Nm

Lots of box score watchers on here as well as the rest of the internet/sports world, whether they admit it or not. I tend to agree that the consensus outlook on the Vandy game is much different if this single play isn’t overturned. What do y’all think?

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Not gonna lie, I couldn’t stop watching. I regret all 60 seconds of it too.

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Aggy gets their day in the sun. This one was pretty pretty good.

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How many do we take in this class.26 players that leaves 6 players left. What is your best guess of the 6 players and 6 transfers? If you could guess who are 6 transfers you think land?
I will not ask you to guess and not give you my guess.

6 HS players we add


DT Justice Terry
DEJoseph Mbatchou
DEJavion Hilson
LB / WR / RB Michael Terry
CB 1 of Sellers, Holiday, Hawkins
Finish with a top 3-5 class.
Transfers that I would like be lets be real we have no clue

WR BPA love to land the B.Brown kid that can fly.
K/P BPA
DT BPA
DT Jehiem Oatis , Alabama

LB Bangally Kamara, South Carolina​

RB Leshon Williams, Iowa​

It seems like the entire offensse, running and passing game just work a lot better when Bond is 100 percent. Bond must have the ability to get open more effectively than the other receivers. Sure hope he is completely healed by the florida game.

Had us stand and sing.

THE EYES OF TEXAS

Looked like about a hundred of us here.

Apparently its being shipped to Jerusalem. I explained in a prior thread how Trump is fulfilling quite a few prophecies right now (Anti/Pro Israel) but queue this one up. I am sure the "But I thought he was a Nazi" rhetoric will start from the right but this isn't really a political point being made and this has little to do with politics.

I will not state how important this is to biblical prophecy but strap up....shit is about to get real. Trump is matching two opposing sides of Biblical prophecy right now, both lead to the same outcome.

Why the hell does he have this is the first question. For those that do not know why this is important, you need to open your bible.....I will leave it at that.

Anyone that calls themselves a Christian should be extremely alarmed by this if you are at true reader of scripture.

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This kid is impressive. This is how you take a loss and give credit where it is due.

Prepare yourself to be frustrated. A tale of two halves is correct. Starting with the play caller. Will save summary for the end.

Let's start with the fact that Vandy wanted no part of man coverage 2nd half after getting burned twice in the first half. You are going to see a lot of zone.

Pass 1 Vandy with a little roll of the coverage here. 0 is going to come open but Quin has to get rid of this one to the check down because Helm gets roasted. First down here followed by a false start on the very next snap.

Pass 2 Vandy with a little page out of the UGA playbook here as they give a 2 high safety look and turn this in to cover 3 once Quinn turns his back on the play fake. Picture change. Regardless, way too much pressure too soon as 76 does a poor job on his assignment. Pick your poison. Has 0 up top but a long throw to the out and he's running out of field or take Helm which Quinn does. Either way it's becoming evident over the last several weeks that our young recievers are having a hard time recognizing the zones to settle in to. Too many times they are just running through them and not giving Quinn their numbers.

Pass 3 2 weeks in a row blitz comes right in front of Wingo and 2 weeks in a row he carries his route 10 yards down the field and this time runs himself in to over/under coverage. Hard to tell if this is on Wingo or Golden here. Ewers eyes go straight to Golden which tells me that he should have been coming hot. If you'll remember back to the OU game, Wingo caught a ball on a similar pressure and almost took it to the house. If anyone comes hot here, it's likely a touchdown. Instead, it's a sack and OB is going nuts at this point wanting to bench Ewers for holding the ball too long. Nowhere to go for Ewers. Helm turns his guy loose, Campbell does a poor job and they have a man coming free on the left side because of a great job done with the slant by the Vandy d-line.

Pass 4 Ehh I'm not in love with the decision but I get it. I think Ewers was a little impatient here even though it's a pretty dang good ball and a great play by the CB. I think if Quinn looks back he has Golden in the middle of the field but this is getting really nitpicky. Golden is not even when Quinn lets the ball go and the defender has eyes on him at the same time so this is one of those having the benefit of stopping and starting the play over and over. Regardless, both of these were going to be tough throws as Vandy is going to C3 almost exclusively out of C2 or quarters looks at this point. RT is a liability.

