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SL Xpress

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Everything posted by SL Xpress

  1. I mean, that's the purpose of it. CTJ is incredibly entertaining. He's leaned in to it because it makes the board dynamics fun. Good on him for doing so.
  2. I gave a book report on The Stand in 5th grade. My teacher stopped me about a minute in to it.
  3. Turn The Page, Fred. It was a godsend switching from the wishbone to the I-formation in Earl Campbell's senior year. I can't believe the series of events that had to transpire to make that happen. Running Earl as the fullback in the wishbone was a crime against nature. No offense to Coach Royal. But getting locked into that offense was hell on earth for the next 9 years. Then it didn't necessarily get better under McWilliams. The boosters pressured him to hire Lynn Amedee (huh, he recently died May 20) because Amedee ran an exciting offense at A&M with Kevin Murray at QB. Amedee's offense in 1991 is the worst one at Texas in my lifetime. When the boosters told McWilliams he had to go, he responded with, "I hired the guy you wanted me to hire." Then the Mackovic years came. And while the offense was exciting, it wasn't a winning offense nor a winning head coach. Just glad I got to live long enough to see the program where it is right now.
  4. Yeah, that wasn't exactly our dynamic. For one thing, my Mom eats men for breakfast. She has a beauty queen sort of charm about her, a twinkle in her eye, but she gets energy from destroying people. She just managed to destroy my niece (her granddaughter) this morning. It will be the wind beneath her wings all day long. Her problem was always being attracted to alpha males and then crushing their souls. Finally late in life she married a beta that became her favorite puppy to kick, and that worked out a lot better. And my Dad was awesome. Hilarious. Erudite. Took over pretty much any room he was in by his sheer presence. When the world wide web came about we started posting on the GoBig12. It was hilarious watching Dad become this larger than life internet personality. Not because it was some kind of surprise, but because that's how it always went.
  5. One of my treasured Disney World memories was travelling to Florida as a kid. My parents' marriage was on the rocks, although I didn't know it at the time. I just knew they had epic fights all the time. Two people who demand to get their way 100% of the time and the marriage doesn't work out. Who woulda figured? Anyway, this was kind of a last gasp to see if they could make it work. Narrator: They could not. My father's whole identity was giving off this Darth Vader type energy everywhere he went. It wasn't that he scowled. It's like his whole energy was this "I'm going to suck out your soul" type of deal. That's not all of who he was, but that was his default. So it's a family of four at the "happiest place on Earth" with Dad at the last place he'd ever want to be among people he felt were beneath him, with a wife who made him miserable, pretending to be the family man he never was, at the end of a miserable marriage with two kids in tow. The person playing Happy the dwarf decides this is the guy he's going to charm. He (could've been she, I don't know) spent the next 10 minutes grabbing Dad's hands and dancing in circles with my sister, Mom and I laughing hysterically, and Dad sending laser beams of pure hatred out of his eyes at this shit head who had decided it was his personal mission to try to evoke a smile out of him. Eventually Happy slinked off. Probably quit that day for all I know. PTSD related. This sort of thing happened somewhat often, so my reaction when it started was to grab metaphorical popcorn and think, "well, this is a train wreck. Let's see what happens!"
  6. They have. It's Sayin. But it's the typical head coach game being played. Keep the backup engaged. Push the starter to work harder. Show the team he earned it. Sarkisian did the same sort of thing with Ewers and Hudson Card.
  7. It's not about depth per se. Recruiting numbers at OL is because it's the hardest position to evaluate. A big part of the reason coaches don't recruit numbers high enough is because they don't want the dead weight on the roster. And who can blame them? But without the numbers you end up missing enough that inadequate players end up getting significant playing time. And the development time is so enormous. The best OL programs typically have guys who have been in the system. Like our group this year. But as has been pointed out by CTJ, the portal is more of a crapshoot for OL. Either you're possibly missing like OSU might have done with Ethan Onianwa (they have another transfer in Phillip Daniels from Minnesota who could be displacing him) or you're paying out the wazzoo for someone like Isiaih World from Nevada. The point is I do not believe we're recruiting enough offensive linemen, because some of them are going to miss regardless of how highly regarded they are. One or two more per year is 3 to 5 more during a development cycle. That's big. Also, I know churn is not the most pleasant topic, but with the presence of the portal counseling players out is a more seamless process for the guys who don't work out. I agree with the concept that only about 8 OL are going to be in the rotation in a given year, with injuries being a huge X factor.
  8. I enjoyed that article from Chip Brown. The quotes from his brother and Mom were terrific. But the starting five at Ohio State barring injury IMO are going to be McDonald and Williams at safety, Taffe at nickel, and Muhammed and Guilbeau at corner. But it looks to me like Littleton is going to see a lot of playing time this season, and could become a starter at some point.
  9. Day of should work.
  10. Not sure where to link this article, so I'm linking it here. Oh, and also on SEC Rant, because that's fun. The title alone is geared to infuriate people. Is Texas college football’s new Alabama? - The Athletic
  11. But at some point it's not necessarily about getting a starting NFL tackle. I know that's the aspiration at Texas, and it should be. But if you don't have enough bodies in the pipeline, if you're going to compete for national championships you better get them somehow. It's still a very legitimate point, and I'm not trying to argue it. It's also the easiest thing in the world to spend someone else's money. I have no agency in any of this. To me it makes sense to wait for chaos and then take advantage of opportunities if they present themselves.
