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closetojumping

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closetojumping last won the day on April 12

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  1. To build more on where ND sits heading into 2024 after the portal has closed, I'll say your thoughts and mine above are founded at least somewhat in reality. On offense: QB - Riley Leonard is a good get if he's healthy. They have a back-up named Angeli that they're high on. TB - They don't have a clear cut guy at TB that is viewed as a terrific replacement for Estime. They have a highly ranked room though. WR - Greathouse is a budding star. After him, they have guys like Beaux Collins that have made some plays in the past, even if somewhere else like Marshall and Clemson, but they're not scaring anyone here. TE - They lost the presumed starter to the portal (Tenn) and none of the candidates for the starting role are getting anyone excited. They don't have a prototypical ND TE type to just step in and kick ass. OT - Total rebuild after losing 2 high draft picks on either end. IOL - I think they return 1 starter, but this is a work in progress too. The writers covering ND feel like the OL overall is a key risk factor for this coming season. Not good. On defense: DT - They return both starting DTs and those guys are good. This is a strength on the team. DE - Looks like a shit show. They have a bunch of guys that ranked well and have yet to really produce. LB - They return a starter who was decent in Jack Kiser, but he was no doubt buoyed by having two other LBs playing next to him who are now in the NFL. There are highly ranked candidates to win the roles and Freeman's crew knows development on defense, so I assume this group will do well. CB - Likely their deepest position and returning a single starter. ND pundits do not appear concerned about this group. S - Watts returns and he'll be a preseason first team AA, I presume. They'll have someone new next to him and there is jagger risk. ---- In short, Notre Dame has 1 offensive starter out of 11 that might start at Texas in 2024 - Greathouse. It sounds arrogant if folks don't follow recruiting and the portal closely, but I don't know if there are many ND starters on offense that would be second team at Texas. The ND offense will be their soft spot in 2024 even with Denbrock and Leonard on campus. Defensively, ND is going to be very good and we would absolutely take their two tackles, Kiser, Watts, and Benjamin Morrison (CB), and likely some of the younger talented guys as well. The game is likely to be tight and low-scoring. I don't necessarily think Elko is some excellent gameday coach, but I feel like Freeman is not a good one, yet, at least. I could see ATM winning this game, which will piss me off. @notre dame joe and @BlueGreySky or any other domer that posts on this board in case they have an opinion or wish to fact check due to greater team familiarity.
  2. I'm from Missouri on the guy, personally. Let's see his output from his charges during the season and then let's see how he closes on his targets in recruiting and the portal. However, anyone covering the program or around the program seems to really like him as a hire. There's a belief that he's evaluated and targeted the right guys and that his players really like playing for him. He's got great connections in the SE and those are expected to bear fruit this cycle in big ways. "We'll see" said the zen master.
  3. Regarding Florida - Texas is a sandwich game for them on the road. They'll have just played rival Georgia and then rival LSU follows the Texas game. Prior to UGA, they have an off week but will be recuperating from UCF, @Tenn, UK (who pummeled them last year). There is no rest for this team in 2024. The one game late in the year in which the normal human reaction to just not really show up, due to some level of exhaustion, is the Texas game. They're 100% not getting up to play Texas with that schedule structure. Y'all wringing hands about that game is laughable. Regarding Texas A&M - The Texas team that should be sweating their UF game is ATM. They play them early, in The Swamp, with UF coming off a scrimmage against Samford and likely pretty healthy. ATM's roster is massively overrated. People are looking at quantity and one of the service's dumbass team transfer portal rankings and just assuming that ATM somehow upgraded their roster. How is losing a bunch of highly rated players in exchange for a bunch of mediocrities leading to this notion of ATM being worth a fuck? Adding 20+ dudes from FCS and G5 plus a couple of good players from the likes of Purdue spurs confidence in a perennially failing team? It's truly bizarre. People worried about jihad shit with ATM are ignoring history. The upset in this match-up is rare. It's rare because the rivalry isn't misunderstood by anyone, ever. Sarkisian is going to hear things regarding ATM at a fever pitch heading into that game and so will everyone else associated to the program. Regarding Arkansas - I was in Fayetteville in 2021. I can attest that this match-up was not understood by the staff or team at the time. I don't see that being the case this time around for the staff. I understand the handwringing on this one, but this is game will involve a massive talent disparity, and that wasn't true in 2021. Arkansas returns 5 starters on each side of the ball, with key losses on both sides. Their returning offensive production ranks 99th in the country while their returning defensive production ranks 115th. They added 15-ish guys from the portal, but I dare you to try to name more than one of them without cheating. In effect, Arkansas is rebuilding with a coach on the hot seat and a bunch of jaggers that wouldn't play for Texas on their best day.
  4. Texas feels good about landing at least 3 (Brown being one of them) of the national badasses. Seems like scoring more than that is either improbable or unwanted (PT issues, NIL management, etc.) and they might consider room for a 4th as a project. Might. Getting 3 of the big names is mostly a numbers game - bust ass with 8-10 guys, budget that into the total NIL mix, and land 30% of them. Frankly, if you hang on to Brown and close Williams, it comes down getting 1 of like 7-8 targets. There's really good reason to feel positive about landing a great DT class when you consider it all.
