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2021 Texas Offseason: Sark Attacks Austin


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8 hours ago, ztejas said:

Like when you put your mistress' blood-soaked cocktail dress in the trunk of your business partner's BMW.

No, I wasn't quite right with that. A red herring typically has nothing to do with the case at hand. It's something irrelevant, but seems like it might be related.

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I'm the one that brought up Smith originally but I'm on the CTJ et al. side of this argument. He wasn't good last year. Bad drops, didn't create separation at a high level. I don't really grade WRs on their route running because coaches teach it differently and you don't lose much by leaving it out. If he was a great route runner he would have been more productive as the slot in a Herman offense.  

The reason I included Smith is because of his potential. He's the only receiver I can see making a Duvernay-like jump this year. He also brings a unique skill set to this offense (if he's playing to his ceiling). I don't know why he was so different last year--the idea that he bulked up way too much makes sense--but his production on a per-snap basis in his first 6 games as a true freshman was bonkers. Higher than any other receiver we had in the Herman era. It's probably 50/50 on whether he's even a major contributor next year but I mentioned him because he's the only non-Bijan offensive player that I can imagine having an AA type year. And I recognize there's some personal bias there. 

Edited by Bodacious Bevo
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I hope Jake has a great year....but I wont hold my breath. Duvernay could not run a route to save his life, but he was FAST. However the thing that made Duvernay great was that he caught the damned ball! If his hands got to it, he brought it in. Best hands I ever saw( not that I am any kind of expert).

 

Jake is also fast, but he doesnt catch everything.

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Ian Boyd: How much will returning production matter in 2021?

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Over at ESPN.com, my old colleague Bill Connelly has a piece up talking returning production across college football. This is an unprecedented year for returning production because of the COVID exception, which has two enormous impacts on the relative experience levels of teams across the country. First of all, a lot of good seniors with fringe or weak NFL futures were able to return. The boost to various rosters from bringing back experienced starters with another year to refine their skills for the college game is hard to quantify but it’s considerable.

Secondly, a lot of teams are adding players who match this description who are transferring in from smaller schools. Last season LSU added grad transfer linebacker Jabril Cox from North Dakota State, a multi-year starter and champion, and he had 58 tackles, 6.5 TFL, one sack, three INT, five PBU, and a defensive touchdown. There’s a few guys like that flying around this season as teams add COVID exception transfers from the lower levels.

The Big 12 is filled with schools who depend on developing fourth and fifth year players in order to have a chance of keeping up with Oklahoma’s talent levels. The COVID exception is leading to a MASSIVE boost for these schools as they bring back “seniors with fringe NFL futures” who tend to be the engines of their teams. So it’s going to be hard to parse out what this will mean for the 2021 season. I want to take an early stab and we’ll revisit the topic as the offseason progresses.

Laying down infrastructure

I think of this as being less of an obstacle for Big 12 teams. Having a strong infrastructure for your team, meaning having savvy quarterback play, a cohesive offensive line, and then a defensive interior who can play well together, is not a guarantee. TCU has struggled to have “infrastructure” on their team more often than not over the last few seasons which is how they’ve managed to waste so many NFL “space force” players.

But the league has a lot of good coaches, they develop well, and the transfer portal makes it easier to patch roster holes at positions like guard, linebacker, safety, or even quarterback. My “space force” argument has revolved around the notion a team’s ceiling comes mostly from their ability to field elite athletes at wide receiver, left tackle, cornerback, and the defensive edge. 2021 could challenge this theory some with the degree to which a few teams are going to be able to field insanely experienced infrastructure units.

Our easiest example is Iowa State. Check out their defense heading into next season:

image.png

How much does it matter when your nose tackle, and two of three safeties are getting an extra senior year? Particularly for a team already returning some very well established talents such as Mike Rose, Will McDonald, and Anthony Johnson and won’t have a new starter at any position on defense?

The Cyclone defense already has two modes, the first is a disciplined “bend don’t break” approach where they wait for you to make a mistake while minimizing their own. The precision level here is likely to be very high, attacking the Cyclone base defense was already highly difficult and now they have multiple players at every level who’ve seen it all. The second mode is when they add complex layers of disguise with their blitzes and coverages from the three-high pre-snap set-up. The precision and complexity is likely to tick up here as well.

