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Askew

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Posts posted by Askew

  1. 4 hours ago, JFKFC said:

    No way? Unfortunately, there are a lot of ways we don't win 9 games this year. Most ways (most logical scenarios). While I'm not a fan of the Sark hire, a sub-9 win season this year is not an indictment of him. New QB, o-line issues, lots of D issues.....just about any coach would have a tough time winning 9 games with this bunch, considering our schedule. 

    What would your expectation of Herman have been for this upcoming year if he was retained?

    My expectation was nothing short of 10 wins and CCG appearance. No excuses. That was assuming the same NFL draft departures.

    We didn't lose any our core to the transfer portal. Very little attrition. My expectation hasn't really changed with the new coach. Roster has 9+ wins in it. 

  2. Assuming the public reason for Blue's opt out is true (save his body), isn't it the case that a lot of peoples' worries on here would be mitigated if the underlying problem was fixed? I.e., the NCAA being greedy twats? 

    A lot of people are concerned that Blue opting out is a me-first mindset that will lead to him opting out of bowl games or even his entire junior year, to get to the NFL. But isnt this purely a money problem?

    If NIL goes through: at the broadest level, a player's overall career will factor heavily into their immediate earnings from NIL. So if youre a guy who is good enough to make opting out of senior year sound beneficial, you'd probably be earning enough from NIL to balance those incentives out. At a more particular level, this would remove the incentive to opt out of bowl games as well. Think about how much Sam Ehlinger could make off selling an NFT of one of his rushing TDs in the Sugar Bowl?  

    Hell, Vince could easily have made a couple million off NIL if he came back for a fourth year. Boosters would just funnel money into his NIL ventures. 

    Once those income streams start getting developed, it starts to make a lot more sense for a player to bask in the placid waters of college and rake in that passive income. 

  3. 2 hours ago, Bevo said:

    Yeah, Texas could have a top 5 class and some of these experts would still be saying not signing Abor was a huge miss. One thing Herman got right is the thought that if your top target goes somewhere else you need to have a strong contingency plan. We don't have a lot of dead weight in the program anymore.

    I think you have this kind of right, but also wrong. I'll call it the Herman Corollary:

    If your top target is gone, then you need a strong contingency. BUT if your strong contingency is gone, then NEVER reach for bodies. 

    This means that we dont have much dead weight, but also holes in the roster at RB (refused to reach in 2019, 2020 after TY Jordan decommitted), LB (refused to reach in 2018, or 2020 other than Ford), DE/Edge (refused to reach in 2019, 2020 after Van F decommitted), TE (refused to reach in 2018 only offered 6 and got Epps, 2020 only offer 4 got none). 

  4. 11 minutes ago, NoName said:

    how many times in history has an "adequate" OL won a national championship?

    what about an SEC divisional title in the last say 10 years?

    what about any game vs Alabama in the last say 10 years?

    an adequate OL is a killer, spoken by someone who has dealt with adequate at best OL over the last how many years?

    I believe CTJ has a great writeup on Clemson's decade of OL adequacy on here somewhere. 

  5. 24 minutes ago, Vertigo said:

    Sark with another FCB teabag on his call at the 6 minute mark. Love that he is giving him such a hard time. I just wish he would put Brian Davis and Kurt Bohls on notice. 

    Does anyone know why this is happening? If I recall FCB put out a story first week of spring that the players were "soft." But dont know of any other particular reason, other than FCB's general ineptitude/stupidity, that Sark would repeatedly ice him out like this. 

    Also, I kind of like the idea of FCB getting emasculated, but I feel that at some point it gets disrespectful to the fans to be shooting the messenger like this. I want to hear the answers to these questions. It's not like FCB's questions have been totally obtuse. 

    • Hook 'Em 1
  6. 1 hour ago, BurntOrange&White said:

    He looks bigger or is it just me?

    What Vito said. He's leaner. His waist is smaller so it makes him look bigger. He may have gained a few pounds of muscle, but he's 4 pounds lighter overall. 227 --> 224 I believe. 

