Here for the Wins

Super conferences were the likely outcomes once you expanded the national championship. You need to start with the power and money discussion. The SEC and Big 10 want control of both. You’ve for sure seen that from the SEC for two decades. Any threats to that dominance will cause change. To their desires.

I think this has already happened in some places. Just less in your face.

As a freshman at Oregon, he had 74 tackles and 4 interceptions. Then switched to WR and kinda disappeared at Oregon then transferred to Texas playing WR year 1 then DB. Don’t know the story but seems he wanted to play WR when likely better served as a DB.

Yes, from Oregon. His brother went from Arizona to Tech, if I recall correctly. So somewhat of a football family.

He played WR and DB for two major colleges. He is the type of “athlete” the fans want. Nothing is a guarantee however. Its great to see all the Longhorns participating.

2026 should be better. Far greater maturity, experience.

I’d say you’re on the right path.

Just a little ironic that a team unable to win its conference or even participate in the conference title game can be a national champion. One an 8-9 game championship while the other is a 3 game championship.

Because we have won 35 games over the past 3 seasons, and we have guys here through all of that. Because we have guys who’ve played in hostile, playoff and championship environments. We have guys that have competed against the best. We have guys that the NFL will gladly invite onto their teams. You take these factors generically there are few teams that can say that. That’s why.

I manually counted so perhaps math is off a little bit. In the 2025 NFL draft, there were 23 Tackles taken, 14 Guards and 3 Centers. in 2024, 25 Tackles, 16 Guards, 11 Centers. In 2023, 16 Tackles, 15 Guards, 10 Centers. The 3 year totals are 64 Tackles, 45 Guards and 24 Centers. First rounders - 17 Tackles, 4 Guards, 1 Center. There at least two guys drafted as Guards that were Tackles in college - Troy Fautanu, Wyatt Milam. Gray Zabel is another that had more starts at Tackle than Guard. I suspect if you looked deeper there are more that were collegiate Tackles and moved to the interior than moved from the interior to Tackle. Just Texas guys alone we’ve had Conner Williams, Sam Cosmi and Justin Blalock play Tackle at Texas then found their home on the interior in the NFL. There’s a couple of points in here. I’ve read multiple posts about Flood’s ability to develop Tackles but not interior guys. The data suggests he’s not alone. The draft data reflects Tackles are more favored, and it’s quite likely it’s even more slanted in that collegiate Tackles are drafted as interior guys rather the other way around. Then we have the discussion of “elite.” With NIL, the waters are muddied, but I’d assume that a majority of draft eligible elite guys jump to the NFL. Of those 133 drafted offensive linemen, 28 were drafted after Hayden Conner in the 211 slot. I’m guessing few here ever referred to Conner as elite. Now, you’re down to 104 offensive linemen that might be considered elite. Proportionally speaking that’s about 35 Guards over 3 years or 11 per year. If you pair that up with PFF grades, there was 1 with a 90+ (from Army) and 11 with 80+. Only 5 were from the Power 4. Two of the 5 were first year starters and have eligibility left. The other 3 should be out of eligibility unless they get some form of waiver. There just aren’t many elite Guards running around. Moving Baker inside is somewhat uncommon although that transition was likely to occur at the NFL level. It’s uncommon because few teams have two very capable Tackles.

This is a pretty solid thought. I suspect the D2 and D3 guys were hoping for an upgrade. You likely do have more D1 guys hoping to hang on for an extra year. That’s more refusing to let go than crisis. You have seniors exiting and freshmen entering so it’s not like the total of spots are shrinking, as you mentioned.

It is. So Notre Dame. If they get #12, they are bumping at worst #10. That’s assuming the G5 is outside the top 12 and potentially one conference champ?

Yet not baffling that some team outside the top 12 gets in?

You are correct on the 11-1. But the rest is a bit wrong. UF - the 5 pick game was two games prior. It was without Dallas Wilson. I don’t think we were spying Lagway, certainly not to a materially impactful degree. Lagway physically got better with the bye but mentally he repaired himself a bit too. This game was pretty poor on so many fronts. Arch never missed a TD pass versus Ohio State. So the question still remains had he completed these “layups” do we score.

Nah.

You and I may well have differing opinions about how we got there, but there were positives. Going in to next year, our roster is in good shape. The TE pickup may be greatly underappreciated.

I’d agree with you a bit on the Oline improvement that it was perhaps more modest than some believe. OU, for example, was pretty poor pass protection but Arch hit Wisner on two check downs I believe. Then rolled right to hit Livingstone. We ran the ball for yards, but Wisner had a lot of YAC. Arch did better. I believe the play calling helped too. Unfortunately at Georgia we dropped too many balls then fell apart late. I am in the minority on this. I think we’ll be fine here. I may be more concerned about RB pass protection.