Pass 5 - C3 gain. I'm not sure what the left side concept is even supposed to be here. It's a mess down there. Wingo gets re-reouted, Golden is open. Ewers having to quickly step up in the pocket almost before WR's eyes are turned. Look at the difference between Banks and 56 here. 56 gives up at the end of the play and Ewers takes an unneeded shot in the back. There's nothing open here and too much gas on the ball for a RB. Near pick. I give the play call an F and the execution of that play call an F as well. Only thing Ewers has is Golden early and its not near enough for a first down.

Pass 6 First WR screen call of the 2nd half and goes for a first down. Will come back to this in the wrap up.

Pass 7 INT. Again another blitz coming from a shade inside over the WR. Probably not a hot call here but somebody has to see it. Maybe there's some tendencies on tape here because here is another back to the field play action. When Ewers turns, he's got a decision to make. He tries to make a play and the ball gets tipped. Even if he does make the throw, he doesn't see that Helm is covered and this play is shot. Are these things accidental? The defense will tell you they get all the credit for making this happen with the play call. In a perfect world, I guess you could say Ewers should have changed arm angle and grounded this into Helm's feet.

Pass 8 This is where the young WR's need to grow up in a hurry. Wingo runs himself into coverage. And Moore right behind him does the same damn thing. If Moore settles up on the near hash we're 3rd and short at worst. Probably a first down. That's the bad on the WR's If I'm coaching Quinn I'm telling him to fire this thing outside the numbers to Golden up top. Long deep throw but neither of the DB's are in a great position to make a solid play on the ball IMO. Can't go broke taking a profit and we're at 3rd and 6 now.

Pass 9 Ewers believes in Wingo. 1 on 1 to the outside and he takes his man. Nothing wrong with it. Helm also has the first here if Quinn needs to work back.

Pass 10 Ol check down Quinn. He gets hated on for these and rightly so sometimes but not here. Middle of the field closes only a 2 man route concept. Check it down and move on.

Pass 11 3rd and long here after a hold on Niblack. 56 give this play no hope. Also Blue if you're going to chip, chip the MF'n end bro. Wingo was getting ready to take the top off this defense. I don't know if Quinn could have hit it or not but safety had no hope if you continue watching the back view.

Pass 12 I'm not sure what's going on here with the play call regardless. I think Quinn likes his one on one up here. But there's nothing there. If Bolden makes any effort to work back to the ball and separate, he probably gets a holding or PI call as the defender has both hands on him. You could make the case that he could go after Moore here at the bottom of the screen but there's another zone defender out there at the bottom we can't see so I can't say for sure.

Pass 13 First real misread for me in the 2nd half and I'm not sure if Sark said, I need you to throw this MF'r deep or if Quinn just made his mind up to let one fly. Felt like a get back play but who knows. Another hitch and it's another sack as Campbell gets beat again. Golden is the read at the bottom of the screen but if you pause when Quinn is getting hit, Golden is just starting on his in route. Would take great anticipation and a great throw to put that one on the number.

Pass 14 Let's get picky. This turns out well. Ewers working the right side of the field first and there's nothing there. At this point if he just sets his feet while working backside he has Bolden a lot sooner. Instead (and maybe justifiably so as Majors is getting dog walked back to him) he drops his eyes on the rush. Luckily, he makes something happen with it because the cat has arm talent. He gets his eyes back down the field which is a good sign but it's late and this needs to get better. These are the little things that if he puts it all together will win big games. This was not great QB work in the pocket but turned out ok. You can tell the rush is bothering him.

Pass 15 Rush is bothering Quinn. We won't call out the hold on 56 to stop a sack either. Goodness he's gone backwards. Nothing open here and part of that is due to the fact that 81 has no zone awareness. He has to work away from the LB if he wants the ball. Instead he covers himself. Ewers get's happy feet, at least he threw one away? Blah, don't like any of it really.

Pass 16 Drawn up this way. Don't love the play call. All you are getting is zone. This concept smokes man coverage. Not fooling anyone with all eyes on the QB. Probably need to take your one on one to Helm up top here.