     

  7.  

    1 hour ago, UncleSonny said:

    Despite the handwringing about it over the weekend there are reasons to be optimistic about the OL. Or at least not hide under the covers about it. This staff has been aggressive chasing transfers for spots it has identified as weak points (edge rusher, ILB, WR) and has so far been content to stand pat on OL. So Flood and Sark at least seem to think there is enough talent there for now.

    Good coaching and scheme can make more difference at that group than almost any other and we probably have the 2nd most talent there in the conference even if it doesn't feel like it. A truly dominant offensive line may still be a few years away but average to above average is pretty attainable this season. 

    Looking more and more like we are going to start 4 of the 5 staters from last year. Kerstetter, Angilau, Okafor, Jones. Which means that coaching and scheme was the problem last year. 

    If the OL can learn to pick up stunts at merely an average level, the unit as a whole will be exponentially better. 

    Last year, I picture the OL asking Hand, "coach, how do we handle a stunt?" And Hand probably hearing: "coach, how do we handle a steak?" and then excitedly going into grilling methods and his possible invention of the 'Grill Hands' for the right grip (tm). I'm sure Hand was extra hungry during OU week, during which our OL play reached crisis levels. 

  8. 3 minutes ago, Rholl said:

    Thats why I think all football 40’s need to be ran in full gear..... why do i care fast you are in shorts and track shoes?  Lets get geared up and run those 40’s and lets see how well you carry the pads.  

    It's not really about the pads/gear. It's about game situation vs track situation. Some guys just loosen up and run faster in a game. 

    So the poster above who said the mph gauges will be the new normal, rather than the 40, is the most correct. Take the measurements from game situations, combine with 40 times, profit. 

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  9. Tin foil hat time: 

    multiple sites are quoting Okafor in his media availability, saying that 'Casey is getting most of the reps with the 1's.'

    The media availability video is edited at 1:31 and that quote is cut out... 

    1 hour ago, Burntcowboy said:

     

     

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  10. 1 hour ago, closetojumping said:

     

    Maybe less medical help and a little bit more body fat will serve Whittington well. He's not competing for bodybuilding competition, so it seems to make sense that he shouldn't be training that way. 

    Yeah I am pretty much operating under the assumption that Whit has gotten the correct medical help, and S&C is putting him in the right place to avoid further injury and compete next year (both body composition and conditioning). 

    With that assumption, my main point is just that Whit needs live reps to get his athleticism and confidence back. Judging by how he looked last year, his body has either not gotten its full athleticism back, or he's in self-protection mode and is holding himself back to avoid further injury. So to overcome these things, he just needs to be out there playing full speed.

    If he needs bubble wrap just to survive an offseason where he's not dealing with any type of nagging injury, then he might be too snake bit to be a football player. 

     

  11. 2 minutes ago, victory88 said:

    Put Bijan in gawd damn bubble wrap.  I saw enough from his break out run where he spun, juked, and stiff armed a defender in one run.  Some guys have elite traits and Bijan and Jordan Whittington both have it.  Put them in bubble wrap because I'm worried what this offense will look without those two players

    I can agree with Bijan (although sounds like his vision is getting better and better).

    But it's pretty clear now that Whit has been on a longer timeline in regaining his HS athleticism after the multiple hernia surgeries and the meniscus tear last year. Pretty stiff last year. He needs every live rep he can get at this point just to keep recovering his fast-twitch muscle and his instinctual athleticism when people are flying around. Offseason conditioning cant really replicate that. 

     

     

  12. 1 minute ago, futureman said:

    nobody just gains three pounds over 6 months. 

    DMO proved that he doesn't need any extra weight to be effective and durable in the BIG 12. He already gained the ~10 extra pounds he needed to play LB. He was listed at 210 in 2019. They aren't going to size him up just so that he can be a larger body. They want his explosion from last year, with better play recognition. No need to change his body composition for that. 

