This is who Steve Sarkisian is.

[hobbes2702 13,049]

1 minute ago, Hank Chinaski said:

This photo should put the “2022 Texas is ultra-talented” notion to fucking bed. Reminder that Brian fucking Orakpo was a backup on that team. 

The only flaws on that team were lack of elite LBs. That’s one of the three most talented college football teams ever though so it’s not a fair comp. 

[BurntOrange&White 39,934]

Here is the very first play of the NC game:

 

Starting lineup presenting during broadcast:

 

Here is the first nickel play in question:

[gmr548 16,590]

Sark inherited a shitty roster of players.  Look at my post above and show me all the talent left by Herman?  Most of the talent on this roster is Freshman and sophomores right now.
 

This just gets parroted and it’s quite obvious no one thinks about it.

Offense: Jones, Conner, Majors, Bijan, RoJo, Whittington, Sanders, Card - majority of staters/contributors. Also Angilau was an entrenched starter.

Defense: Sweat, Coburn, Broughton, Collins, Ford, Overshown, Gbenda, Barron, Jamison, Cook, Thompson - majority of staters/contributors.

Sark plus adds for this year basically come down to Banks, Worthy, Watts, and some edge bodies with Sorrell as a highlight. Ewers is also worth mentioning but objectively hasn’t been significantly better than Card this year - maybe next season.

[immamac 42,877]

8 minutes ago, gmr548 said:

 

This just gets parroted and it’s quite obvious no one thinks about it.

Offense: Jones, Conner, Majors, Bijan, RoJo, Whittington, Sanders, Card - majority of staters/contributors. Also Angilau was an entrenched starter.

Defense: Sweat, Coburn, Broughton, Collins, Ford, Overshown, Gbenda, Barron, Jamison, Cook, Thompson - majority of staters/contributors.

Sark plus adds for this year basically come down to Banks, Worthy, Watts, and some edge bodies with Sorrell as a highlight. Ewers is also worth mentioning but objectively hasn’t been significantly better than Card this year - maybe next season.

 

It's almost like people don't know shit about football. 

[Js1 85,449]

7 minutes ago, immamac said:

It's almost like people don't know shit about football. 

It's almost like you're a giant fucking asshole to people who don't agree with you. 

[Hookem2147 21,345]

I joked about it the other day, but it's weird how the intensity in this thread increases following a win. Wild to watch. 

[lilMAC25 3,801]

17 minutes ago, gmr548 said:

 

This just gets parroted and it’s quite obvious no one thinks about it.

Offense: Jones, Conner, Majors, Bijan, RoJo, Whittington, Sanders, Card - majority of staters/contributors. Also Angilau was an entrenched starter.

Defense: Sweat, Coburn, Broughton, Collins, Ford, Overshown, Gbenda, Barron, Jamison, Cook, Thompson - majority of staters/contributors.

Sark plus adds for this year basically come down to Banks, Worthy, Watts, and some edge bodies with Sorrell as a highlight. Ewers is also worth mentioning but objectively hasn’t been significantly better than Card this year - maybe next season.

 

Thank you. I typed out 4-5 of those, and quit

[Js1 85,449]

4 minutes ago, Hookem2147 said:

I joked about it the other day, but it's weird how the intensity in this thread increases following a win. Wild to watch. 

Texas fans are truly more miserable after a win. 

[austintiger 111]

1 minute ago, Js1 said:

Texas fans are truly more miserable after a win. 

I would argue that they are miserable because kansas should never be a big game but is.....because the bmds go full retard when hiring football coaches.

[BurntOrange&White 39,934]

19 minutes ago, immamac said:

It's almost like people don't know shit about football. 

The glorious thing about next year is we will actually be a much younger team.....well depending on portal. 


I can already here the excuses about the defense that loses 8 to 9 of 11 starters. "We're young we just need to give them time to gel." "Next year we will be really good with all the experience" "Tom Herman left no good defenders" 

 

[JBJ 3,663]

22 minutes ago, hobbes2702 said:

Last post on this tangent.

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.

[hook me 2,103]

12 minutes ago, gmr548 said:

 

This just gets parroted and it’s quite obvious no one thinks about it.

Offense: Jones, Conner, Majors, Bijan, RoJo, Whittington, Sanders, Card - majority of staters/contributors. Also Angilau was an entrenched starter.

