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Texas Recruiting Notes 2020


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3 minutes ago, Huckleberry said:

I stayed at the same hotel as the AAB players for the Alamo Bowl and they had huge pictures of lots of game alumni everywhere. Was kind of irritated VY wasn't anywhere, only moreso when child beating Adrian Peterson was in your face right when you entered the main door to the lobby. Glad to see those guys gave VY a role.

Ohhh, I read that tweet multiple times as "Vince Young was kicked off". Makes sense now why it seemed to be mentioned in passing.

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Javonne Shepherd - A walking cancer that showed promise early and convinced himself that he should be starting. Challenged Yancy McKnight to a fight and threatened to kill someone, allegedly, and was promptly shown the door. Hopefully he is able to get in to ATM so that he can take elephantine shits all over their locker room and throw Jimbo Fisher across the field in an impromptu midget-tossing contest between him and Zac Evans.

I laughed pretty hard

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Peter Mpagi - I haven't heard shit about. I hope that is a good thing.

Heart problems - in and out of the hospital: https://www.burntorangenation.com/2019/12/19/21030820/peter-mpagi-hospitalization-heart-issue-texas-longhorns

Edited by texifornia
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4 minutes ago, texifornia said:

So Mpagi could be gone too. 6/26, or 23% of the class, gone after year 1 is ... not good. Much more of that and the math starts to become difficult to make positive sense of at a macro level. You either need some total fucking badasses or a really, really starter rate on the guys that stick.

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A few different times I went back to look at Texas recruiting classes in arrears and was shocked at how many had massive failure rates, 50%+ in most years. There were only a few classes that hit on ~>60%+ rates. So itā€™s hard to know whether 2019 is closer to typical than unusual. Iā€™m sure some dweeb on here will go back and run the numbers in every class from 2000 to 2019. That would be cool to see.

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2 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:

A few different times I went back to look at Texas recruiting classes in arrears and was shocked at how many had massive failure rates, 50%+ in most years. There were only a few classes that hit on ~>60%+ rates. So itā€™s hard to know whether 2019 is closer to typical than unusual. Iā€™m sure some dweeb on here will go back and run the numbers in every class from 2000 to 2019. That would be cool to see.

Iā€™ll go back and look over Texas Football magazines that are 10-15 years old and it is amazing how many highly rated kids never produce for one reason or another. Ā It isnā€™t just Texas.Ā 
Ā 

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1 minute ago, JOSEYWALES66 said:

Iā€™ll go back and look over Texas Football magazines that are 10-15 years old and it is amazing how many highly rated kids never produce for one reason or another. Ā It isnā€™t just Texas.Ā 
Ā 

Our hit rate is the lowest in cfb, though, in terms of converting highly-rated classes into wins. Stats and shit bear it out.

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32 minutes ago, closetojumping said:

In looking at the 2019 class, it's got a strong boom or bust flavor to it. It's honestly rare to see this many busts this fast, however.

Bru McCoy - Drew Mehringer special. Bust here. Bust at USC unless he turns a corner.

Jordan Whittington (or Whittingham, depending upon your level of fuckheadery) - Way too early. Hopefully he's healthy and gets plenty of work in the spring.

Jake Smith - Looks like a star early, but has to get his head right and the staff has to recover from Drew Mehringer and Corby Meekins mishandling this guy.

Tyler Johnson - Early reports are strong on him and he's been all Texas.

De'Gabriel Floyd - Injury related bust that no one could have prevented or saw coming. Feel bad for him and hope he has a great life and gets a UT degree.

Tyler Owens - Ended up playing a lot due to other injuries and showed promise, while being put in impossible situations. Liked him a lot on special teams.

Kenyatta Watson - If he doesn't transfer and gets some coaching, he will be a starter and a potential stud at CB. Looked great on his ability to cover, had no coaching on paying attention to the ball.

Marcus Washington - Another potential transfer candidate that needs help recovering from being mushroomed by the WR staff.Ā 

David Gbenda - Good buzz about him and then he decided to smoke weed, get tossed from the bowl experience and now is a threatĀ to transfer.