How do we quantify that? I don’t know, but it seems likely to matter.

There are a few other big examples here. Skylar Thompson is perhaps the next most obvious. He’s played in a lot of games at Kansas State and is about to enter his third offseason with Chris Klieman and his staff. Fielding a quarterback with really high institutional knowledge of your own offensive system and how it relates to defensive systems and personnel around the Big 12 is probably the most valuable “infrastructure” piece you can have as a program. If you didn’t know, Skylar Thompson was going to have his final year at Kansas State in 2020 but while it was thwarted by injury, he’ll get another chance in 2021 thanks to the COVID exception.

Every team in the Big 12 has a lot working in their favor in terms of returning experience, save for perhaps Kansas who’s senior class is in the transfer portal. Even the young Longhorns return two starting cornerbacks, two starting defensive linemen, both starting linebackers, and two starting safeties on their defense.

In this sense, you wonder if there are diminishing returns for returning production due to the fact everyone else is in the same boat. Will Iowa State’s insane experience levels on defense be blunted by the fact most of the league will return experienced quarterbacks and get much more productive offseasons with which to prepare their offensive lines?

Offensive line is another big one, it’s hard to be too experienced at positions like linebacker, safety, offensive line, or quarterback. There are always returns from adding additional experience and skills. Naturally Iowa State is in absurdly good shape here as well, returning everyone who started games in 2020 while also welcoming back a healthy Trevor Downing who was expected to anchor the unit at left guard until injuries shortened his 2020 season.

There are more important returns on offense, also. Defenses can arrive at a level of cohesion and pattern recognition faster than offenses can develop interlocking chemistry and skills. A highly experienced Big 12 with a real offseason is likely to test everyone’s theories about this being a defensive league now.

Returning experience in the space force

There’s generally been two consistently good ways to win lots of games in the Big 12. The first is to have a really good and established quarterback/wide receiver connection to ensure the scoring of many touchdowns. The second is to be Oklahoma.

Space force is about having high level skill and athleticism in those key positions, which may or may not coincide with returning production. It’s common to start a senior linebacker who’s seen all the Big 12’s schemes and knows how to get the right spots over a more athletic underclassman, but at the space force positions you might want to start the underclassman. You typically start the fleet-footed freshman at left tackle over the slower, 6-4, third-year starting guard.

Returning production in the space force, especially at cornerback and receiver, tends to tell a pretty useful tale about what’s coming for the next season. As you’ve probably surmised, Iowa State returns everything. The PFPurdy to Xavier Hutchinson connection that grew during 2020? Returning along with the three-year PFPurdy to Charlie Kolar connection. Sean Foster, the mammoth senior left tackle who protected those connections in 2020 is using the COVID exception to come back for a sixth year and do so again.

The rich are also getting richer, Oklahoma will be able to continue to work the Spencer Rattler to Marvin Mims connection while also hoping to finally realize the potential with one of their three former blue chip junior wideouts Jadon Haselwood, Theo Wease, and Trejan Bridges.

Dark horse team TCU will be hoping to benefit from getting another offseason and chance to work with Max Duggan to Quentin Johnston and they brought in Memphis left tackle Obinna Eze to help secure the connection. Oklahoma State is losing Tylan Wallace but bring back left tackle Jake Springfield and have another year to try and teach Spencer Sanders to get the ball out on time. They also have Braydon Johnson and Brennan Presley at wide receiver.

Kansas State wins big here as well, returning all of their corners, all of their starting tackles, and then getting another year to try and work out the Skylar Thompson to Malik Knowles connection. West Virginia? They bring errbody back on offense as well. The only school regularly considered to have a chance at appearing in the Big 12 title game who doesn’t have an ultra-experienced trio at quarterback, left tackle, and wide receiver is Texas.

The Longhorns aren’t hopeless here either though, they have a couple of talented quarterbacks coming up, young tackle Andrej Karic showed well in two late appearances in 2020, and leading receiver Josh Moore will be back in 2021 along with a few other former blue chips heading into an important offseason. They’re going to need their talent to show up on the field though in a fashion we haven’t seen much this decade and Steve Sarkisian and his staff will need to adjust quickly to the chess matches you face in the Big 12.

So how do we measure returning production in 2021?

