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2024 Season Thread and all the shit in between games


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Time to quit smelling our own farts, and get back to work improving especially on offense.  Adversity has hit, culture needs to step up and get this team on track and win in Nashville!!! 

Offensive Line Gets Whooped | Time to Bench Quinn? | Georgia def. Texas, 30-15 | Rapid Reactions

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The biggest game of the year (so far) had the biggest audience of the year. ESPN has announced the matchup was the most-watched college football game of the season so far.

The audience peaked at 14.1 million, according to ESPN, and it was the most watched game on ESPN’s family of networks since the 2016 Ohio State-Michigan game (16.84 million). An average of 12.4 million TV viewers tuned in to see No. 5 Georgia’s 30-15 win over No. 1 Texas from DKR.

This is a big audience for the Longhorns for the second week in a row. The Texas-Oklahoma game had 7.63 million watching at home, according to ESPN. That was the second most-watched game of the week behind Ohio State-Oregon, which had 9.6 million viewers. It was second most-watched Texas-OU game since 2009.

This was the first time this season the Longhorns have generated more than 10 million viewers. The Texas-Michigan game had an estimated 9.19 million watching the second week of the season.

 

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2 hours ago, LTtxfan said:

We Are The Villain - Embrace The Hate!!!🤘

 

 

hit piece article to generate more clicks...

Quote

Opinion: With light schedule, Texas is quickly making SEC friends - or is that enemies?

Matt Hayes   USA TODAY

Let’s begin with the obvious: we’re 25 days into October, and Texas still hasn’t played a true SEC road game.

We’re eight weeks into the college football season, and Texas – the wealthiest and most powerful sports program in all of college sports, and the prized jewel of the most recent round of conference expansion – will finally on Saturday play its first true SEC road game. 

At longtime SEC lightweight Vanderbilt.

Excuse me while I unfurl this doublewide conspiracy flag, wave it wildly and plant it in firmly in the mud. 

Or as an SEC athletic director told me this week, "more than a handful” of the conference athletic directors are furious about the Texas schedule and optics it presents. How it looks – take a deep breath, Deep South – like the Longhorns already run the league.

And away we go. 

We’re barely four months into We’re Texas And You’re Not in the SEC (ask the good folks at the Big 12, they’ll explain it), and I’m not saying there’s buyer remorse, but it’s not all as hunky-dory as it looks. 

Maybe that’s why the league office came out guns blazing in response to Texas fans last week throwing garbage and other assorted nonsense on the field during a welcome to the SEC paddling from Georgia.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey fined Texas some walkin' around cash ($250,000), and required the school to use “all available resources” to identify fans who threw trash on the field (and at Georgia players) and prohibit them from attending future games. You know, every good conspiracy needs a useful idiot.

Then the SEC declared one more misstep, and the ability to sell alcohol at Texas games could be altered. 

Before you think this is drastic, heavy lifting, understand that Sankey and the presidents did the same thing to Tennessee not so long ago when Vols fans threw trash on the field (and at Ole Miss players) because they, too, knew more than officials. Tennessee's alcohol sales were also threatened, which is sort of like threatening oxygen for the rest of us.

Officials at Tennessee eventually rounded up all of 25 fans who couldn’t behave, did what had to be done, and no one throws anything on the field in Knoxville anymore. 

This is the way the SEC works: all for one, one for all. Everyone earns equal shares of the billions in media rights, and everyone earns similar punishments for similar incidents.

But as the great George Orwell once wrote in Animal Farm, “All SEC teams are equal, but some SEC teams are more equal than others.” Or something like that.  

It is here where we circle back to the whole schedule thing, an offensive wink and nod to Texas and its first run at the big time. If you think the league’s athletic directors aren’t happy about the gift road to the SEC championship game, the conference coaches are livid.

I spoke to three coaches this week, and each not only confirmed the rift about the laughable schedule given to Texas in its inaugural season, but each also made sure to text Georgia coach Kirby Smart and thank him for making it perfectly clear that Texas may be a member of the conference — but Texas hasn’t come close to experiencing the conference.

Prior to playing host to Georgia, Texas played wildly overrated Michigan, the worst team in the SEC (Mississippi State) at home, the worst Oklahoma team in decades in a neutral site game, and three non-conference punching bags at home. 

The Bulldogs then rolled into Austin, and star quarterback Carson Beck played the worst game of his career. Didn’t throw a touchdown pass, had three interceptions and his receivers dropped nine passes. And it was still 24-0 before you could say all hat, no cattle.

