SL Xpress
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	Or people from the NFL. It's someone The Athletic trusts as an authoritative source. Probably more than one. Doesn't have to be solely the family or a school official.
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	I'm so happy I like following the volleyball team.
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	I enjoyed that commercial for University of Arizona during the Texas/Mississippi State game.
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	The rotations allowed Vander Wal to go against the 5'10 (I'm unconvinced she was actually 5'10, but that was what she was listed at) setter. Stafford was lined up against Placide, their best player. The numbers were still the numbers. I'm glad for Vander Wal and Stafford can do better. But it's not like there wasn't a reason for it. In part because Vander Wal got chewed up by Placide's serve at the end of the 3rd set, Elliott changed the rotation for the 4th set with Vander Wal starting out from the service line. This allowed Stafford to line up over the setter for a couple of rotations, and her numbers improved. Placide played an outstanding match. It will be interesting to see what that bodes for Lednicky versus A&M on Friday. The thing is, Vander Wal is doing a great job of limiting her errors. She's probably doing the best on the team at tooling hits off the block, which is combining nicely with her cross court game. I felt coming in Vander Wal was a better prospect than Spears based on international play. Vander Wal was the best player I saw on the US teams in those competitions. But Spears is so athletically gifted, with height, explosiveness off the floor, a thunderous arm. She comes out of that back row and it reminds me of JR Richard pitching for the Astros in the 70s, when it felt like he was halfway to home plate by the time he released his pitch. We'll see if it continues, but I have high hopes. She'll have to get better at serve receive, though. But we ate up Harper Murray in that 2023 national championship match, when Murray was just a freshman, and she's easily one of the best serve receive outside hitters in the country. The difference is Murray has been a 6 rotation OH since day one. Elliott doesn't like having a bunch of 6 rotation pins. At most he has two pins serving, and sometimes it's only one. Texas is not really the place to go if you want to be trained to be a 6 rotation OH unless you're the chosen one, like Eggleston or Skinner. Right now Stafford is filling that role, and she has another year to go. In any case, I love our 3 freshmen "starters." I'm excited to see all 3 of them develop into the players they were meant to be. I was saddened Harvey didn't get playing time against Ole Miss, but I don't know what the thinking is there. Bunton showed real promise at times. Our blocking is still moribund, though.
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	2022 was the last time we hosted a regional. Like Wolf Brand Chili used to tell us, that's too long. But the matches then were crazy. The match against Ohio State in the Elite Eight was packed to the gills. It set the record for Gregory Gym at 5344. I feel confident there were some successful bribes to the fire marshals that day.
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	Almost certainly at Gregory. I guess I could be surprised. Billy Strings is scheduled for Dec 13, and regionals is held Dec 11-14. All regional hosts are required to install a taraflex court or they can't hold regionals. But I'm assuming they're going to rent a court for Gregory and just hold it there. I could see future regionals being held at Moody, but probably not this year. I know the contract for Moody gives UT access to the building only so many times a year so they can host other events the rest of the year, but I don't know all the logistics around it. It seems like they'd have to organize something in advance, though, and there's definitely been no word on it. It was a big deal to host the Stanford match in there, and tickets sold out remarkably fast for that. There's also the issue of donors having their preferred seats. The selection for seats works differently at Moody, so there would be some upset volleyball fans to deal with. Not that it couldn't be worked around, but the more advance notice probably the better.
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	I don't get all that concerned about Auburn. Florida plays up and down, but we're decidedly more talented. The Gators do not play up to their potential most matches. A&M is in College Station. That environment is going to be insane. Plus they're good. Lednicky is outstanding. Their middle blocker is outstanding. They have some other nice parts. Kentucky is in Gregory. They're almost certainly going to be a regional host. I'm looking forward to that one, and feel like we can win, but that's a test for how we'll perform in the Elite Eight and beyond. Could easily face them two more times this season. We waxed TCU and Baylor so thoroughly. Probably our peak performances this season.
