HookemTexas

Lane's always able to field a stud offense, all he has to do is hit on a half decent defense and his team's dangerous. And LSU usually is able to get good defensive prospects, certainly easier than at Ole Miss I would guess.

Well football may not make the playoffs, so that's points from last year down.

Expect CDC to make changes in track and field if they continue to not compete for championships. It’s been a few years since Texas was owning the track and sending olympians to teams around the world.

Kentucky was one of the two losses that Texas had in the regular season. That was during a time that Texas blocked very poorly and promptly was swept by Kentucky. The wildcats have a dynamic 1-2 punch at OH, however they lack the balance of having a potent attacker on the opposite side (reminiscent of earlier Texas teams). They are elite for sure though and are one of the top 4 teams in the nation. Most likely, it will either be Texas 2 overall and Kentucky 3 overall, or vice versa for the main tournament seeding. Kentucky took Nebraska to 5 sets and actually had a 2-0 set lead when Nebraska pulled off the reverse sweep early in the season. All in all, this was supposed to be a rebuilding year for Texas with Skinner graduating but they're also one of the top 4 teams with 3-4 key contributors being freshman. Throw in that the incoming recruiting class for next year is the #1 class in the country with the top recruit at their respective positions (OH, setter, and libero) and the future looks very bright.

Immediate next questions - who on the team stays, who transfers in, who transfers out? Recruiting? It's a non-stop news cycle!

I'd say it's practically a guaranteed 3 overall at the worst, but most likely an overall 2 seed. Texas has the 1st or 2nd rated RPI and outside of the two regular season losses, both to highly ranked teams, only Nebraska's unbeaten record is better. Should Texas and Nebraska meet in the finals this year, it will be the reverse of the team situation when they met a few years ago where Texas had the senior laden team and Nebraska had 4 star freshmen in the starting line up. Nebraska will be a tough out for anyone, but this Texas team is getting hot when it's important, if they can ride this all the way, watch out.

Championship caliber coaches - it's what CDC does. That's why I'm confident that should any coaching jobs at Texas open up, as long as CDC is the AD, the replacement is going to be just as good if not better.

CDC plays 4D chess when it comes to hiring new coaches. Coach Ange Kelly helped grow the game for Texas, but could never break through even when she was able to recruit some elite talent in recent years. She always supported the other programs though and led a classy program, even if they never won it all, saw the soccer team attend a volleyball match to support after they played their game earlier in the evening when my wife and I was at the match. Someone posted on the social media announcement that her program was the only one to have never at least make the elite 8 of their sport. With softball winning it all last year and WBB having made the final four and poised for a run the next few years, the pressure was on for the soccer program to keep up. If it's the UCLA coach, excited for what the future holds. UCLA probably either can't, or won't come close to what Texas is able to do on the NIL front to get the new coach great players. Hook'em coach Kelly.

I'm in the boat that thinks he stays at Ole Miss as well. He's got them competing for the playoffs, the expectations aren't as high as they are in Florida or LSU. Unless an insane deal like 10 years guaranteed surfaces somewhere.

Haven't seen much news on the beach team, what are their chances this year?

I think the fair thing to say is that the expectation is to always compete for a championship, meaning being in contention for a chance to win it all at the end of the regular season.

That's totally out of the blue, and it's not like Howard's not connected enough to hear some things. My belief would be that Sark's chasing that Titan's job, he didn't refute and it he doesn't seem to have the focus this year.

Thanks for the perspective. Was Kirby's 5th year the year Georgia was dominating Bama and at halftime Saban went to a freshman who led a comeback to win the title?

Weren't the Branch bros publicly going to whoever would pay the most to both bros? Georgia won that bidding war, seems to have paid off for them as well.

I don't have the stats in front of me, but the crazy thing is that Sark's supposed to be an offensive guru, but this Texas team's offensive production has been pretty weak compared to every other team against the same opponent. It's not like they don't have players either, Texas' backups should be just as talented as half the other teams minus the Georgia's and the Bamas. Can't tell me they aren't as good or better than Miss St. or Kentucky's starters.