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Everything posted by SL Xpress
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Texas Recruiting Notes 2027: I remember watching his dad play
SL Xpress replied to BornAndRaised's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
We'll see. This seems like the iffiest commitment possible for a 2027 class player. I think the main thing is the rest of college football has to wait and see where the market goes for college players. Texas Tech out there like a speed horse opening up fast at the gate. Maybe they maintain the lead until signing day, but I don't believe that. It's my opinion if someone gets in the ball park he's going somewhere else. That said, his QB teammate is committed for 2026, so maybe that helps end up getting him across the finish line. One thing's for sure. Texas Tech/Double Eagle Boys out there turning heads with NIL money. -
Texas Football 2025 - Careening Towards the Abyss
SL Xpress replied to closetojumping's topic in Football
We have a lot more of these before kickoff guys. This is how it is every year. For every team. Every practice report makes the team you root for look like world beaters with vague statements on how amazing everyone looks. The difference is this year I don't have to read the practice reports. This is the best I've felt about a team entering the season outside of 2005 and 1983. I don't know how well we'll do. Maybe my heart gets broken. That's okay. I'd rather have a muffed punt, an interception dribble through a DBs hands followed by a TD catch by a dominant WR, an injury to the starting QB when it looks like we're the better team, etc. over the drivel we all put up with from 2010 to 2022. All of this is fun to me. Heck, making fun of the practice reports is fun. I'm so excited about this season I can't stand it. It all feels like heroin being injected into my veins. August 30 can't get here fast enough.- 5379 replies
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Texas Football 2025 - Careening Towards the Abyss
SL Xpress replied to closetojumping's topic in Football
I was told privately the injury to Brooks is no big deal. Also no details.- 5379 replies
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Texas A&M gets pile driven by the national media and various fan bases so much. It's crazy how well known they are for going 8-4.
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Uh, wut? I've heard more talk about Texas this offseason than I have my entire life. That was before the #1 ranking in the coaches' poll came out. This week I've seen a whole slew of talk about Texas all over again. Not everyone has Texas #1, but even when they don't there's a need to explain it, and an acknowledgement that Texas is going to be really good this year. The SEC talking heads, even when they're doing so reluctantly, consistently put Texas in the top tier with either Alabama and Georgia, or many talking heads will throw LSU in there. Sometimes there will be a fifth. One guy put A&M in the top category, and another put South Carolina in there, but those are outliers, and the people picking them admit they're not the same caliber as the other 4. One thing I can say with certainty. We're not coming in under the radar this year. There's no way someone can make a credible argument around that.
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Texas Football 2025 - Careening Towards the Abyss
SL Xpress replied to closetojumping's topic in Football
I get where you're coming from. I often feel the same way about you as a poster on this site. -
Texas Football 2025 - Careening Towards the Abyss
SL Xpress replied to closetojumping's topic in Football
I'd add Michael Terry in there, who never played WR in high school. I'm really excited about him long term. -
The Solid Verbal podcast goes over the SEC. They'll have two more shows where they do deep dives on each team. They also have a deep dive on Ohio State they put up a couple of days ago. To me they sound like writers who are passionate about college football covering the game...which is what they are. Ty Hildenbrandt is a Penn State grad and Notre Dame fan. Dan Rubenstein is a grad of Oregon. The podcast started in 2008, so many of you are likely already familiar with it. I only recently started listening to it. They are literate. Listening to them feels like listening to fantasy football people analyze teams/players. It's not my favorite. I find myself getting bored by them at times. But I find myself jonesing for college football content right now. They try to do a good job in covering all of college football. They obviously watch a bunch of games. I feel like they refrain from click bait/hot take shenanigans the way so much of the rest of the internet gravitates towards, so that's my biggest endorsement. Hildenbrandt's take on the Aggies is unintentionally hilarious in this show, but again, so much of what they do is a paper analysis. They don't shy away from that admission. I can't say I learn a whole lot from them, but I don't feel like my intelligence is insulted, either, which is what happens with most college football content. Anyway, here's the link:
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Well, there should be a caveat there that it's less about Stanford slipping than it is they changed the rules to only count the top 20 sports. Stanford still gets an advantage because they have more opportunities to earn points because they have more programs that can finish high, but prior to the rule change all their sports counted, while Texas only fielded 20 teams (now 21 with beach volleyball). If Stanford alumni fully committed to supporting athletics through NIL, they could make the rest of college athletics look like the minor leagues. But it doesn't appear that any of their many whales wants to do that. Their biggest athletic supporter, John Arrillaga, who played on the basketball team class of 1960, made a huge amount of money investing in real estate around the area. It's not just the money he gave, but he had the gravitas to organize other wealthy donors for causes he supported. He died in 2022 before NIL became a big deal, and no one else has really stepped up to fill his shoes in quite the same way. For all I know no one will. They have some obvious institutional issues in terms of their academic requirements - high school athletes can't be offered until they're admitted to Stanford, and as you can imagine that's not exactly a slam dunk. They don't get any waivers like Notre Dame, UCLA, or Cal. They have started accepting a very small amount of transfers, but it's a really big deal because Stanford only accepts 1% of their student body as transfers from one year to the next, so any athletes taking up those spots means someone else isn't being accepted. Also, spring enrollment hasn't been possible previously. That's a big advantage for other fall sports Stanford doesn't have. I'm not throwing a pity party for those cock suckers. But they have difficult decisions to make in the future about how they want to run their athletic department, and the answers aren't exactly obvious. What I do know is I don't see how it's remotely possible they'll be competitive in football in a way they were under Harbaugh or David Shaw's first 8 years. But it's not like I care other than as a curiosity. I will say it's interesting they were one of the big naysayers on allowing Texas into the Pac 12 because in their eyes Texas wasn't good enough academically. They weren't the only ones, but they were the loudest voice in those discussions.
