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Royale with cheese

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Posts posted by Royale with cheese

  1. 9 hours ago, pacman said:

    $$ ESPN https://www.espn.com/college-football/insider/story/_/id/38115407/connelly-college-football-ifs-list-contenders-georgia-alabama-ohio-state-michigan-lsu

    This is my annual "Ifs List" piece -- an attempt to see how many "ifs" it takes me to turn a team into a genuine national title contender. The favorites don't require many; a few others might have more than you think.

    Texas Longhorns (+2,000)

    If ... Quinn Ewers (or some other Texas QB) shows up on key plays. On first downs, Quinn Ewers ranked 19th in raw QBR in 2022. On third downs: 104th. In first quarters, Ewers ranked 46th. In fourth quarters: 97th.

    Ewers had promising moments, but he was dreadful on the most important downs and in the most important quarter. You could say the same thing about the Horns. They outscored opponents by 179 points in the first three quarters, got outscored by 12 in the fourth quarter and overtime and went 2-5 in one-score finishes. They dominated at times and aced the predictive ratings -- seventh in both FPI and SP+ -- but still went just 8-5.

    Was this a sample-size oddity? Can Ewers come through in key moments before he loses his job to either blue-chip freshman Arch Manning or spring star Maalik Murphy?

    If ... Sark does, too. While close-game records are typically unsustainable and can oscillate constantly, it does bear mentioning that Steve Sarkisian has lost 11 of his last 15 one-score games as a head coach. This goes higher up than Ewers on the org chart.

    If ... young running backs aren't a hindrance. Ewers' veteran receiving corps should be stellar, but the Horns will lack both Bijan Robinson and Roschon Johnson at running back. Can some combination of sophomores Jonathon Brooks and Jaydon Blue and blue-chip freshman Cedric Baxter Jr. provide a sufficient security blanket?

    If ... opponents move backward more. Texas leaped from 86th to 22nd in defensive SP+ last season, driven by excellent run pursuit and big-play prevention. But the Horns still ran into trouble on third and fourth downs because, while they were preventing efficiency, they weren't pushing opponents backward: They ranked 106th in sack rate and 102nd in stuff rate. Forcing second-and-8 is good; forcing second-and-12 is better.

    Good workaround if you want to read the full article:

    Add "archive.ph/" before the url.   

    It'll read:  archive.ph/https://www.espn.com/college-football/insider/story/_/id/38115407/connelly-college-football-ifs-list-contenders-georgia-alabama-ohio-state-michigan-lsu

    Follow resulting instructions. 

     

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  2. 10 minutes ago, Al_4_ISU said:


    Forgot about Cincy for sure, but I couldn’t care less because Nippert looks awesome. It’s the Wrigley of college football. Even if they could average 50K in Paul Brown, I’d rather they play sell outs there.

    Same with Houston, but their fanbase seems is shitty.

     

    They're shitty.png

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  3. 2 hours ago, 'stache said:

    If ASU admin wants to stay, let them stay. The concern should be asu being “left behind,” but if it’s their choice, they’re not left behind, because they have an invite and choose to decline.

     

    Let 'em crash.png

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  4. 4 hours ago, LTbear said:

    It is not true; it's just something that sounds right to people online. Grants aren't awarded for athletic association (and that's the only association that is being discussed here), and playing football against another school doesn't make a researcher suddenly realize there are people at Stanford working on similar projects and thus a collaboration could be born (any decent researcher already knows of EVERYONE in their field). 

    FWIW, I'm a college professor who spent a combined 7 years at Stanford and Cal. 

     

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  5. 51 minutes ago, Leanderman said:

    “Now, Manziel isn't even remotely the first NFL player to blow a million-to-one chance to star in America's favorite game . . . Even nerdy Browns linebacker Myles Garrett was suspended indefinitely in 2019 after trying to behead a Pittsburgh Steeler with a helmet.

    Didn't they both play college ball at . . . at . . .  no, don't tell me, I'll get it in a minute . . .

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  6. 1 hour ago, texifornia said:

    Good lord, they can't just call it "the OU game" or "the Texas game" for obvious reasons. The Red River who-gives-a-fuck is a fine compromise, and no one actually says the sponsor's name outside of a broadcast anyway.

    Also, that's a big account, the "pencil dick intern" is probably a creative director making $500-750,000 a year whose main job is getting all of the corporate big dicks to agree on something, the actual name is entirely secondary to the process.

     

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  7. 20 minutes ago, Michael Knight said:

    So are you the 1% of the population that's offended by the name change?

    I, for one, am in the vast majority of long-time fans of one of the greatest rivalries in all of CFB--probably the greatest--who are fed up with some corporate marketing department telling some pencil-dick intern who doesn't know sheep shit from wild honey when it comes to real football, because he probably identifies as a girl anyway, that the pure and unadulterated sobriquet of "The OU Game," which stood for, oh, 100 years or so (and is 63-50-5 in favor of UT), is woefully insufficient as a title, and that what we need is a catchy corporate branding moniker that'll help us sell more Lite Beer, or Chevrolet pickups, or cut-rate auto insurance, or some such, totally without regard to the value of history and  tradition, and without offending any self-styled protected class in the process, and while you're at it, make it the longest run-on sentence in the history of marketing and promotion, and by the way, we need it tomorrow. That's where I am on this "Red River Whatever-The-fuck" bullshit, and I refuse to compromise. 

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  8. 4 hours ago, slorch said:

    ESPN radio is basically unlistenable at this point.  It is NBA every fucking time I tune in and it can be 4-5 times per day depending upon my location, and I immediately change to another station.

    MLB doesn't exist. NCAABB doesn't exist. Hell, soccer doesn't even exist.  It's just just 24/7 of Damian Lillard( not his fault) and Miami Heat culture.

    And that's a bad thing, because . . . ?

    Also, and I know this has been voiced several times upthread, but ESPN's Night of the Long Knives has somehow spared that racist cocksucker, Steven A. Smith. Go figure. 

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