Defense: Sweat, Coburn, Broughton, Collins, Ford, Overshown, Gbenda, Barron, Jamison, Cook, Thompson - majority of staters/contributors.

Sark plus adds for this year basically come down to Banks, Worthy, Watts, and some edge bodies with Sorrell as a highlight. Ewers is also worth mentioning but objectively hasn’t been significantly better than Card this year - maybe next season.

 

The primary problem with what Herman left on offense was that they were players recruited for his offense & not Sarks. Sarks offense requires different skillsets & attributes at every position other than Bijan & Sanders (Sark uses Sanders better than Herman would have but he's technically a Herman recruit). It's not that they are shitty players, though I do think Sark has raised the overall talent of this side of the ball by a bit, they just weren't the right players for the offense we currently run. Obviously not something you can hold against Herman, it's just the pains of going from one offensive system to the other. 

Defense is another story. We have young talent but we're going to need lots of pieces from the portal &/or rely on TRFR starters & they're all going to have to be ready to hit the ground running. It'd be nice to get Ford back as well as Collins & Broughton back & for both of them to take steps forward like Coburn & Sweat did this year. Seems like a lot to ask at the moment though.

[927 E. 41st 1,124]

3 hours ago, immamac said:

It's almost like NIL makes recruiting...way easier? Stop telling everyone Sark is what got Quinn here and Sark is what got X to stay and Sark is what got the OL and Sark is what got XXX - just stop with the fucking nonsense. Texas recruits itself quite well - in the past that was city, life after football etc etc, now it's all that plus you (have the opportunity to) get paid fat fucking stacks, it needs a bit of TLC from the coaches on the targets that feel like they need attention, but stop acting like there is some super difficult equation in these 17 year olds brains on where they are going to go to play football, which gives them a less than 3% chance of going pro.  

A bunch of you in this thread simply can't for whatever reason wrap your mind around turning almost an entire starting 22 over in a single season through the transfer portal and high level early enrollee talent. It's wild to me. It's been done right in front of your faces with people who are at significantly less high profile schools with significantly less money available from the people who really love those schools ready to go. 

BTW the majority of the offensive production, save Xavier is actually *checks notes* TOM HERMANS FUCKING TALENT. Tom had the OG commit from Quinn and he's always been a homer, you can't convince me that he saw something special brewing at 5-7 with the last game of the season being a former QB who played wildcat and put the team on his back to beat a bad kstate and he was like, fuck yeah that's the coach I wanna play for. You fucking idiots I swear

Nice little screed, but you make some assumptions (with a couple of variations) that I respectfully question. Woven throughout, you assume to know what motivates another individual. It's something we all do but it's faulty. Are all of the soldiers fighting for Russia right now doing it because they love Putin? Of course not. It's a wide variety of motivations, and internal priorities, just like a 17-18 YO football recruit. We all deal with limited brain power and so we simplify. It works to some degree, no doubt SOME players will be swayed totally by money. 

Does Texas recruit itself? To some degree, but if it were only Texas then Ewers would have stayed with his original commitment, correct?

I would also argue that turning over an entire starting 22 "at a lower profile school" is a different prospect than doing the same thing at a blue blood.

You have stated you "off the Sark bandwagon" previously, and I don't mean this with any disrespect, but you are letting your emotion cloud your logic. 

 

[C-Man 27,237]

1 hour ago, austintiger said:

I would argue that they are miserable because kansas should never be a big game but is.....because the bmds go full retard when hiring football coaches.

Yes, Kansas should not be a big game for Texas. However, let's not lose sight of the fact that they're vastly improved under Leipold and going to a bowl this year. They were 5-0 when Daniels got hurt this season. Based on this year's results, I'd argue that they were a vastly improved team by the end of last season compared to the beginning of the season but they still never should've beaten us at home like they did.

[Js1 85,449]

imma's fandom is a bigger roller coaster this year than aggy's season.

Real low pre-season
Got high after Bama/OU
and then the plunge off the cliff

[babysdaddy 2,725]

it's pretty funny.  Belichick is only a good coach 'cause of Brady....but Sark sucks even though he's had a child playing qb.  Herman was a good coach and the players played bad....Sark is a bad coach regardless of how the players play. My narrative is correct and the rest of you are wrong.  Also, here's Sarks record as a coach which proves he sucks (disregard he was a raging drunk that entire time and even got a winless Washington team to be respectable and ultimately a roster that was damn good).  But look how much he sucked a USC for......a season and a half.  

