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camel at sea

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Everything posted by camel at sea

  1. Tennessee has more recruits surrounding it and historically has what to show for it? Oklahoma beats them in pretty much every personnel metric (All-Americans, 1st round draft picks, NFL draft picks, Heisman winners, on-field success, etc.) OU signs a higher ranked recruiting class than the Vols nearly every year. Maybe the surrounding competition you're downplaying makes a difference. http://www.winsipedia.com/oklahoma/vs/tennessee DFW *is* competitive. But OU is probably the #2 brand in that market behind Texas. Tennessee is no better than the #3 or #4 brand in any of its surrounding big recruit-producing markets. Again, the competition matters. If SMU and Arky were blue-bloods, OU's life would be a lot more difficult. But OU is "isolated" relative to recruiting peers. If you think Ames is less isolated than Norman, relative to recruiting, there's probably no point in continuing the conversation. Show me all the blue chippers in that population circle surrounding Ames that ISU can't land because the brand is too small.
  2. You're kind of skating past the essential point. Tennessee will never come close to reaching its hypothetical recruiting ceiling because it's backyard is crowded with schools like Alabama, Georgia, Auburn, Florida State, Ohio State, etc. Oklahoma doesn't have that problem. That's a huge advantage. If DFW is in your backyard, you aren't "isolated." Ames, Iowa is isolated.
  3. Yeah. There's enough parity mixed with proximity that I think a lot of rivalries could emerge. It'll be the most competitive conference in the country, top to bottom. Gamblers are going to love the Big 12.
  4. There is one SEC school in OU's 300 mile radius and Arkansas isn't a recruiting peer. Oklahoma has ZERO recruiting peers (SEC or otherwise) inside a 300 mile radius of campus. That's the advantage. Unlike OU, Tennessee has Bama, Auburn, and Georgia (probably others too if I wanted to dig into it) in the same circle for them. The surrounding population/talent advantage within the SEC footprint is greatly offset by the depth of high resources programs all crowded next to each other, competing for that talent. OU doesn't have to deal with that. Neither does Texas. It's why the Longhorns can be down for a decade and continue landing Top 10 classes year after year. OU's advantage isn't that strong but it's not far off. There are foundational reasons that Oklahoma football is almost always good. There's enough talent in OK, KS, MO, and DFW to keep OU's recruiting floor in the Top 15. In addition, you messed up OU's 450 mile circle. If you give OU a 450 mile radius from campus, the only SEC schools are Arky, Mizzou, Texas, and aggy. LSU is the next closest at 600+ miles away. Two of those four in that 450 mile radius (Arky and Mizzou) are not OU recruiting peers. Tennessee has Bama, Auburn, and Georgia within 300 miles and a LOT of other schools (Ohio State, Florida State, etc.) if you expand their radius out to 450 miles.
  5. That makes sense. At least at the outset, the two biggest rivalries in the new Big 12 are Farmageddon and the Revivalry.
  6. Yeah. The big advantage for OU that people sleep on is the lack of regional recruiting competition within a 300 mile radius of campus. If you're at Tennessee, you've got a lot of resources, and surrounding talent, but you've also got a lot of serious recruiting competition all around you. UT and aggy are both over 300+ miles from Norman and those are the two closest recruiting peer schools that OU faces. The SEC doesn't hurt that built-in advantage and probably helps OU with national recruits.
  7. I wonder if he'll be given enough time to rebuild the roster with that strategy. He might get away with a losing season in '23, but his seat would be warm in '24 without some obvious indications that improvement is coming. I think the Oklahoma State job would garner a lot of interest nationally if it opened up.
  8. "probably match or maybe slightly exceed the Big 12" "may be good enough to keep the status quo alive" The article is not exactly brimming with confidence.
