Steamboat Willie

The question is whether Flood was a major reason Alabama’s line was so successful or whether he benefited from an already superior development system.

If Flood goes, here’s who I’d look at: Bob Bostad, Indiana Joe Rudolph, Notre Dame Eman Naghavi, Houston Tim Keane, Boise Nic Cardwell, Cincinnati Jordan Shoemaker, Texas State Sam Pittman, if he wants to coach again Dwayne Ledford, Ravens Andy Kwon, Memphis Zach Hanson, USC Bostad would be my first call. Houston’s Naghavi is one I probably overlooked. Keane at Boise deserves a look too. No idea who would take it or who Sark would want. But looking at those numbers, I’m tired of hearing we just need bigger linemen or another recruiting class. We ought to be able to block Mississippi State.

Been thinking about this for a while. I think Sark’s a great head coach and fits like a glove at UT. But he gets talked about like he’s one of the best QB developers in the country, and when you go stop by stop I’m not sure the results back it up. At USC he worked with Palmer, Leinart and Sanchez, but that was Carroll’s program and Norm Chow deserves a lot of the credit for the early years. At Alabama he had Tua and Mac Jones, both first-rounders. But Bama kept producing QBs after he left. Bryce Young went No. 1, Milroe got drafted, and Ty Simpson just went 13th overall. His head coaching stops are a different story. At Washington he had Jake Locker, who went in the first round mostly on physical ability and never turned into much of a passer. At Texas he’s had five-plus years, his own staff, his own recruits and total control of the offense. Ewers came in a five-star and left a seventh-round pick. Arch is still a work in progress. Five-star QBs disappoint everywhere, I get that. Rattler at Oklahoma, Uiagalelei at Clemson, Malachi Nelson at USC. Nobody hits on all of them. But if you’re supposed to be an elite QB developer, shouldn’t you be getting more out of those guys than the average coach does? Kirby’s an interesting comparison. Five stars: Eason, Fields, Daniels and Vandagriff all came through Georgia and transferred, and he still won two titles with Stetson Bennett. Nobody calls Kirby a QB guru, and he’s got an OC running the offense anyway. Sark calls the plays, so whatever happens at QB is on him. Sark can coach quarterbacks, I’m not arguing that. Being a good QB coach and being the QB whisperer he gets sold as are two different things though. At Texas he’s had the time, the money and the control to build exactly what he wants, and the QB play hasn’t lived up to the reputation. At what point do we start judging Sark’s QB development on what he’s done at Texas instead of what he did at USC and Alabama?

More curious about why the snap wasn’t taken under center.

The 11 personnel numbers are what stand out to me. We had some success running with Mosley in motion and Cooper hitting the crease. Why does a run need to go for 20 to keep us interested? Five yards puts Arch in a much better situation on the next snap. The blocking needs work, and Arch has to quit leaving throws out there when he does have time. But Sark also has to recognize what this group is doing well and stick with it long enough to build a drive.

To add a little salt to the wound; Venables has a reputation for picking up signals, and OU has Parker Livingstone, who knows Sark’s offense. Watch Guillory on that last interception. He breaks straight to the spot like he knows what’s coming. With the blitz timed perfectly, I can’t help wondering if OU knew the play before the snap.

Sometimes I wonder if Sark’s obsession with big plays is rubbing off on Arch. Neither seems particularly interested in just moving the chains.

I think Sark values big plays more than consistently moving the chains. OU was allowing 23.1% on third down, and with two weeks to prepare, we went 3-for-13. Cooper was running well inside but barely touched it in the second half. Arch’s last pick looked predetermined, with a receiver coming open underneath. Sometimes taking five yards is better than chasing twenty.

Yes, we should score more against the defenses left on the schedule, but that doesn’t mean we’ve fixed anything. OU came in allowing 23.1% on third down. After two weeks to prepare, Texas went 3-for-13. Same 23.1%. Arch’s last pick looked predetermined to me. He threw right into the blitz while a receiver appeared to be coming open across the middle. I want to see Sark and Arch figure out how to beat a good defense, not just put up bigger numbers against weaker ones.

What’s the spread?

My biggest worry Saturday is OU's trick plays. They can't run it (131st in the country, under 3 yards a carry), they're awful on third down, and they've put the ball on the ground 10 times already. Meanwhile, our defense is holding teams under 100 rushing yards and just sacked Tennessee 10 times. Venables knows what he's up against. I'm expecting a flea flicker, a reverse pass, a fake punt near midfield, anything to steal a possession or a cheap touchdown. If one of those hits, the whole stadium changes. Their crowd wakes up, their guys start believing, and all of a sudden a team that couldn't move the ball is hanging around in the fourth quarter. We almost learned that the hard way in Knoxville. Tennessee got an extra possession off an onside kick that never should have stood, and we nearly let that game slip. Sark's right about running the ball and winning the turnover battle. But this is Texas-OU. A 2-2 team can make life miserable for No. 1 with a couple plays nobody saw coming. Stay home. Keep contain. Don't bite on every fake. And special teams better be locked in on every kick. Make them earn every point and we win going away. Hand them a couple cheap touchdowns and it's anybody's game. Hook 'em.

For those in the know; whatever happened with Traylon Shead at Texas and why didn’t it work out better?

Hasn’t he been working out with the team up to the time of this decision?