Pass 17 Vandy showed too early here. Quinn got to see the picture before the snap. Just waiting on Wingo to work back in the zone and this is a laser. He gets a lot of crap about his arm strength but this one had some juice. Maybe that deep shot to Wingo early did pay dividends? Not so quick to jump underneath here now.

Pass 18 A lot is said about a QB reading the defense. Moore has to see the blitz here. If he just runs to the void, it's an easy 6. Instead, he stems the route, twice, Campbell gets destroyed and we have a man free off the edge. It's the little things. All he has to do is see the blitz and come hot. Quinn's all over it. Unfortunately, nobody else is and he has to airmail it.

So that's it. Other than poor execution by the entire offense, this game wasn't particularly ugly for Ewers, unlike the OU game or even parts of the Georgia game.

A few things stand out: I counted six screens and quick throws designed at the line of scrimmage in the first half, and we had over 100 yards after the catch (YAC) in that period. In the second half, we only attempted one such play, which went for 7 yards and a first down, but then we didn’t go back to it. It’s puzzling why Sark sometimes moves away from strategies that are working.

Vandy didn't return to man coverage after Quinn connected with Moore for a touchdown in the first half. Instead, they sat back in zone coverage, mixing in some pressures, but their pass defense wasn't anything special. The issues facing this offense stem from a few areas. First, the O-line hasn’t been playing at a dominant level. They might’ve barely passed against Vandy because of the run game, but it was close, in my opinion. The other issue is the recognition of zone coverage by the WRs and TEs. Too often, they run directly into coverage, which puts immense pressure on Quinn to be perfect in longer down-and-distance situations. This leads him to hold the ball longer, which allows pressures to get through more frequently. Should he rise to that challenge? Yes. Will he succeed every time? No. Analytics show that third-and-long situations favor the defense. Too many penalties; false starts, holds, etc. have kept setting this offense back, making the margin for error even smaller. We also need to find a way to run the ball consistently. This is not an air raid offense; it's a balanced one, and we have to get the run game going early and often.

The QB often shoulders all the blame, and the backup is always the most popular player on every team. Quinn is improving. Is he delivering elite play for all four quarters? Not yet. He’s had some frustrating moments and lapses in judgment, which you could argue shouldn’t be happening in his third year. But he’s closer to elite than some may think, and he’s been improving every week since the OU game. It’s deeper than just the numbers. The numbers show that something went wrong; the video shows exactly what went wrong.

Texas is establishing tendencies on film that other teams are picking up. Sark loves to repeat runs that have gained big yards, on back-to-back plays even if they come from different formations. He likes the back-to-the-field play action by the QB, and he’s eager to get the deep game going, often forcing routes into heavily covered zones. The route designs fall on Sark, but the WRs also need to recognize when to settle into open spots instead of running into coverage. If, and I believe it’s possible before season’s end, the WR group improves at reading zone coverage and stops running themselves into tight coverage, this offense has the potential to explode.

How many do we take in this class.26 players that leaves 6 players left. What is your best guess of the 6 players and 6 transfers? If you could guess who are 6 transfers you think land?
I will not ask you to guess and not give you my guess.

6 HS players we add


DT Justice Terry
DEJoseph Mbatchou
DEJavion Hilson
LB / WR / RB Michael Terry
CB 1 of Sellers, Holiday, Hawkins
Finish with a top 3-5 class.
Transfers that I would like be lets be real we have no clue

WR BPA love to land the B.Brown kid that can fly.
K/P BPA
DT BPA
DT Jehiem Oatis , Alabama

LB Bangally Kamara, South Carolina​

RB Leshon Williams, Iowa​

Looking for a couple of cheap tickets for the Kentucky game - as some of y'all know, I live out of state and travel into ATX for OB and RosterWatch work and to visit @Alex Dunlap.

Am planning to come in for the Kentucky game with my wife in November for the first time.

Appreciate y'all

So who had TEXAS/Vandy as a Top 25 match up in the pre-season? Would have been an amazing prop bet in Vegas but we certainly did not see this as such a tilt nor did we see this as a “bounce back” game for the Horns.