    So yeah, maybe DMO puts on the arbitrary three pounds to get to the 220's, but the point remains that TO is currently really undersized to pair with DMO. We also have seen what it looks like when guys put on too much weight in the offseason (Adimora, Keaontay). So anything more than 10 pounds on TO's frame would likely not be healthy. 

    I could live with DMO at 217 and TO at 214. But they'd have to prove it works on the field. Juwan did a lot of the dirty work last year.

  13. 8 minutes ago, Burt Macklin said:

     

     


    It’s 2021 folks. Defenses don’t need thumpers at ILB. Playing in the 220s is just fine for our ILBs. There are very few guys in the country who can play at 240 and not get abused in coverage at the college level. 
     

    We also have a ton of protection up front for them with Coburn, Collins, and Sweat. 

    TO is at 204. He's not going to play in the 220's. DMO is at 217, he's not going to play in the 220's. 

    So the plan was you take the undersized guy and play him with a Gbenda or Ford who will play in the 220's. That is still traditionally undersized, but it made sense when you have the larger 4-down front with two big DTs. 

    I don't know how that works if TO plays at less than 210. Adimora was playing Nickel at 214. 

  14. I still have doubts whether TO has the tackling instincts to play in the box, but that will get resolved soon enough. Assuming TO is capable, real question is can TO and DMO play at the same time, or are they too similar and need a Mike to help fill gaps and stop the run? 

    I was excited to pair DMO with Ford or Gbenda. But I guess you could put TO and DMO out there against spread teams and then see how they hold up against the run. 

     

     

  15. 12 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:

    When Herman was hired we knew we were getting a very good coordinator who could win games. His bowl record at Texas proves it. However, the massive red flag was his philosophy of running the team like a navy seal camp. I bitched and moaned about that at the time, and took a few negs on it, but was convinced that approach wasn’t going to fly.  

    Fast forward to Sark. Having coached under Pete Carroll, he watched Carroll evolve his coaching philosophy of how to treat players more professionally with a more positive supportive environment. That approach led in part to the Seattle Super Bowl win.  

    The ironic part about this is that with the bowl games and the end of '20, when the season was already decided, Herman essentially adopted something closer to the Sark model: friendlier attitude, positive environment, less pressure, less need to squeeze all of the practices in, more rest. The results were pretty astounding with how well the team played and the positive energy they exuded. 

    Could this have happened without the navy-seal approach first to toughen them up and have the ability to let off? Probably not. Charlie showed that.

    But still goes to show the energy/emotions that the coach carries through the season filters down to the players and how they perform. 

  16. Fun podcast guys, thanks. 

    Speaking of shots:

    I thought it was interesting when the piss-chart conversation got going and someone mentioned "championship piss without the championships." Shark's negative response to that definitely shows the disconnect between fans and players, and how players might take criticism of the coach's regime differently than fans think they will--even if the player just got done bagging on the coach. These are still proud guys that love their team and the program. 

    On that note, you guys may want to temper the whole message-board-Herman-hate-and-inside-jokes bit when you get a real player on to talk about Herman. Caused some dead air when Shark didn't have knowledge/want to play along. And leading off with the burnt toast stuff was fun but it kind of limited/circumscribed what could have been an illuminating conversation. There was some really interesting nuance to the Herman stuff that Shark brushed up against but didnt get a chance to flesh out: Herman was an asshole but also the smartest football guy in every room; Herman was intellectual but also socially awkward; Herman was aloof with his players but introduced Shark to his real estate agent and talked investments with him. 

    So i'd say just let the player talk and open up a bit about his take, and then mix in the hard-hitting questions about burnt toast, piss charts, and sociopathy for some extra emphasis. May get a better framing of the whole conversation, and a different take from the player with inside knowledge than the one we all have on the outside looking in. 

    But great to hear from a player like this and really appreciate you guys doing the podcast. Great work. 

     

    • Hook 'Em 8
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