Smart may have wailed after the game that “no one believed” in Georgia, but you better believe everyone in the SEC not named Bevo wanted Georgia to do what Georgia does against every team not named Alabama.

Every team in the SEC wants another Vanderbilt win this weekend, and another goalpost thrown in the Cumberland River. They want Florida coach Billy Napier to save his job two weeks after that, and Arkansas to win its third consecutive game against its former Southwest Conference rival, and Kentucky to find its big game mojo, and Texas A&M to extract 12 years of frustration from Bevo’s hide.

Three of those games (Vanderbilt, Arkansas, Texas A&M) are on the road, where life in the meatgrinder league is difficult no matter who or where you’re playing. It’s just that, you know, Texas got Vanderbilt, Arkansas and Texas A&M. 

While Georgia got Texas, Alabama and Ole Miss.

No other SEC team went further than Oct. 5 without playing a true road game. Oklahoma, Texas’ expansion brother, played its first true SEC road game a month before the Longhorns ― at Auburn, one of the three toughest road venues in the conference.

Texas got Vanderbilt, the easiest place to play in the SEC. if you don't believe me, ask Nick Saban.

Look, this isn't a raging, shoot first, aim second conspiracy. These are facts. And because the SEC decided to stay with its current schedule for the 2025 season, Texas will play the same teams in Year 2 with home sites swapped. 

Texas, everyone, is quickly making friends in its new conference. 

Not long after the SEC’s response to Texas fans, Longhorns president Jay Hartzell published an open letter to fans, stating, among other things, that “these actions made a bad early impression on Georgia and our new conference colleagues.”

Don’t worry, Jay. The Texas reputation precedes it. 

The difference is, you’re not in the Big 12 anymore.

 

Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X @MattHayesCFB.

 

 

Edited by LTtxfan
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1 hour ago, utexas8 said:

Why do we have 2 byes this year?

Weird calendar year...

College football schedule: Why does every team get two bye weeks during the 2024 season?

Teams have two byes this year due to an NCAA bylaw that prohibits FBS programs from playing their first game of the season prior to the Thursday before Labor Day, which fell on Aug. 29 this year. That marked the official start of Week 1, with the first full Saturday of college football falling on Aug. 31. 

Between Aug. 31 and Nov. 30 -- the final Saturday in November -- there are 14 Saturdays to play 12 regular season games. That means a majority of FBS teams will be provided an extra week off. Some teams, like Florida State, will even have three bye weeks

 

https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/college-football-schedule-why-does-every-team-get-two-bye-weeks-during-the-2024-season/#:~:text=Teams have two byes this year due to,Day%2C which fell on Aug. 29 this year.

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1 hour ago, utexas8 said:

Why do we have 2 byes this year?

 

2 minutes ago, LTtxfan said:

Weird calendar year...

College football schedule: Why does every team get two bye weeks during the 2024 season?

Teams have two byes this year due to an NCAA bylaw that prohibits FBS programs from playing their first game of the season prior to the Thursday before Labor Day, which fell on Aug. 29 this year. That marked the official start of Week 1, with the first full Saturday of college football falling on Aug. 31. 

Between Aug. 31 and Nov. 30 -- the final Saturday in November -- there are 14 Saturdays to play 12 regular season games. That means a majority of FBS teams will be provided an extra week off. Some teams, like Florida State, will even have three bye weeks

 

https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/college-football-schedule-why-does-every-team-get-two-bye-weeks-during-the-2024-season/#:~:text=Teams have two byes this year due to,Day%2C which fell on Aug. 29 this year.

TBH with CFP playoff being 12-16 teams moving forward they should leave the two bye weeks.

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with the bye week maybe someone will start a "where are we at" thread

or maybe this is the place for a mid-term report card

yesterday was a win that felt like a loss

for me and i'm sure for many the crushing domination of every opponent before uga made tailpipe banana consumption mandatory

and now winning out feels unlikely so no trip to atlanta unless sark and flood solve the quinn/line/pocket problem

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Vandy defense probably less talented then next 4 teams Texas offense plays.  During bye weak, Texas better clean shit up and play much better on offense going forward.

Execution is word for offense's bye week...

Mixed Bag From Offense in Nashville | OLine issues Continue | Moore Steps Up | Texas vs Vandy

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Positive stuff.  Sounds like Sark may need to call more straight run plays instead of RPO's.  Too many Texas penalties, and offense not converting bully ball runs in the red zone in 2nd half were issues for Texas.    

