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Bodacious Bevo

Burnt Ends
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Posts posted by Bodacious Bevo

  1. 5 hours ago, texifornia said:

     

    I’ll play

    Top reason for optimism: Moving away from outside zone improves week-to-week consistency. We averaged less than 40 rushing yards in our losses last year. 

    Top reason for pessimism: Interior guys are unproven in pass pro ability. The OL had two bad weeks in pass pro last year and it was mostly an issue of Cam Williams getting stunted on and our calls being figured out (UGA), and miscommunication/assignment issues (Vandy). As fans, we haven’t had to watch real interior pressure since 2022. I’m a bit worried about the Neto-Hutson-Campbell triumvirate there. Some of that is assignment soundness but there’s also reasons to doubt their (Neto especially) ability to hold up 1 on 1. 

    • Hook 'Em 2
  2. 41 minutes ago, SL Xpress said:


    I don’t understand making this comparison. You’re comparing OOS signees in previous classes to a class that still has months to go.

    Also, when I think of the change in recruiting, I’m not thinking about how many are being signed. I’m thinking about how many are being brought in on official visits.

    The difference between national recruiting versus in state recruiting is that traditionally we could expect to hit at a much higher rate of our instate targets, all other things being equal. All things were not equal quite often, but nonetheless over a long enough period of time Texas did quite well with instate recruiting.

    I don’t personally have a good grasp on how transactional football recruiting is these days. I know it’s a huge factor, but how often is Texas losing recruiting battles when we’re the highest bidder? I question whether anyone has good data on that. Someone deep on the inside could make some guesses, but a lot of that is proprietary information that agents and other programs have a lot of agendas that dissuade them from being completely authentic, just as I’m sure the bidding on UT’s part isn’t exactly going to be an open book.

    But regardless of how many out of state players Texas signs, there’s still been a sea change in the effort being put into national recruiting. That’s seen in the number of offers, and the number of official visits, especially when comparing the ratio of out of state versus in state in this year versus the history of Texas recruiting. It’s a massive difference this year.

    It’s also seen in how often the staff is visiting out of state high schools. I have no idea how to measure that. I just know I’ve never seen the Texas staff make this many visits to out of state high schools in my lifetime. That kind of effort isn’t about the current recruiting class. That’s a systemic shift meant to signal to the rest of the country, Texas is interested in your players, whether that’s a message being sent to players, high school coaches, trainers, or agents.

    In years past a different message would be sent by national recruiting efforts. If you’re not from Texas, you better be really talented at a position of need that we can’t fill adequately in state, or you better love Texas so much for whatever reason that there’s already a good shot you’re going to say yes if Texas recruits you.

    That is not what is going on now.

     

    17 minutes ago, Codaxx said:

    I appreciate the work on this, but I just think the landscape has changed so much that the comparisons are almost apples to oranges. Seems kids are far more likely to leave their state today compared to the early 2000s. 7 on 7 teams have become a factor. NIL is a game changer. Texas is in a different conference. In the Big 12 the footprint for recruits was basically Texas. The SEC has opened doors for Texas across the Southeast and its rich recruiting grounds. Sark has certainly pushed Texas recruiting beyond the state lines, but its hard to quantify how much of that was Sark or the changing landscape. 

    I’m not trying to make a specific comparison. Just visualizing and sharing some data about recruiting trends over time. 

    I agree that the OV data would be more interesting. It would just require a lot more effort.

  3. 26 minutes ago, FreeHorn said:

    😂

     

    Everybody who meet that wonderful lady and her lovely husband walked away impressed. 
     

    Coaches loved her and her taste in luxury SUVs as well. 
     

    The biological dad got pushed out that recruitment by the mom and step dad. He was the only one who saw the bigger picture. 

    Is that the reason Harris went from being heralded as a great culture fit at Texas to toxic in the course of like two months? That’s my recollection of the recruitment

    • Haha 1
  4. 2 hours ago, BurntOrange&White said:

    Bobby Burton

     

    One highly ranked recruit is set to announce Thursday: Alabama running back Ezavier Crowell, who is thought to be deciding between Alabama, Texas and Georgia.

    Three more blue chippers on Friday: 

    OL Malakai Lee from Honolulu. It’s a Texas, Georgia, Bama and Michigan battle.