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	It feels like our seeding is pretty locked in at this point unless we lose a whole lot of matches. We're either going to be #1 or #2, and the only way we get #1 is to go undefeated, and maybe we don't get it even then. I'm fine with that. A #2 overall seed and hosting regionals would be an outstanding result, IMO. I would also like to win the SEC regular season. The tournament is not as important to me, other than we're playing in it, so might as well get a trophy out of it. First thing is next week. This week's matches against Ole Miss and LSU feels like the calm before the storm.
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	Abby Wonder Wal for the two matches last week: Arkansas - 13 kills 2 errors 28 attacks .393 hitting percentage OU - 15 kills 5 errors 25 attacks .400 hitting percentagentage
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	Watching the Florida-Kentucky match earlier, Kentucky head coach Craig Skinner finally lost his first challenge in conference play. He's now successfully challenged 8 out of 9 calls I believe, and 15 out of 19 on the season including non conference play.
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	They recently fell out of the top 25 for the first time since 1991. 1991! Mary Wise is a legitimate legend, who just retired. They've had some tough breaks the last couple of years. Two years ago they looked like a legitimate national championship contender - the year Texas mowed through 3 #1 seeds in a row to win it all - when they're starting stud true freshman setter tore her ACL really bad and was lost for the season. It's funny, because they lost their 1st team All American stud right side attacker to Nebraska in Merritt Beason. Little did any of us know they had true freshman Kennedy Martin waiting in the wings who makes Cari Spears look like a piker. Then Martin transfers to Penn State. Last year they had chemistry issues. Eventually Mary Wise called it quits. Without Martin they don't have a balanced attack. Theis did a really good job at Marquette before taking the Florida gig. He was a former assistant in Gainesville back in 2006-2008 before starting his head coaching career at Ohio. But I am not feeling him at Florida. Kentucky is a relatively new bully on the block for the SEC. Before current head coach Skinner got there, they were nothing. Before that, Florida ruled the roost. There's a famous call/non call in the volleyball world. In the 2015 tournament match in the regional finals in Austin, Florida and Texas were battling in the 5th set. The score was 7-6 in favor of Texas, when Florida's OH hit a ball that landed within a couple of feet of the end line, but the official called it out. Texas would go on to win the 5th set in extended points, 17-15. It was a pivotal moment in adding some kind of challenge system to allow obvious blown calls to be reversed, which eventually evolved to the system we have in place now. They never did win a national championship under Wise, but she coached for 34 seasons, won 1068 games, made it to 8 Final Fours, and won a remarkable 25 SEC conference championships. As a comparison, Elliott has now won 675 matches in 26 years as a head coach.
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	Florida has all kinds of issues, but they're a talented team overall. Two good to great middles in Auguste and Rothe. One of the best setters in college volleyball in Stucky. Two good but journeymen for a reason outside hitters in Byrd and Madkin. A serviceable at best right side in Serbian Vidacic. For me their biggest issue is this insistence on playing Hutson in the front row for 3 rotations. Florida consistently gets outscored with her up there. Kentucky went on an 8-0 run in the first set, and blew the 4th set open from a 17-17 tie. Theiss is the worst kind of play not to lose head coach. He doesn't put their most aggressive server on the service line for the 5th set because he's scared she's going to hit an error. Meanwhile they get demolished 15-6. He puts Hutson on the front row for her "defense." Dude, you have no out of system options other than the left pin. And now you have a substandard attacker over there. What are you thinking? And he does this regularly. Byrd and Madkin have issues, but they're legitimate attackers who can go get you points. All I know is that I hope he please please please puts Hutson in the front row as much as possible when they play us. Also, Kentucky is great, but they're very pin dependent with Deleye and Hudson. They have a freshman setter in Katy, Texas native Kassie O'Brien. They've got that 6'6 tree in the middle in Carr that leads the SEC in blocks. The Opposite hasn't been a productive position for them all season long. I like their floor defense, but I like ours better.