  9. It literally happened. https://www.kansascity.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/sam-mellinger/article65340322.html There's plenty more of it if I wanted to go to the trouble of digging through old Sam Mellinger and Dennis Dodd articles. KC media trashed Boren b/c KC media was being fed that stuff from KU/KSU/ISU admins. National media then picked it up and dragged OU. Absolutely none of that was coming from Texas media sources. The old Big 12 North schools have fans that like to envision themselves as perpetual innocent victims of fate. It keeps them from looking honestly at reality and how bad their own administrators were. It's also true that the Big 12 North schools shot down expansion. Just look at the votes. OU, WVU, and Ken Starr pushed for expansion. Those were the three running the expansion committee. Texas was open to it under certain conditions and said so publicly. UT didn't shit on the president of the other blueblood football program in the conference in the media. Who does that leave as the "absolutely not" votes on expansion? It only took 3 "absolutely not" votes to kill the whole thing. When Texas said, "we're interested in adding Houston if we can get a campus in Houston," what happened? Plains States media outlets started a PR campaign against the "over Texasification of the Big 12." The narrative of "our poor little universities did what we were told" sounds plausible in theory but it never quite matched up with the voting history of the Big 12. Everyone will be better off after the split.
  10. The standout for the OU OL during the FSU game IMO was Savion Byrd at LG. Massive upgrade as a run-blocker from what they'd been putting out there all year. It makes you question why he wasn't getting reps during the regular season. He'll need to get a lot better in pass pro. Reps should do that. OU's interior OL was bottom half of the Big 12 last year. They straight-up sucked in short yardage. Between the interior of the OL, and Lebby being afraid to let Gabriel run, the run game had to do a lot to scheme around its deficiencies to gain yards. Until the bowl game, there was no OU run game when Gray sat down. Byrd has the potential to make a big difference. There are a couple other guys that could improve that interior OL, too. It's going to be a big year for Bedenbaugh. His recent track record with his own OL recruits has been terrible. OU should never be starting 4 transfers on the O-line the way they were down the stretch. He has some highly touted guys in that OL room. Coe and Kelley returning at DT will help OU a lot. There was a learning curve last year and those guys both flashed a little bit later in the year. Johnson's best game was the bowl game, too. He probably wishes he'd stayed at Tulane, though. Downs got better as the year went on, but rotating with Bothroyd should help him. Getting some twitch at the other End spot (R Mason Thomas, Adebawore, Ford, McCullough) could make a pretty big different overall, too. Venables had no pass rush unless he schemed it up. Almost nobody on that DL could win one-on-ones regularly. That should be different next season. I'd guess Stutsman slides over to MIKE and that we see Kanak and Whitter competing for starting reps at WILL. Allegedly the staff has compared Dasan McCullough to Isaiah Simmons, which would imply they're looking at him for their "Cheetah" spot. That'd be a big upgrade to the LB spots. The secondary has a chance to be a strength of the team with Bowman, Lawrence, Woodi Washington, Gentry Williams, Pearson, etc. It's been almost twenty years since the OU secondary was a strength. As bad as it went for OU last season, they lost 5 games by one score. There doesn't need to be much improvement to get back to 10+ wins. Looking across the Big 12 for the '23 season, I think Texas and K-State are probably the class of the conference but OU will be in that mix, too, if the OL plays like I suspect it probably will.
  11. The Big 12 contract had a pro rata expansion clause in it, which means the statement that the Big 12 would be making less money from expansion was never true. Beyond that, the Big 12 would have added a CCG ($), and the current members would have made additional money via an expansion school's phase-in period. "You will make less money if you expand" was not true and all of the admins at every R8 school knew as much when they were telling the media otherwise. You don't think that made OU angry behind closed doors? Maybe they were worried about the *next* deal or making media partners angry, which is understandable. Maybe the R8 decided they'd rather make OU angry than FOX. Hindsight is 20/20 and all, but that seems to have been a bad bet. Today FOX seems fine with Cincinnati, BYU, and Houston. You can't really make an honest argument that ISU (and KU, KSU, etc.) were focused on trying to keep OU happy when they were using media intermediaries to insult OU's president and downplay the concerns Boren was talking about with the media. The R8 strategy seems to have been "Texas is happy at ten, OU won't leave by itself, so OU needs to shut up." That might have worked if Texas had actually been happy. It was a pretty big failure on the part of the R8, then, that they didn't verify that Texas was actually happy. Ironically, you're left saying (paraphrased) "knowing what we know now, I wish we'd done what OU wanted to do." Your leadership just played all of that poorly.