Week 9 Review: Why I'm not worried about Texas, Did Alabama find their identity? & Texas A&M wows  

 

 

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Quote

AUSTIN, Texas — With the Texas Longhorns emerging from the season’s second bye week, head coach Steve Sarkisian had an opportunity to evaluate the team’s younger players, naming freshman running back Jerrick Gibson, redshirt freshman defensive tackle Sydir Mitchell, freshman cornerback Kobe Black, freshman safety Jordon Johnson-Rubell, and freshman safety Xavier Filsaime.

“Kobe Black continues to make strides. I think Jerrick Gibson showed us a lot last week. Both the young safeties — Jordon Johnson-Rubell and Xavier Filsaime are kind of on the come. And so the good part is it’s not always just about on offense and defense, it’s finding roles for them on special teams as well. A lot of those guys have shown me a lot,” Sarkisian said.

“I’ll say this — I think Sydir Mitchell the last two weeks has had his two best weeks of work here in quite some time. So that stuff’s encouraging to me that we’ve got a group of players that are continuing to push one another and push themselves to be the best they can be, because that’s how our team is going to become really good.”

The inclusion of Mitchell was particularly surprising — the massive New Jersey product not only angered the coaching staff by showing up overweight for winter conditioning, he was also removed from the sideline during the Louisiana-Monroe game, reportedly angered about a lack of playing time. Mitchell had appeared in 20 snaps over the first three games, but hasn’t appeared since.

Black’s inclusion is not surprising after playing cornerback in place of senior Gavin Holmes against Vanderbilt, likely a result of his sturdy 6’2, 200-pound frame that allowed him to hold up better against the power running game of the Commodores. In only nine snaps, Black impressed.

“He got in the game against Vanderbilt and he looked comfortable — it didn’t look like that was his first time being on the field. He looked comfortable. He made a nice third-down pass breakup. He gets an interception. Obviously, gets called back, but he’s playing more on special teams, and he’s one example of guys that played early in the year in what seemed to be meaningless snaps at an end of a game, but those snaps matter for a young player over time, and that accumulation of those snaps, I think, become a positive when your number is called to step into a game,” Sarkisian said.

So in addition to playing on three special teams unit — kick coverage, kick return, and punt return, Black is challenging to become the team’s No. 3 cornerback.

While Black’s role has increased, Gibson has seen his workload decrease in recent weeks. Following the preseason injuries sustained by running backs CJ Baxter and Christian Clark, Gibson had to step up when Jaydon Blue and Quintrevion Wisner suffered minor injuries early in the season. With transfer Velton Gardner not playing since the UTSA game, there was a stretch of the non-conference schedule during which Gibson was the only truly healthy scholarship running back. The Florida product took advantage against the Roadrunners, leading the team with 13 carries for 75 yards. For the year, Gibson has 48 carries for 227 yards and three touchdowns.

But as Blue and Wisner returned to the rotation, the coaching staff opted to reduce Gibson’s carries in an effort to keep him healthy, so he’s only received six carries in SEC play. Against Vanderbilt, Gibson received just one snap, but given the nature of the running back position, Texas may need the 5’10, 205-pounder again down the stretch.

We've all wondered why Gibson hasn't been on the field more of late, and I guess this does make a lot of sense. When you only have two RBs, each of which has dealt with injuries this season, you sure as hell better the limit the miles on RB3.

Johnson-Rubell has played sparingly on special teams with seven snaps on kickoff coverage and four snaps on kickoff return, but injuries to sophomore Derek Williams and senior Andre Mukuba at safety have forced him into the fringe of the rotation, including playing 18 snaps against Oklahoma.

“He’s a very hard worker, super physical safety, loves contact. You’ve seen that in the plays that he’s already played in the game — he was in on that safety, redshirt junior safety Michael Taaffe said last month, referring to the safety against Louisiana-Monroe when Johnson-Rubell was one of the first players to arrived at the ball carrier.

With Williams out, the fifth safety is Filsaime, who flipped from Florida a year ago, finishing the 2024 cycle as the No. 62 player nationally and the No. 3 safety, according to the 247Sports Composite rankings. Filsaime has played in 20 total snaps on defense this season, but the most pressing immediate question for him is whether he can break onto a special teams unit with the ability to appear in two more games while still maintaining his redshirt.

 

 

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