have good classes. Slow. Slow. Slow. Some of the slowest teams in the history of Texas football. Charlie just took kids still trying to find a landing spot in the closing days of recruiting. These journalists have no idea how to evaluate after the Adrian Petersons, Vince Youngs, Clowneys take up the top 100 or so. Like I said, anything in the 250 to 300 range and on is a total crapshoot. You find many terrible evaluations! You can find some in the top 100. They are terrible at their jobs. Nerds who weren't even very good at sports growing up. Goosby is a nice prospect we flipped from TCU. He is going to rise a little in the rankings at some point. I think that's fair. I also think if he stayed committed to TCU for the long haul, he wouldn't have gone up any in the rankings. In fact, he might have gone down in the rankings. That's how it works!

Our politicians gave us the housing crisis. It was decades in the making. And everyone still votes for the same criminals on both sides of the aisle.

I'm not taking sides. I'm just saying the reasons they were taken by the B1G. Maybe the cable companies gave them more money for the B1GN with Rutgers, I don't know. I agree they already had some of NY wrapped up. I will say playing games in that market has to help with $ and recruiting though. You can always do better. Many players in the state of New Jersey are heading south right now. B1G wanted to expand the B1GN and there weren't a lot of options ready to leave at the time. Only they know what the offers were with and without Rutgers. We are already hearing Stanford will bring the Northern California market to the B1GN. If that's the case, then Rutgers was definitely getting them increased revenue in the state of NJ and maybe NY. It was reported at the time as well. IMO, one of the B1G's plans is to swallow up as much landscape as possible with flagships. I think long term they want to have enough content in all the major markets to charge $2.5-$3.50 for all subscribers of cable/streaming services. A mini-ESPN.

Sure, but it doesn't rank as high as the others on that list because S&C is much more understood these days. Evaluating the right frames and getting good mental evals makes a big different in S&C.

His biggest blunders are outside of the top 25. I wouldn't argue too much with the top 25. His research is misguided so he loses all credibility anyway.