Loser of LSU v Aggy is wobbling on the ropes and waiting for the knockout shot.

Surprised they didn’t build a Jackie Sherrill statue.

For a game in late November, I like his focus!!!

Yards for Roberts?

This is about as good an outcome as Texas could have hoped for once Goosby went down. A bone bruise from a hyperextension, with no reported ACL/MCL/meniscus damage, changes this from a potentially season-altering injury into a temporary offensive-line management problem.

LSU is trying to solve a math problem more schools are starting to face. Revenue sharing with athletes, rising roster costs and years of coaching buyouts have created a gap that donations alone can't close. The answer isn't just asking boosters for more. LSU is exploring a corporate entity it would own and control, one that invests in outside businesses to generate recurring revenue. Reports that the school already sold 10% of its future media rights for $100 million have been disputed, and no deal has been signed. The trend is still hard to miss. Boosters, ticket sales and TV money no longer cover what it costs to compete at the top, and schools are starting to raise capital more like businesses. Utah has partnered with a private equity firm, and Kentucky, Michigan State and Clemson have all set up commercial arms.

I thought Petitti's comments were interesting. He basically said if Congress can't get a bill done, the next step is working out CSC changes with the other conferences. If that doesn't work, the fallback is self-governance. He also made a point of saying that doesn't mean anyone stops playing each other, which tells me he wanted to shut down the breakaway league narrative before it got started. The bigger takeaway is that the SEC and Big Ten don't seem boxed in. A federal bill is one option, not their only option. That's probably why they're in no rush to meet congressional deadlines. The catch is that self-governance doesn't solve the legal problem. Without antitrust protection, you're back to writing your own rules and hoping they survive the next lawsuit. That's the exact problem Congress is trying to solve.

The associated-entity fight is what's really holding this bill up, mostly because there's no clean answer to it. The loophole is simple enough. Schools are capped on what they can share directly, so the big programs find ways to move extra money through multimedia partners, sponsors, and other affiliated businesses. Nebraska's the best example. The CSC threw out deals for 18 players after deciding Playfly counted as an associated entity and the contracts had no real business purpose. But not every Learfield or Playfly deal is fake. Those companies have thousands of legitimate sponsorships and media relationships, and you can't just assume every dollar tied to them is circumvention. Leave it wide open, though, and the biggest spenders keep building rosters outside the cap anyway. That's the whole problem. Everybody agrees there needs to be a ceiling. Nobody has figured out how to stop the cheating without dragging a lot of real business down with it. Which is why this is the piece that still isn't resolved.

One more thought, it appears the media rights fight is basically over, and the SEC and Big Ten won it. Pooling is voluntary now, and there's language saying nobody can sue them for sitting it out. What's actually holding things up is enforcement. They're not signing off on a bigger cap unless the associated-entity loophole is really closed, and I don't blame them. Otherwise the number means nothing and their own schools just keep escalating right past it. They also want the nine-year sunset gone, better antitrust protection so this doesn't just end up back in court anyway, and some assurance that a $22.5M retention pool stacked on a court-approved settlement cap actually holds up legally. That last one is Petitti's own point, and it's a fair one. He wants to read the language before he commits to it. None of that strikes me as unreasonable. But none of it is small either, and every one of those asks buys them more time. If they think they can do better next offseason, there's no cost to just waiting this out.

The biggest development today is what didn't happen. The SEC and Big Ten had a 9 a.m. deadline to give Congress their position on the revised bill, and they let it come and go, scheduling more calls with their presidents instead. That tells me they're still negotiating, not endorsing. And look how far the bill has already moved toward them. Media-rights pooling is now explicitly voluntary, with language barring lawsuits against conferences that stay out. The expansion limit goes to 19 members. There's a $20 million retention pool on top of the $21.3 million revenue-sharing cap, plus another $5 million restricted to women's sports, putting the total around $46 million. They're reportedly still pushing to get that full $25 million unrestricted, along with tighter recruiting language and killing the nine-year sunset on the cap. A month ago the question was whether the SEC and Big Ten would accept Congress's bill. Now Congress is writing a bill for them to accept, and they're still not saying yes. Whether they finally sign off probably determines if this reaches the Senate floor before Aug. 7 or slips into the fall.

The misconception here is that the media-rights fight is about forcing the SEC and Big Ten into a TV pool. It never was. Joining has always been voluntary. The real question is whether the final bill keeps enough incentives, or consequences, that "voluntary" quietly turns into "you'd better join." Postseason access was the actual lever, which is why Sankey went after it. Take that out and the section sits in the bill doing nothing. Those two keep cutting their own deals, and a pool without their inventory isn't the $4-8 billion everybody's been selling. So: political win for Cody Campbell, policy win for the SEC and Big Ten. He gets to say Congress passed a national framework. They get to say they protected the model that already runs the sport. But did we fix anything? The biggest spenders are already operating around these caps through associated entities. If the bill just legalizes what they're already doing, that's not a ceiling, that's a floor.

I agree. If you're going to put a cap on what players can make, the players have to be part of that conversation. You can't have Congress, the conferences and the schools decide among themselves what athletes are allowed to earn and expect that to be the end of it. If college sports wants the stability of the NFL model: spending limits, enforceable rules, etc.; eventually they're going to have to accept the other side of that model too. The players get a seat at the table.