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Posted
12 hours ago, TheBryMan81 said:

CTJ, I think these wager terms are a bit disingenuous.

This year, we had 0 WR over 1,000 yards,  that's including a first round draft pick 

Worthy in 3 years here went for 981, 760, and 1,014. Livingston would have to have a better season than any of Worthy's or Golden's seasons for you to lose that bet. 

If the bet is basically he's not a JAG vs he's the mcjaggiest of JAGs, 500 yards is not a bad benchmark. In Sark's tenure here, we have had 1, 3, 4, and 3 WR over 500 yards for the season. So 500 yards is basically betting whether or not he's a top 3-4 WR on the roster. Wingo last year didn't top 500 yards.

I feel like 500 yards can happen with a great offense and garbage time when the team is playing 14+ games. I’d be willing to move the bar to 750 though. 

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Posted
1 hour ago, Red Five said:

IT

Quarterback

We’re hearing what we need to hear out of Arch Manning. He’s been precise on play-action strikes and done a good job of taking care of the ball. In addition, he’s sounded a bit more measured and taking the check downs when that’s the best option presented.

Freshman KJ Lacey has looked good in his first few practices. Coaches like his all-around game. He’s an easy guy to craft a scheme around.

We haven’t heard much about Trey Owens yet. Arch is Arch and he’s the starter and Lacey is brand new. It’s not surprising we’d hear about them. We’ll make a concerted effort to ask about Owens this week.

Running Back

Good, solid week from the running backs. It was encouraging hearing about the physicality of the freshmen running backs but it was only thud tempo—albeit, physical thud tempo.

Christian Clark is moving well.

Wide Receiver

Can Parker Livingstone keep up his torrid pace? The defense will likely adjust to his and Manning’s play-action exploits, though he’s showing a more well-rounded game than simply running by defenders. 

Ryan Wingo had a quiet week in the way Michael Jordan would have a quiet 28 points. He’s just going about his business but looks good doing it.

Aaron Butler gained a mention or two last week but the noise hasn’t been as loud as it has been with Livingstone. 

Daylan McCutcheon and Michael Terry are in the slot. Let’s see if the second week brings more mentions, especially for McCutcheon. 

Jaime Ffrench is likely to play a lot this year. He’s too good after the catch.

I like what we heard about Kaliq Lockett matching physicality from the corners. That will be another feather in his cap when it comes to getting open.

Tight End

We haven’t heard much beyond Jordan Washington taking on more leadership and Jeff Banks spending a ton of time helping to expedite Washington’s readiness for this year. That’s similar to what we heard about Banks working with Ja’Tavion Sanders, btw. 

They’ll hit the portal hard at TE.

Offensive Line & Defensive Line

We need some padded practices and scrimmage work before we hear anything ‘real’. 

DJ Campbell’s improved body composition and leadership is very encouraging. He hasn’t lived up to his lofty rating but perhaps that’s about to change. Whispers of competition between Cole Hutson and Connor Robertson at center have gone quiet. 

The staff doesn’t think there’s going to be much drop-off at all from Kelvin Banks to Trevor Goosby. 

The main questions are left guard and right tackle. 

We didn’t hear a ton about D-line—again, need practice in pads. Colin Simmons has been limited but whatever that reason is, it’s minor. The D-tackle additions are said to be “pretty good” so far. Travis Shaw has shown good motor. That could actually be a pretty important note. Hero Kanu has been described as a great culture fit. That’s a good thing since he has two years in the program.

Linebacker

The Jordan proviso applies to Hill as well—he had a quiet 28 the first week. 

All eyes have been on Liona Lefau and Trey Moore. They’re both going to play, but it could be scheme and game plan dependent on how much. Lefau is great in coverage and good at ‘linebacker things’. Moore is a chess piece who can move around to cause confusion. 

Tyanthony Smith and Brad Spence are doing good things. Smith moves like a DB and is up to 220 pounds while Spence moves well at his filled out size. 

Star

We’ve really only been hearing about Wardell Mack and Ryan Niblett so far. Other players are there, including true freshmen Graceson Littleton and Jonathan Cunningham. 

Mack fits the nickel type when not specifically hunting matchups. He’s an all-around Star, though they would likely still move Jelani McDonald there when teams are in two tight end sets. 

Cornerback 

We heard more about the receivers than the cornerbacks, though Santana Wilson’s name was mentioned after each practice. 

Jaylon Guilbeau has received hard coaching from Duane Akina and Mark Orphey. Akina likes to use the veteran as someone he can coach the whole secondary through. Guilbeau is getting up to speed at the position after playing Star his entire career.