  5. DJ Sanders isn’t a “battle” in that it’s not even clear that he could commit to either program right now. He’s a project and his whole body will have to be reshaped by the S&C program. He’s the fourth guy in a four guy DT class. If Texas takes him, that means one of two things: 1) they’re getting the 3 big time guys they wanted or 2) light the cigarettes, because we’ve already been fucked. As it pertains to Brown and LSU, they’ll have to divert NIL from other places to make that work, even if Brown was seriously thinking about a flip. I worry more about other schools in his area than LSU. Regarding Battle, what do you guys think? I haven’t heard that Texas was seriously interested. I guess I’ll ask around. I feel like Terrell left some guys off of his list that Texas is seriously after in Florida, Georgia and California but maybe I’m mixing Edge prospects with DTs in my head.
  6. Notre Dame doesn’t really have the dudes to compete for it all, but they’re talented. The biggest issue with ND outside of the lack of elite skill talent is that Freeman is proving himself to be a buffoon with his in game decision-making. ND will be a more talented team than ATM. I expect either a comfortable Notre Dame victory or a close match-up that Freeman fucks up somehow and Elko gets the win.
  7. Well, I guess when you come at it from that perspective, it all makes sense. All I needed was someone skilled in the art of subliminal gay messaging from the 1950’s to figure it out. In reality, I just thought it was weird that they were using an old guy as the UT athlete, looking like an idiot, to boot, and that they were implying he was about to have some good fun in the act of cannibalism.
  8. I do that with Phil Steele. I bought Wadlington’s magazine last year and enjoyed it. I’ll do it again this year.
  9. I didn't say anything about your first X post on this very page of this very thread. I guess you really, really wanted to make sure we all saw it.
  10. Regarding Terry, he's not going to play WR in college. Everyone wants him at LB, which is a gamble with an ATH type. They often wind up lacking at the instinctual positions and busting out. I like him as a replacement for Sanders/Niblack or I would prefer he go elsewhere. As of right now, he's heading to Oregon so it likely doesn't matter.
  11. Are you aspiring towards LTtxfan range with the spammy X posts lately, BO&W? Please don't.
  12. Phil Steele is out in early July this year because of the portal. Athlon’s and the others will likely beat PS by a month. I buy them and read them because they’re at least good subject matter. I haven’t bought a Dave Campbell’s in over a decade. Hard to find and the content doesn’t add any value for me. I imagine that one is fading for forever soon enough with how it’s being distributed.
  13. I went back and looked at predictions from other places and Steele wasn't really worse than most. I went back and found mine as well and I think I did pretty well. AP: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-football-poll?week=1 The AP did well. 7 out of 10 and only USC was a top 10 pick that finished unranked. They failed to land one of the playoff teams (Texas) in the top 10, but we opened 11th, right behind UW. Coaches: https://sportsdata.usatoday.com/football/ncaaf/coaches-poll/2023-2024/2023-08-07 The Coaches Poll performed the worst of the 4 rankings. 6 out of 10 with whiffs on Clemson, Tennessee, USC and LSU. closetojumping: Also spoilered for anyone reading that doesn't want to click: I bet on Rising coming back and he didn't. Utah is the top 10 pick of mine that didn't finish ranked in the final CFP rankings besides USC, and USC was in everyone's top 10. 7 out of 10 finished in the top 10. My list was the only one of the four with all four CFP teams in the top 10. Right to hate on PSU, Clemson, LSU and Tenn. I had Washington higher than anyone else by a lot, same for Texas. Anyway, pretty fun exercise.
  14. I was moving a few things around this morning and found last year's Phil Steele. He's usually decent about his predictions and will certainly tell you so. I'm interested in how he feels about his work from last season because it is spotty. Some of the things I noticed, and obviously I am very Texas biased in what I was looking for: He did pretty well with his offensive AA predictions. He has Caleb Williams, Penix, Maye and Nix as his QBs, in that order. Nothing ludicrous on the offensive side, really. Defensively, no mention of Sweat or Murphy anywhere and I view that as a whiff. We felt like one of them could have a great year on this board and thought that Sweat could as well if he chose to show up. He ranked the Texas TB group 24th in the country. Can't blame him, but I don't think it is smart to rank a Sarkisian-coached TB group ever below top 10. He's going to feature TBs in all kinds of ways. Arkansas and Tennessee as the #5 and #6 QB rooms was laughable at the time and absurd now. A&M with the #10 OL unit was par for the course as Steele basically viewed 2022 as an aberration for the great Jimbo and A&M was going to be back, baby! Texas as the #22 defensive line group. Whoops. He has Wisconsin and A&M as his #1 and #2 "surprise teams". Right. As far as a top 15: 1) Georgia 2) Clemson 3) Michigan 4) Alabama 5) Ohio State 6) Penn State 7) USC 8 ) FSU 9) LSU 10) ND 11) Texas 11 tie) Texas A&M 13) Wisconsin 14) Washington 15) Oregon He got 6 of the top 10 right. Whiffed on two of the playoff teams not even in his top 10. 3 of his top 15 didn't finish ranked (CFP Final rankings) and he woefully, again, overrated Texas A&M (and Wiscy). Now this has me going back to see how I ranked my top 10 versus the finish. Anyway, weird bump and all, but nothing else is a hot football topic and figured it might be interesting to some. Apparently this year's version of the magazine is released on July 4th. Can't wait to read it and all of the others.
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