The Big 12 has been a more gameplan-intensive league than most around the country, normally if you set up the offensive coaches in this league with so many veteran offensive players you’d be due for an offensive explosion.

However the league’s brain trust is a bit depleted currently. Dana Holgorsen, Art Briles, Kliff Kingsbury, and Bill Snyder aren’t out there any longer plotting the demise of your defensive schemes with run/pass conflicts. The drain is most noticeable down south, Chris Klieman and Matt Campbell have arguably upgraded the northern teams’ firepower between them despite losing the legendary Bill Snyder, but none of TCU, Texas Tech, nor Baylor are particularly intimidating on offense these days. Oklahoma State has even slipped and whether that’s due to staff turnover, Mike Gundy losing his fastball, Spencer Sanders’ own slow development, the bizarre 2020 pandemic season, or simply the issues for their offensive line is hard to suss out.

All in all we have the following factors all coming to a head.

-Lincoln Riley’s Oklahoma potentially hitting their high point with a combination of talent and experience on offense and finally sorting out their defense.

-Texas hiring their best staff since the Mack Brown era, including one of the foremost offensive minds in the country.

-Experience-driven Iowa State and Kansas State programs fielding multi-year starting quarterbacks and veteran rosters to execute their tactically sophisticated systems.

-TCU and Oklahoma State finally having a chance to set up highly athletic young quarterbacks with stable supporting casts and systems.

There’s a lot of teams waiting to put a better foot forward in 2021.

 

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1 minute ago, Eggo said:

Whittington could be as good or better than Jake Smith if he became more durable. Explosive training should prep the body for the high intensity nature of the game. Should.

I hope they found him a Pilates trainer

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18 minutes ago, Eggo said:

Whittington could be as good or better than Jake Smith if he became more durable. Explosive training should prep the body for the high intensity nature of the game. Should.

He's made it his goal to be 5% body fat.  I'm not a college athlete, but I find it hard to believe that being that low in body fat can be a good thing for football players. 

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21 minutes ago, pearlandhorn said:

He's made it his goal to be 5% body fat.  I'm not a college athlete, but I find it hard to believe that being that low in body fat can be a good thing for football players. 

It's not. Having a really low BFP (5% is some bodybuilder shit) leads to an increase risk of injury. Ideally football players at skill positions want to be around 8-12%

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I thought Duvernay was the only guy that had zero drops last year. Cosby did have very good hands.....but I dont think they were that good.
I don't know if there's anywhere that tracks targets and completions. Looks like Cosby had 92 completions his senior year while duv had 106, but Cosby also played along side Shipley (and in a much more pass-heavy offense).

Either way, we'd kill for any of our current receivers to emerge as consistent hands guys like these two were. I guarantee there was no doubt who was catching the slant against Ohio State in that fiesta bowl. Not sure we have a guy that dependable now.
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1 hour ago, utdlc said:

It's not. Having a really low BFP (5% is some bodybuilder shit) leads to an increase risk of injury. Ideally football players at skill positions want to be around 8-12%

sadly, the guy that has the most influence over Whit is his older brother who is a freakish looking body builder. He has taken upon himself to oversee Whits conditioning....not for the better I fear....

 

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42 minutes ago, oldhorn2 said:

He has taken upon himself to oversee Whits conditioning....not for the better I fear....

Did this rumor come from the clip of them working out together once, or is there more to suggest he is following a different workout program than prescribed by our coaching staff?

I see people repeat this like a talking point all the time but where did it come from?

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(Chip Brown) Morning Brew: Depth chart starting to form on offense? ... Part 2 (QB and RB)

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— On Monday, we talked in the Brew about which players would be lining up at the different receiver spots with a pecking order, according to sources. Today, in Part 2 of our "Depth Chart Developing On Offense?" - we look at how things are shaping up at quarterback and running back, based on what sources have told Horns247.

Hardly a surprise here ... Casey Thompson is currently QB1 with Hudson Card at QB2, followed by walk-on Ben Ballard and then early enrollee freshman Charles Wright. Hey, everything is earned, right? Thompson is coming off a performance in Texas' 55-23 victory over Colorado in the Alamo Bowl in which he replaced an injured Sam Ehlinger and went 8-of-10 passing, including four touchdowns through the air, while leading five straight scoring drives to break open a 17-10 game at halftime.