  12. Expanding to 12 would have allowed a return to an 8 game schedule, and an extra OOC game annually. *That* is what would have helped the annual home slate. The rhetoric at the time was that OU's home slate was fine as it was and that OU could play 2 P5's OOC, in the three game window, if Castiglione had any issues with it There was nothing conciliatory coming from the old Big 12 North schools. There was also the general pettiness that was a problem (the media attacks, the transfer rule vote, etc.) As for money? The Big 12 had a pro rata clause in its contract. The Big 12 would have made additional money via the CCG (from ____ until the rule change in 2017.) The Big 12 could have had an extended phase-in period for new members financially. The R8 were concerned about elevating more universities to P5 stature and creating future competition for open slots that might open elsewhere. They were also concerned that expanding would make it easier for OU and Texas to leave at the end of the current deal. Nobody from the R8 was being forward thinking about building up the Big 12.
  13. Disagree. The R8 handled OU's desire for expansion unbelievably poorly (both in 2012-2013 with Louisville and 2015-2016 with BYU/Cincy/Houston.) The R8 admins used media intermediaries (Dennis Dodd / Sam Mellinger) to insult Boren. They refused to talk expansion privately and then attacked Boren for going around them and forcing the issue publicly (something he had to do b/c his donors were insisting on it.) The biggest issue seemed to be a refusal to believe that OU's gripes were real (i.e. "what do you mean that you aren't happy with your home schedule? That's absurd! We're on your home schedule!") The whole thing got really petty by the end of that second expansion process. That's when the "Baker Mayfield Rule" stuff came up. Texas and even Texas Tech voted to implement the new walk-on transfer rules. Three schools (you can guess who they were) voted no. After all of that, OU got really quiet until the SEC move was announced. Texas - by contrast - never attacked OU (directly or via media intermediaries) over any of that. By most accounts, UT didn't want expansion but was open to discussing it. Texas voted for the walk-on transfer rule change b/c it was a good rule change (even if its immediate beneficiary was Oklahoma.) In short, UT brass acted like adults.
  14. Of the guys you listed upthread, Coe, Grimes, Woodi Washington, Key Lawrence, Stripling, and Whitter are back. Major, Jaden Davis and Jordan Kelly are probably back, too, but I haven't seen any official announcements.
  15. Dasan McCullough is an elite pickup for their defense. Rouse is probably a plug-in starter at OT. Most of the rest are depth/rotation adds. If they get Jordan Kelley back, they should be fine at DT, with Coe, Sears, Halton, and Gilliam. I think Venables addressed most of OU's needs, except maybe at WR. But with Farooq and Stoops back, it's not too bad a situation there from a talent standpoint. Their offense is going to work, or not, based on the run game. It'll be interesting to see if the Florida State game is a sign of things to come. That was the first time Lebby's OU offense started to look competent in the run game and they had a couple of freshman pop off for 100+ against a good Florida State team.
  16. The PAC going all-in on Amazon creates a couple of problems. 1) They're alienating the still significant number of people who haven't cut the cord, yet, and 2) they're making people who stream CFB do extra work to find their product. Most casual fans who are streamers are going to stay on the viewing interface where the bulk of the game inventory is (ESPN app, hulu, etc.) Asking casual viewers to 1) remember the PAC game is happening in the first place, and 2) leave their app (which probably has better games on it) to go see what's happening on the Amazon Prime app is a bad idea. Most won't do it. It's not like ESPN is going to cut into their own broadcasts with studio updates advising viewers about the exciting game happening out west on the Prime App. Out of sight, out of mind.
  17. If the PAC deal is almost entirely on Amazon (that's what the reporting on that has said so far), all bets are off as to how that plays out. Viewers won't be switching apps / changing their TV input to find PAC games. That's too inconvenient when you can keep the interface on a superior game from one of the other power conferences It took years for cfb fans to demonstrate a willingness to merely change the channel to FS1 and that did not require changing the viewing interface on the TV. So an Amazon deal basically condemns PAC members to a massive exposure hit. I can't imagine Oregon would be okay with being buried on Amazon. Arizona has already done legwork with their local media getting their fans onboard with switching conferences. All of that said, the PAC media rights talk got quiet after the "all in with Amazon" stories a while back. My guess is that the feedback from the member schools was far from positive. But if their alternative is better exposure (via ESPN) but making less money than the Big 12, that might ultimately leave them getting poached, too.
