closetojumping

I already told you I don’t care what you believe. You are blissfully ignorant and I am fine leaving you in that happy condition.

Evidence? Like I'm a prosecuting attorney or something? Good luck getting people to go on record regarding such matters, particularly since the era is now past. People in sports media, including people who cover recruiting, all know what the bag game was and who played it. There is zero incentive for any of them to go out and publicly start naming names and explaining the machine. I don't have a problem with that, either. I have a problem with ESPN, who has many people working there that damned well know how it all worked, publishing a hagiography on the worst perpetuator of the cheating machine, however. Beyond that, I had friends who worked for years on Saban's staff. I've also listened to assistants of his tell stories about all of it. A famous WR from the Houston area was bought by Bama for what would look like nothing now from a street agent running an auction. Bama missed on a Houston DT at the same school because Jimbo and FSU had more money to throw at the spot. Same is true for when a Mississippi DT went to play for Fisher at ATM. Stories about the ones who got away are bizarrely easier and more common to hear those involved recount. Like I said, you don't have to believe me, but I'm not just wistfully projecting fantasy. I've been doing what I can to shine a light on the cheating game since Chip Kelly bought Lache Seastrunk for $25k and Yahoo!, with help, later ran a story on it with literal receipts as part of their evidence. Also, Saban accidentally admits that the bag game no longer worked in the freaking documentary. He says he retired because of all of the money that entered the space in NIL and he wasn't ready to compete with that. "Now everyone is paying players!" What he's saying without saying it is that things were a lot easier when only a few teams, his included, were paying players.

Oh man. I wasn’t projecting. I’m not here to convince you of anything, so believe what you want. That said any premise around “everyone does it” or “everyone was clean or other people would have said something “ are each so completely wrongheaded that they’re almost impossible to help someone who believes either idea to become disavowed of their illusions.

Did they dedicate an episode to explaining how Saban fully weaponized the player auction landscape and led Alabama to being one of the major buyers in what was basically an annual illegal auction? Or is that just never going to be critically looked into by anyone? Alabama was a lead dog in a closed market of about 10 schools every year who worked with street agents and the proverbial uncles to buy players in recruiting when it was fundamentally illegal. Give Saban credit though, once he realized that legally being able to pay players removed his competitive advantage, he was smart enough to deuce out and take the massive ESPN bag and retire. 7 titles, yadda yadda. This dude was the Sammy Sosa of CFB coaching. Could he have been great without cheating? We’ll never know. He wasn’t at Michigan State and he damned sure wasn’t with the Dolphins.

I got to watch NOLA Isidore Newman play St. John’s (Houston) last Friday night. It was eye-opening in that the level of competition really is insanely low. My son plays for SJS, so I’ve watched them plenty in 3 years. They’ve had a couple of guys that went on to play college ball, but not a FBS one among them that I recall. Watching Newman, they didn’t look like many, if any, either. It makes sense for SJS as they’re an academic power and sports aren’t a priority. I assume that could be the case with Newman. Point is, yeah, even if Manning has all of the tools and the mind for everything, I think everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, vastly underestimated his learning curve starting point for big time college ball. The good news is that ratcheting up a learning curve on a subject matter in which someone is both invested and bright can often be non-linear. In QB terms, Joe Burrow’s journey and performance in college reflects that perfectly. I feel like we’re witnessing something in that same form with Manning. Saturday will tell me how right or wrong that notion for him is, I guess. Here’s hoping. Good article, nonetheless.

I wouldn’t give Baker Mayfield the heat of my piss, but sure, that’s a nice move and smart donation.

OU will be playing this weekend without Fodje, maybe Maikkula and maybe Fasusi. Three starting OLs with significant injuries. They’ve been poopooing Fasusi’s shoulder injury all camp and then he had to be pulled against UTEP because he was ineffective due to the pain. The other two guys both have knee injuries. OU always talks up their health heading into a game and then multiple guys are out, strangely. Okoye has an oblique injury and will also be out, leaving them playing either the 5 star bust or a true Freshman against the Michigan tackles. OU has OL and running game issues. People are overreacting to Michigan’s outlook due to a bad game against a good G6 team.

Thanks for the update. Red Five had been telling me that this guy was this cycle’s TJ Shanahan and just wasn’t good enough to start at Westlake but could play for anyone in the P4. Whew.

That's awesome. Congrats to Bobby, Gerry, and everyone else. I'm happy for you guys.

To each their own, but I wasn’t calling out your post. I get why Boyd was listed, but felt like Broughton was an omission. I’ve been avidly watching or listening to Texas football since the early 80’s, so I don’t think it’s a recency bias thing for me. For those that follow, I think Broughton was his senior class’s “Russell Gaskamp Award” winner, which also amused me. Anyway, fun stuff.

There isn’t an alternate universe, much less this one, in which I would take Reid Boyd over Vernon Broughton.

6 ducks 5 longhorns 4 domers 2 buckeyes I like PFF and this was a fun list, but it certainly has limited utility in certain areas. As an example, I don't trust their CFB CB ratings at all. They're always sketchy and don't usually translate to how CBs are valued in the draft, or even how they're schemed for during the season at the CFB level.

Their mods have been talking for months that this was going to be a small class. They went really big in the last two cycles and like what they have in those groups, so they’re not spending heavy in this cycle and plan to focus a lot of their spend on retention. I guess that can work for schools with less money and excellent coaching and maybe that is Bama now. I am not sure their fanbase has that kind of patience. Bama is staring down the barrel of a shockingly bad season if they start slow. They have nothing proven at QB, an inexperienced OL, no depth at RB, a shaky overall running game, a star WR who is soft as charmin. The defense is in need of a rebuild across the board and the schedule is unforgiving. I know DeBoer is an excellent coach, but if the dude goes 8-5 or worse, that idiotic fanbase isn’t grounded enough to be patient. They’re also poor, so maybe that new extension and buyout simply make Deboer bulletproof for how he wants to build his roster, as long as the players buy into it, I guess.

It's unfortunate, but as Texas fans, we're better off this year, and years going forward, if USC is actually competitive in the Big 10. Riley is damned near 0-fer against any well-coached team that USC has played since his 2022 inaugural season. 0-3 against Utah. 0-2 against Oregon, 0-2 against UW, 1-3 against ND. Those games almost all factored into the playoff landscape. This year, Riley bravely sought to eliminate one of those match-ups for his schedule by getting the Notre Dame game removed. I guess since his teams are so soft, it probably doesn't matter, but it would have been helpful to see Notre Dame have at least one other speed bump on their schedule besides Miami. Instead of a non-con that includes the domers, USC gets to play SJSU, Fresno State and Louisiana. Now, Fresno and Louisiana will actually field good teams in their conferences, but I doubt they'll handle USC. It would be funny, nonetheless. In conference, USC finally plays Ohio State while also getting UW, Oregon, at Penn State, and at Indiana plus a few bottomfeeders. I see a path for 8-4 due to the soft non-con, but assuming the team still takes on the personality of its HC, the prospects of USC going more than 1-4 against their top 5 Big 10 opponents seem unlikely. USC returns a lot on offense, but not a lot of it is high level NFL talent. The same is true on defense, where they look good on returning starts, but are those quality starts by difference makers? Overall, writers and analysts who have been by the USC lockerroom still claim a lack of "dudes" ready to start for them. The sentiments I've read and heard remind me a lot of what we had to hear from national guys during the Strong and Herman eras. I know Patterson is an excellent coach, but a DC in an offensively biased program run by a soft as pudding HC can only do so much. As to buying the guy out after another flop of a year? Good luck finding $80M+ between those couch cushions.