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Hank Chinaski

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Everything posted by Hank Chinaski

  1. Maybe, but goddamnit the level of buy-in should be commensurate with the level of data support!
  2. It irrationally drives me crazy. In my mind, there is no reason not to play the numbers and maximize potential run production, ever. I understand that it doesn’t matter that much, big picture. But again, why wouldn’t you always try to maximize your odds? And if Dubon goes 2/4 while hitting second IT WAS STILL THE WRONG DECISION.
  3. I hope this is correct and he doesn’t have an outsized voice in the FO.
  4. I generally do trust that Crane will not abandon the approach that has been so successful, but things like this concern me. I love Bagwell. I love him in the booth. But the way that he doesn’t seem to understand the analytics - for example, he mocks exit velo and other metrics that have real meaning - makes me nervous if he is having real input into roster management. The “baseball isn’t played by numbers” sentiment is all too reminiscent of the “computers don’t play the games” tropes that indicate a fundamental misunderstanding of what the data are actually used for.
  5. It was the Nebraska game, I remember this clearly. As I recall, it all changed when Colt kept it on a ZR play and gained an easy 20 yards or so. Up to that point, Chiles would come in to run it, to the point where it became predictable. (At least, that’s how I remember it, could be wrong.) Once Colt finally began to keep, it opened everything and we all finally realized that Jamaal Charles was the best player in college football. (Still one of my favorite games I’ve attended; goddamn I loved watching JC run the ball. 200+ in the 4th Q lol.)
  6. oh shit, this was supposed to be our year? Let’s see…started the season ranked #24, coming off 5-7, freshman QB, 2 freshman starters on the OL…yup, that’s generally the recipe for a breakthrough to national title contention. Meanwhile, ags were preseason #6. But this was supposed to Texas’s year.
  7. “8+” includes predictions of 8, 9, 10, etc.
  8. That all our coaches suck is almost unanimously agreed upon; we really just like to debate the degree to which they suck. Let’s face it, we really just like to argue.
  9. Well, I’m not funny, so not your fault. At the end of the day, I think we both wish both coaches were better.
  10. Good god. The original comment about “let’s not give Herman too much credit” was a joke about how crappy we’ve been for years. But no, I don’t think that comparing single games against Kansas with almost identical scores tell us anything about whether one coach is meaningfully better than the other, beyond how it contributes to their overall records. It means Texas won one and lost one - of course that’s all that’s meaningful for the team and the season, but it isn’t significant evidence of coaching acumen.
  11. You used the results of playing Kansas as an indicator of how good the head coach is. The scores of the two games in question were 50-48 and 49-49 at the end of regulation. In both cases, the team performed in such a way that the outcome was basically a coin flip. One worked out, the other didn’t. This seems fairly self-evident.
  12. The point is that if losing to Kansas in OT is absolutely inexcusable, then needing a last-second FG to beat them should be almost as inexcusable.
  13. I mean, Herman was a last-second drive/FG away from losing to Kansas too (at home, with a 3-year starter at QB). Let’s not give him too much credit there.
  14. I mean, I just assume everyone fucking hates both Briles and Baylor. And Waco.
  15. You’re right in the sense that Mack had experienced much more success at that point; I’d say that the essence of the discussion was mostly the same though. Mack was typecast as the guy who couldn’t beat Bowden at UNC and couldn’t beat Stoops at Texas. Couldn’t win the big games (shit, remember that whole thing?). Most were pretty convinced that’s how it would always be. With Sark, we’re just asking him to win the medium games consistently…until he does, at which point we’d demand he win all the games like we did with Mack. (And I’m not saying that’s unfair, just saying that’s how it will be.)
  16. Oh, I’m old enough that I don’t have to imagine it (hornfans). It was exactly what you’d expect - people calling for Mack’s head, saying he couldn’t get over the hump, etc. Nobody - absolutely nobody - predicted after that game that Texas would win 24 of the next 25 games and a national title. That’s what I’m saying about how we are much worse than we think we are at predicting what happens next.