We’ll ask more about Manny Muhammad, Kobe Black, et al.

Safety

Michael Taaffe is the obvious and unquestioned quarterback of the secondary and probably the whole defense. McDonald has been good. 

We’ve heard positives about Jordon Johnson-Rubell and Xavier Filsaime. Those two are sort of opposites but complement each other well. Filsaime is way ahead of where he was this time last year. 

Zelus Hicks is going to be a player but has a lot of players in front of him.

Special Teams 

Haven’t heard much. We’re lucky to get who we can get on the phone for info. Spending time on special teams after the first week isn’t smart. 

Bert Auburn could be perfect during spring ball and it wouldn’t matter until he’s in front of 100,000 in The Shoe with the game on the line. 

We know Jeff Banks is very, very intense when it comes to getting special teams right.

this one is even funnier.

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Posted
2 hours ago, someguy said:

this one is even funnier.

I read that and thought "100%, Nahlin is making most of this up". I assume we'll hear some injury news and that some of the guys he's naming as being factors didn't even participate.

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Posted
38 minutes ago, closetojumping said:

I read that and thought "100%, Nahlin is making most of this up". I assume we'll hear some injury news and that some of the guys he's naming as being factors didn't even participate.

"Turns out Parker Livingstone dropped out of school and moved home in February." 

Posted
24 minutes ago, Hank Scorpio said:

New bet: if Livingstone goes over 750 yards, CTJ has to be my best friend. If he goes under, I have to be CTJs best friend. 

"2025 Texas Football:  It's the friends we met along the way"

Posted
5 hours ago, closetojumping said:

I feel like 500 yards can happen with a great offense and garbage time when the team is playing 14+ games. I’d be willing to move the bar to 750 though. 

OK, 750. But I insist upon the customized jersey as punishment simply because we all know you are hispanic deep down. 

Posted
21 minutes ago, Vertigo said:

OK, 750. But I insist upon the customized jersey as punishment simply because we all know you are hispanic deep down. 

I grew up in a neighborhood that was like 90% hispanic. wedo loco for life, holmes. 

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Posted
11 hours ago, Newy25 said:

Coaches working really hard with a specific player is the best non update of all time. 

yeah followed by "they'll hit the shit out of the portal for a TE"

you're a fucking idiot.

Posted

Bobby Burton

 

A few quick notes:

- As we reported yesterday afternoon, Ryan Wingo is sidelined with a hamstring injury for what likely will be the remainder of camp. It’s not considered ultra-serious. His timeline for recovery is about two weeks but the thought is Texas would rather let it fully heal than put undue pressure to return early.

- Jordan Washington was dinged up over the weekend. Then he tried to give it a go again on Monday before being forced from the field. He’s currently in a shoulder harness and will be getting an MRI today.

- I am told one other defensive player has a hand injury that could be keeping him sidelined for a bit. I’m not mentioning his name until it’s fully confirmed.

In all, that’s three injuries of some significance through the first four practices.

**

According to CJ Vogel, the three starting receivers in yesterday’s practice were Parker Livingstone, Jamie Ffrench and Daylon McCutcheon.

**

Posted
15 hours ago, Laxtonto said:

So the off-season wish list is now a #1 dual purpose inline TE and a #2 WR and one more DT?

Plus BPA is possible for 2 more?

Auburn_Bert-2023.png?width=300

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Posted

Strong work by Nahlin in his reporting that Wingo had a "quiet 28 like Jordan" or whatever stupid shit he said about Wingo's first week. The guy went down in practice #2 and won't be seen again in the spring. The dude has a long history of just making shit up, no different than Ketchum and Chip Brown. 

As to the spring and the portal, seeing that Washington is down with a shoulder injury and might be out for a long ass while, I agree that they need to find an experienced guy in the portal. It sucks that Townsend isn't here this spring. He's missing a good opportunity. 

A top WR, top TE, PK, another solid DT and 1 or 2 BPAs is an additional $3-5M to the largest payroll in CFB. That's a lot of scratch and we might be in the process of finding some sort of ceiling. I am saying this with absolute certainty on the current payroll plus new transfer cost side, but cannot be certain on the "can we find the dough?" end. That said, I am tempering my expectations that all of those transfers will be found and afforded. You all should consider doing so as well. 

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Posted
41 minutes ago, closetojumping said:

Strong work by Nahlin in his reporting that Wingo had a "quiet 28 like Jordan" or whatever stupid shit he said about Wingo's first week. The guy went down in practice #2 and won't be seen again in the spring. The dude has a long history of just making shit up, no different than Ketchum and Chip Brown. 