Brayden Liebrock - Good buzz on him and no other murmurs.Ā 

Chris Adimora - The first guy on the list that looks like he's a sure fire bet to be a highly productive player at Texas for 3-4 years. Fuck.

Derrian Brown - See De'Gabriel Floyd. Good luck, young man.

Roschon Johnson - If he stays at TB, he will be a star at Texas and have a career in the NFL a la Chris Ogbannaya.

Isaiah Hookfin - I haven't heard shit about him. I hope that is a good thing.

Myron Warren - I haven't heard shit about him. I hope that is a good thing. The forgotten man on the DL from this class.

Javonne Shepherd - A walking cancer that showed promise early and convinced himself that he should be starting. Challenged Yancy McKnight to a fight and threatened to kill someone, allegedly, and was promptly shown the door. Hopefully he is able to get in to ATM so that he can take elephantine shits all over their locker room and throw Jimbo Fisher across the field in an impromptu midget-tossing contest between him and Zac Evans.

Jacoby Jones - Sounded like a promising candidate to play big time snaps until he suckerpunched an OL during practice and was thrown into the doghouse.

Marcus Tillman - Looked promising on special teams early until he suffered an injury that caused a redshirt.

T'Vondre Sweat - Played early, often, and well (considered the defensive circumstances) and looks like a potential starter and major contributor.

Peter Mpagi - I haven't heard shit about. I hope that is a good thing.

Caleb Johnson - A wet fart of a recruit that showed up long enough to transfer. Total waste of a scholarship.

Kennedy Lewis - Looked good and showed promise during a redshirt campaign. Hopefully he wasn't ruined by the twat coaching him.

Marques Caldwell - Redshirted. Complaints early were that he couldn't pick up the complexities of the defense but could cover well when not asked to think. I certainly hope things turn for him with a new defensive staff, given the absurdity of what I wrote in the prior sentence.

Jared Wiley - Looks like a fucking beast in the making at TE.Ā 

WillieĀ Tyler - I haven't heard shit about him. I hope that is a good thing.

Juwan Mitchell - A JAG that played a lot at LB and I presume will continue to do so because we need warm bodies.Ā 

Yikes. That's 5 guys out of the program already - Floyd, McCoy, C Johnson, D Brown, Shepherd. 2 more obvious potential transfers right now in Gbenda and J Smith. A group of players sticking around at WR to see if we can figure anything out there with coaching. A bunch of unknowns at OL and DL. Some promise but risk on at DB and WR. Some solid performers early in RJ, Wiley, Adimora, Sweat and some of the receivers.Ā 

There's still a lot of hope for this class and I'm not Randolph Duking it and declaring it a bust of a class at this point, but we really need the guys in the trenches, especially the OL, and the WRs/TEs to hang on and show up big in the future.Ā 

Ā 

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2 hours ago, LTtxfan said:

How much have TEs been utilized in Yrrrrcich's offenses at Okie Lite and tOSU??

Seems like Liebrock could be used a lot like Damn Dallas Goedert is for Philly??

I don't think Yurcich had much influence at all at tOSU. I think that's why he left.Ā 

Oklahoma State used plenty of 12 personnel, 21 personnel, and everything in between while Yurcich was there. How much of that was Gundy? We'll see, but at Oklahoma State, he was either going lightning paced HUNH which typically led to a RPO call, or he'd sub in different packages from play to play and go with the run the ball from all of the different zone plays or counter trey (all with a QB keeper option), or throw deep off playactionĀ 

Ā 

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Ā 

Ā 

42 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:

A few different times I went back to look at Texas recruiting classes in arrears and was shocked at how many had massive failure rates, 50%+ in most years. There were only a few classes that hit on ~>60%+ rates. So itā€™s hard to know whether 2019 is closer to typical than unusual. Iā€™m sure some dweeb on here will go back and run the numbers in every class from 2000 to 2019. That would be cool to see.

If hit rate means "become starters," slightly below 50% is normal.

No matter how good or bad your team is, you have to choose only so many starters from class sizes much bigger.

In fact, consistently having moreĀ multi-year starters actually lowers your hit rate because there's less seats at the table.

