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Texas Recruiting Notes 2023: Strippers, Monkeys, and 5-Stars


Machinator

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Louisville is now 0-3 in the ACC.
DeAndre Moore and Rueben Owens can't be too excited about Louisville losing to previously 1-3 Boston College. BC has a completely decimated OLine, and moved the ball all over.
Reuben isnt sticking with the Cards, he'll probably end up in collie station with a huge aggy bag.
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Yeesssss 
 
how’s the weather in Oregon during October compared to Austin in October200.gifber 
Not quite as good, but not that bad either. I have family there and used to visit quite a bit as a kid, and a couple times not long ago. As others have said, stay out of the larger cities (certain areas at least) and Oregon is quite compelling as a place to live. Of course if that's anywhere near the factor we think it is for teenage football players..aggy would have never sniffed the highest ranked class in recruiting history. Have Norman and Tuscaloosa ever been high on anyone's dream city list?
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The Huddle: Recruiting notes from Thursday night; thoughts on the Texas offense heading into Red River32VIP

Hudson Standish

(Positive notes on Markis Deal and Javien Toviano, plus some game thoughts that I left in.)

 

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The Huddle: Recruiting notes from Thursday night; thoughts on the Texas offense heading into Red River32VIP

Hudson Standish
 

— Last night 247Sports' No. 58 prospect in the 2023 cycle, Markis Deal, was dominant on both sides of the ball as his Naaman Forest Rangers took down district rival Garland 17-0. I'll have full quotes posted from Deal Saturday morning, but until then here are some of the key points from our conversation.

The biggest note from last night was that Deal and his family will attend the Red River Shootout on Saturday, with the only hurdle being a potential Saturday football practice. Deal still has one official visit left to use and the two most likely schools to receive his final OV are either the Texas Longhorns or Oklahoma Sooners. I asked Deal if since the last time we spoke (the day before the Alabama game that he attended) if he gained any clarity on which school would receive the last OV. Deal said yes to my question and after he watched TCU take care of OU in person last weekend, the Horns have a chance to lock in his final visit with a similar result on Saturday.

Deal maintains that his timeline to use his final official visit is after his season ends and he will make his decision shortly after.

TCU made a big impression on Deal along with fellow recruits Mikal Harrison-Pilot and Warren Roberson last weekend and I'm viewing the Frogs as a serious threat moving forward for the 6-foot-4, 290-pounder along with the Georgia Bulldogs.


— Arlington Martin defensive back and top Texas priority Javien Toviano announced that he would be at the Cotton Bowl on Saturday. I checked in with a source in Arlington and asked what they were hearing regarding the top 100 prospect.

"The fact that he tweeted out that he was going to the game shows how excited he is, you know when he visited for the A&M vs. Arkansas game he didn't post a thing about it until he was inside the stadium. JT is keeping every thing lowkey so the fact that he's publicly putting it out there means something to me. I thought it was interesting he decided to go to this game instead of LSU's 11AM game against top 10 Tennessee."

Toviano will be a visitor of Oklahoma at the Cotton Bowl but both programs will get a major showcase opportunity for one of the best players in the Lone Star state.


— It feels like a lot of the focus this week has (understandably) been surrounding the status of Oklahoma quarterback Dillon Gabriel after a nasty late hit while sliding vs. TCU knocked the Sooner signal-caller out of last week's game and potentially out of the Red River Shootout. While Gabriel's status is undoubtedly one of, if not the, biggest storyline ahead of Saturday's matchup, I wanted to give a few thoughts on the biggest mismatch on paper pitting the Texas offense against Oklahoma's defense.

Heading into the game the Texas offense is No. 12 in the nation in Offensive Success Rate headlined by a hyper-efficient passing attack that ranks No. 4 in the nation in pass success rate. On the other side of the ball Oklahoma's defense has been disappointing to start the year and ranks as the No. 96 team in the country in defensive success rate with both their run and pass success rates ranking below No. 85 in the country.

One of the primary ways Steve Sarkisian can look to attack the aggressive and blitz-heavy Sooners is throwing on traditional run downs and running the ball when opportunities present themselves on traditional pass downs. Excluding the last drive of the game Texas passed the ball 20 out of 29 times they were presented with a first down against West Virginia, and found themselves consistently ahead of the chains with their longest 3rd down conversion needed on a touchdown drive being a 3rd & 3 to open up the third quarter resulting in a Bijan Robinson six yard game.

Texas staying ahead of the chains will be crucial as Oklahoma's sack rate numbers dwindle on standard downs compared to passing downs. On standard downs (first down, second-and-7 or fewer, third-and-4 or fewer, fourth-and-4 or fewer) the Sooners are No. 74 in the country in sack rate while on passing downs (second-and-8 or more, third-and-5 or more, or fourth-and-5 or more) OU jumps all the way up to No. 18 in the country. When I match the advanced metrics to my own film study the stark difference in sack rate success boils down to the Oklahoma three man defensive line struggling to get to the QB and needing two to three other blitzers to have any impact on the passer. A strategy that's much tougher to execute if the offense is on or ahead of schedule.

This leads me to my final point of Texas potentially running the ball when opportunities present themselves on traditional pass downs. On passing downs the Oklahoma defense ranks No. 118 in the passing downs line yards per carry metric at 3.47, if that felt like reading a foreign language here is my best attempt at breaking that stat down, teams have been gaining 3.47 yards on the ground on passing downs against the Sooners before the first unblocked player arrives to make a play on the ball carrier. Alabama ranks No. 4 in this metric with 1.55, a number that makes sense when you watch the tape of the Tide front seven winning individual matchups in the run game.

Steve Sarkisian can get creative and use draws, screens, and a plethora of other run-adjacent plays to keep the Sooners on their toes on passing downs to limit Venables' creative blitz packages from finding Ewers. One weapon that Texas likely won't have in these situations that TCU and Kansas State killed the Sooners with is the QB run game. Other than improvised scrambles it's hard to imagine Sark calling designed QB runs like TCU's super counter even though the brilliant play call took advantage of poor OU alignment for an easy chunk play.


— The offensive line's struggles in the short yard run game have been evident with Texas ranking No. 105 in the country in Power run success rate with only 58% of the Longhorns' "3rd/4th and less than 2" rushes converting first downs or touchdowns, even with stud running backs Bijan Robinson and Roschon Johnson.

Texas will need to be careful in these short yardage situations because on the flip side of the ball the Sooners defense has been money stuffing the run ranking No. 28 in defensive power success rate.

— Throughout spring ball and fall camp when I spoke to sources it was repeated to me ad nauseam that Ewers loved finding Sanders and Whittington over the middle of the field and both players would see an increased role if Ewers won the job. That dynamic was proven true during the first quarter of the Alabama game where nine out of Quinn Ewers' thirteen passing attempts were to either Jordan Whittington or Ja'Tavion Sanders.

Xavier Worthy's breakout game vs. West Virginia last week, the emphasis that every defense has to place on stopping Bijan Robinson, Ewers return, and the beat up OU defense highlighted by star safety Billy Bowman's status in question lead me to believe that Whittington and Sanders will both have massive roles in Saturday's gameplan likely in isolation against Sooner defensive backs or overhang players.

 

 

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