  12. Chip Brown. Kirk Bohls. Geoff Ketchum. There are a couple of others with the same schtick. Heck, Bobby Burton when he founded National Recruiting Advisor always seemed to discount Texas affiliated players a bit to keep from seeming biased. Not to lump Burton with any of them, because he's always had an air of professionalism even before he tied himself to covering UT exclusively, and has kept it that way. I don't think there's another program in the country with more villain status people covering the program as their main gig. There are plenty of haters around the country. We're a polarizing program. But to have these talking heads represent us in talk formats everywhere as "Longhorn homers" when they giddily love planting blades between our shoulders simply as a point of emphasis to show they're capable of it is infuriating. I remember when the thin skinned Mack Brown was trying to control the narrative around his program early on, he tried to shut out media representatives from having access in different ways. Not overtly, but in subtle ways. He did a full on press with Chip Brown when CB was at the Dallas Morning News trying to ingratiate him so he'd only print a Longhorn slant on everything he wrote. There was a complete misjudging of character.
  13. I believe everything a coach says in a media availability literally. There's never any agendas involved. If he mentions him several times, then we see him on Saturdays being productive, then I'll believe it. Until then I'm going to assume he's giving a call out to be encouraging and to help keep Butler's buy in for the season. I will say there are players he mentions on multiple occasions and I do pay attention to that. For example, he keeps bringing up Ty'Anthony Smith. I don't think Smith is going to get starter snaps, but I do think he could play a bigger role this season than we generally think, and I think that primarily because Sarkisian keeps making a point to bring him up.
  14. No. If you watch the media availability where he said that, he was referring to going to the portal right now. "I'd be better off going to the co-op." He wasn't referring to the portal in general. He could very well believe that. Maybe him and Kyle Flood simply don't think there's a good payoff for a quality OL in the portal. But that's not what he said. Or at least, not the complete context for it. I will say this. The biggest issue as much as anything else since Mackovic was fired, is that the head coaches simply don't bring in enough bodies at OL. Certainly not enough quality bodies. The quality part almost goes without saying. But also not enough bodies period. OL is the hardest position group IMO to give a projected evaluation. Sarkisian and Flood reversed that quickly when they got here, but now we're moving towards the same dynamic. We're simply not bringing in enough OL in our recruiting classes. I thought we were going to have a group of 5 or 6 in this class, and maybe we still will. But our tackle group in particular is very thin. I'm not exactly a lone wolf on this. I see plenty of other posters making comments on it, so I'm not out here saying I'm seeing something other people aren't. I'm simply saying I agree with posters who look at our roster and depth chart and think there's something amiss with our talent acquisition strategy in terms of sheer numbers.
  15. To be fair, one of the things he would say is don't sign a contract with Texas Tech, because they'll just use sovereign immunity to get out of it.
  16. I mean, we don't know what the scheme is going to be when he gets to Norman, nor who will be running it.
  17. There's the old joke about the two friends trying to run from a bear when one person takes the time to put on his running shoes, and the other guy screams at him that he can't out run the bear. "I don't have to outrun the bear. I just have to outrun you." Texas doesn't have to be amazing at all facets of the game. They just need to be a little better than Ohio State. This game won't be played in a vacuum. Whatever UT's weaknesses, OSU will have some as well. As amazing as their WRs are - and they're truly amazing - they'll have a starting quarterback with virtually no starting experience. Much like Texas, they have a lot of new pieces on the OL that they're hopeful about, especially at tackle. That group will be facing their biggest challenge in their season opener. I like our chances in this game.
  18. One of the things I've learned in life is that you can tell someone else, "See the red glowing stove top? It's really hot. Don't touch it." For some people, they think, "Okay, I'm not going to touch it, then." But there are always those folks who say, "I mean, how hot could it be?" It doesn't mean you don't give warnings or instruction. It does mean that sometimes it doesn't have the kind of impact you hoped for until after mistakes are made. The most effective culture is when they're not just getting it in a class. The people around them are constantly reinforcing the message. It can go the other way, too. If you have a culture of rule breakers and living on the edge, no advice from outsiders is going to erase that. That's a big part of why all the effort they're putting into out of state recruiting is so important. It's not about being highest bidder. It's about knowing who is worth being highest bidder on. You don't know that from throwing a bag down. You know that by getting to know the HS coaches, the family, and the player. Preferably by establishing some kind of long term relationship with the HS coaches, so it's not based on a single recruitment, but on a long term trust that they mean what they say, rather than just selling you on the player they have right then.
  19. I'm getting sucked into your retardedness, and that's on me.
  20. I mean, he did kick more field goals than any one at Texas ever. He didn't always suck at it. Sarkisian likes to go for it on fourth down.
  21. I don't understand. There's a big part of Sarkisian that simply doesn't like to kick field goals when the ball is around the 35 yard line. Maybe that changes, but I doubt it. He considers it a part of his all gas no brakes identity.
  22. You made it through a season of Silas Bolden fielding punts. Whoever is back there this year is going to drop the pucker factor several notches simply by not being Silas Bolden. I understand having worries about turning the ball over with muffed punts, but that's going to be a risk regardless. If I could rank the points of emphasis in terms of positions we need to win this year to reach our goals, there's a good chance punt returns would rank last on that list. Just catch the ball. Anything beyond that is golden.
  23. Yeah, Gerry mentioned that in their podcast. Too early to be conclusive, but not too early to be interesting. I do think we're a bit behind in numbers on the OL. Especially tackle. Early on in this cycle I drank the kool-aid and thought we'd be bringing in a 5 or even 6 person class filled with 4 and 5 star studs from across the country ("we're getting errybody!"). I'm hoping for some flips prior to signing day. We've refrained from going to the portal for OL so far. I wonder if that changes this year.
  24. It feels like it's going to have to be 4th and 20 or the end of the half/winning kick for Sarkisian to even attempt one from that distance.
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