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So quit crying and tell us you would hire if you want Sark fired?

Some of yall are funny. Ridiculous but funny. Brains, not balls, are required. Learning relationships, how to learn what you want to know by asking intelligently, maintaining healthy relationships so you’re not cut off, etc. Sark doesn’t owe us answers. He does owe a better product and he’ll either become less stubborn or he’ll be elsewhere. Press conference musings mean nothing in the the real world no matter the size of balls.

I don’t think we have much of a choice any more, especially if the OL isn’t going to improve which I don’t see them any time soon. ATP we aren’t a championship team, we just gotta call and make plays that build confidence then see what else this team can do

I feel like a lot of people have differing opinions. Klatt said recently that it was close to signed, sealed, and delivered until someone from the Texas side leaked it and it pissed Saban off to the point where he said he’s staying put.

He did admit to reaching out on an Akron kid who hadn’t entered the portal when discussing him during the NFL draft. That’s called tampering.

I don’t think this team is going to develop physicality in 2 months, so you may as well just try to score.

Gerry, how many of those national championship teams had a part time HC, part time oc, part time special teams guy and a part time TE’s coach? I hate to be this guy but maybe we need to change our expectations from winning a championship to just making a playoff would be successful?

For the going to 10 personnel predominately talk ... the answer is NO The answer is no. And I get where people are coming from ... the offense is so bad right now. I do believe there is an element of going 10 personnel a lot more that could help Texas get an extra win or two potentially. But here is the NO ... you simply aren't going to win 3 or 4 CFP games in a row predominately 10 personnel. National Champions since 2010 ... I found only one team that ran a lot of 10 personnel that won it all. Clemson in 2018. That Clemson team also rushed for 248 yards per game out of 10. They were a physical team out of 10. Every other NC winning team was 10% or less in 10 personnel that I could find in my search. Ultimately, the answer is one has to have a much more physical offense and run game to attain the big prize. Rush yards per game average of NC winners since 2010: 2025 Indiana - 207.3 2024 Ohio State - 166.4 2023 Michigan - 169.3 2022 Georgia - 211.4 2021 Georgia - 188.2 2020 Alabama - 183.6 2019 LSU - 170.4 2018 Clemson - 248.1 2017 Alabama - 255.0 2016 Clemson - 165.9 2015 Alabama - 200.3 2014 Ohio State - 264.5 2013 FSU - 198.3 2012 Alabama - 222.8 2011 Alabama - 209.7 2010 Auburn - 284.8 Note: The last 22 National Champions have averaged 160 rushing yards or more per game. Here is the question for anyone old enough that watched all these teams ... were they physical on offense? The answer is yes. There were levels of physicality to a certain extent as Nick Saban, Kirby Smart, Urban Meyer, Jim Harbaugh's teams were uber physical, but even the Clemson teams had the needed level of physicality. And when called up on to be physical in the run game in talent neutralized games/situations, they all had the ability to take it to another level with mentality.

Like I thought, just conspiratorial rumor mongering. And Saban did not admit to cheating in that documentary. Quite the contrary. He said the NIL money and the portal tampering made coaching and recruiting more difficult and he didn't want to deal with that. That was a pretty plain and simple statement he made. No super-secrets hiding behind his words or between his sentences. If you have real evidence, then present it. We might all believe you if we saw it.

Remember Wisener running roughshod over OU last year? That is what committing to the run game looks like. We need to reopen that playbook the rest of the season. Hook'em

Let me know here is view

@CJ Vogel I have a question for you about special teams in general. How come on punt returns the receiving team never puts the gunners on their a$$ right off the line of scrimmage? I’ve never seen a team do this and I know you can’t do it every time because I’ll adjust but if they aren’t expecting it, I think it would be a great way to set up a punt return. Is there something I am missing here?

If my Grandma had wheels, she’d have been a bike. Get over it, he’s our coach, and he’s taken us to two semi-finals, which were 1 score games. Sark is better than 95% of coaches in CFP and that’s literally a fact. His record shows it, his results show it. He’s not perfect, but he’s gotten us closer than almost anyone else. Just because he’s not Nick Saban or Kirby, that doesn’t make him a bad coach.