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1 hour ago, Katfid54 said:

I just spent 45 minutes watching 2011 and 2012 Shippensburg football videos on youtube, to make sure I could see "pure, uncut Yurcich" untainted by Gundy or Day/Wilson.Ā  My observations are:

(1) The way oSu ran zone read appears to be Yurcich's scheme:

Here's oSu running it a few years ago:

8lNMyj.gif

And here's Shippensburg:

6XMEEz.gif

It's obviously a different screen (bubble vs. a comeback screen).Ā  But it's a similar concept in both instances, and it's run from trips in both instances.Ā 

(2) Yurcich runs (or at least ran) Power Read

I've always wondered why we didn't run more power read with Ehlinger, as it seems like a great fit for his skill set.Ā  As far as I can recall, we haven't seen much of it since Sam and Toneil Carter showed great promise with it against KSU in 2017.Ā  There will be no question that Yurcich at least has power read in his playbook:

mOk33n.gif

(3) He likes QB runs in the red zone/short yardage situations

It was always the case at oSu that when they needed tough yardage on 4th down or in the red zone, they would usually run the ball with the QB (usually subbing in JW Walsh for Mason Rudolph).Ā  It was already the case back in 2011/2012 that Yurcich liked running the QB in those situations.Ā  Here is QB power on 3rd and 1 in the red zone:

4Q2BXJ.gif

Ā 

(4) He likes to run complimentary pass concepts

I didn't gif all of these because #lazy.Ā  But in the Shippensburg v. Shepherd game from 2012, Yurcich called some combination of post/wheel routes like 5 or 6 different times.Ā  The first time, he ran from a 4 wr (2x2) set.Ā  Both outside receivers ran posts, and both inside receivers ran wheel routes.Ā  The QB hit one of the wheel routes for a huge touchdown down the sideline.

The next time they ran the play, the outside WRs both ran posts, while the inside WRs ran comebacks off of their initial wheel routes.Ā  The QB hit the same WR on the comeback for a big gain.

The next time they ran the play, they ran it as originally run, and the QB hit another wheel route for a big gain.

The next time they ran the play, they ran it with the comebacks, but the safety attacked the comeback, leaving the post wide open in the middle of a the field for a huge touchdown.

Ā 

(5) Expect to see a lot of mesh and shallow cross

This won't be anything new.Ā  Mesh was a staple the past several years, and Texas has come and gone from leaning on the shallow cross at various points in time (almost as if the playcaller forgets we have the play).Ā  But it was very effective at times the past few years.

Good stuff. I fully expect myself to be breaking down Shippensburg games at some point this offseason, but I'm not quite there yet. My wish list for the offense next season is: 1) More zone read, especially power read, 2) way more RPOs (most of CFB and the NFL are headed this way, and I'd like us to be part of that trend ASAP), 3) more simplified high-low reads that require Sam to only focusĀ on one defender and then an easy dump off if the designed routes aren't open, and 4) more pre-snap motion and inventiveness with personnel and formations.

Yurcich has done all of these at one time or another in his career, but the question is can he add all these things by next year and will Herman give him the leeway to do so?

Edited by Burt Macklin
Damn you, Katfid.
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1 hour ago, closetojumping said:

So Mpagi could be gone too. 6/26, or 23% of the class, gone after year 1 is ... not good. Much more of that and the math starts to become difficult to make positive sense of at a macro level. You either need some total fucking badasses or a really, really starter rate on the guys that stick.

What's the general rule? 1/3 flameĀ out, 1/3 become core contributors/starters and 1/3 become roster filler?

The good news is if they are going to flame out, it's much better that they do it early so they can use the scholarship as soon as possible. The last thing you want is some guy taking up a roster spot for four years and never contributing. Also, if you want to feel better go look back at 2018. That group is the foundation of the program right now -- much better hit rate with some high ceiling guys.Ā 

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1 hour ago, Dbeasy said:

A few different times I went back to look at Texas recruiting classes in arrears and was shocked at how many had massive failure rates, 50%+ in most years. There were only a few classes that hit on ~>60%+ rates. So itā€™s hard to know whether 2019 is closer to typical than unusual. Iā€™m sure some dweeb on here will go back and run the numbers in every class from 2000 to 2019. That would be cool to see.

