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Being in the crowd lets the result carry the whole day, while the replay turns every missed call and blown chance into a close-up. Same win, completely different nerve level.

This is a bit off topic, but it is enormously frustrating to see Keelon Russell as a true freshman dramatically outplaying Arch in his 4th year at Texas. It makes me think that Deboer is much, much better than Sark at either finding guys who can succeed in his system, or adapting his system to fit his QB’s strengths. Sark has never had a qb at Texas in the same ballpark as Penix, but that’s what Quinn and Arch were supposed to be. I don’t know if it’s a Sark issue or a Milwee issue. But Deboer makes them look like amateurs at QB development and maximizing his QBs’ talents.

I went to Knoxville last weekend. We had great seats. Outside some harmless horns down silliness, we were treated very by Tennessee fans. I simply had a marvelous time. In fact, I was so happy and proud after the game I didn't want to leave the stadium. I stayed in my seat just basking for an extra 20 minutes watching grumpy Tennessee fans leave. I rewatched the game Tues night at home, expecting to relive the same utter euphoria, but came away with a totally opposite experience. I was pissed, just seething over the same game that I was so happy to watch in person. This day in age, you see so much on tv than in person, but I never expected to come away having a totally different opinion of the game than just 3 days ago. Anyone else experience this before?

The three-time national championship coach Bob Bowman of the UT men’s swimming and diving team (and also Olympic coach) had a great post on Twitter this morning.

I don't think anyone is arguing that Vic hasn't elevated the program. Texas is unquestionably more relevant now than it was before he arrived, and he deserves credit for that. Where I differ is in how much of the recent success I attribute to coaching versus talent acquisition. Recruiting absolutely counts as part of coaching, and Vic deserves credit for bringing in elite players. But once those players are on campus, I'm not convinced the on-court coaching consistently maximizes what Texas has. To me, the last few years have often felt like elite talent overcoming limitations rather than elite coaching elevating talent. That's why when people call Vic a coaching genius, I'm skeptical. I see a program loaded with All-American caliber players, multiple top recruiting classes, and rosters that should be competing for Final Fours. The results have been very good, but not necessarily beyond what the talent level would suggest. Maybe this freshman class changes my mind. If Texas takes a bigger step than expected, I'll gladly give Vic credit. But my first assumption won't be that a coach in his 60s suddenly became dramatically better. It'll be that adding another wave of elite talent raised the team's ceiling even further.

https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/50077717/connelly-alabama-ohio-state-college-football-week-5-ranked-teams-upset-alert

Sold.

I tended to be of the belief that the SEC was overrated over the last couple of decades before conference realignment. They always had the best talent (high school rankings), but football games are not won on high school rankings and the SEC underperformed in bowl games (when those still mattered). It is hard to determine overall quality now that the post season are not legitimate games outside of the playoffs. I was born in 99 so I couldn't tell you anything about the 70s. This experiment was an attempt to do something completely neutral, with a focus on reducing any legitimate argument people could make that voters were propping up the SEC for TV purposes or anything else. I also have never believed Missouri was actually good, but I also wouldn't argue against someone saying Missouri would beat a team like Texas Tech this season.

Atkinson seems to be more aligned as a player to TyAnthony Smith where he makes plays in space and requires more freedom to improvise as opposed to being a scheme based LB that fits in a specific role/responsibility under Muschamp's defense. He plays more like a "turn him loose and let him attack the ball" guy IMO. Just what I am thinking. Nothing against Atkinson as I like that style generally as those players make a ton of big plays, but also know that gap risk has consequences too. I hope we can make it work with Tyler.

There were SEC bias charges associated with the BCS rankings also. Mathematically, those teams playing other ranked teams (higher in the first poll of the season) carried a weighting through the season. So ranked SEC teams playing each other supported all SEC teams being ranked higher. A comparison of SEC vs non-conference records across the 10 years prior to the BCS and into the BCS era shows that the SEC was basically 50-50 against non-conference competition for the 90's-2000's. But SEC teams dominated BCS playoffs. However, the SEC didn't consistently dominate NC in any decades prior to the BCS. The distribution of NCs across major conferences was pretty even from the 60's-90's. Was the 2000's dominance because SEC teams were all ranked higher together in early polls? Was is purely coincidence that the founding chairman of the BCS, Roy Kramer, was the former SEC commissioner? Then the gravitational pull of BCS performance started impacting recruiting? People always charged ND and Penn State bias from the eastern sports media during the bowl era. As a Texas fan in the 70's and 80's that was obviously true.

Yep watched it yesterday. I think the interview was taped before training camp.

That was a great episode.