As to the spring and the portal, seeing that Washington is down with a shoulder injury and might be out for a long ass while, I agree that they need to find an experienced guy in the portal. It sucks that Townsend isn't here this spring. He's missing a good opportunity. 

A top WR, top TE, PK, another solid DT and 1 or 2 BPAs is an additional $3-5M to the largest payroll in CFB. That's a lot of scratch and we might be in the process of finding some sort of ceiling. I am saying this with absolute certainty on the current payroll plus new transfer cost side, but cannot be certain on the "can we find the dough?" end. That said, I am tempering my expectations that all of those transfers will be found and afforded. You all should consider doing so as well. 

I know Bobby, you, or someone has made the reference for there being some "dry powder" available for a transfer or two.  Guess we'll need more than 1 or 2 transfers based on your post.   It's crazy the yearly cost of this and how they expect a group of donors to fund this yearly.  I cannot imagine this is sustainable.  I say that fully knowing Texas may have the wealthiest donor base in the country so I'm not sure how other programs are sustaining this.  Can the university just build in the cost in ticket prices?  Isn't Tennessee taking 10% of ticket sales and funding their NIL with it?  I think most people would not have a problem with paying $20 to $100 more for a ticket if it went to NIL directly.  That would probably also alleviate the burden on the select wealthy donors that are funding this yearly.  The Texas NIL organizers seem to be way smarter than everyone else doing this so I'm guessing they have a plan in place ...

Posted
2 hours ago, texifornia said:

Holy no context question Batman

My apologies, didn’t realize I posted. Bobby mentioned that Sark was not at practice after canceling the presser. Kind of alluded to it having nothing to do with the swim celebration and the elite eight game from the statement that went out.

Posted (edited)
46 minutes ago, victory88 said:

I know Bobby, you, or someone has made the reference for there being some "dry powder" available for a transfer or two.  Guess we'll need more than 1 or 2 transfers based on your post.   It's crazy the yearly cost of this and how they expect a group of donors to fund this yearly.  I cannot imagine this is sustainable.  I say that fully knowing Texas may have the wealthiest donor base in the country so I'm not sure how other programs are sustaining this.  Can the university just build in the cost in ticket prices?  Isn't Tennessee taking 10% of ticket sales and funding their NIL with it?  I think most people would not have a problem with paying $20 to $100 more for a ticket if it went to NIL directly.  That would probably also alleviate the burden on the select wealthy donors that are funding this yearly.  The Texas NIL organizers seem to be way smarter than everyone else doing this so I'm guessing they have a plan in place ...

It's not sustainable. It's a bubble market and eventually it's going to burst. Just like all bubble markets. As a Texas fan it's nice to know we'll have a chair to sit in when the music stops, but it's bad for college athletics as a whole. 

The plan right now is on April 6 the court will approve something called the House Settlement, which says that schools can pay out NIL payments themselves, up to a maximum, for the entire athletic department. The initial cap is set at $20.5 million. I'm not going to get into all the details. There are tons of articles about it. But the bottom line for me is that the whole settlement has hair all over it. I do not see anyway it's anything but a stopgap measure for a very short time. 

In the meantime, NIL can be paid by other organizations, including collectives, but those payments allegedly must be at a market rate as determined by an algorithm monitored and enforced by Deloitte Touche. So there will be NIL payments outside the universities, but it's a little vague right now what they're going to look like. 

There's already legislation being considered in Oregon to completely abrogate any NIL limits the settlement puts forward in the state of Oregon. Shockingly, the University of Oregon with their Phil Knight dollars are pushing the legislation. Meanwhile, Oregon State, whose athletic program is now in a competitive limbo, is not quite as all on board over it. 

But there are better threads to carry on this conversation. It's a pertinent subject as the program looks to bring in transfers in the spring period. But it's easy for the conversation to take over, when there are NIL threads, there are recruiting threads, while this is the best thread to go to for information about spring practices.

On another note, I've been following spring practice "reports" since Mackovic was a coach on the GoBig12 board, and I find them almost utterly useless. I'm not saying we don't get word of someone breaking out who then shows up during the season, but most of the time everyone somehow manages to look awesome even though with internal competition you'd think it would be a zero sum game inherently. And yet, as useless as I find them, I still read them. Just shove it into my veins already. 

Edited by SL Xpress
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Posted
58 minutes ago, SL Xpress said:

It's not sustainable. It's a bubble market and eventually it's going to burst. Just like all bubble markets. As a Texas fan it's nice to know we'll have a chair to sit in when the music stops, but it's bad for college athletics as a whole. 

