Bunk Moreland

What are we even doing here? What a joke.

Wow, what a connection, Hank! I followed those Stanford teams very closely. Mitch was a tough, clever player. Not a very good shooter, but could hit the occasional clutch 3. But his court vision and IQ were excellent and he had a gift for creating plays in the halfcourt game. That 2007-08 Stanford team was loaded with talent. In addition to the Lopez twins, they also had Landry Fields (who played five years in the NBA and was the GM of the Hawks) and Anthony Goods and Lawrence Hill (who both played overseas for years). They never reached their potential because Trent Johnson could never maximize his squad. I had a hard time watching that sweet 16 game because I loved both teams.

Fair enough. Apologies for my defensiveness. I completely agree with you that the coaches should ideally allocate substantial resources to DT recruiting and that it should be split between elite prospects and more developmental players with elite traits or high upside. Using the latter criteria, I would say that Sweat and Murphy had elite traits, even if the industry did not consider them elite prospects. Byron Murphy had elite strength, quickness, and productivity. He broke Von Miller’s high school sack record at Desoto. That’s elite disruption at a high level of competition. The staff should look for guys with those sorts of traits, even if they’re not 5-stars.

This is an obnoxious response. The irony of your statement is that now the coaches are actually going to focus harder than they did even a year ago on developmental prospects with upside. So, paradoxically, it might be more likely going forward that the coaches would find another Murphy and Sweat than the trend lines the last few years would suggest. But my point was that if you can find a 5- or high-4-star DT, you go all-in because they are like a supernova if they hit their ceiling. Okay, how about this: you go offer all the 3-star DTs that you’d like hoping to find Byron Murphy and I’ll go pay $1.5M to Jalen Carter. Deal?

I would add Currie to the list. There are just not enough truly elite DTs out there, so loading up on high-end IDL talent in high school recruiting feels more important than ever.

Read my follow-up post. They clearly are a blue blood program based on overall resume, but at what point does their downward trajectory kick them out of the club? OU will be competitive going forward, but they are never going to be a dominant force in college football again unless something drastic changes like pooling revenues.

“Joey the Mouth” -Bobby

Yes, they are clearly a historic blue blood. But if that’s your criteria, then so is Nebraska. I know OU just made the playoff, but they are not even a top-tier SEC program IMO. And they have competitive disadvantages that make it highly unlikely they will ever come close to the kind of success they’ve had historically. Let me put it like this: OU may still be a blue blood based on their total resume, but we might be reevaluating that in 10 years. They are not a blue blood over the NEXT 50 years.

I’m not even sure I consider OU a blue blood anymore, so no.

The mod only threads during portal season were worth every penny of the subscription.

I’m surprised you had the audacity to say “OG” without it triggering your Floodphobia