I recall that even theĀ badass 2002 class had a lot of busts.

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3 minutes ago, Foggy Notion said:

Just saw this on Rakestrawā€™s Twitter.Ā 

Ā 

I'm conflicted on Rakestraw. On one hand, he is a very physical corner that would fit well in press coverage in Ash's system. On the other, he received several pass interference and unsportsmanlike conduct penalties in the two games i saw him play in. The SLC receivers were getting under his skin so easily that Samples pulled him from the game to calm him down. He seems like he would be a Kris Boyd 2.0 (i.e. great corner, multipleĀ 15 yard penalties).Ā 

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8 minutes ago, Mitch Cumsteen said:

What's the general rule? 1/3 flameĀ out, 1/3 become core contributors/starters and 1/3 become roster filler?

The good news is if they are going to flame out, it's much better that they do it early so they can use the scholarship as soon as possible. The last thing you want is some guy taking up a roster spot for four years and never contributing. Also, if you want to feel better go look back at 2018. That group is the foundation of the program right now -- much better hit rate with some high ceiling guys.Ā 

3 of the busts being medical (pending Mpagi's health issues working out), while awful for the kids, at least speaks less to our identification/development and more to deeply shitty luck.

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I'm conflicted on Rakestraw. On one hand, he is a very physical corner that would fit well in press coverage in Ash's system. On the other, he received several pass interference and unsportsmanlike conduct penalties in the two games i saw him play in. The SLC receivers were getting under his skin so easily that Samples pulled him from the game to calm him down. He seems like he would be a Kris Boyd 2.0 (i.e. great corner, multipleĀ 15 yard penalties).Ā 

Kris Boyd is in the NFL. Take.
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16 minutes ago, Mitch Cumsteen said:

What's the general rule? 1/3 flameĀ out, 1/3 become core contributors/starters and 1/3 become roster filler?

The good news is if they are going to flame out, it's much better that they do it early so they can use the scholarship as soon as possible. The last thing you want is some guy taking up a roster spot for four years and never contributing. Also, if you want to feel better go look back at 2018. That group is the foundation of the program right now -- much better hit rate with some high ceiling guys.Ā 

No doubt 2018 looks fucking great. 2017 really does as well, although some of that was due to necessity, I guess. That makes it easier to root for 2019 to produce some badasses and hope for maybe higher upside with what looks to be a higher bustĀ rate.Ā 

Sidenote, but it also makes the 2020 class much more important, unless they are able to sign some highly targeted transfers and GTs over the next few years. The title contenders these days seem less about the core foundational class and more about a thorough meritocratic blend with excellent depth.Ā 

Edited by closetojumping
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The thing we need to focus on is we have taken care of quite a bit of the Medical Retirement categories with Longhorn sports recently.

Brain Bleed - check

Cervical Spinal Stenosis - check

Cardiac - check

Lymphoma - check

Systemic Vaginitis - check (Bru)

We haven't had a Marfan's that I'm aware of and we still have the chance for a type 1 diabetic popping up (although you could play through this potentially). Maybe a Multiple Sclerosis will pop up next year or Sickle-Cell.

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21 minutes ago, Katfid54 said:

Reading the phrase "Power zone" literally made me bleed uncontrollably from my ears, eyes, nose, and anus.Ā  So thanks for the ebola.

He must mean Power ReadĀ because we run Power Bash all the time.

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43 minutes ago, MoJames said:

The thing we need to focus on is we have taken care of quite a bit of the Medical Retirement categories with Longhorn sports recently.

Brain Bleed - check

Cervical Spinal Stenosis - check

Cardiac - check

Lymphoma - check

Systemic Vaginitis - check (Bru)

We haven't had a Marfan's that I'm aware of and we still have the chance for a type 1 diabetic popping up (although you could play through this potentially). Maybe a Multiple Sclerosis will pop up next year or Sickle-Cell.

Javonne seems destined for gout in his future, add it to the list

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1 hour ago, MoJames said:

The thing we need to focus on is we have taken care of quite a bit of the Medical Retirement categories with Longhorn sports recently.