I've also reported how Thompson went to Phoenix right after the Alamo Bowl to work a quarterback clinic with his father, Charles Thompson, a former quarterback at Oklahoma, and then Casey went to Miami before Alabama's national championship victory against Ohio State in the Orange Bowl to work out with some players preparing for the NFL Draft. Card has tons of upside, and Wright, an early enrollee freshman, has already turned some heads in player-led throwing sessions for his ability to spin the ball with some zip.

Interesting factoid on Wright: He used to work privately with Austin Westlake coach Todd Dodge - right up until Wright entered high school at Austin High, one of Westlake's district opponents. Dodge told me the greatest attribute of Wright, in addition to his arm talent, is that he is fiercely determined and wants to be the best he can be and has a grinding work ethic to get there. Perhaps the biggest sign of confidence in the current quarterback room from the coaching staff is that you haven't heard any rumblings about the possibility of a graduate transfer quarterback at this point. We'll see if that still holds after the spring.

At running back, no surprise here ... Bijan Robinson is RB1, Roschon Johnson is RB2, Gabe Watson is RB3 and Danny Young is RB4. Young, who opted out of the 2020 season due to COVID-19 concerns, is back with the team and working out. Young has played in 36 career games with five starts, totaling 139 carries for 589 yards (4.2 ypc) and five touchdowns with 16 catches for 159 yards and a TD.

Watson was the leading rusher in FCS in 2018 at Sioux Falls (278 carries, 1,980 yards, 27 TDs) and a finalist for the Harlon Hill Award (D2's Heisman Trophy) before making just one appearance in 2019 due to injury. Watson had seven carries for 34 yards (4.9 ypc) at Texas last season.

Johnson has emerged as a key, vocal team leader as players have transitioned from having Tom Herman as coach to Steve Sarkisian. RoJo, who had 80 carries for 418 yards (5.2 ypc) and six touchdowns in 2020 with eight catches for 51 yards and a TD through the air, has helped organize every player-led meeting or workout this offseason that I've heard about.

Robinson is a star. You don't break the school's 50-year-old yards-per-carry record (7.9 ypc previously held by Jimmy Saxton) by averaging 8.2 yards per carry as a true freshman and show you have hands like a receiver (15 catches, 196 yards, 2 TDs) and not get labeled a star. Fortunately for Texas, Robinson is one of the most humble people you'll ever meet. I can tell you Sarkisian and the staff are excited about different ways to use Robinson and Johnson in the offense because of their versatility catching the ball out of the backfield.

Obviously, after Robinson and Johnson, you don't really know what you have at running back, and, thus, you saw Texas attempt to recruit Tennessee transfer Eric Gray, who ultimately chose Oklahoma. But Sarkisian has made it clear he's not going to take a transfer running back to just to fill a need. He wants a back who can challenge for playing time with Robinson and Johnson - or he won't take one.

On Wednesday, we'll have Part 3 of our "Depth Chart Developing On Offense?" series looking at tight end and the offensive line.

— During Texas basketball coach Shaka Smart's media availability Monday previewing the sixth-ranked Longhorns' home game tonight against No. 2 Baylor, Smart was notably irritated.

It was Smart's first press conference since coming out of isolation following a positive COVID-19 test that caused him to miss UT's 80-79 home loss to Oklahoma last Tuesday, and he was clearly irritated. Smart said he experienced "significant symptoms" during his bout with COVID-19, which he said has affected his view of how pandemic protocols are being handled as it relates to student-athletes.

Under Big 12 pandemic protocols, if a team has six available players that team is expected to take the floor for a game. "Against Oklahoma, we were far from full strength," Smart said. "We had eight players. But according to our conference rules, we were told to play."

Without starters Courtney Ramey, Jericho Sims and sixth man Brock Cunningham, Texas nearly pulled off a comeback win over the Sooners. Instead, it became UT's second home loss in three games (after also losing at home to Texas Tech before beating K-State in Austin). Then, Texas was preparing to go to Kentucky for a game on Saturday when the game was canceled due to COVID-19 issues in the Wildcats' program.

"I don't know how they handle things up there (at Kentucky), but they had a positive test and their program went into a 48-hour lockdown, and the game got canceled. Maybe they had a second positive test. I don't know," said Smart who was clearly irritated at an apparent inconsistency in protocols from league to league.