Sark may suck....he may be damn good.  Give him some time, smoke a joint, and relax.  

[Doc Daneeka 6,769]

it's pretty funny.  Belichick is only a good coach 'cause of Brady....but Sark sucks even though he's had a child playing qb.  Herman was a good coach and the players played bad....Sark is a bad coach regardless of how the players play. My narrative is correct and the rest of you are wrong.  Also, here's Sarks record as a coach which proves he sucks (disregard he was a raging drunk that entire time and even got a winless Washington team to be respectable and ultimately a roster that was damn good).  But look how much he sucked a USC for......a season and a half.  
Sark may suck....he may be damn good.  Give him some time, smoke a joint, and relax.  

And all the calls for Ehlinger to hero-ball it even though 95,011 people knew what was coming, only to have it fail, well, we don’t talk about those.

[closetohumping 17,453]

2 hours ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

Can you add in players under coach who: wore >$1000 shoes and drove to practice in >$80k cars and made more money than their position coaches. Curious to see if there is a change over time.

Are we the only ones paying players?   
 

if that’s the case then sark really sucks

[C-Man 27,237]

9 minutes ago, closetohumping said:

Are we the only ones paying players?   
 

if that’s the case then sark really sucks

I think the argument is that for the first time you have a collection of players who are making more money than their position coaches. That's been a long-time thing in the NFL but this is a brave new world in the college ranks.

[Levi 2,588]

Half the guys Sark inherited from Herman were not playing up to their potential. Hand was not going to coah up that Oline the way Flood is doing right now. The only reason jones is worth a damn, imo, is because of Flood working with him. Sark did a good job covering up Colemans failures, now imagine a second year with Herman trying to and the returning wr core. Not fun. Sanders is a Herman guy but was no where close to being ready his freshman year. 
 

The defense is more wishy washy but I will say under year 2, our defense has shown huge improvement. I don’t think Ash was going to light the world on fire with the returning group. The corners coah who’s name slips my mind was an absolute joke, and 3x as bad as Joseph. 

[Dbeasy 15,074]

24 minutes ago, babysdaddy said:

it's pretty funny.  Belichick is only a good coach 'cause of Brady....but Sark sucks even though he's had a child playing qb.  Herman was a good coach and the players played bad....Sark is a bad coach regardless of how the players play. My narrative is correct and the rest of you are wrong.  Also, here's Sarks record as a coach which proves he sucks (disregard he was a raging drunk that entire time and even got a winless Washington team to be respectable and ultimately a roster that was damn good).  But look how much he sucked a USC for......a season and a half.  

Sark may suck....he may be damn good.  Give him some time, smoke a joint, and relax.  

Well said. A lot of people grab onto certain facts and ignore others to reinforce their pre-existing opinion. 

[JBJ 3,663]

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.

Edited November 22, 2022 by JBJ

[BurntOrange&White 39,934]

7 minutes ago, JBJ said:

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.

I'm fairly certain Sark's teams had these same struggles in his time at Washington and the limited time at USC. Losing games they had no business losing.

[40acredropout 2,902]

I'm sure this will just be dismissed by many but here is some data on the youth / experience level of our roster.

• We rank 2nd in the country in share of offensive snaps taken by 1st or 2nd year players.
• We rank 88th in the county in share of defensive snaps taken by 4th or 5th year players. 
• In the Big 12, we are by far the youngest team:

You can win with youth.  LSU is also starting two freshman OL and they rank 6th in the country in % of offensive snaps taken by 1st or 2nd year players.  To be fair, they also have a top 10 QB in college football in Daniels which is... important.

Not going to gloss over fact that we have probably the best RB room in the country.   It's been incredibly frustrating to watch that squandered at times.  There's plenty of blame to go around for that.  Yes, you can blame Sark's stubborn playcalling and abandoning it at times.  But it's also worth pointing out our overall run blocking grade ranks 93rd in the country.  Our two starting guards rank 24th and 25th out of 26 Big 12 players.  Obviously defenses have keyed in on the run due to our inability to establish a real passing threat due to inexperience / ineffectiveness at QB which honestly shouldn't have been that surprising.  