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Texas Recruiting Notes 2026: Boulevard of Broken Bagmen
SL Xpress replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
Yeah, didn't mean to insult your intelligence. You get it. I was just honestly answering the question. -
Texas Football 2025 - Careening Towards the Abyss
SL Xpress replied to closetojumping's topic in Football
Did I miss the Sarkisian sledgehammer clips? I feel like I did. How do we get new locker rooms without a proper demo montage? -
Texas Recruiting Notes 2026: Boulevard of Broken Bagmen
SL Xpress replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
As far as flipping targets, I'm curious how the season goes. Disruptions in head coaching jobs whether because of poor performance or the coach took a better opportunity are gold mines for sniping their best commitments and/or portal targets. Texas is an apex predator taking advantage of chaos in other systems. Never know where new options are going to pop up. I don't think of Oregon as particularly vulnerable, but I thoroughly enjoyed getting Sharma last cycle. Just like Wesley a month ago. I'd love to strip any of their top targets away from them. -
Texas Recruiting Notes 2026: Boulevard of Broken Bagmen
SL Xpress replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
In general the emphasis on long arms has a lot more to do with the OL not being able to get their hands on you than it does batting down passes. It's kind of like reach being emphasized in boxing. It's not an end all measurement, but DEs who can keep separation from their OT counterparts - where arm length is also emphasized in talent evaluation - are at an advantage compared to shorter armed DEs who constantly have to make up for it in other ways. But Mike Tyson was pretty good, and he didn't have a lot of arm reach. Same thing with DEs. If the player can use leverage and strength to get the OL off balance, a disadvantage in arm length isn't as big of a deal. I'm not a fan of Kreul as a prospect. I'm not saying don't take him. We just have an embarrassment of riches at that position, and I'm greedy. I want more Simmons/Jackson types, and that's not who he is. OTOH, the prospect of punking OU in this recruitment makes me giddy. -
Negative Recruiting Your Own School: The aggy Screenshot Megathread
SL Xpress replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
I don't know, man. I think Stoops might be available for a pretty decent price if they wait long enough. -
Negative Recruiting Your Own School: The aggy Screenshot Megathread
SL Xpress replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
"After Texas scored the final touchdown to go up 50-14, a reporter asked Steve Sarkisian why he went for a two point conversion. 'Because I couldn't go for three,' Sarkisian replied." -
Texas Recruiting Notes 2026: Boulevard of Broken Bagmen
SL Xpress replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
They have this NIL thing figured out. Nagy is a secret weapon. He's going to moneyball this whole process. He has a team of top men - TOP MEN - doing independent evaluations that are 4th dimension compared to recruiting services' 2d model. All he needs to do now is get Venables fired because the man can't coach his incredible talent evaluations into a championship level team. I'm excited to see who that happens to be, and if he can get that guy fired, too, or if he's finally swept out with a broom when it's proven his model is dogshit. While I want both Nagy and Venables there for a long time, if I had to choose one, it's Nagy with a bullet. Care a little bit but still fucked OU, so don't care. Not a big Kreul fan. -
Texas Recruiting Notes 2026: Boulevard of Broken Bagmen
SL Xpress replied to texifornia's topic in 🤫$9.95🤫
7 out of 8 out of states transferred out. The one out of state still on the roster is the deep snapper. That's not meant as an indictment on recruiting out of state. What I'd argue is it emphasizes how important going out to these high schools, establishing relationships, and making long term investments in these players and families is. I don't think of any of these cats as character issues, but we needed some bodies. I think the evaluation process is a lot deeper now, and we can swing a bit for the fences in ways we didn't have the cache to do so for the 2022 class. I forgot Terrance Brooks was John Mateer's teammate in high school. Mostly because I didn't care who John Mateer was at the time. I think my biggest takeaway is to cement how big of a boon it has been to have the combination of the portal and NIL in terms of transforming the roster. Not just in terms of upgrading the talent, but in terms of creating a natural attrition where players who wouldn't have been able to be productive SEC players at a high level are encouraged to find playing time elsewhere. Those can be uncomfortable conversations. Better to be able to have a realistic evaluation where we're pointing out the guy next to you is simply better than you, than to simply say you're not good enough and we need to recruit someone better to take your place. -
Howard? Are you referring to Ryan Day?