Instead what we saw was another “tale of 2 halves” game with TEXAS looking very strong in the 1st half then very sloppy in the 2nd half We also see a very uncomfortable pattern re-emerge from early in Sark’s tenure. That is losing the 2nd half of games and turning solid wins into nail biters (or previously into losses). Unlike the problems vs Georgia, where TEXAS was outplayed and out schemed, this was far more a problem of execution. Our team does not have the “killer instinct” to take over games late and put weaker teams away. The penalties are back in force, 8 v Georgia, 10 this weekend and seemed to happen at the worst of times. TEXAS had 2 turnovers, in both cases INTs coming off tipped passes giving Vandy short fields to work with. Vandy would convert both those turnovers into 14 points. We’ve not seen a “pressure” stat yet but Quinn played an AMAZING 1st half and overall a decent game, playing under far too much pressure. Disappointing as TEXAS came into the season the favorite for the Joe Moore/Best offensive line award and our offensive line is not the strength we once thought is was.

TEXAS could only muster 6 points in the 2nd half between shooting itself in the foot while Vancy continuing to scratch and claw their way back into the game. The most painful of 2nd half miscues was Jayden Blue taking a 20+ yard run down to the 5 before TEXAS had to settle for a FG after 2 straight rushes were stuffed and an incomplete pass. coring TDs in the Red Zone was a problem last year and seems to be a rising issue again. Meanwhile Vandy would go on 2 long (8 play) drives ending in touchdowns to make the game close in the 2nd.

Most were looking for a “statement game” from the Horns, sorry fans, TEXAS did not deliver. TEXAS should never have needed to recover an onside kick as time was almost over to secure a win. Not sure what TEXAS needs to do to focus and execute. Hard to point the finger at Sark as schematically, he did very well. And Coach PK’s guys generally balled out again. But with a chance to put a fork in Vandy, the Horns came up short on both sides of the ball.

This team is leaning hard on it’s defense to win and the D played well but gave up two 8 play drives in the 2nd half resulting in touchdowns. Penalties would play a MEGA part of each drive. One was a really weak defensive pass interference call which likely would have been an INT if the Vandy WR was not clearly holding our CB. The other drive kept alive when a pick 6 was reversed thanks to a bone headed helmet-to-helmet targeting penalty on their QB. Typical of the unforced errors we saw throughout the game.

Welcome to the SEC, there do not seem to be any easy games and it is better to win ugly than lose pretty. But do we know anymore about this team today than we did after the Georgia game? Today we can only say, not really.

As for our “awards watch”, well after this week, the Joe Moore Award has been lost and Ewers Heisman bid went away with his injury time off and his uneven play.

Offensive Player of the Game

Quinn Ewers-showed why he is QB 1 with a brilliant 1st half (19-21 for 211 yards and 3 TDs). At one point, he completed 17 passes in a row. followed by a pedestrian 2nd half (8-16, 77 yards) an INT in each half, both off tipped passes. He spread the ball well to 8 different pass catchers. Several big pass plays called back due to penalties.

Honorable Mention Tre Wisner 17 for 79 yards and a 4.6 ypc average to go with 5 catches for 36 yards. Would be better but he had a long run called back due to penalty.


Defensive Player of the Game

Jelani McDonald 5 solo tackles 2 assists and a tackle for loss

Special teams player of the Game

Silas Bolton-3 punt returns for 42 yards



Stats that Matter

• 1-4 TEXAS records their first win at Vandy
• 4-8-1 TEXAS improves it’s record vs Vandy as we resume a series we have not played since the 1920s.
• 3 TEXAS gave Vandy three 1st downs by penalty
• 10-107 TEXAS penalties on the night, not quality football, 2 of them key to 14 points
• 1-3 TEXAS with only 1 touchdown off 3 trips into the Red Zone, not quality football
• 6-14 TEXAS outscored in the 2nd half.

On Deck

Bye week before Florida pays the Horns a visit at DKR. The dreaded 11 AM start which will be the same for the Pigs game the following week. Every team TEXAS will face from here out will be in “beat the Horns, salvage the season” mode. Florida will be no different. At 4-3 they will need to win 2 to go bowling but their next 4 are Georgia, @TEXAS, LSU and Ole Miss before they play Florida State. They will need to pull at least one upset of that brutal gauntlet to play in the postseason. TEXAS needs to win out to be assured of a playoff bid though an additional loss will not eliminate the Horns.