I love the post, @mymy32 I'm going to disagree with you a bit. I have a lot of conversations about parity, especially on volleytalk. I do not believe there is that much parity in the main women's sports, whether it's basketball, softball, or volleyball. In volleyball, there are rarely any upsets in the first two rounds among the top 12 teams. You'll see a #4 seed lose to a #5 seed every now and then, but that's about it. You almost never see a #1 seed lose in the Sweet 16 round, partly because they're playing on their home floor, but not entirely. So to get to a Final Four a #1 seed primarily needs to beat one team in the Elite Eight round, and the #2/#3 seeds need to beat two very good to elite teams, the way Texas did when they edged out Tennessee then stomped Stanford in 2023. I don't think that's possible without good to great serving. To your point, I do think the teams are evenly matched up enough, that if you can't get the opponent out of system on your serve on a regular basis, you simply can't score enough during your service rotations to keep up. So Texas last year, which was a very good team, with good serve receive, elite back row defense, the best OH in college volleyball, a freshman phenom at opposite, and a barely adequate 2nd OH, with terrible middle blocker production in both attack and on the block, ended up earning a #1 seed and faced Wisconsin in the Elite 8. But I posted at the time Texas had no chance of winning at that level, because regardless of their strengths and weaknesses, they couldn't get the other team out of system with the serve, so they were putting pressure on their own defense to side out at a 70% or better rate, because anything worse they couldn't outscore the opponent. When Texas surprised everyone in 2023 to win the national championship it was primarily on the back of their serve. When A&M upset 3 teams in a row last year, including a juggernaut in Nebraska on their home floor, it was because they found a new gear for their serving. At an elite level if you can't get the other team out of system with the serve you'll lose, because other elite teams will be able to. It's why you hear every coach talk about how every match really comes down to serve/pass. Now, serving isn't everything. Indiana is annually one of the most fearsome serving programs in the country, because Steve Aird preaches it. But he doesn't have the talent at the other positions because he can't recruit at that level at Indiana. But Gary, who was a great libero for Indiana, didn't even serve for them. Aird had another libero sub for her on the serving rotation because to put it bluntly, Gary is awful. Or in the SEC, the best serving team this year isn't Kentucky or Florida or A&M. It's Alabama. They were eating our lunch. But truthfully, they're eating everyone's lunch from the service line. But it's not enough because they don't have the players at other positions to take advantage of it, because they can't recruit at that level. There is absolutely a big difference in an elite pin hitter versus a great one, IMO. I watch Babcock at Pitt, and it's jaw dropping what she's able to do. Or Skinner her junior year. Or Eggleston the 3 years prior to that. Or Eva Hudson last year at Kentucky. There is a big gap this year in competitiveness between the top 5 teams in Nebraska/Louisville/Kentucky/Pitt/SMU and the rest of the field. And that's normal most years. Louisville has issues because they have traditionally counted on 6 rotation shorter OHes, but they've certainly made them work enough to get to championship matches, and maybe that will be the case this year. Kentucky has Deleye and then Gaerte at the opposite. SMU has Suli Davis. Nebraska is basically a juggernaut at every position. If you took away their top 5 players, the remaining players would be Final Four contenders. But one thing all of those teams have in common is that they're good to great at serving and serve receive. Which means whoever beats them in the tournament is going to have to perform better in that regard. And Texas hasn't been in a position to do that either last year or this year. Which puts a ceiling on what they can accomplish until they get it fixed.

Evidence? Like I'm a prosecuting attorney or something? Good luck getting people to go on record regarding such matters, particularly since the era is now past. People in sports media, including people who cover recruiting, all know what the bag game was and who played it. There is zero incentive for any of them to go out and publicly start naming names and explaining the machine. I don't have a problem with that, either. I have a problem with ESPN, who has many people working there that damned well know how it all worked, publishing a hagiography on the worst perpetuator of the cheating machine, however. Beyond that, I had friends who worked for years on Saban's staff. I've also listened to assistants of his tell stories about all of it. A famous WR from the Houston area was bought by Bama for what would look like nothing now from a street agent running an auction. Bama missed on a Houston DT at the same school because Jimbo and FSU had more money to throw at the spot. Same is true for when a Mississippi DT went to play for Fisher at ATM. Stories about the ones who got away are bizarrely easier and more common to hear those involved recount. Like I said, you don't have to believe me, but I'm not just wistfully projecting fantasy. I've been doing what I can to shine a light on the cheating game since Chip Kelly bought Lache Seastrunk for $25k and Yahoo!, with help, later ran a story on it with literal receipts as part of their evidence. Also, Saban accidentally admits that the bag game no longer worked in the freaking documentary. He says he retired because of all of the money that entered the space in NIL and he wasn't ready to compete with that. "Now everyone is paying players!" What he's saying without saying it is that things were a lot easier when only a few teams, his included, were paying players.

