Glass Joe

Well, we do need some depth at Safety.

This is the #1 WR on board for me (so far). Elite athlete, plays outside WR, big YAC potential, and two more years to play. His skill set would be a really nice complement to what Texas expects to return at WR next year.

Baugh and I would be a top 3 duo in the SEC.

In listening to the ND AD rant and rave against the ACC, makes one wonder if ND is laying the groundwork for their next steps after the ACC dissolves in 2031. When combined with these rumors of Freeman leaving for the NFL, makes one wonder if Freeman wants ND to get out of the ACC scheduling partnership (5 games per year).

Justus Terry : UGA fans Dakorian Moore : Texas fans

If we get to #12 tonight at least there’s a glimmer of hope heading into the weekend. Slight, but still a glimmer. If we land at #13 tonight (likely), we’ve got zero hope heading into this weekend. At least #12 allows you to hope a blowout loss by Bama to UGA, combined with the expected loss of BYU to Tech, may open up the #10 spot in the final rankings for a 3-loss Texas to edge a 3-loss Bama. Of course, there’s no guarantee that would happen, but at least the conversation would take place among the Committee members. This nullifies hopes for Texas or Miami. Personally, I don’t take there will be any changes in the top 10 from what is announced tonight to the final rankings next week. Even if Bama loses to UGA, I think they remain at #10 and make the playoffs with 3 losses. The Committee would be creating a massive disincentive for all teams going forward if making it to your conference championship game can cost you a spot in the Playoffs you already earned. Going forward, teams would intentionally lose just to avoid their conference championship games (for example, either Ohio St or Indiana could have intentionally lost last weekend to avoid the Big Ten CG, and they’d still make the playoffs). The only teams not locked in stone at this point are the 2 teams to get the #11 and #12 spots in the playoffs after the AAC, Sun Belt, and ACC championship games this weekend. AND, if BYU beats Tech, that likely kicks Alabama out of the playoffs at #10 (assuming they lose to UGA). Both BYU and Tech are in the playoffs at that point.

Everything went downhill for Williams once he turned 18. Sad story of aging out.

Brian Kelly was not a CAA / Sexton client. So, at LSU, Sexton just got one of his clients (Kiffin) a top 10 job while replacing a Trace Armstrong client (Brian Kelly) in the process. That’s a big win for CAA / Sexton. At Penn State, Sexton’s client (James Franklin) got humiliated with a mid-season firing….thereby damaging one of his star client’s perceived value. Sexton got Franklin a decent landing spot (Va Tech) but at a lesser value. One assumes Franklin was not able to land another blue blood type of job, which means his value has diminished…thus the possibility of Sexton’s ire toward PSU.

One glimmer of hope for Texas regarding the Florida loss… It does help a bit that Florida blew out FSU on Saturday, since FSU beat Alabama by 14 points earlier in the season. Should Bama lose to UGA on Saturday (by 2-3 scores), it may help Texas if we’re compared to a 3-loss Bama with a “bad” loss to FSU. It offsets our “bad” loss to UF.

10-13 total needed, by position 3 IOL (2 starting Guards, 1 OC to push Robertson for starting role) 1 swing OT (young OT who can spot start if needed in 2026) 1 WR (elite only, if available) 1-2 RBs (1 starter, and a J.Blue type of speed RB who can catch, if available) 1 QB - Matthew Caldwell redux 1 NT - Cole Brevard redux 1 ILB - run stopper / thumper 1 CB - At least good enough to be CB3 1 Safety - Starter quality 1 PK - Mason Shipley redux

This is a very astute observation. Very, very few programs changing coaches are actually upgrading. Many are just replacing an HC with a speculative hire. This HC market was a complete imbalance of supply and demand. Most of the best HCs either signed extensions, or told their agents they weren’t interested in changing jobs - Ryan Day, Kirby, Lanning, Sark, DeBoer, Elko, Dabo, Cristobal, Ruhle, Campbell, Dillingham, etc. all chose to stay put in their current gigs. And potentially recycled former great HCs (Saban, Meyer, Gruden, Gundy, etc) chose not to join the fray either. So, you wind-up with SEC schools (Auburn, Ark, Florida) hiring a bunch AAC coaches or simply elevating assistants with no HC experience (Ole Miss). The supply of HCs on the market was so bad that Lane Kiffin was the best available, and Lincoln Riley wasn’t even worthy of interest.

Mizzou’s back-up RB (J.Roberts) would start immediately at Texas. Maybe we grab Roberts and he can bring his OL Coach with him to Texas (Brandon Jones). 😂

Lane Kiffin, IMO.

If BYU wins the Big 12, Alabama will get bumped out of the #10 spot (and therefore, out of the playoffs). Tech will still get in as an at-large, likely in the #9 or #10 spot. If Duke wins the ACC, the ACC will get ZERO teams into the playoffs. UNT, Tulane, and James Madison are all project to be ranked higher than Duke, and two of these 3 schools would get the final two auto-spots and be placed at #11 and #12 in the playoff seeding. Troy State and Boise State do not have a shot here, regardless of outcomes.