Brain Bleed - check

Cervical Spinal Stenosis - check

Cardiac - check

Lymphoma - check

Systemic Vaginitis - check (Bru)

We haven't had a Marfan's that I'm aware of and we still have the chance for a type 1 diabetic popping up (although you could play through this potentially). Maybe a Multiple Sclerosis will pop up next year or Sickle-Cell.

Pretty sure Bru has diabetesĀ 

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1 hour ago, MoJames said:

The thing we need to focus on is we have taken care of quite a bit of the Medical Retirement categories with Longhorn sports recently.

Brain Bleed - check

Cervical Spinal Stenosis - check

Cardiac - check

Lymphoma - check

Systemic Vaginitis - check (Bru)

We haven't had a Marfan's that I'm aware of and we still have the chance for a type 1 diabetic popping up (although you could play through this potentially). Maybe a Multiple Sclerosis will pop up next year or Sickle-Cell.

Pretty sure Kirko Grinds has terminal hypochondria, so there's that.

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2 hours ago, saul silver said:

I'm conflicted on Rakestraw. On one hand, he is a very physical corner that would fit well in press coverage in Ash's system. On the other, he received several pass interference and unsportsmanlike conduct penalties in the two games i saw him play in. The SLC receivers were getting under his skin so easily that Samples pulled him from the game to calm him down. He seems like he would be a Kris Boyd 2.0 (i.e. great corner, multipleĀ 15 yard penalties).Ā 

Good some fucking aggression and kris I think is in the nfl so yeah takeĀ 

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Just now, SydneyCarton said:

Here comes the ratings bump for KaricĀ and the accompanying howls of dismay from college stationĀ and the suburbs of Houston.Ā 

Remember the guy on one of their sites who said he hadn't seen Karic play so therefore he was a JAG. Bet that dude's going to have an OPINION about that bump.

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5 hours ago, closetojumping said:

So Mpagi could be gone too. 6/26, or 23% of the class, gone after year 1 is ... not good. Much more of that and the math starts to become difficult to make positive sense of at a macro level. You either need some total fucking badasses or a really, really starter rate on the guys that stick.

The fact that we are not even 12 months from the last recruiting window and seeing this high attritionĀ rate is alarming. I predict a future article about the correlation to this and the large amount of out of state recruiting. But if you look at our depth chart only linebacker is even concerningĀ at allĀ to me. Pretty much every other position is healthier than we have seen since 2009.Ā 

But 2020 cannot be like this or we will start to see the effects.Ā 

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9 minutes ago, Newy25 said:

The fact that we are not even 12 months from the last recruiting window and seeing this high attritionĀ rate is alarming. I predict a future article about the correlation to this and the large amount of out of state recruiting. But if you look at our depth chart only linebacker is even concerningĀ at allĀ to me. Pretty much every other position is healthier than we have seen since 2009.Ā 

But 2020 cannot be like this or we will start to see the effects.Ā 

Thereā€™s only been 5 people lost to attrition and 2 were due to freak injuries, so weā€™re not at that bad of a rate of avoidable attrition yet, but there is certainly potential for it to get worse.Ā 
Ā 

The primary reason our 2019 class is having moreĀ trouble is because we missed on a lot of our primary targets and had to circle back on guys with question marks even though we finished with the #3 class in the country. Our misses were Ā why we ended up with guys like Shepherd, Bru, Jones, Johnson, and Mitchell. It seems like the guys that a staff finds late in the cycle after other misses usually have higher attrition rates, like Michael Williams in 2018 or a bunch of the Charlie signings.

Edited by Burt Macklin
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7 minutes ago, Newy25 said:

The fact that we are not even 12 months from the last recruiting window and seeing this high attritionĀ rate is alarming. I predict a future article about the correlation to this and the large amount of out of state recruiting. But if you look at our depth chart only linebacker is even concerningĀ at allĀ to me. Pretty much every other position is healthier than we have seen since 2009.Ā 

But 2020 cannot be like this or we will start to see the effects.Ā 

Literally half of that was unforeseeable medical problems, which, Allah willing, we won't see at that rate again.

Bru - woof. What a clusterfuck. That position coach is gone. And being OOS definitely hurt.

Caleb Johnson - ditto

Javonne - well sometimes you win the lottery and sometimes you bust.

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