Bunk Moreland

Did Sark address the rumor that Joe Z knows more about football than Kyle Flood?

@Jeff Howe just for fun, I compared Arch’s performance in those games to Quinn’s performance against teams in the 2024 final AP top 25. I thought it might be an interesting comparison since Quinn was without question surrounded by a much better cast and he was a 4th-year player that took his team to the semifinals of the CFP, whereas Arch was starting his first full season. The exercise shows that Arch and Quinn had eerily similar numbers under those circumstances. If anything, Arch’s numbers are slightly better (most impressively, he protected the football better against elite competition than Quinn did in 2024). Arch was 4-2 against final top 25 teams; Quinn was 2-3. Here were Quinn’s stats: 112 for 182 (61.5%) for 1376 yards (275 ypg), 9 passing TD, 6 INT (134.8 passer rating) What this all suggests to me is that there is no reason to think that Arch Manning—with a full year of starting experience under his belt, surrounded by a much stronger supporting cast, and having matched the output of Quinn against top competition as a CFP semifinalist—shouldn’t have Texas in serious contention this year.

This is excellent work, Jeff!

*insert parody of the show Community with Sorsby in the Jeff Winger role, McGuire playing the dean, and Ken Jeong as himself*

CJ standing next to Hank and Jordan

Yep, this is the answer. Texas is clearly focused on signing 8-10 elite high school recruits, surrounding them with a bunch of high-upside but cheap developmental prospects, and maximizing the NIL to bring in a bunch of Cam Coleman-level players next year to replace what they lose to the draft. And I happen to think they’ve figured out the right formula.

They still haven’t figured out what Texas realized after signing the #1 recruiting class: if you’re going to invest all that NIL in high school players, they’d better be on the field contributing next year. Otherwise it’s just dead money that you can’t allocate to bringing in a badass portal class. Didn’t work out so well for Texas last year and Sark is already showing he’s not going to make the same mistake twice.

You know better than to share your food obsessions on a livestream, CJ. That is going to haunt you forever, like Gerry and mayo corndogs. From now on you are going to be KC (Kettle Corn) Vogel.

My Heroes reference for, like, 2 people on here.

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

@Bobby Burton with a cryptic hint on C&F this morning about more big news this summer. What could it possibly be? Documenting Chip’s acid trips live and sponsored by Rogue Shop? Buying out OB just to shutter that cesspool forever? Bringing on Wiltfong just so that OTF can trademark the Fong Bombs? The possibilities are endless.