Coach Flood needs to use the bye week to refocus on his once dominate offensive line. Sark needs to get the entire team to execute better or TEXAS’ goal of a playoff berth will “vanish like a fart in the wind” (bonus points if you can name the movie that line is from) For the 2nd time this year, TEXAS will face a freshman QB after a more experienced starter was lost for the season due to injuries. As a point of comparison, Florida’s scoring offense and defense rank very similar to Vandy’s. We cut out the mistakes, our prediction is:

We keep playing sloppy, then this is another Vandy style dog fight.

All we know is TEXAS has got to start executing better, especially in the 2nd half. And that trip to Fayette-nam starting to look a bit daunting.

Oh and don’t look now but the “Fighting Texas Agroids” are unbeaten in conference and leading the SEC. They feature a very good defensive line and a mobile QB. Our game at the end of November will be no cake walk. It’s the bye week and we’re fans, we get to look ahead.

Fighting Mack Brown’s

Highlighted by an 84 yard pick 6, the Fighting Mack Browns torched UVa to keep their slim bowl hopes alive. Need to win 2 of the last 4 to play in the post season. Outside of FSU, not many sure wins.


If we had a playoff vote

1. Oregon-put a beat down on a good Illinois team,
2. Georgia-Tenn their last big SEC test, win out they face LSU or TEXAS
3. Miami-Match up with Clemon coming in the ACC title but don’t sleep on Pitt. 3 ACC teams in the playoffs?
4. BYU-likely facing ISU in the title game, both should be playoff teams.

Our 5-12 Today



Still in the hunt: Tennessee, LSU Ole Miss, ISU, Pitt, and Bama



Game highlights.


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I’m looking for some hot takes on this fine Monday afternoon. Drop your hot takes below (sports related or not)

My current hottest take is that analytics nerds have been given too much power in the sport of football, and potentially other sports as well. We hear all about the odds in certain situations. They have theories for why it’s smart to go for two if you score a TD in the 4th after being down by 14 points, but too often they don’t take momentum and human elements into play. Even worse, a lot of times you’ll see these analytics nerds argue that momentum does not even exist in football or sports in general. It’s as if they think the game is played by robots.

I understand the odds are high that I might get a first down on 4th and 3 on my opponents 20 yard line if I’m up by 8 points, but I also know that a FG could be the difference between being up by one score or two. I also understand the “odds” say that I’ll get a 2 point conversion 50% of the time, so I should “technically” go for two if I’m down by 14 in the 4th and score a TD, because theoretically if I don’t get it the first time I’m almost guaranteed to get it the next time… But that’s not how football and momentum works! If I don’t get the two point conversion I’m now down by 8 points, and my guys know that not only do they need to score again, they need to score AND get a two point conversion in order to send it to OT. I’d rather go for two on the 2nd potential TD so that we all know what’s at stake, or we can kick the extra point to go to OT.

TL;DR Football is not played in a vacuum. I believe analytics has a place in the sport, but has become too heavily weighted when making decisions that have human elements effecting them.



Let’s see your hot takes!!

...do things really change for the better for the Cowboys? Does the Jones family continue a fine tradition of NFL management?

I lost count of how many times we went to see them in Austin, SA, Houston, DFW, etc.

What could have been...

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Opinion: With light schedule, Texas is quickly making SEC friends - or is that enemies?​

Matt Hayes
USA TODAY NETWORK

Let’s begin with the obvious: we’re 25 days into October, and Texas still hasn’t played a true SEC road game.
We’re eight weeks into the college football season, and Texas – the wealthiest and most powerful sports program in all of college sports, and the prized jewel of the most recent round of conference expansion – will finally on Saturday play its first true SEC road game.
At longtime SEC lightweight Vanderbilt.
Excuse me while I unfurl this doublewide conspiracy flag, wave it wildly and plant it in firmly in the mud.
Or as an SEC athletic director told me this week, "more than a handful” of the conference athletic directors are furious about the Texas schedule and optics it presents. How it looks – take a deep breath, Deep South – like the Longhorns already run the league.
And away we go.
We’re barely four months into We’re Texas And You’re Not in the SEC (ask the good folks at the Big 12, they’ll explain it), and I’m not saying there’s buyer remorse, but it’s not all as hunky-dory as it looks.
Maybe that’s why the league office came out guns blazing in response to Texas fans last week throwing garbage and other assorted nonsense on the field during a welcome to the SEC paddling from Georgia.