    S Chace Calicut from Houston North Shore. It’s between Texas, Georgia and Michigan.

    DL Damari Simeon from New Jersey. Texas, Michigan, Penn State and Ohio State.

    I don’t want to talk about the individual recruits in this column. Instead, I just want you to step back and consider the teams Texas is recruiting against for each of these players.

    Alabama, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State.

    That’s the entire list. It’s indicative of a new dawn for Texas recruiting.

    How? Because I’ve never seen a time where Texas was involved in this many hotly contested recruiting battles against other elite programs for players both in state and out. Never.

    And it won’t stop this week, it’ll go into the next two weeks as well.

    Before our eyes, Texas is morphing from a national brand that focused primarily itself as a regional recruiting power with specific outreach to other parts of the country to a full-fledged national recruiting power that flexes its muscle anywhere it goes.

    Again, it’s a new dawn for Texas recruiting.

    That being said, we don’t know (and won’t know) if the end results will be better or worse until much later, perhaps three or four years down the road.

    But the reality is, Texas is a true national recruiting power. The transformation has happened

    It’s so exciting to be in (our third straight year of) a new dawn for Texas recruiting where we are finally becoming a national recruiting power. What a unique approach from Sark (for the third time in a row). Very happy that we are now starting to recruit outside our state borders (after doing so the last two years)! /s

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  5. 36 minutes ago, 'stache said:

    Yeah bad call. Catcher took a gamble. If he catches that ball he’s in legal position and runner is out. He missed the ball and is therefore obstructing. Runner definitely tried to pull up and was not malicious.

    Posted this in another thread, but for the purposes of obstruction, a defender is allowed to be in the base path if he’s in the act of fielding, not just if he has possession. The catcher was fine. 

    https://unitedumpires.org/pdf/Feb2018-Interpretation.pdf

  6. 5 hours ago, Horny Bull said:

    image.thumb.png.f0692b710be667ffbda0c69c96dbe6af.png

    Some are saying the Ags had nothing left to play for after losing to Mizzou, but that win yesterday was pretty important. It probably keeps them above .500 for the season. They were in danger of a 27-27 finish if they'd been swept by UGA then lost their first game in Hoover. 

    • Hook 'Em 1
  7. 1 hour ago, Hookem2147 said:

    Not sure how we can make any definitive statements about Riojas after an outing where I believe 5 of the 7 hits he gave up didn’t leave the infield. It wasn’t anything like his previous two outings.

    We've seen Grubbs start this year and it wasn’t pretty. My hunch is he is just as much a one time through the order guy as Riojas.

    We really need to hope we get a pushover 4 seed so we can get through that first game with secondary arms and line Harrison up to pitch the 1-0 game.

    I agree with your takes on Riojas. Yesterday seemed like a fundamentals day. Throw strikes and let your defense support you (except it didn’t). 

    I’m not a baseball expert or anything but it seemed like one of the things that really helped Roger extend past one time through the order and be a quality starter (and something he has over Grubbs for those wanting to have that discussion) was all the funky stuff like dropping his arm slot and the eephus pitch. I don’t remember seeing much of that yesterday but I would imagine he brings it back in the postseason 

  8. 55 minutes ago, Horn80 said:

    Jackpot. Max, Ethan and Will back on the field again.  Think Ruger will be on tonight.

    I wonder if we’ll see Jonah come in for Will once the lefty leaves the game. Borba and Flores are the biggest holes in the lineup but Gasparino seems like the worst OF bat at this point. Might be that Will/Jonah split based on matchups. 

  9. Nice write up. 

    A 30% draft rate is pretty great for a transition class and would traditionally be good for any class, though that may not be the case in the NIL era.

    Now that we can look back at the program’s ascension (‘21 -> ‘23) with the full benefit of hindsight, the transition class was a pretty key part of the roster building success in that period alongside development of the inherited RB and defensive depth chart, the 2022 OL haul (kudos and thanks to those involved), and a really high hit rate on 5 stars (Sanders, Campbell, Banks, Manning, Hill, Baxter being the 5 stars in the 21-23 classes). 

