JBJ

Sorry for the derail. Here's my longcat to try to get this back on track. Here's a decade's worth of mediocrity summed up in nice bullets: 1) Player development. This has been our biggest issue. It's a struggle to identify find ex-players who actually improved YOY. The NFL draft appears to agree. A lot of that is on position coaching and SC. 2) Scheme changes. Some of this is hiring and some of it is on the coaches. Strong recruited himself out of his stack defense. Orlando inherited a roster unsuited for his defense, and his solution was to play a Will at DL and an edge at essentially a weak safety position. We had a walkon MLB playing edge for good chunks last year because the Orlando defense didn't really need edges. People can scream to change the scheme to match personnel, but that's not really conducive to point #1, nor is it really how college coaching functions. It's primarily a hiring issue, imo. Do you want to hire a guy that can have success with the roster or a guy to completely rebuild? We've done the latter while expecting the former. This kind of blends with next point: 3) Roster management. We recruit talent, but we don't stack it up well enough and we create some glaring roster problems when we miss in recruiting. These issues linger for years, and pre-portal there was no good fix (and I don't think the portal is a cure-all - it does help and we should use it). The previous staffs were terrible at this. Current examples include: Having 2 upperclassmen at OL (and 1 is injured). That's been a problem this year. Having 0 SO/RS-FR at LB. That'll be a problem next year and the next - either by youth or pickins from the portal, or by plugging in someone not ideal. It'll be solved somehow, but it won't be better than having 5 or 6 of your own recruits, who have lived the system for a couple years already, competing for playing time. --- Here's what I'm optimistic about Sark on these points: 1) We actually got better this year. Not just the team by adding and subtracting talent, but individual players did basically across the board with a few exceptions. Some are substantially better: Christian Jones, pick any DT, Sorrell, Ford, Jamison, Thompson. Card for the portions that we've seen him each year. The staff is undeniably better than previous iterations when it comes to actually coaching. 2) Portal changes the game here, and it's TBD how things work out, but Sark at least got a couple edges and a LB as much-needed stopgaps. Then, he's loaded recruiting classes with TEs/RBs to fit his preferred personnels on offense. He whittled down the WR room and brought in some portal guys (this maybe hasn't worked out great but imagine where we'd be with Marcus Washington as WR #1). 3) This is TBD, but he at least says the correct things. He understands the need to stack talent year-over-year. QB and RB are obvious examples of this. He loaded up the OL two years running because it was a looming issue. He talks about the roster not just in terms of the starters, but how many scholarships are being devoted to a position, how young or old the position is, who hasn't seen the field but is coming along. He doesn't seem afraid to make cuts (portal helps here as well). --- What I'm pessimistic about: We have difficulty putting complete games together. I don't know why. One unit plays well and the other doesn't. Offense on fire until half then disappears. Are we inconsistent at gameprep? Too limited to adjust? Can't pass when they stop the run? Poor conditioning? Is it mental? Is it missing depth or talent? Snakebit? The theme of this season is looking like a really good team yet losing games we shouldn't.

A) Nah. I'm going to need you to chart every single time we were in nickel or dime. B) M Griffin could easily mean Marcus. Seriously, though, I already said Marcus was #6 in tackles, which is a decent enough metric for what the overall contribution was.

I swear to god, dude. He had 23 tackles and played all 13 games. Here's a screencap of the nickel defense:

In 2006 he was injured vs Rice. In 2005 he played all 13 games.

Huff played nickel because it was essentially the same as SS in Akina's single-high base. His nickel package added a safety to the boundary who was Marcus Griffin.

I was going with Griffinx3, Huff, Ross as the 5. I feel like Marcus was the 5th guy on the field when we were nickel. Ross and Brown rotated pretty evenly. I think Ross started at the beginning of the season and Brown ended up starting late. Wish I could find snap counts, but going by tackles it would be Marcus Griffin is #6. Solid college player, but not in the realm of his brother or Huff.

Are you a teenager? Washington was a literal dumpster fire. Worst program in all the FBS. Tarell Brown who is also an NFLer.

So the stippers were maybe too effective?

But we did get that Ineligible Man Downfield call. That was weird. Maybe a make-up call from the Sanders hold on the previous drive.

Texas 31 Baylor 24 Bijan - 176

Above.

Agree on Sorrell. He's going to be the primary edge rusher moving forward. Ovie is being asked to read-pop, glance, spy, etc more often than he's directly rushing, which is fine for his skill set. I can see guys like Burke, Walton, and Gullette being used the same way depending on how they develop. I think we have edges on our roster, but that's not saying that we can't grab the right guy from the portal. You aren't wrong. But Murphy and Broughton are rotating in often without noticeable drop off and should be good next year. It's that the next crop of DT2s are redshirting, so only the coaches know how that's going. Collins is solid depth even if he's not the superstar we want him to be. I'd be prioritizing a portal LB. We are losing a lot, and there's not much depth there to begin with. I don't think a 5* freshmen LB fully solves the issue, either. DB is another spot where the backups drop off quite a bit from starters. We have young talent there, but they've been tested and failed quite a bit this year.

We were decent at this last year, but it felt more like individual efforts. There are plays this year with 3-4 guys getting there immediately. Even when the corner blows it up right away there are other hats coming in hot.

Theu call phantom holding on us and miss obvious holding on them. We about to get ref fucked.

I don't think that rule is in place until Jan 1 (or Jan 18 is actually when the portal closes).

Numberswise, we wanted 2 RBs and Wisner was taken as RB2. I don't think he's getting processed unless we have other options. OL, Edge are the postions where scholarships are tightening. I'm looking at OL personally.

We are full circle back to calling them halfbacks, but, yes, that's the position Randle slots in. That's one of the reasons Randle's spot is safer if we take a 3rd TE.

This is a known issue. The NCAA has asked the rules committee to review the defensive substitution rules this offseason. It was already changed last offseason. Last year the umpire would put the ball into play quicker at a low play clock, but the defense was allowed to have their players leave the field after the snap if they were within a stride of the sideline and did not impact the play. The issue with this was the judge calling "technically correct" 12-men penalties when the umpire thought it was okay to play. This year the umpire is holding the ball until substitution is complete as long as the defense is substituting with haste and not causing additional delay, which is an impossible determination for the umpire. There is no longer a grace window for the defense. They have to be completely off the field. The leading idea going forward is putting the ball into play a set amount of time after the offense completes its substitution. That way both teams know how much time they have, and there's less room to work the officials or try to game the system.

☕️ ☕️ ☕️ in Roswell. FIGHT!!!

Texas 34 Kansas 27 Punts: 152 yards

I liked Weigman as a recruit. I hope he finds success in a program less dogshit.

That's probably a low estimate. If you start at a baseline of $100k per scholarship, you are already to $8.5MM. That means there only $4.5MM more to fend off portal competition for upwards of 20 players plus promises to 20+ recruits.

The insta post means he likes Young Jeezy, works hard for the team, and is loyal.

My vote was 7-5. The problem isn't the record or preseason predictions. The problem is that this team is actually improved more than what anyone should have expected, and we've even seen glimpses of great football at times. Is there a position group on this team that isn't clearly better than last year? OL is the closest thing, and I think most people here undertstand why and think it's still headed the right way. But we've been erratic as hell between games and even within games. We can't seem to keep it together at crucial times, and it's costing us games that we should not lose.

That Vegas open represents ~38-31, so high scoring would not be unexpected.