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	I had such high expectations for this season. I feel like an idiot. I feel like this Texas team is a Nigerian prince promising to deposit millions in my bank account, but I keep hitting refresh, and my balance keeps showing $0.
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Could this be the craziest coaching carousel of all time?
SL Xpress replied to GreenspointTexas's topic in Football
I don't know. You guys were pretty successful when Waco became Rapetown. You could want that. - 
	
Could this be the craziest coaching carousel of all time?
SL Xpress replied to GreenspointTexas's topic in Football
He should tell anyone who asks, "I think it's pretty selfish of you to ask me that question. I took the job at A&M to never take another job again." That should calm down any worries Aggies might have about him leaving. - 
	
Could this be the craziest coaching carousel of all time?
SL Xpress replied to GreenspointTexas's topic in Football
"All I do is win. Google me." - Curt Cignetti at his press conference after being introduced as the new head coach of Indiana football - 
	Please make the beatings stop. Please.
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Texas Football 2025 - Seven Win Steve Rides Again
SL Xpress replied to closetojumping's topic in Football
And now he dates Madisen Skinner. That's like fucking the prom queen right there. - 
	I think the Arkansas head coach is in trouble. They're a far cry from their Elite Eight team from a couple of years ago. That group was so fun to watch. Pretty much everyone played all 6 rotations with a bunch of undersized front row attackers, led by 5'7 OH Jill Gillen. I guess it's not a formula easily duplicated. I have always liked Florida better from a talent perspective. They should be performing better than they are. The match against Tennessee was a nail biter 15-13 5th set win. It was at Tennessee, so that matters. Replacing a legend in Mary Wise is never easy, but Theiss isn't making his job any easier with some questionable long term personnel decisions. We already beat Tennessee, but I consider Florida a more dangerous squad talent wise. After that this conference takes a big dropoff. I'm not a fan of either Auburn or Oklahoma, although both teams might make the tournament. It's a good thing Elliott scheduled such a challenging non con and the team did so well against it, because outside of Kentucky and A&M, this conference isn't doing us any favors this year. A far cry from a couple of years ago when Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas were all loaded for bear (Stucky ended up with an ACL which doomed Florida, but they were looking awesome before that).
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	People love to say serving isn't that difficult. You know what is difficult? Actually winning a point on serve. In men's volleyball it's way worse because they hit so much harder, but even in women's volleyball the serving team only wins the point about 40% of the time. Against good teams that can plummet to 30% or lower. I would argue that serving effectively is the single most important competitive advantage a team can have. It's not the only advantage, or else a program like Indiana whose head coach emphasizes serving (as an example Texas' defensive specialist Ramsay Gary rarely served for Indiana as their #1 libero because of her lollipops, even though she's very good at keeping her serves in the court - her serves aren't difficult as you say, that's for sure). And yet Indiana struggles to make the tournament most years, and is very mid to bottom of the conference in the Big 10. That's just an easy example. When Texas won the national championships in 2022 and 2023, their tough serving across all 6 rotations was a big reason why. Not the only reason, mind you, but I'd argue the biggest reason simply because that was the biggest gap between Texas personnel and their opponents. In 2023 in particular, they practically served Stanford, Wisconsin, and Nebraska off the court. But it wasn't because it was so easy. It's because serving tough is so hard, but Texas was very good at it. Texas is not as good this year at serving. Maybe they can be, but I don't think so. We just don't have the potential lineup for it across the 6 rotations. Stafford is awesome. Halter is very effective. But after that there's a dropoff. I like Swindle's serve, but statistically it's one of the worst on the team in terms of scoring on her service rotation. I feel like Gary rarely gets the opponent out of system. She has a pretty good short serve where she gets it in no man's land closer to the net, but if she's not accurate with it the opponent ends up with all 3 options on attack, which is extremely difficult to defend regardless of opponent. I'm not a huge fan of Kujundzic's serve. Spears is working on a top spin serve (where the server