The plan right now is on April 6 the court will approve something called the House Settlement, which says that schools can pay out NIL payments themselves, up to a maximum, for the entire athletic department. The initial cap is set at $20.5 million. I'm not going to get into all the details. There are tons of articles about it. But the bottom line for me is that the whole settlement has hair all over it. I do not see anyway it's anything but a stopgap measure for a very short time. 

In the meantime, NIL can be paid by other organizations, including collectives, but those payments allegedly must be at a market rate as determined by an algorithm monitored and enforced by Deloitte Touche. So there will be NIL payments outside the universities, but it's a little vague right now what they're going to look like. 

There's already legislation being considered in Oregon to completely abrogate any NIL limits the settlement puts forward in the state of Oregon. Shockingly, the University of Oregon with their Phil Knight dollars are pushing the legislation. Meanwhile, Oregon State, whose athletic program is now in a competitive limbo, is not quite as all on board over it. 

But there are better threads to carry on this conversation. It's a pertinent subject as the program looks to bring in transfers in the spring period. But it's easy for the conversation to take over, when there are NIL threads, there are recruiting threads, while this is the best thread to go to for information about spring practices.

On another note, I've been following spring practice "reports" since Mackovic was a coach on the GoBig12 board, and I find them almost utterly useless. I'm not saying we don't get word of someone breaking out who then shows up during the season, but most of the time everyone somehow manages to look awesome even though with internal competition you'd think it would be a zero sum game inherently. And yet, as useless as I find them, I still read them. Just shove it into my veins already. 

In this regard the aggies are well ahead, their bubble burst years ago. It would be wise to study them creatures.

Posted

To add to the NIL cost apparently we are hosting the top transfer rush end in the portal from Stanford. That makes we wonder if Sark feels confident in one or all of WR, RB, TE, and DT to the point he doesn't see the need for high cost portal guys there. That affords him the ability to go all in on pass rush and win the NC '07 Giants style. 

Posted
2 hours ago, Hermanator said:

To add to the NIL cost apparently we are hosting the top transfer rush end in the portal from Stanford. That makes we wonder if Sark feels confident in one or all of WR, RB, TE, and DT to the point he doesn't see the need for high cost portal guys there. That affords him the ability to go all in on pass rush and win the NC '07 Giants style. 

I don't know any more than you do. If I was running the organization I would cast a wide net among players I felt like could improve the team. If there's some mutual interest, it's pennies on the dollar to bring them in. If I have my culture right, I wouldn't get too worked up about what they do to the dynamics, especially if I feel good about a kind of team first attitude they carry themselves with. I just don't have enough information to come to any conclusions. How much is budgeted for the Stanford kid? Does the staff have connections with him that make him an outlier? Is he motivated by factors beyond NIL where we can get him below market rate? Who knows? 

What I do like is that Sarkisian tends to lead with the school and the program, and get into NIL negotiations later on, whereas a lot of these schools with early commitments are leading with the big dollars, because they're desperate to make a splash. Sarkisian seems to have a really good handle on talent acquisition, which in many ways is the most important job for a college football coach. I found myself concerned early on. Even last year I gnashed my teeth a little bit as I wondered if we were going to be able to make a compelling enough late push. Now I find myself not worrying at all. If somehow we get a downfall in results I'll easily figure out a way to get back to worrying, but it just feels like Sarkisian has a really good strategy and vision for how he's going to go about all this. So if he wants to bring in the Stanford DE I'm not going to spend too much time thinking about the reasoning and just figure he knows what he's doing. 

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Posted
4 hours ago, Dondrysdale1 said:

My apologies, didn’t realize I posted. Bobby mentioned that Sark was not at practice after canceling the presser. Kind of alluded to it having nothing to do with the swim celebration and the elite eight game from the statement that went out.

I heard this too but wasn't sure what to make of it. Nahlin said it was potentially something we'd be happy about, but... it's Nahlin. So almost certainly bullshit. 

Posted
3 hours ago, Hermanator said:

To add to the NIL cost apparently we are hosting the top transfer rush end in the portal from Stanford. That makes we wonder if Sark feels confident in one or all of WR, RB, TE, and DT to the point he doesn't see the need for high cost portal guys there. That affords him the ability to go all in on pass rush and win the NC '07 Giants style. 

Best player avaliable

Posted
1 hour ago, Park Gothic said:

I heard this too but wasn't sure what to make of it. Nahlin said it was potentially something we'd be happy about, but... it's Nahlin. So almost certainly bullshit. 

Nahlin is often full of crap (see Wingo Jordan), but he's not here.  The big thing is there is no cause for concern.

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