The defense has improved beyond what would have been my most optimistic case coming into the season.  And they've gotten better throughout the season.  I don't know how you can't chalk that up to continuity and coaching.  I won't even get into assigning credit between PK and GP because I don't really care.

We are gong to have some big holes to fill next season but I also think the overall floor of our roster talent / experience will be elevated significantly.  And that is absolutely huge for the future and health of the program.  That's before any strategic additions in the portal. 

I really like Sark and I want him to do well here.  When it feels like he is doing more damage than good or there is a obvious and attainable upgrade available, I will grab my pitchfork and join the mob.  But I don't see that yet.  He gets year 3 with his own (somewhat) experienced players before I start claiming to KNOW what he can or cannot be.    

 

Edited November 22, 2022 by 40acredropout

[immamac 42,877]

1 hour ago, babysdaddy said:

it's pretty funny.  Belichick is only a good coach 'cause of Brady....but Sark sucks even though he's had a child playing qb.  Herman was a good coach and the players played bad....Sark is a bad coach regardless of how the players play. My narrative is correct and the rest of you are wrong.  Also, here's Sarks record as a coach which proves he sucks (disregard he was a raging drunk that entire time and even got a winless Washington team to be respectable and ultimately a roster that was damn good).  But look how much he sucked a USC for......a season and a half.  

Sark may suck....he may be damn good.  Give him some time, smoke a joint, and relax.  

Head coaching records are the outcome that coaches are measured by full stop. That's actually 100% consistent with all of my arguments and you make it seem like I'm shifting the narrative. The narrative is focused on one thing - what coach wins the most games? Not the most big games, not the most games within 1 score not the most games that should have been won, not the games that would have been won had player x not done shit. Legitimate actual games won.

[JBJ 3,663]

58 minutes ago, BurntOrange&White said:

I'm fairly certain Sark's teams had these same struggles in his time at Washington and the limited time at USC. Losing games they had no business losing.

His Husky teams were 21-3 when favored and 12-26 when not favored.  They were slightly above average at getting the upset, but very good at winning when favored.  And he never had a year losing more than 1 game when favored.

If you just go by Vegas he was 33-29 but should have been 24-38.

Edited November 22, 2022 by JBJ

[Hookem2147 21,345]

15 minutes ago, JBJ said:

His Husky teams were 21-3 when favored and 12-26 when not favored.  They were slightly above average at getting the upset, but very good at winning when favored.  And he never had a year losing more than 1 game when favored.

If you just go by Vegas he was 33-29 but should have been 24-38.

Your post send me down a rabbit hole.

Last year, he was 5-3 (Arkansas, OSU and Kansas the losses) when favored and 0-4 (OU, Baylor, West Virginia and Iowa State) when the underdog.

This year, he is 7-3 (Tech, OSU and TCU the losses) when favored and 0-1 (Bama) when the underdog.

Edited November 22, 2022 by Hookem2147

[C-Man 27,237]

16 minutes ago, JBJ said:

His Husky teams were 21-3 when favored and 12-26 when not favored.  They were slightly above average at getting the upset, but very good at winning when favored.  And he never had a year losing more than 1 game when favored.

If you just go by Vegas he was 33-29 but should have been 24-38.

I'm pretty sure Texas has been favored in every game we've played this year except Bama, right? Therefore, Sark is 7-3 in games Texas is favored in 2022.

[Beantown Express 2.0 6,559]

3 hours ago, gmr548 said:

 

This just gets parroted and it’s quite obvious no one thinks about it.

Offense: Jones, Conner, Majors, Bijan, RoJo, Whittington, Sanders, Card - majority of staters/contributors. Also Angilau was an entrenched starter.

Defense: Sweat, Coburn, Broughton, Collins, Ford, Overshown, Gbenda, Barron, Jamison, Cook, Thompson - majority of staters/contributors.

Sark plus adds for this year basically come down to Banks, Worthy, Watts, and some edge bodies with Sorrell as a highlight. Ewers is also worth mentioning but objectively hasn’t been significantly better than Card this year - maybe next season.