    Compare those elements to others that were either overrated or just bad. The portal only gave us 3-5 meaningful contributors those years depending on how you want to define that (Keilan Robinson, Watts, Ewers, Sanborn, AD Mitchell). The non-OL in the ‘22 class mostly busted. And the offensive roster that Sark inherited only produced a couple non-OL that were any good for us: Whittington, Majors, and Christian Jones.

    This thing could have very easily never gotten off the ground if it weren’t for the transition class, the ‘22 OLs, Bijan and Roschon, and the DTs. 

    That also speaks to how good all the non-roster parts of the program were under Sark (culture, continuity, scheme, etc.)

     

    Small thing about Jamier Johnson - he apparently left the Indiana program this offseason. There’s no info about him being in the portal or joining another team. Just a news article that he left and now he isn’t listed on the roster

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  10. Etheridge didn’t say this in the blurb, but if we finished 19-11, I could understand that a 3-9 post-Spencer record would hold more weight for seeding than it does in the standings. 

     

    Also I want to self-correct a post I made a couple weeks ago that Farmer was batting .300 in conference play. I misread the stat. I think the correct number was .255 then and the current number is .240. 

    That was part of the discussion about whether Jonah would stay in the lineup when Belyeu returns. I’ve changed my mind on that - I think he does stay now. The part of that discussion that has (unfortunately) gotten more interesting is whether it’s strictly Farmer that would be replaced or if there are other guys like Borba that find themselves in that conversation. 

  11. 1 hour ago, Hookem2147 said:

    I don't have the time to go back and look, but my guess is the number of pitchers who have made it through 6 complete innings against us this year can be counted on one hand. Over the course of a series, that is always going to greatly increase your chances of winning when the opposing team has to dip deeper and deeper into the bullpen. Of course, when you run into Zach Root or Kade Anderson that strategy isn't as effective, but don't think this staff is stupid enough to think it does. Schloss made a comment after the Thursday Arkansas game that they had a plan to be more aggressive against Root early in the count but he was just so good that there wasn't much they could do.

    There is a fine line between being selective and being passive, and I think some of these guys are still trying to find that balance. For a team that leads the country in pitches per plate appearance, we are actually in the middle of the pack in terms of walks drawn in the SEC.

    He reiterated that in his OB interview on Monday. They want to be patient and work pitch counts, but guys like Root aren’t going to give you walks, so you need to swing more to give yourself chances for hits. 

  12. 14 hours ago, Steamboat1874 said:

    You young whippersnappers do not understand the term “man amongst boys” in the literal sense.

    It is a sacred term and in football the list is very short.

    I was born in 1955 so my knowledge is about 1960 on.

    Fortunately my dad loved football and we always had two TV’s in the early 60’s and a forty foot antenna so we could get more stations than KTBC Channel 7 in Austin.

    I am sure guys like Red Grange, Bobby Lane, Otto Graham, Sammy Baugh were incredible but the first “man amongst boys” player I remember is still the greatest running back of all time, and there is no discussion here, Jim motherfucking Brown.

    If you are too young look him up.

    It is not even close and this term “man amongst boys” was basically created by him.

    The next player in my life was Tommy Nobis.

    Greatest two way player in UT history and maybe the greatest UT player ever.

    While Ricky was incredible as was Vince they are not in the MAB category but one more Texas player is…

    And he is the definition of “man amongst boys”

    And that is Earl Campbell.

    That term was created for guys like Jim Brown and Earl.

    If we’re going to be literal, high school and NFL don’t matter. At those levels, they’re all boys amongst boys and men amongst men. That said, idgaf about the definition. The term is supposed to be a fun way to talk about physically advanced/dominant players. You don’t have to come legislate that away with an arbitrary definition.

     

    I don’t have a great Texas nomination that hasn’t already been mentioned (maybe Sweat is an honorable mention?), but a definite non-UT guy is Calvin Johnson. 

  13. 36 minutes ago, Tylerocks said:

    Wasn't sure where to put this, but a dude at the gym the other day had an aggy shirt that said 

    Jesus had 12 men too across the back.

    What a weird bunch.

    I saw that shirt at one of the baseball games
     

    I wonder if they carry the analogy to one of the men selling out Jesus for silver and the other eleven denying knowing him

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