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I'm having fun! I doubt it will go on for long. I joined when it was announced that Texas would join the SEC, but I didn't have any desire to post until Georgia fans and talking heads lost their collective minds after the Atkinson, Johnson, Cooper commitments. Yes, it is trash, though.
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It doesn't stop there. And then you look at the results of the rest of those seasons, and you come to a quick understanding there was something between the ears of those Texas teams. And it started with Mack. Then you go back and look at how badly his teams shit the bed against Florida State, and you realize there's a pattern. I'll never forget touring the facilities the week after the Nebraska win in '98. The administration had images from that game plastered everywhere like a new covering of wallpaper. I'm not exaggerating. It was everywhere. Like Mack had got some kind of monkey off his back. Nope. The monkey was still there. It would just take a couple of years to manifest. But let's face it. All of those wins over Nebraska were hilarious. And that was Mack, too. He beat Sherrill. He beat Saban. We beat a great Michigan team, beat USC, regardless of how much of an impact VY had on those teams. James Franklin's ineptitude and puckered ass syndrome is on a different level entirely.
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Heck, I felt like I predicted the Notre Dame game accurately. I'll say this. That SMU game could have been a lot closer than it ended up being. The SMU defense was giving Penn State all they could handle, early. The SMU defensive front in particular weren't exactly getting road graded. But the offense completely imploded. It was like our first game against Georgia, except worse. Finally it just felt like the defense gave up, either for being on the field too long or hopelessness. Whatever feather James Franklin was able to put in his cap because of that win, sure feels like a mirage to me. I'll also say that while I wasn't exactly rooting for Penn State, I sure enjoyed the crying from SMU boosters who were late to the game because of the horrendous local airport situation in Happy Valley. By the time they got there after spending millions putting together that roster, the game was over. That was awesome. In any case, thanks in advance for your research, @BurntEyes. I appreciate it. You don't have to do it, and I don't take it for granted. I can't believe how much I've enjoyed Joel Klatt over the years. He's outstanding in the broadcast booth and in his general comments about college football as a whole. It helps that he always seems to give Texas the benefit of the doubt in different ways. I hated him as a QB at Colorado. I got such a kick when we knocked him out of the conference championship game. But in this role he's absolutely one of my favorites. He has some great breakdown videos I've thoroughly enjoyed, which just covers some basics of the game. I've sent links to a lot of those to people I know.
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It's a lot to ask if you have any more specifics on where I could find that video. I'll try searching for it, but if I had any more information it would be helpful. I'd like to hear what Klatt has to say about it.
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I hate watching James Franklin teams in big games. I've got a buddy who is a huge Penn State fan, so while my inclination is to root against them every game, for his sake I'd watch with a fan-by-proxy interest. Their offensive coordinator is shit on a stick. I hate his play calling. I hate how quickly he abandons a dominant run game. I hate their neanderthal passing offense. They do a terrible job building off their play calls. I know they're high on Khalil Dinkins, but man I loved to watch Tyler Warren. That guys seems really hard to replace. I'm not sold on Allar, although in his defense it may be the OC. Franklin coaches scared, IMO, and his team takes on the same personality trait. It's like an even worse version of Mack Brown. They start the season with four home games, including Nevada, FIU, and Villanova before having to put their big boy pants on for the rematch with Oregon in their famed White Out game. For all I know Dan Lanning is going to have extras dressed up in Ku Klux Klan outfits at Oregon practices in some kind of effort to paint this as good versus evil. Oregon isn't exactly running a gauntlet, but Montana State, Oklahoma State, Northwestern (in Evanston) and Oregon State is a mite more challenging than the cream puffs PSU has slated. And then Frankin's manhood is challenged with that game in Columbus November 1. The whole Penn State narrative is that they can't beat Michigan or Ohio State. I assume they can make it to the playoff even losing to both Oregon and OSU if they win the rest of their games, but I don't know how they'd have the confidence to win against an elite team if that were to be the case. People can talk about how Texas hasn't won anything all they want, but road wins against Alabama two years ago, Michigan last year, and then beating teams that some of the best programs in the SEC managed to lose to (Alabama to Vanderbilt/OU, Ole Miss to Kentucky/Florida), plus dominating A&M and their little wanna be jihad, says that Texas can get it done in tough environments. I'll say this. I'd love to match up against Penn State in the playoffs, regardless of the round.
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Texas Football 2025 - Careening Towards the Abyss
SL Xpress replied to closetojumping's topic in Football
I've watched a lot of Caleb Downs the last couple of years, both at Bama and OSU. To me he's just an average future NFL hall of fame safety. Nothing special.- 5379 replies
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Personally, I think it's great. More hype. More attention. More talk about us. More hate. It used to be a bigger deal than it is now. When the whole thing was a beauty contest it was absolutely a benefit to be ranked high early. But season ending goals aren't at stake because of the poll. Ohio State, Texas, and Penn State all lost late in the season and still got to the semi finals, and Notre Dame lost to Northern Illinois at home for goodness sakes. If we drop out of the top of the poll because of a loss somewhere along the way it's not the end of the world. I think it's fun!
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