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Gravy Train

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Posts posted by Gravy Train

  1. 1 hour ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

     Venerable also hasn't forgot to coach, he just needs more time install his defense. 

    I'm out on Venables watching the game yesterday.  He has talent and depth at DL and EDGE but seems absolutely fixed on his 3-DL scheme, only to leave his LBs lost, which is the thinnest position on his defense.  He's also lacking leadership in the defensive backfield and I saw nearly no adjustment yesterday.  He's not the kind of guy who I though would turn those keys over to Ted Roof (of all coaches) but as a unit, they've looked lost after the Nebraska game.

  2. 15 minutes ago, Jameslaw121 said:

    Can someone explain what the hybrid drive system is?

    Think of it like current diesel-electric locomotives, where a smaller-displacement, turbodiesel engine drives a high-voltage generator to electrify every component of the tank, including drive systems.  Applying current hybrid-automotive systems might allow the tank to perform limited maneuvers on battery-cells, removing heat signatures from the tank under standstill operation.

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  3. Somewhat related, this video popped up on my feed earlier today.  It sparked a thought about Sark keeping his eye on Saban's roster and leveraging the portal + prior season results to continue poaching receiver & TE talent out of Tuscaloosa.  Seems additional opportunity may be brewing for the offseason that we could take advantage of.
     

     

    • Haha 1
  4. 5 minutes ago, closetohumping said:

    As for Lincoln, a few thoughts.  AS a Texas fan, I'm glad he's gone.  He's regarded as the brightest offensive mind in CFB and there's a reason he was mentioned for the Dallas job at the age of 34.  He's a sharp guy.  Smarmy and irritating but he would've continually given Sark headaches.  I don't get that vibe wit BV and was elated when he was hired.

    Disagree with Lincoln "continually given Sark headaches."  He's as offense-minded as Sark is, without a few key bits of experience under Saban to recruit and tailor said offense around the LoS.  Lincoln might be more crafty about identifying unique strengths of players under his roster, then exploiting them, but he follows a pretty straight playbook that can be blown up once his OL and a key receiver are overmatched.

    I wished we had a couple more years to play him heads up, or at the very minimum, we didn't get fucked over with that call last year when Mims stepped out of bounds.  It took more than that for OU to mount their comeback, but it certainly swayed momentum and it would have been fun to see Sark pour offensive gasoline on the fire of which only Lincoln used to play with.

    We'll get that chance again, I'm looking forward to it.

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  5. 3 minutes ago, tbone_ said:


    Careful with that. No one else is really good so far this year.

    Riley will never recruit an OL or DL that won't consistently get trucked outside of the PAC.  He'll remain a one-trick wonder.  

    I'm also ready for us to play USC again soon.  We may get our wish.

    • Like 1
  6. Related, following article was just revised and is buried within a reply-thread:

    https://snyder.substack.com/p/how-does-the-russo-ukrainian-war?utm_campaign=auto_share

    Quote

    By what I take to be no coincidence, both Kadyrov and Prigozhin control something like a private armed force. Kadyrov, the de facto dictator of Russia's Chechnya region, has his own militia. It was deployed to Ukraine, where it seemed to specialize in terrorizing civilians and instagramming itself. After pushing for mobilization in Russia last month, Kadyrov then announced that no one from Chechnya would be mobilized. One might conclude that he is saving his men for something else.

     

    Prigozhin is the leader of the murky mercenary entity Wagner, and has been making himself more visible in that capacity. (He is also responsible for the Internet Research Agency, which was one of the actors in the hybrid war against Ukraine in 2014 and the cyberwars against Britain and the United States in 2016.) Wagner has been involved in a number of attempts at regime change, including blood purges of the Russian puppet governments in Luhansk and Donetsk regions, and the attempts to assassinate Volodymyr Zelens'kyi at the beginning of the war. These were at Putin's orders, no doubt. But it is an unnerving skill set.

     

    Right now Wagner is leading the daily Russian attempts at offensives in the Bakhmut area of Donetsk region, which are not actually going anywhere. Wagner does not seem to be very active where the Ukrainians are advancing, which is rather more important. Yesterday Gulagu.net reported that a Wagner fighter shot a Russian army officer, which would seem to indicate that all is not well on that part of the front. Is it a stretch to suppose that Prigozhin is sparing whatever valuable men and material he has left? He has been openly recruiting Russian prisoners to fight for Wagner in Ukraine; I would venture the supposition that he is sending them to die and keeping back the men and equipment who might have a future in some other endeavor.

     

    Prigozhin and Kadyrov are calling for is an intensification of the war, and mocking the Russian high command in the most aggressive possible tone, but meanwhile they seem to be protecting their own men. That too seems like a trap. By criticizing the way the war is fought, they weaken Putin's informational control; by forcing him to take responsibility even as they will not do so, they expose his position further. They are telling him to win a war that they do not, themselves, seem to be trying to win.

     

    In the overall logic that I am describing, rivals would seek to conserve whatever fighting forces they have, either to protect their own personal interests during an unpredictable time, or to make a play for Moscow. If this is indeed the present situation, it will soon seem foolish for everyone involved to have armed forces located in distant Ukraine, or, for that matter, to get them killed there day after day. Then comes a tipping point. Once some people realize that other people are holding back their men, it will seem senseless to expend (or alienate) one's own.