 

Great points about what Herman left on offense for Sark.  Now tell me about the offensive line again?  You listed 3 OL total.  Shouldn’t there be like 8 plus JR/SR offensive lineman on the roster that are fairly good?  I would argue Conner and Majors are not high quality lineman either at least at this point for Conner.  Not sure Majors will ever be there.  

You all can enjoy getting angry about Sark and crying to everybody that he should be fired right now but that seems like a miserable way to go through life.  He is here for at least 1 more year if not 2 so as Clayton Williams once said, “you should “relax and enjoy it”.  I for one am looking forward to him stacking good players on the roster which hasn’t been done since Macks early years.  Hopefully, they continue to get better and Sark is the guy.  If after another year or 2 they are still losing 4-5 games a season he will be ousted and we will hire some other coach you can bitch about.

[UTEX90 589]

41 minutes ago, 40acredropout said:

I really like Sark and I want him to do well here.  When it feels like he is doing more damage than good or there is a obvious and attainable upgrade available, I will grab my pitchfork and join the mob.  But I don't see that yet.  He gets year 3 with his own (somewhat) experienced players before I start claiming to KNOW what he can or cannot be.    

 

I don't disagree with this thought process, and I am not holding a pitchfork yet either.  I too look forward to seeing what Sark can do in year 3, but I have some major concerns that are seemingly unrelated to player personnel age or experience.  I think Sark at times has done more damage than good in game management, play calling, overall game strategy, second half production (or lack thereof) and the general ability to lose close games.  This is a pattern he needs to break and break consistently and convincingly.  Will that come with experienced personnel? Maybe, but it also comes with coaching.  He needs to improve as a head coach as much as the players need experience. 

The most frustrating thing about Sark is we can get up on an opponent and the whole crowd, or people watching at home, announcers, etc. can feel the momentum shift to the opponent and he (or the staff) can not for the life of them figure it out (or the personnel weren't coached in the first place to overcome it).  It is immensely frustrating, and too frequent to be an anomaly. 

I hope execution by experienced players makes a difference.  I feel like there is sizable improvement, even though I feel the results are not sizable. (The Tech and osu losses loom large). Beat Baylor and win our bowl game and I will feel much better about our situation and Sark in particular.   In the end, the only thing anyone will measure him by is wins and losses.  How we perform against Baylor is a huge indicator about how I will feel about him going into next season. 

All that being said, Sark's ability to manage the portal is going to be huge for his future success.  In this day and age, youth is not going to cut it as an excuse, when portal transfers are going to be readily available.

[austintiger 111]

2 hours ago, babysdaddy said:

it's pretty funny.  Belichick is only a good coach 'cause of Brady....but Sark sucks even though he's had a child playing qb.  Herman was a good coach and the players played bad....Sark is a bad coach regardless of how the players play. My narrative is correct and the rest of you are wrong.  Also, here's Sarks record as a coach which proves he sucks (disregard he was a raging drunk that entire time and even got a winless Washington team to be respectable and ultimately a roster that was damn good).  But look how much he sucked a USC for......a season and a half.  

Sark may suck....he may be damn good.  Give him some time, smoke a joint, and relax.  

Oh he sucks....but you will just have to find out the hard way. He has been a head coach and those records are easy to look up. That's who he is 

[Thatguy 8,761]

1 hour ago, BurntOrange&White said:

I'm fairly certain Sark's teams had these same struggles in his time at Washington and the limited time at USC. Losing games they had no business losing.

 

17 minutes ago, JBJ said:

His Husky teams were 21-3 when favored and 12-26 when not favored.  They were slightly above average at getting the upset, but very good at winning when favored.  And he never had a year losing more than 1 game when favored.

If you just go by Vegas he was 33-29 but should have been 24-38.

      We like to bang on Sark about his time at UW without taking a look at the context. UW had 6 straight losing seasons with 3 of them being 1-10,2-9, and 0-12 the year prior to his arrival. He lost lost 29 games while he was there. In that time USC, Stanford, and Oregon were all very good. 11 of his losses came to those three squads. Then they had the LSU home and away and lost both of those. Played RG3 during his heisman year and lost that. They largely did well considering their schedule. That's why people at the time felt like he was a good candidate for a bigger head coaching job. 