Be serious. Any OC with a pulse runs the 2020 Alabama offense to a NC. What do you think Kiffin, DeBoer, W. Stein, Ryan Day, etc do with that Alabama 2020 offense as OC? They’d produce at least what Sark did as OC. Think through the causality.

exactly. It can still be Sarks offense and influence in the scheme, but there needs to be a true play caller that can handle offense prep, game day calls, and mid game offensive adjustments while Sark Manages the whole team. Heck Sark could even still call plays on gameday, but he needs that help. Andy Reid, Sean McVay, and Joe Brady have “OCs” but still call plays. But those OCs actually have more of an OC role. I think Gundy was the same.

I do think Elliott changed his approach to littles... at least somewhat. He has said several times that he feels you need 3 good back row defenders to win a championship. He had that in the back to back years, then didn't in 24. He made sure to bring in good little for last year, but then mostly just played Emma and Ramsey. He didn't really play Callie, but she was there and available, and Anya was really only there for her serve. This year they have the new Emma and everyone else back. Which is why I was super surprised when they went with the 6-2 this season and essentially didn't have much use for them. Recently, they've been using all of the littles, and they're actually doing a really good job. At least, they haven't been a liability. But even they can't get under the missles coming from the other team when there's barely any block to slow them down. That overview of setters is something else, man. Someone posted a shorter version of that on another site, and while I had known that Texas wasn't managing the position well, I didn't realize it looked that bad. Something is going wrong there and it needs to get fixed. I don't know why Elliott has managed the position like he has. Is he searching for perfection? Or does he think his hitters are athletic enough that they should be able to do well without perfect sets? It's very confusing. As I said on another board, I think that Elliott might be used to having more talent than 98% of other teams, and just being able to let his attackers take over the match. The problem is that the game has grown so much that the gap between elite pins and great pins is smaller than ever. And the gap between great pins and really good pins is even tinier. Texas can't rely on just having more talent because the talent gap with many teams is now too small. So that leaves development. And while Texas seems to have had great development in the past, I can't say I've seen much in the most recent season and a half. It's worrisome.

I feel like he's done pretty well with littles in the last four years. 2024 was an exception, but 2022 had Fleck/Halter/Akana. 2023 had Halter/Barnes/Akana. Last year had Halter/Gary. This year the passing is terrific. Henley Anderson is one of the best serve receive players in the country. Not just as a freshman. Not just as an outside hitter. Period, among all players. Tell me when we've EVER had that from a 6 rotation OH. Krueger hasn't done that great in that regard, but Gary is an elite libero, and Cugino has been okay. And Binney is pretty good defensively in the back row. I don't think serve receive is that much of a problem this year. Frankly, I think it's a strength. The problem is this team isn't terminal, they're not good in transition, and they're woeful serving. When I say woeful, I mean that Texas is one of the worst serving teams in all of P4. Early on it was because of an absurd number of serving errors, and even when the ball went in only Vander Wal and Spears' top spin serves were effective. Stafford had no business utilizing a top spin jump serve out there when her hybrid float was already outstanding. That's just a clear failure on the coaching staff. Kujundzic and Gary regularly serve a 3.0 pass and a first ball side out. It's especially bad if Binney is on the front row, but it doesn't have to be that. The only truly decent servers we have right now on a consistent basis are Binney and now Stafford since she moved away from the top spin jump serve. We might see Anderson and Harris return to the serving rotation, but neither one of them have exactly covered themselves in glory up there. Too many errors and not enough velocity on their top spin. Easy peazy to return. Without Bunton our middle blocker attack is lacking, although I continue to see progress from Harvey. What we're doing counting on Collins and Pressley on this roster is beyond me. It's like we purposefully only go after Nebraska's middle blocker targets and are continually getting our heads handed to us. We beat them out for Harvey and Ames, but then ended up losing Ames to Creighton. Where she's an OH of all things. Losing Singletary was the killer. She's one of the best middle blockers in the country. On the other hand she's guaranteed the opportunity to serve at UCLA, where she's literally one of the top 3 worst servers in the country. It reminds me of Skylar Fields who transferred to USC so she could be guaranteed to play 6 rotations, and ended up being one of the worst back row serve receive and defenders in the country. But we don't have a middle blocker recruit committed for either 2027 or 2028. I sure hope we can do something in the portal, because it's somewhat dire. For middle blocker U, of all places.

It has been reported - or at least hinted at - elsewhere that this is exactly how Sark would view it. I'm hoping he can evolve, grow, change his mind, because I agree with you that he should not view it that way. Frankly, I'm surprised he doesn't view it as the next logical step in his path towards being a great HC. It seems odd to me that Sark can't recognize that going against the grain of what the GOAT (Saban) and another HOF/all-timer (Carroll) did is probably not the ideal direction to go.

He and Harbaugh never seemed like they’d be much of a fit…

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