jumps real high and then sends it to the other side with extreme velocity) but she rarely breaks it out in matches because it's not reliable enough, yet. Her float serve is fine, but still has work to do. Binney comes in and serves with the double sub Elliott often employs. Again, her serve is fine but it's nothing to write home about. Miller also has a top spin serve that she dials down with its aggressiveness simply to better ensure she keeps it in court, but she's in a battle with Kujundzic to see whose serve is actually more effective, so not even sure she's going to be a real option or not. Also in the Alabama match the Crimson Tide had issues keeping their serve in as well. The real culprit in that match was attack errors and the inability to be terminal, specifically in the first set loss. The service errors were 6 to 5, whereas the hitting percentage was .000 for Texas (Texas currently ranks #4 in the country with .304, and ended up hitting .385, .366, and .237 in the next 3 sets). Bottom line, I don't worry about service errors with this team as much as I'm concerned about the ability to get high quality opponents out of system consistently when at the service line. Won't matter against most opponents, but once teams make it to the Elite Eight and beyond, they're going up against one of the top 8 teams in the country. That's where it matters. If you can't get an elite opponent out of system with your serve, you're not going to win many points from the service line. If they're able to do the teeniest better job of that, they win the set and eventually the match. A good test of that will be A&M and Kentucky. Kentucky has a really good shot at being a regional host. May even be seeded above Texas if they can beat them in Austin. They have the best OH duo in the country, a candidate for freshman setter of the year in Texas native O'Brien, and they're extremely well coached. I don't think A&M is going to be a top 8 team unless they can beat Texas in College Station, but they're right up there on the cusp. Get those two teams out of system from the service line consistently, it shows we have a real chance when it gets deep in the tournament. If we can't, it shows a critical issue that hopefully can get addressed to some degree, although the options to do so are a bit limited.
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Could this be the craziest coaching carousel of all time?
SL Xpress replied to GreenspointTexas's topic in Football
There's still a lot more value in volleyball than other sports, but it's on a steep rise. I don't know how much Stafford got to transfer from Pitt to Texas. There are rumors Kennedy Martin got a $750k deal to transfer to Penn State, but that's not a good source or anything. Could be completely made up. Nebraska outbid Texas for Kaitlyn Hord, a first team all American middle blocker back in 2022. They paid $100k for a single season. Texas got Madisen Skinner, an outstanding outside hitter after Skyler Fields transferred from Texas to USC. I don't think either of them got anything approaching $100k. Brian Davis when he was working at the AAS did a FOIA request from Texas for their reported NIL payments in 2022 and the highest one for volleyball was the $50k Eggleston received, but that was a legitimate NIL deal for Champion. Nebraska is known to have over $1 million for NIL available every season. But they actually make money in volleyball. And they're about to make more with the addition coming to their volleyball arena with added premium seating. Texas is considered second highest - and that includes local NIL deals with companies like HEB. I haven't heard any rumors about the overall payroll for Texas. Texas does not make money in volleyball. But neither does anyone else. Wisconsin comes the closest after Nebraska. We did flip Ayden Ames from Nebraska by selling her on the idea Texas has plenty of NIL opportunities in Austin even if she's not getting paid directly by the collective. She even participated in a panel about it at last year's South By Southwest. Marianna Singletary, one of the starting middle blockers, allegedly transferred to UCLA because she wasn't happy with her NIL deal at Texas. But UCLA isn't known for their robust NIL program, so it's hard to imagine she got paid more there. Her best friend goes to school there and she's able to serve, which she wasn't going to be able to do at Texas, so maybe it was for professional/national team development reasons, rather than a higher NIL amount. SMU brought in 5 prominent transfers from around the country, including 2 from USC, 1 from Auburn, 1 from Texas, and 1 from Colorado State. There was significant competition/interest for all 5 of these players. Two of them, the one from Texas and one of the ones from USC, are considered among the best at their position in the nation, but all of them had significant success at their previous school. Without knowing