ArizonaLonghorn

Speaking of media rights, this one scrambled my brain for a bit. "Amazon to televise 3 marquee Duke basketball games as part of landmark deal" - not just the usual pre-season dreck games but games against UConn and Michigan and Gonzaga. Right now the UConn and Michigan games look like two of the most anticipated non-conference games on anyone's schedule next season. quote: "The deal will include extensive NIL opportunities for Duke athletics and is part of a broader retail partnership expected to be announced at a later date." Think about it - we get to televise a few of your most anticipated games and provide "extensive NIL opportunities for Duke athletics" as part of the deal. Pretty crazy. The rich get richer - Duke's my favorite college BB team, I never miss a game televised on 'regular' TV, but wouldn't pay extra to see them on Amazon Prime (probably should get a sub?). How did they pull this off with ACC and ESPN blessings? "The move will raise eyebrows around college sports. The deal could end up marking a harbinger for the future, as streamers are expected to be more aggressive in acquiring rights in upcoming collegiate sports rights discussions. Duke worked with the ACC and ESPN on future scheduling commitments in exchange for the ability to play these three neutral-site games, including participating in select ESPN-owned and operated neutral-site events in the 2027-28 and 2028-29 seasons." Who would make a good co-partner for Texas football?

They have him going to Cleveland, so probably a good fit, right?

I got it from this article in The Athletic - "2026 NFL Draft: Comparing top analysts’ rankings" (paywall) [quote on the source of these] The Athletic collected data as of the morning of April 23 from the following sources: The Athletic’s Dane Brugler’s ‘The Beast’ guide, ESPN’s Jordan Reid (published April 17), Pro Football Focus’s big board, NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein, ESPN’s best available list, The Ringer’s Todd McShay, NFL.com’s Daniel Jeremiah, ESPN’s Mel Kiper, The Athletic’s Nick Baumgardner (published March 26) and Yahoo Sports’s Nate Tice (published April 15).

Don't leave us hanging in suspense man - you "predict he doesn't [miss/play/?] single game this year" ?

I just finished compiling first round data from two 2026 mock draft composites plus individual first round mocks from ten of the biggest industry names. Todd had the most accurate 2026 first round mock of anyone, by a wide margin over everybody except Mel Kiper (the edge over Mel was slight). I was impressed. So hopefully he's right again about 2027 Longhorns going in round one (I'll start a new thread later today and post the draft data - pretty interesting to mock draft watchers)

If they had any sense they'd be looking for the people who ratted him out in Ohio - specifically Cincinnati, since Sorsby left there on bad terms. He's currently being sued by UC for $1 million for breach of contract, plus Cincy plays in the same conference as Tech so would love to stick it to them. They would be in a much better position to know about his gambling than people in Austin. Texas doesn't really care much about what goes on in Lubbock. Wonder what the over/under is on Kalshi for his possible suspension? I'd guess half the season, though I wouldn't bet on it. It's a clever move to play the addiction card and head to rehab early - improves his chances at avoiding a permanent suspension. If I had to bet I'd say justice demands the lifetime ban but wouldn't surprise me to see him weasel out given CC's money and a possible favorable venue for a trial.

Unless it's a photo from a recruiting trip, right? I searched 'arch manning georgia gear' and this is the first of many images to surface. No big deal ...

My recollection is we wanted Klare as our top TE choice but he preferred to stay in the Big 10 since he's from Ohio and played at Purdue. He wasn't highly rated out of high school but shined at Purdue so OSU became an option for him. OSU (allegedly) made him a very solid NIL offer since they were light at TE. Probably a no-brainer for him, we didn't really pass on him so much as he wanted to go to OSU and he passed on us. I can't recall him even making a visit to Austin. Endries was our consolation prize.

The past few years I've been tracking the accuracy of the Mock Composite draft site, which aggregates mock draft data from 180 big boards and over 1,300 first round mock drafts. Typically the first round has been pretty accurate - the past two drafts they hit on 27 of the 32 first rounders for example, with most of the misses getting drafted in the 2nd round, with the major exceptions of Shedeur Sanders last year and Jermond McCoy this year. Below is this year's data in table form (I had to wait until McCoy was picked - he was mocked at 17 but ended up 101 or fourth round). A yellow background in the 'Mock' column means those five players were drafted in round one but mocked lower (Banks mocked 44 or round 3 but drafted 18 for example). A blue background in the 'NFL draft' column is for the five guys mocked round 1 but drafted later. Three were picked early in round 2, a fourth late in round 2 and McCoy (coming back from injury) slipped into round 4, similar to what happened with Sanders last year (minus the injury excuse). So most of the mock's misses were still reasonably close. 'Delta' column shows the difference between mock and actual slot, with red indicating the mock was too optimistic. The red 59 at the bottom is the sum of these. Minus 59 means the average error for 37 players was less than 2 spots, which is impressive. 'abs delta' column adds the absolute errors, so plus seven and minus 7 would be zero in the 'Delta' column, but 14 here. If you divide the number (345) by the number of players (37) the average error was 9.3 or less than 1/3 a round. Scanning that column there is only one number higher than 32, meaning 36 or the 37 players were mocked within one round of where they were taken. I also added the 247 Composite ranking for the 32 first rounders (average 447) and the star rankings 3.72 or 3++ in the Hamilton Metric. Basically this idea of doing a composite seems to give pretty accurate results for round one. I also am tracking where the Texas players are taken ... will have more on that later once the draft is done.

He never returned Texas' calls and texts once Tech made him an offer he couldn't refuse (minus the horse head). Bailey kept ignoring calls from Tech until these two texts: "I have the deal of a lifetime for you. Give me a call, bro." and "David, give me 120 seconds to have a convo with you. If you're not interested after that, I'll leave you alone." He was intrigued and called. The offer was supposedly for over $3 million for one year. Texas wasn't going to offer him double what Simmons was likely making. Article here in ESPN

Actually they were 11-0 with a win over Notre Dame at one point, before falling on their face against Texas and Miami to finish 11-2

Yep, Kenny was in charge when these guys came in from JUCO and from Colorado. BC is doing great, promoted to Assistant Head Coach and still a key recruiter.

Some nerdy data on the first round - 7 picks were 5* recruits, 13 were 4*, 10 were 3*, Fernando was the only 2* and Iheanachor was unranked in high school (no football team). These are from the 247 Composite. Pretty common to see roughly a third-third-third break out of 5-4-3 stars going in the first round (of course there are usually 30 or so 5* compared to thousands of 4 and 3 star guys in each class). Seven 5* and also seven ranked 920 and lower. Mendoza was the lowest ranked recruit (ranked 2,535) and Jordon Tyson, the # 8 pick, ranked # 920 out of high school.

I guess the tackle (Max Iheanachor) went to a nerd high school (the King/Drew Magnet High School of Medicine and Science) that didn't even have a football team, which explains the zero star ranking. His family emigrated from Nigeria when he was 13, he played soccer (goalie) and AAU basketball and the BB coach suggested he try football at a JUCO. So far under the radar you'd need sonar to find this one.

Tyson was rated the # 131 WR coming out of high school in Texas by 247 Composite, # 215 WR on 247 - a 3* ranked 920 overall (Composite). Texas would rarely even look at a guy like that and many on this board would be disgusted with our recruiting if we went after him. Our WR class that year consisted of Brenen Thompson and Savion Red (after missing on Evan Stewart lol). The tackle was a zero star in high school who had just started playing football, went to JUCO and was a middling recruit when ASU grabbed him, as they usually recruit poorly and are desperate for big bodies. They lucked out on him for sure. Basically the blue blood programs rarely even look hard at kids like these.