[BurntOrange&White 39,934]

3 minutes ago, Thatguy said:

 

      We like to bang on Sark about his time at UW without taking a look at the context. UW had 6 straight losing seasons with 3 of them being 1-10,2-9, and 0-12 the year prior to his arrival. He lost lost 29 games while he was there. In that time USC, Stanford, and Oregon were all very good. 11 of his losses came to those three squads. Then they had the LSU home and away and lost both of those. Played RG3 during his heisman year and lost that. They largely did well considering their schedule. That's why people at the time felt like he was a good candidate for a bigger head coaching job. 

context sark fucking suck

[Hookem2147 21,345]

In all reality guys, you are what your previous record says you are. Sonny Dykes and his 72-63 career mark when he was hired at TCU has no shot of ever competing for playoff berths. His track record told us that. No chance he can evolve, improve, get better, be elevated by better talent or any of that. He is who he is. He had won 54% of his games. He's shown us over his 12 year career what his ceiling is.

 

Edited November 22, 2022 by Hookem2147

[Thatguy 8,761]

1 hour ago, JBJ said:

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.

In my personal opinion. Worthy and maybe Majors are the only two players that don't look like they got better after year two under Sark. Everyone seems to have either been coached up, or put in a better role for their skillset. Couple that with NFL looking prospects in the trenches, a strong rb room, and solid recruiting classes and I am holding out hope. We haven't recruited this well since early Mack. There looks to be an ideology that we are following, not just grabbing at high starred recruits who we don't need or don't fit the system. 

[Doc Daneeka 6,769]

In my personal opinion. Worthy and maybe Majors are the only two players that don't look like they got better after year two under Sark. Everyone seems to have either been coached up, or put in a better role for their skillset. Couple that with NFL looking prospects in the trenches, a strong rb room, and solid recruiting classes and I am holding out hope. We haven't recruited this well since early Mack. There looks to be an ideology that we are following, not just grabbing at high starred recruits who we don't need or don't fit the system. 

I’ll hold nothing against Worthy if his portal rumors are true. It sounds like the incoming portals would more than offset the loss.

I think it’s pretty indisputable that there’s been development and that the trend is in the right direction, even if some think the process is too slow or not managed as well as some other head coach would have done.

[Slacks 6,828]

8 hours ago, Thatguy said:

Baylor is going to try their best to make them. I expect to see heavy boxes and rushing at least 4. 

Great. Run the ball.

[austintiger 111]

55 minutes ago, Hookem2147 said:

In all reality guys, you are what your previous record says you are. Sonny Dykes and his 72-63 career mark when he was hired at TCU has no shot of ever competing for playoff berths. His track record told us that. No chance he can evolve, improve, get better, be elevated by better talent or any of that. He is who he is. He had won 54% of his games. He's shown us over his 12 year career what his ceiling is.

 

Boy it's going to be a depressing next few years for you

[Thatguy 8,761]

18 minutes ago, austintiger said:

Boy it's going to be a depressing next few years for you

or you

[Hookem2147 21,345]

1 minute ago, austintiger said:

Boy it's going to be a depressing next few years for you

It's been 13 years of depression following this program buddy, ain't nothing new.

We could win 10 games next year and be well on our way to getting back to where we want to be, or we could be looking a new coach. I would much prefer the former than the latter because I'm tired of losing but nothing would surprise me and I have no emotional attachment to coaches.

I do think it's funny to look in this thread and see the goalpost moving in both directions. Some have the minds made up in one direction and nothing anyone could ever say or do will change their minds. Those are the ones who come in after wins even more upset than after losses because wins invalidate what they already predetermined to be true. Others come in here after losses justifying crappy performances on the field or headsets without the ability to accept that coaches can suck. The point of my previous post was to point out the fact that the comparison between coaches and programs at various times in a coaches tenure is a useless exercise because there are a million factors that make up a football team and their performance. One could say that Sonny Dykes career record prior to TCU is useless because of the shape the programs he took over were in (Cal, Louisiana Tech, SMU), and they would have validity in that argument. Just like the people who point out that Steve Sarkisian took over a 0-12 Washington program would have validity in their argument.

[lilMAC25 3,801]

1 hour ago, Hookem2147 said:

In all reality guys, you are what your previous record says you are. Sonny Dykes and his 72-63 career mark when he was hired at TCU has no shot of ever competing for playoff berths. His track record told us that. No chance he can evolve, improve, get better, be elevated by better talent or any of that. He is who he is. He had won 54% of his games. He's shown us over his 12 year career what his ceiling is.