     

    At a certain moment, this logic applies to the Russian army itself. As Lawrence Freedman has pointed out, if the army wants to have a role in Russian politics or prestige in Russian society, its commanders have an incentive to pull back while they still have units to command. And if Putin himself wants to remain in power, neither a discredited nor a demoralized army is in his interest.

     

    Mobilization itself starts to look like a spear pointed the wrong way: is there a point in sending thousands of unprepared and underequipped men into what they increasingly know is doom? Putin's presupposition, of course, is that mobilized soldiers will either die or win; but if they flee instead, they become a dangerous group, perhaps ready for another leader.

     

    And so we can see a plausible scenario for how this war ends. War is a form of politics, and the Russian regime is altered by defeat. As Ukraine continues to win battles, one reversal is accompanied by another: the televisual yields to the real, and the Ukrainian campaign yields to a struggle for power in Russia. In such a struggle, it makes no sense to have armed allies far away in Ukraine who might be more usefully deployed in Russia: not necessarily in an armed conflict, although this cannot be ruled out entirely, but to deter others and protect oneself. For all of the actors concerned, it might be bad to lose in Ukraine, but it is worse to lose in Russia.

     

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  7. 11 hours ago, Hookem2147 said:

    A big complaint from OU people has been that they rarely use the middle of the field in the passing game.

    That’s been a complaint of the Briles system for a long time now.

    I still remember this game vividly-- Briles diced them with 5-yard slants every snap all the way down the field. 

     

  8. 20 minutes ago, CHIEF said:

    You can bet China has taken notice. Does anyone think China is about to launch a strike against Taiwan?  The attack wouldn't make it past a couple of days . The US has shut up the World.

    CHIEF

    It's not even about the "attack" but all the economic and strategic pain our allies would bring about, with an economic game of chicken to brew and wait for China to break first-- because they well.  Naval blockades and denial of access to food, energy, and rare earths imports would break them in a matter of weeks.  Yes, that will all hurt us too, but I hope our lazy and naive politicians have realized enough that the CCP's butt-fumbles (cargo, manufacturing, Covid-19) are severe enough to diversify and onshore.

  9. 1 hour ago, Humble Beast said:

    Russia probably did it, but to think that there’s no reason for Ukraine/US to want those pipelines blown is kind of silly. 
     

    Reasons Russia to do it. 

    • False flag to justify other coming attacks on European infrastructure. This could be all of it. 
    • Stir the pot among allies. 
    • There’s the theory about fines that Skipper mentioned. Although I don’t see how Putin cares about the rules. 

    Reasons for US/allies to do it. 

    • Eliminates any small chance of a de-escalation or possibility of reversal of gas shutdowns. Gets rid of Putin’s only leverage. If you want Putin out it helps to eliminate any possible out for him before this war is resolved. 

    The fact that it comes a day after Italy elects a right wing leader that states support for Ukraine, but has allies that have floated going back on Russian sanctions is unusual timing. Perhaps stop that trend before it even gets any legs elsewhere?
     

    I'm still struggling with theories beyond false-flag ops or energy price manipulation.  Gazprom is still making deliveries to the EU via the Yamal-Europe pipeline, yanno, the big one that runs through Ukraine in which Gazprom pays transit fees to Ukraine for.  The 42.4mcm sold through the pipeline is considered normal demand under contract, with deliveries to Poland and Germany.

    https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/eastward-gas-flows-via-yamal-europe-pipeline-rise-2022-09-27/

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  10. Just now, atomheartbevo said:

    My guess is the second and third waves (supposedly wrapping up in November) will really resist, because they will have already heard more stories about Russians dying or being wounded in Ukraine, Ukrainians would have taken more land back, and they’ll have mentally prepared themselves for resisting.  

    Dagestan is already popping off as their populace sacrificed their sons over the first rounds of conscription, never to be heard from agian.  Announcement of mobilization was the step too far.

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  11. 1 hour ago, bschoolprof said:

    Sark has strong Mackovician tendencies as a coach. Brilliant on offense at times, yet rigidly inflexible and committed to his system, to the point of sheer incompetence and stupidity at times. 

     

    If Sark is that stubborn and fixed on his system, was his hire of coach Marion all for naught?  I assumed the two would be working together to incorporate Rojo and Bijan in the Go-Go, and not some weakcat on 4th down.

  12. 7 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

    These annexations will have to be Putin’s win for the time being and he can’t hold even them without regenerating forces from somewhere. Penal battalions and Chechen volunteers won’t cut it. He will try to keep kontraktniki in the actual line of fire

    Sooo... the bright autumn colors become car bombs in the DNR/LNR 

  13. 38 minutes ago, Ghost of Stevie Ray said:

    After watching that Dallas Turner hit again…….fuck that guy, he knew exactly what he was doing

    I'm even more pissed that Jamison didn't return the favor to Bryce, if that's the way Bama's defense wanted to play all game.  Yes, not classy or smart to levy a hit like that and draw flags in critical territory, but let's share desserts and the scoreboard could have remained the same.

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