  18. Yeah. Gabriel: 63% 3,168 yards, 25 TD 6 INT + another 6 rushing TDs. He's a well above average college QB. I think you can also make an argument that OU's backup QB situation probably made life worse for him. Gabriel is relatively athletic but since he had absolutely no backup, he was reluctant to scramble and Lebby was reluctant to dial up QB run (which is a big part of Lebby's offense.) Kid's likely to look better in year 2. I can't see Arnold unseating him at QB1 outside of an injury situation. The big issue with the OU offense this past year (other than the backup QB situation) was how horrible OU was in short yardage / 3rd down. The interior of the OL was bottom half of the conference. It's hard to run the veer and shoot when you aren't good up front. They've recruited well but for whatever reason they're relying on OL transfers.
  19. I'm pretty curious about the behind-the-scenes of this deal. I can't understand why the Presidents or the ADs would be okay with it. The only hypothetical winner in this is Kliavkoff because now he gets to say the PAC's payouts would be better than the Big 12. There's no way he negotiated the deal without input, though. If I'm Arizona or Colorado, I'm jumping ship over this deal and I'd imagine others will be behind them. Even Oregon and Washington might have to re-think a Big 12 option if the Big Ten doesn't have an invite on its way.
  20. I'd like to know how many "a handful" represents for their CBS inventory. If that number isn't double-digits, I think even Oregon and Washington would have to start seriously considering the Big 12 as a fallback option for not having a Big Ten invite currently. Very, very few college football fans are going to switch viewing interfaces on Saturdays to check out what's happening in the PAC. ESPN and FOX won't have a significant financial reason to talk about PAC inventory, either. That's going to be a major issue for recruiting. The PAC needs way more than "slightly" more money than the Big 12 to justify the exposure hit they are going to take.
  21. This sounds like a concession the Texas-based Big 12 schools want from UT. Given how outspoken Mike Gundy has been about the topic, it would be pretty funny if FOX / the Big 12 twisted Oklahoma State's arm and forced them to schedule OU OOC. IMO, the easiest way to help FOX out would be to let them air the Texas-Michigan, OU-Michigan games (in Austin and Norman, respectively) which will occur over the next few years. Throw in a RRS on FOX and everyone should be able to go their separate ways.
  22. At the college level, programs are generally made memorable by the HC. Mizzou has made a lot of forgettable hires. I still primarily think of Norm Stewart when I think of Mizzou sports and I don't think he had a presence that was big outside of the Big 8 footprint. Pinkel was there for a long time, but the first half of his run was just getting them out of the ditch. He really only had them rolling for about 7 years before he had to retire. He didn't really get to be a long term "face of the program" guy for them.
  23. Yeah. I think a couple of "everything but football" adds would be fine as long as they make sense and are likely to have some staying power. The Zags have so many current and ex-NBA guys now that they're going to have money behind their program for a long time. Creighton doesn't have that, to the same extent, but they absolutely fit otherwise. They draw 17K to home games in Omaha. The can recruit against the Big 12. They'd be additive to the Big 12 tourney environment in KC. Strengthening basketball, and limiting the PAC's ability to do the same for itself, can't hurt with efforts to pull away Arizona. If Zona moves, one of the other Four Corners likely follows.
  24. The holdup is that FOX gets nothing out of it to just let Texas and OU leave early. ESPN will have to compensate FOX in some way to make the early exit happen.
  25. That's a big win for the Big 12. If SBJ is reporting it, then it's probably close to done. I'd guess then that they'll add the Four Corners schools within the next 12 months, too. It won't make sense for Arizona, Utah, etc., to wait around for the inevitable. They can't sign a new PAC deal and just assume that a Big 12 lifeboat will always be there. It might not be. The Big 12 just proved to them that they're more valuable than the current PAC (even with Oregon and Washington.)
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