 

Steve Sarkisian has won 8 games or more 2 times in 8 seasons. (1:4) (I’m eliminating Sark’s drunken season at USC)

2013 Washington

2014 USC

 

Sonny Dykes has won 8 games or more 6 times in 12 seasons (1:2) (I’m eliminating Sonny’s 1 game season at SMU)

2011 Louisiana Tech

2012 Louisiana Tech

2015 Cal Berkley

2019 SMU

2022 TCU

 

Sonny Dykes fucking sucks, but he has roughly twice as good a track record for producing successful seasons than Sarkisian.

Edited November 23, 2022 by lilMAC25

[Hookem2147 21,345]

8 minutes ago, lilMAC25 said:

Steve Sarkisian has won 8 games or more 2 times in 8 seasons. (1:4) (I’m eliminating Sark’s drunken season at USC)

2013 Washington

2014 USC

 

 

Sonny Dykes has won 8 games or more 6 times in 12 seasons (1:2) (I’m eliminating Sonny’s 1 game season at SMU)

2011 Louisiana Tech

2012 Louisiana Tech

2015 Cal Berkley

2019 SMU

2022 TCU

 

 

Sonny Dykes fucking sucks, but he easily has a better track record for producing successful seasons than Sarkisian.

What makes 8 wins a successful season? Many in this thread are pissed at the thought of a 8 win season others are pleased with 8 wins. Is a 8 win season at Louisiana Tech in Conference USA or whatever different than a 8 win season at Washington or USC? Sonny Dykes has 5 losing season in 12 years, does that matter?

Again, everyone has stats to support their arguments and those stats can be skewed in any direction you wish.

Edited November 23, 2022 by Hookem2147

[Doc Daneeka 6,769]

It's been 13 years of depression following this program buddy, ain't nothing new.
We could win 10 games next year and be well on our way to getting back to where we want to be, or we could be looking a new coach. I would much prefer the former than the latter because I'm tired of losing but nothing would surprise me and I have no emotional attachment to coaches.
I do think it's funny to look in this thread and see the goalpost moving in both directions. Some have the minds made up in one direction and nothing anyone could ever say or do will change their minds. Those are the ones who come in after wins even more upset than after losses because wins invalidate what they already predetermined to be true. Others come in here after losses justifying crappy performances on the field or headsets without the ability to accept that coaches can suck. The point of my previous post was to point out the fact that the comparison between coaches and programs at various times in a coaches tenure is a useless exercise because there are a million factors that make up a football team and their performance. One could say that Sonny Dykes career record prior to TCU is useless because of the shape the programs he took over were in (Cal, Louisiana Tech, SMU), and they would have validity in that argument. Just like the people who point out that Steve Sarkisian took over a 0-12 Washington program would have validity in their argument.

I see a Texas team that’s much better than when Sarkisian got here. He’s weeded out a lot of those who needed to be weeded out. He’s seemingly recruiting necessary components. The program appears to be going in the right direction.

However, his team hasn’t finished some games. He talks about complementary football, but with rare exceptions, it seems to be either/or. There’s a lot of youth, which may or may not explain some of the inconsistencies.

This team, on for four quarters on both sides of the ball would be as much as any other team would want to deal with. This team, not on can lose to fucking Tech’s backup’s backup QB.

The optimist in me says that experience, depth, and time in the system is going to lead to steamrolling people.

The battered fan in me says the ass-whipping first halves are fool’s gold.

So here I am.

[Thatguy 8,761]

8 minutes ago, lilMAC25 said:

Steve Sarkisian has won 8 games or more 2 times in 8 seasons. (1:4) (I’m eliminating Sark’s drunken season at USC)

2013 Washington

2014 USC

 

Sonny Dykes has won 8 games or more 6 times in 12 seasons (1:2) (I’m eliminating Sonny’s 1 game season at SMU)

2011 Louisiana Tech

2012 Louisiana Tech

2015 Cal Berkley

2019 SMU

2022 TCU

 

Sonny Dykes fucking sucks, but he has roughly twice as good a track record for producing successful seasons than Sarkisian.