SEC commissioner Greg Sankey fined Texas some walkin' around cash ($250,000), and required the school to use “all available resources” to identify fans who threw trash on the field (and at Georgia players) and prohibit them from attending future games. You know, every good conspiracy needs a useful idiot.
Then the SEC declared one more misstep, and the ability to sell alcohol at Texas games could be altered.
Before you think this is drastic, heavy lifting, understand that Sankey and the presidents did the same thing to Tennessee not so long ago when Vols fans threw trash on the field (and at Ole Miss players) because they, too, knew more than officials. Tennessee's alcohol sales were also threatened, which is sort of like threatening oxygen for the rest of us.
Officials at Tennessee eventually rounded up all of 25 fans who couldn’t behave, did what had to be done, and no one throws anything on the field in Knoxville anymore.
This is the way the SEC works: all for one, one for all. Everyone earns equal shares of the billions in media rights, and everyone earns similar punishments for similar incidents.
But as the great George Orwell once wrote in Animal Farm, “All SEC teams are equal, but some SEC teams are more equal than others.” Or something like that.
It is here where we circle back to the whole schedule thing, an offensive wink and nod to Texas and its first run at the big time. If you think the league’s athletic directors aren’t happy about the gift road to the SEC championship game, the conference coaches are livid.
I spoke to three coaches this week, and each not only confirmed the rift about the laughable schedule given to Texas in its inaugural season, but each also made sure to text Georgia coach Kirby Smart and thank him for making it perfectly clear that Texas may be a member of the conference — but Texas hasn’t come close to experiencing the conference.
Prior to playing host to Georgia, Texas played wildly overrated Michigan, the worst team in the SEC (Mississippi State) at home, the worst Oklahoma team in decades in a neutral site game, and three non-conference punching bags at home.
The Bulldogs then rolled into Austin, and star quarterback Carson Beck played the worst game of his career. Didn’t throw a touchdown pass, had three interceptions and his receivers dropped nine passes. And it was still 24-0 before you could say all hat, no cattle.
Smart may have wailed after the game that “no one believed” in Georgia, but you better believe everyone in the SEC not named Bevo wanted Georgia to do what Georgia does against every team not named Alabama.
Every team in the SEC wants another Vanderbilt win this weekend, and another goalpost thrown in the Cumberland River. They want Florida coach Billy Napier to save his job two weeks after that, and Arkansas to win its third consecutive game against its former Southwest Conference rival, and Kentucky to find its big game mojo, and Texas A&M to extract 12 years of frustration from Bevo’s hide.
Three of those games (Vanderbilt, Arkansas, Texas A&M) are on the road, where life in the meatgrinder league is difficult no matter who or where you’re playing. It’s just that, you know, Texas got Vanderbilt, Arkansas and Texas A&M.
While Georgia got Texas, Alabama and Ole Miss.
No other SEC team went further than Oct. 5 without playing a true road game. Oklahoma, Texas’ expansion brother, played its first true SEC road game a month before the Longhorns ― at Auburn, one of the three toughest road venues in the conference.
Texas got Vanderbilt, the easiest place to play in the SEC. if you don't believe me, ask Nick Saban.
Look, this isn't a raging, shoot first, aim second conspiracy. These are facts. And because the SEC decided to stay with its current schedule for the 2025 season, Texas will play the same teams in Year 2 with home sites swapped.
Texas, everyone, is quickly making friends in its new conference.

Not long after the SEC’s response to Texas fans, Longhorns president Jay Hartzell published an open letter to fans, stating, among other things, that “these actions made a bad early impression on Georgia and our new conference colleagues.”
Don’t worry, Jay. The Texas reputation precedes it.
The difference is, you’re not in the Big 12 anymore.

Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X @MattHayesCFB.