This should tell you where Kiffin‘s priorities are right now, as he’s more worried about assembling his LSU staff and locking down the current LSU recruiting class by NAD1 (Wednesday, Dec 3) than he is about prepping Ole Miss for their playoff game in two weeks. And Kiffin’s threat to his assistant coaches is an empty one. They are under contract to Ole Miss (not to Lane Kiffin). if Kiffin threatens to not hire his current assistants at LSU if “they’re not on the plane today”, what’s he going to do? Hire a whole new staff of assistants instead? How exactly does that help Kiffin & LSU for next season? Kiffin wants to introduce his entire staff at LSU this afternoon for recruiting purposes…so that recruits who’ll be signing on NSD1 this Wednesday will at least know who their position coach will be at LSU. Ole Miss is right to tell Kiffin to pound sand and hold these assistant coaches through the end of their contracts, which likely coincides with the end of Ole Miss’ playoff run (whenever that may be). And it’s very likely these assistants’ contracts have clauses that forbid them from recruiting for another school while employed by Ole Miss (so there’s a legal risk for these assistants).

Arkansas is far from the worst in P4. Let’s be serious. Regarding recruiting footprint, the state of Arkansas produces a small handful of 4-star caliber players each year (5-6), which is modest but also far more than the states of Kansas, Iowa, or Nebraska…or Oregon. Further, the state Arkansas borders Mississippi, Louisiana, east Texas, and Memphis. That’s plenty of regional talent to tap into, even if Arkansas is the 4th or 5th choice of prospects in these areas. Arkansas is also part of the SEC, easily the marquee conference in college football, which itself is a premium recruiting factor relative to the other three P4 conferences. University of Arkansas is also located in a fast growing, relatively modern area of the south (Northwest Arkansas MSA is > 600,000 population), making it larger than places like East Lansing, Lexington, Lincoln, Lawrence, Eugene, Auburn, Oxford, Lubbock, Waco, etc). Arkansas also puts 70,000 fans in the stadium (on average) every Saturday, which is a lot more than every single Big 12 school, and more than all ACC schools (other than Clemson). Lastly, as mentioned in previous posts, there is no shortage of extremely wealthy donors in the Arkansas ecosystem (Walton heirs, JB Hunt, Tyson family, Stephens family, Jerry Jones, etc), which isn’t the case for many other P4 programs, including most of the lower half of the Big Ten who need a private equity payday loan just to pay their athletes the $20m revenue share. There’s no question that Arkansas is a very difficult job within the SEC, but not relative to other P4 programs per se. If Arkansas moved to the Big 12, they’d be a perennial top 3 program in the conference. Ditto if they moved to the ACC.

The only reason the committee announces the decision to delay making an actual decision is because they know a change in format is needed and forthcoming. The extra time allows for the additional info from this season’s playoff results, and use that as a basis to support the changes they’ll announce on January 23rd. Maybe Disney wants to see the viewership revenue numbers from this playoff season before deciding to go beyond 12-14 teams? ( Disney is locked into under the current contract at fixed economic terms. If the playoffs expand beyond 14 teams, Disney has to increase the payout). Do they go to a 14-team format, or a 16-team format, or all the way to a 24-team format (as favored by the Big Ten)? We’ll know on January 23rd.

I think the entire point of Kiffin making an announcement immediately after the Egg Bowl is orchestrated to produce an amicable win-win for Ole Miss, LSU, and Kiffin. Ole Miss win, finishes their season, goes 11-1, and awaits their Playoff invitation. Ole Miss then plays their playoff game with an interim coach. Kiffin leaves for LSU, and has four days to keep the LSU recruiting class in tact prior to NSD on Dec 3rd. He also gets to put “led Ole Miss to first ever playoff” on his resume / ego. Win-win for all parties.

@Gerry Hamilton If we assume Lane Kiffin is announced as the new LSU HC next Saturday, how does this impact LSU’s recruiting class with NSD just four days later on December 3rd? Will the Kiffin hire be enough to keep all the LSU current commits in their class? And specifically, how do you think Kiffin’s hire will impact Martinez and R.Anderson? Thanks for your insights!

If he were planning to stay at Ole Miss, he would’ve already said so.

Sark has a tremendous shoe game.

Somewhat agree. This trade never happens without Dumont (and family) approving. So why did the family (Dumont) approve? Once the gaming / betting legislation failed to pass in Texas, the family focused on cutting costs of a franchise they no longer are interested in owning (in Dallas). What better way to cut costs than to avoid paying a SuperMax contract to an oft-injured, frequently conditioning challenged superstar player? The NBA then steps in and tells the family that if they don’t try to relocate the franchise to Vegas, they can replace Doncic with the #1 pick (Flagg) on a nice, cheap rookie contract. Everybody wins, except the Dallas fans (unless Flagg becomes a Luka-level superstar). At least that’s how I understand the conspiracy 😂.

That’s not correct. The 5 highest ranked conference champions get the guaranteed spots. And this year, there is a plausible path for the ACC Champion to be left out. USF (#24) wins the American Athletic while James Madison (AP #24) wins Sunbelt. Both teams have a pretty clear path to moving up in the rankings if they keep winning. By contrast, the ACC leader is #16 Ga Tech who will likely lose to UGA and not even make the ACC Championship game. The next two highest ranked ACC teams are Louisville (20) and UVA (19), both of whom may lose another game before the season ends. If JMU and USF win their conferences and end up ranked ahead of the ACC champion, then the ACC is left out. It may a remote possibility today, but it’ll be more plausible by Dec 7th.

Correct, but I would clarify that two loss Regular season teams will get left out for a 9-3 Texas team. I’m not as confident that an 11-1 regular season team that Loses in their conference championship game will fall below a 9-3 Texas. This mainly applies to a possible 11-1 BYU making the B12 CG and losing to a top 5-6 Tech team again.