CHorn427

Pate’s kind of a UGA homer (from Georgia). He hyped up Gunnar Stockton beyond belief before the CFP last year. ”He brought Georgia back FROM BEHIND vs Texas” “From behind” in a 6-3 hole

As much as we love The University of Texas as a school, it does not have objective claim as the best college in America. So as the president of UT, you can’t say you’re leading the best college in America. In contrast, as frequent winner/contender for the Director’s Cup, UT Athletics does have objective claim as the best college athletic department in the country. So if CDC leaves Texas for SMU, it would be leaving arguably the best athletics department in the country for a department at SMU that doesn’t frequently compete for titles in major sports (if any). That would be a perplexing move

Yeah, I don’t believe him for a second. His response was to get angry and indignant at the dad (“struck a nerve”) and try to clear his name for recruiting reasons. How about saying, “I’m truly sorry that the father feels that way, and if I may have fell short in the father’s eyes I truly apologize. FROM OUR PERSPECTIVE, we felt we did whatever we could, blah, blah. Moving forward, we’re going to try to continue to be as big of supporters as possible and we will learn from this situation for future similar situations”

https://www.foxnews.com/sports/father-ex-lsu-star-left-disabled-after-brain-tumor-surgery-says-he-hasnt-heard-from-brian-kelly-school.amp

I’m not saying Nolen could single-handedly make a non-playoff team a playoff team. But we clearly were very close to winning a national title. Having a game breaker like Nolen at DT would have made our defense the unquestioned best in the country and possibly been the difference for us. I’m fairly confident we would have won the SEC title game with one star DT like him. We had game breakers everywhere on defense except DT this year. Our DTs were commendable and serviceable, but not game breakers. It’s like whack-a-mole- last year, pretty much the only place we had game breakers on defense was at DT. This year it was everywhere except DT. Hopefully very soon we will see it all come together at all three levels.

JT sanders had 0 catches for 0 yards and 0 TDs in 2021, then 54 catches for 613 yds and 5 TDs in 2022. In 2022 and 2024, we had hardly any idea of what to expect at TE and were gloomy in 2024. Those turned out to be 2 of the best TE years in our history

We woulda won the damn natty with Nolan 😢

I’m willing to bet if you rank our receivers in speed vs other teams across the country, we’re easily in the top 10. Our receivers are fast enough, wasn’t the problem this past season. Our problem was Quinn not being able to get the ball to guys open deep, also not being able to create time with his feet for guys to get open deep. Highly likely those problems are solved with Arch.

During the apocalypse we can look back and say they were doing this before it was cool

Could anyone transcribe Mel Kiper’s recently released mock here on a post? Don’t want to pay for an ESPN sub

I agree. I would put my money on him being a downgrade from Howard initially just due to inexperience. Just gotta hope his experience vs us is more of a “welcome to CFB” moment and less of a coming out party. Hopefully we have solid answers for replacing Barron, Makuba and our DTs. If so, I like our chances.

Update: If Texas vs tOSU is #1 vs #2 next year, I’m pretty sure it will be the first week one 1v2 matchup in CFB history. https://www.boydsbets.com/college-football-no-1-vs-no-2/

They’ll have a former 5* QB force feeding him, but still. He better be elusive with our pass rush coming after him They picked up a good RB and a good TE in the portal. But it seems to me it will be impossible for them to make as big of splash pickups as Judkins and Downs, both of whom they picked up in last year’s winter portal window

ChatGPT gave incorrect info on the wk1 1 vs 2 question

ESPN only lists 3 “Key Returning Starters” for Ohio State: Jeremiah Smith, Carnell Tate and Caleb Downs. Every other team has 6+ key returning starters. There’s no chance in hell they are the #1 team in the country next year. The only reason they were the #1 team this year was because of extraordinary retention of their 2023 roster. However, I don’t see any way our matchup with them next season isn’t #1 vs #2 (could go either way). How many #1 vs #2 matchups have there ever been in week one, I wonder?

Out of eligibility or not?

He actually never lost to a team as a starter outside the Top12 (at the time of the game). 2022 OkSt is the one team we lost to with him that finished unranked at the end of the season.

Love to see it! I think he’s gonna exceed expectations in the NFL and hopefully actually go to a good team where he can learn in a reserve role, rather than being pressed into immediate action for a crappy franchise.

Penn State has a virtual cake walk to the CFP next year. Their floor looks like 10-2 to me (Oregon and tOSU only feasible losses). Even then, they have Oregon at home and SHOULD be their year to beat tOSU with Allar and both RBs returning.

A large portion of that $20 million was to retain guys from their 2023 roster. They had only 4 guys go in the draft last year because essentially anybody who could come back came back for them. They won’t be able to do that for $80 million this year. They were also able to pick up Quinshon Judkins and Caleb Downs around this time last year in the winter portal window. I don’t think there will be opportunity for them to make moves of that magnitude during the winter portal window this year. The only one mega move I could see for them is if they pick up Quinn.

The only way Anthony Hill is here as a senior is if he misses the bulk of next season with injury or plays significantly worse in his junior season. We should of course be rooting against either of those situations. If the DT situation works out well for us next year, I could easily see our front 7 being better (LBs and DEs should be better next year, especially if we retain Moore). Seems like the biggest concern on defense will be making up defensive playmaking of Barron and Makuba. We have recruited very well at DB, so hope that won’t be too big of an issue.

I think the 3 most likely teams are Texas, Penn State or Clemson. Drew Allar and Cade Klubnik stand a good chance of being Heisman candidates next season. Both of PSU’s good RBs announced their return today. Most of these lines reflect people’s inability to see past the present.

Pete Carroll is almost unanimously considered to be one of the best head coaches in football history. Does that make his Super Bowl decision to pass the ball on the goal line vs the patriots rather than run it with Marshawn Lynch any less stupid? No, it does not. Just like the overall opinion of Sark as a play caller (which I agree with) doesn’t change the fact that this play call was idiotic. Orlovsky’s opinion doesn’t change it. The staff’s premeditation doesn’t change it. Your opinion doesn’t change it. Even if it would have WORKED it doesn’t change the fact that it was not a smart play call. Sometimes players make good plays on bad play call. If you have the ball on the one yard line, throwing the ball backwards to the 10 yard line on the side of the field where defenders outnumber blockers (!) with zero accompanying tricks or misdirection is just a BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD play call. One of the worst of all time. That doesn’t make Sark one of the worst play callers ever, he is still a great play caller in my eyes and I’m sure most people’s eyes. I just think he is a great play caller that called one of the worst plays of all time. Not mutually exclusive.

Nowhere near “almost exact same fashion”. The only reason we had a remote shot at winning vs Washington was terrible clock mismanagement and meltdown by the Washington coaching staff. We got outplayed from start to finish on both sides of the ball that games. We had a shot in this game because we straight up outplayed/ went toe to toe with tOSU for the vast majority of the game. tOSU this year is a much better team than Washington was last year. They will likely be the national champion. Washington got run out of the stadium by Michigan. If Ohio State beats Notre Dame, they will set the record for most top 5 wins in a single season.

A terrible one