  17. Christ. No matter how firm you may be in your belief that Sark will be a failure at Texas, nobody knows. There are good reasons to think that he won’t cut it here. There are good reasons to think he has a shot. They’ve all been hashed and rehashed a million times in this thread. Me, I think there is reasonable doubt to the notion that he’ll fail. That doesn’t mean I think it’s more likely that he’ll “succeed,” whatever that may mean to you. It just means that I don’t think you can rule it out based on what we know. Also, humans are terrible at predicting the future. And we know that college football coaches can be deeply flawed and still win; I mean, we live in a world in which Les Miles, Gene Chizik, Jimbo Fisher and Ed O have won national titles in the last 15 years. Of course that doesn’t mean we want a subpar coach; it just means that there is only one Saban and all the rest are flawed.
  18. Man I liked this character because I actually did this as a kid. I’d repeat myself under my breath after saying something. Had to kind of train myself to stop doing it. (There wasn’t a “spectrum” back in the 80s but in adulthood it’s become clear where I fall on it.)
  19. Conspiracy theorists are psychologically fascinating. this has to be a joke though, right?
  20. 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.
  21. Jesus, no it isn’t. How are you defining “talent?”
  22. I didn’t see the Tech game, but bad, bad QB play is a huge reason for the other two losses. Again, some of that is on Sark, some is on QE. I don’t know how to quantify that ratio. But a reason for “expecting” something like 8-4 in the preseason was “freshman QB won’t always be awesome.”
  23. To me, this entire argument comes down to two main things: how “talented” is the roster in reality, and how much of QE’s seeming lack of progression is squarely in Sark? On the talent issue - I think of “talent”, as an overall measurable of an 80+ man roster, as a little more nuanced than the count of 3/4/5-star ratings from high school. (Yeah I know those rating mean something at a population level.) But I would posit that “talent” at some positions is more critical than others, and that experience is a great equalizer. We start 2 freshmen on the OL. They are very talented. Are they better players right now than 4th or 5th year guys who had lower ratings 4 or 5 years ago? Even though it is a lagging indicator, couldn’t we say that players drafted is a pretty good proxy for the intersection of experience + talent? Texas had zero players drafted last year. The second issue, to me, is the most worrisome. The whole value proposition of Sark was supposed to be that we’d get excellent QB play, which makes all the difference in college FB. And QE’s “talent” is obvious; as he plays more, I think it is fair to expect him to generally improve - not necessarily on a linear trajectory, because that’s not how real life typically works, but overall. Strangely, he seems to be getting worse. Is that all on Sark? I have no idea why QE appears to be regressing, and while I don’t think it is 100% coaching, it is a damning data point for Sark. It was easy to excuse last year and say “well, CT and HC just aren’t good QBs, but now it’s getting more difficult to make that argument. Some of QE’s struggles are surely on QE, but it is Sark’s job to correct them and that isn’t happening. Here’s what I like about Sark: I generally like the coaching staff he hired. You can see development at both lines, the defense overall is better (I don’t give a shit if you want to credit PK or GP, all I care about is the result), the RB and WR coaches were terrific hires, etc. Strong didn’t do that, Herman didn’t do that. And in 2 years Sark has addressed the talent on the lines, which has been a huge issue. And I generally like his offense, though I’m not sure what is going on with QB play, because that is limiting it right now. I don’t think Sark is a great head coach. I do think he does enough stuff well to be a good head coach. I thought 8-4 was about right for this year (I don’t see the massive talent advantage that others do) and freshmen are gonna do freshmen things. Sark has fucked up some stuff this year, no doubt. Again, I don’t think he’s a great head coach, but I’m not convinced that he’s not a good one.
  24. lol, no holding on that play, but targeting for touching the QB with an elbow. This sport has turned into a goddamn slap party.
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