numbers, I can guarantee you SMU wasn't able to put together that roster without a significant investment...for volleyball, anyway. The real answer is I don't know exact figures for a lot of the personnel movement. I get some figures, but only rarely is it reliable like it was for Hort. I do know that there are more schools involved with tampering and NIL investments in volleyball. Nothing crazy like the $1 million per year Tech is giving to Canady for softball, but there isn't anyone in volleyball who can have the same kind of competitive impact Canady did. Softball pitchers are practically unique in almost any team sport in that regard. I would say right now anyone other than the very best at their position can be brought in for $100k or less. And I don't know exactly how much it costs to bring in the very best setter, OH, OPP, or middle blocker. LIbero and defensive specialists won't be at the same kind of premium. There are also going to be discounts available. For example, Penn State's starting setter from last year that won the national championship as a freshman has now quit the team because her teammates and coaches felt like she was experiencing physical abuse by her hockey boyfriend. She denies it and is now looking to go somewhere else. How much she will command on the open market I have no idea. It's very clear Texas has an attractive NIL pitch in volleyball, because we keep bringing in the best high school players in the country, plus many of the best transfers. Nebraska and Texas pretty much have their pick of the litter in both talent pools, and then everyone else chooses from what's left. That's a little bit of an exaggeration, but not much of one. Shockingly, the two teams are the last unbeaten teams in the country, ranked #1 and #2 in the polls, with the serious inside track on being the top seeds when the tournament field is announced. I know this didn't answer your question directly, but hopefully it provided some context. - 
	
Could this be the craziest coaching carousel of all time?
SL Xpress replied to GreenspointTexas's topic in Football
I'm not coping. I don't care. I don't consider Texas Tech a real threat to Texas. I feel like NIL, the wealth of some of your donors, and their commitment to football and other athletic programs gives the Red Raiders a chance to build a nice little program in the Big 12. If you get competitive enough, start drawing eyeballs and building a brand, maybe you can get invited to the big boys club eventually. But I don't have a lot of emotional investment in it. Great if you do. Who cares if you don't. Same thing with SMU which is doing much the same thing, with a bigger metropolitan more conveniently located, but a smaller fan base and alumni base. SMU has shown a real NIL commitment to their volleyball program, which is another sport I follow closely. I'm casually interested in how it works out for them, but there's no coping, and as a fan I don't feel threatened by it. - 
	
Could this be the craziest coaching carousel of all time?
SL Xpress replied to GreenspointTexas's topic in Football
I will say Phil Knight isn't the cheapskate T. Boone Pickens always was. Oregon athletic department people feel like Phil Knight has given assurances he's going to donate $6 billion directly to the athletic department. We'll see if that really happens, and it's still not the same as having him alive, but it would help ensure the generosity he's already shown doesn't completely fall off the map. I mean, along with the myriad of physical infrastructure he either paid for or certainly was the financial impetus in getting built. I'd also say that Tech's mega donors number at least two. Cody Campbell gets all the media attention, but his partner and former football team mate John Sellers is also a significant contributor. The point remains the same. Being dependent on one financial source, whether it's a donor, or a business client, makes you vulnerable to your future relationship with them and their decisions regarding your relationship. The nice thing for Texas Tech is both of those guys are relatively young. - 
	
OU Football 2025 - League Average & Loving It
SL Xpress replied to closetojumping's topic in Football
No. - 
	
OU Football 2025 - League Average & Loving It
SL Xpress replied to closetojumping's topic in Football
I have gorged myself on Sooner podcasts this week. They're all awesome. I find myself while loathing everything about the Sooners, I have a certain respect for them I do not have for the Aggies. Or their various social media guys. Here was my favorite. It's 2 1/2 hours long, and ain't nobody got time for that. I think I made it about an hour in before getting satiated on OU tears. But the whole rant at the beginning about this being a culture loss, that this was OU's best chance to beat Texas for a long time to come, was incredibly satisfying. 
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