Who were they playing against? What did the conference look like at that time? What was the condition of the team prior to their arrival? Were they on sanctions(loss of 30 scholarship per year)?

[Hookem2147 21,345]

3 minutes ago, Doc Daneeka said:

I see a Texas team that’s much better than when Sarkisian got here. He’s weeded out a lot of those who needed to be weeded out. He’s seemingly recruiting necessary components. The program appears to be going in the right direction.

However, his team hasn’t finished some games. He talks about complementary football, but with rare exceptions, it seems to be either/or. There’s a lot of youth, which may or may not explain some of the inconsistencies.

This team, on for four quarters on both sides of the ball would be as much as any other team would want to deal with. This team, not on can lose to fucking Tech’s backup’s backup QB.

The optimist in me says that experience, depth, and time in the system is going to lead to steamrolling people.

The battered fan in me says the ass-whipping first halves are fool’s gold.

So here I am.

I have no idea if the guy is going to get us where we want to be, but I do know that championship level football starts with the OL and front 7 on defense, and those are 2 areas that were almost completely ignored under previous staffs that seem to be getting corrected now. 

Edited November 23, 2022 by Hookem2147

[lilMAC25 3,801]

9 minutes ago, Hookem2147 said:

What makes 8 wins a successful season? Many in this thread are pissed at the thought of a 8 win season others are pleased with 8 wins. Is a 8 win season at Louisiana Tech in Conference USA or whatever different than a 8 win season at Washington or USC? Sonny Dykes has 5 losing season in 12 years, does that matter?

Again, everyone has stats to support their arguments and those stats can be skewed in any direction you wish.

I picked the number 8 at random, but we can do 9, or 10.

Sark 9 win seasons. 1.

Dykes. 3

 

Sark 10 win seasons. 0

Dykes. 2

Edited November 23, 2022 by lilMAC25

[Hookem2147 21,345]

Dave Aranda's was God's greatest gift to coaching a year ago and is about to go 6-6 in year 3. 2-9, 12-2. 6-6 over a 3-year period. Mel Tucker got paid $95 million because he won some close games last year and the dude sucks as a coach.

Predicting success or failure in football is hard.

Edited November 23, 2022 by Hookem2147

[Tex Pete 20,407]

5 hours ago, Js1 said:

Texas fans are truly more miserable after a win. 

Some dummy felt the need to come strutting around here like Mick Jagger because we beat KANSAS.

That’s nice and all. We’re supposed to beat Kansas. Only two moron HCs have failed to do so in recent years. 
 

I’m all for giving the guy a chance, but there is no reason in this world to act like he’s the second coming of Vince Lombardi because he beat Kansas. 

[CTC2 2,798]

20 minutes ago, Hookem2147 said:

I have no idea if the guy is going to get us where we want to be, but I do know that championship level football starts with the OL and front 7 on defense, and those are 2 areas that were almost completely ignored under previous staffs that seem to be getting corrected now. 

This

[gmr548 16,590]

Great points about what Herman left on offense for Sark.  Now tell me about the offensive line again?  You listed 3 OL total.  Shouldn’t there be like 8 plus JR/SR offensive lineman on the roster that are fairly good?  I would argue Conner and Majors are not high quality lineman either at least at this point for Conner.  Not sure Majors will ever be there.  
You all can enjoy getting angry about Sark and crying to everybody that he should be fired right now but that seems like a miserable way to go through life.  He is here for at least 1 more year if not 2 so as Clayton Williams once said, “you should “relax and enjoy it”.  I for one am looking forward to him stacking good players on the roster which hasn’t been done since Macks early years.  Hopefully, they continue to get better and Sark is the guy.  If after another year or 2 they are still losing 4-5 games a season he will be ousted and we will hire some other coach you can bitch about.

Christ. Some real texags grade literacy here. I’ve been the conductor of the “this guy is mediocre but he’s obviously going to be here for a couple more years minimum, so let’s just hope he recruits well enough to overcome that or leave it turn key for the next guy” train and didn’t say a word about firing Sark, but keep fucking that chicken.

It’s just silly to see people act like Sark was left nothing when the majority of the best players on both sides of the ball were here on day one. Worthy and Ewers are the two adds you can really credit Sark for. Even Banks simply fell into his lap - thank Mario Cristobal as much as anyone. You know that. I know that. We all know that.