If you weren’t aware, there were only 3 guys drafted last year as Centers. Just how many teams do you think have bonafide hits? Arch was pretty solid at making one defender miss all throughout the season.

The strength of conference and strength of schedule wouldn’t necessarily correlate these days. In that conference comparison of Big 10 versus SEC, it just depends on how it plays out. Each year is different. Your strength of schedule was built off the post season. You had a conference championship game and a national championship game. With expanded playoffs, there should be no historical comparison because there’s no history to this format. The important aspect of strength of schedule should end prior to conference championships. It does matter to that point but is irrelevant once once the postseason begins. As to your point #3, this had very little discussion leading up to and after the selection. Miami and Ole Miss from what I recall had 8 home games. Miami did leave home until October. Texas had 4 consecutive weeks away from home, 42 days. And Kentucky was the 3rd of those weeks. MSU was the 4th. Whatever metrics are referenced likely do not give a value to those facts. Kentucky had two weeks to prepare while Texas was coming off the OU game. Even UF had two weeks to prepare. Texas did too, but it was critical for UF. Far too little emphasis is placed on where you team X but also within the sequencing of the season. Now to Kennesaw State, Old Dominion in comparison to SJSU, UTEP and SHSU. These potentially skew strength of schedule. Some games need to be thrown out. Texas wasn’t losing to any of these teams. Indiana wasn’t either. I’m not sure where you cut them but when a team presents no chance at a victory it should not be part of the evaluation. I’d be interested to see strength of schedule recalculated without the gimmes.

This year you get a B-. That plan should pull in an A next year.

Agree on the single play, even if it’s the last one. Guards should be somewhat easy to hide. I’m certain there are quite a few out there that aren’t good. I’d love to hear the behind the scenes discussion here. Part of me feels like there was internal conflict amongst the staff. But in spite of what happened there, it was that we weren’t rock solid other places. For me, I’d expected better play across the board early and really that LG had the lowest expectations. Guys just need to pick each other up, and it didn’t happen enough.

Poor strategy Mr. Flood. You should have planned better. Be more half assed, for longer.

You said initially it was the single position that killed our chances. I don’t believe it’ll ever come to down to one position. I have watched those games just in the last week. I’d stand on the thought any one win versus Ohio State, UF or Georgia gets us in the playoff. With that said, versus OSU, Baker allowed the most pressures and the most penalties. Campbell had a hold that negated a 2nd and 3 inside the OSU 35 or so. A play or two later we throw a pick. On drive 1 and and the late drive from the 1, they were snuffed from the right side of the line. So certainly not all on the LG. UF is crazy one. The defense wasn’t good. I’m still baffled by the Brooks play. I don’t blame him but, yes, that was individually the most problematic position in this game. But we seemingly have some momentum then Brooks gets back to back penalties then we throw a pick. I can’t begin to understand the decision here but even so the defense didn’t do their job. I think special teams gave up 2 but also failed to kill a punt inside the UF 5, if I remember correctly. In my opinion, this was a total team cluster. Then Georgia. There were a number of good individual plays but tons of missed opportunities here. We struggled to pass protect from the LG spot but likely less egregious than the drops and the defense and special teams falling apart. Also, pass protection had some losses at multiple positions. LG was certainly the most curious and at times some of the ugliest play. Much of the critique falls on Stroh, when the precipitous drop was Brooks. Brooks had the 2nd lowest pass efficiency rating in the past 5 years. I do not think we’ll have that again. We didn’t get that out of Stroh. We didn’t get it out of Hutson. We didn’t get it out of Neto in his short tenure. I can’t imagine we would have gotten it out of Kibble. I don’t imagine we’ll get it next year. But no guarantees. All that said, I can’t blame our failures on one position. Far too many snaps for someone else to make that game changing play.

Do you really believe this?

Funny thing is that people here mess their drawers because we missed on two guys from Michigan. A Michigan that got their ass handed to them by the Ohio State. At home. Late in the season. Our LG was not our biggest issue versus OSU either. UF was probably the worst LG game, but the issues went beyond that. Georgia was largely an offensive meltdown. Few teams, if any, will have 5 above average olinemen. Even in the portal world, that’s a tough ask. The vocal majority see a “starting quality” guy enter and think that’s an upgrade. It doesn’t matter who they played or how they performed versus quality opponents. We don’t need volatility. Constant, consistent, due your job effort is needed. And you know where you won’t see that? In highlights. Goosby is to be a star. He needs to play like one. Baker needs to play near that status. Same for the Wake T. Play like it then everyone else’s job is easier.