Smart added, "It is frustrating that there is a wide variety of opinions among the doctors. And because COVID is new, it’s not like we have years and years of history to work from. If they say it’s safe to play the games, I think the majority of our players want to play. But there are times, I’m sure they’ve thought, ‘Wow, this is really strange. Is this how we should proceed?’" (i.e. ... the OU game last week.)

— No. 6 Texas (11-3, 5-2 Big 12), which has all of its players available for the first time in nearly three weeks due to pandemic protocols, was supposed to play No. 2 Baylor (16-0, 8-0) back on Dec. 13 in Waco, but the game was postponed due to COVID-19 issues in the Bears' program.

So, tonight's game (6 pm CT, ESPN, BU favored by 5.5) is the first meeting between the Big 12's first-place and second-place teams. Smart praised Baylor coach Scott Drew for putting together "a close-knit group that has a passion for winning and the kind of plays that go into that and just playing team basketball."

Tonight's game is fascinating from a matchup standpoint. Texas' veteran, three-guard tandem of Matt Coleman, Courtney Ramey and Andrew Jones will be facing off against the country's best three-guard tandem in Baylor's Jared Butler (16.8 points per game), MaCio Teague (15.0 ppg) and Davion Mitchell (12.8 ppg). Mitchell and Butler are first and second in the league in assists with 5.94 per game and 5.38 per game, respectively. The two are also first and second in the Big 12 in steals with Butler averaging 2.31 per game and Mitchell averaging 2.13 per game.

Butler also leads the league in 3-point field goals made per game (2.63). Baylor is No. 1 in the Big 12 in scoring (87.3 points per game), field-goal percentage (.502) and 3-point field-goal percentage (.434), while Texas is No. 3 in the Big 12 in scoring defense (66.2 ppg), No. 1 in field-goal percentage defense (.392) and No. 1 in 3-point field-goal percentage defense (.284).

"As important as the Baylor game is, by far the most important thing for our team is moving forward, getting better," Smart said. "That’s over the rest of the season, which could be up to nine weeks longer." After not allowing any fans into home games at the Erwin Center for the month of January due to COVID-19 concerns, Texas will allow 25 percent of attendance capacity for Tuesday night's game against Baylor (roughly 4,000 fans).

"It’s easy to take something for granted if you do it every day," Smart said. "But when you miss it for 19 days, you’re extremely grateful to be out there with your guys working again. I’m so excited for our guys that our arena won’t be completely empty, that our players' families will be able to come as well as some of our fans. Our guys noticed when we couldn’t have any fans."

 

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4 hours ago, utdlc said:

It's not. Having a really low BFP (5% is some bodybuilder shit) leads to an increase risk of injury. Ideally football players at skill positions want to be around 8-12%

Kirk Johnson was about the same I think. Workout warrior that liked flexing in the mirror and showing chicks his abs that never made it to the football field

 

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I thought I remembered reading somewhere that Duvernay didn’t drop a single pass during his high school playing  days?  He’s one of the very few good things to come from Baylor. 
From Baylor? He didnt play a single game wearing puke green, so fuck that..
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1 hour ago, ousux said:
7 hours ago, Lerka Lerka said:
I thought I remembered reading somewhere that Duvernay didn’t drop a single pass during his high school playing  days?  He’s one of the very few good things to come from Baylor. 

From Baylor? He didnt play a single game wearing puke green, so fuck that..

You know what I meant. 

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7 hours ago, Nope said:

Did this rumor come from the clip of them working out together once, or is there more to suggest he is following a different workout program than prescribed by our coaching staff?

I see people repeat this like a talking point all the time but where did it come from?

Their asses 

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55 minutes ago, Vertigo said:

Sounds like CDC is covering the schools ass from taking unnecessary risks with guys from the most toxic program in the country. I don't find this to be unreasonable.

 

44 minutes ago, Doc Reeves said:


I think it’s more the Chernobyl level radioactivity of little ut 

Has he even been mentioned or implicated in any of the stuff that went on there? Don't think so. Good enough for Arkansas to hire but not us? gtfo.

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5 hours ago, Doc Reeves said:

Implications or not thats why I said “radioactive”

also, I would highly advise against using Arkansas as a measure for anything whether in sports or life.

Yeah there's plenty of things in life that are good enough for Arkansas and not good enough for us. 

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