Ketch's 10 Thoughts From the Weekend (Channeling my inner Matthew... )

[Ketchum]

My irritation with this site is that you have all taken this one source's opinion and presents it as a done deal despite what you yourselves have previously written. Then you talk to your subscribers like a sage addressing the village idiot when someone dares to question it. It's arrogant and condescending . You like on by telling everyone that your thinking is the only logical way of thinking and the rest of us shouldn't date question. It's pretty poor to treat your customers line they are idiots . Especially since other websites are contradicting what you are putting out as chiseled in stone.

it should speak to the level of our source that we believe his opinion trumps all other opinions.

It's not happening, which must mean some of you think we have weak-ass access.

 

[Ketchum]

@Ketchum

1. We talk a lot about optics - wouldn't the better move to be to start Shane and IF he struggles, swoopes come off the bench to cheers rather than boos?

2. Let's say that's not the plan - you asserted "the coaches aren't stupid" - are you sure about that?

1. I would live and die with Buechele and have Swoopes relegated to the 18-Wheeler as much as possible.

2. What do you think I would think after all thee years?

 

[Ketchum]

It appears that @Ketchum chooses not to address this inconsistency in his and Anwar's sourcing/reporting. They could not be farther apart.

good grief. I literally view you as the worst poster on the site right now. I would suggest going back to your hole. My tolerance for someone who is only here to try and shit on me, and doing a terrible job in doing so at that, is very low.

Something to chew on. This is my "be careful" moment for you.

 

[Ketchum]

I'm fairly certain we would be no better off with Garrett Gilbert having been in the program the last 5 years. If Swoopes has the same 4th year as Gilbert, we are gonna be f'd. A QBR of 105 with a 1:1 TD to INT is TURRIBLE. Keep in mind, it wasn't until Gilbert's 5th year he actually did anything of substance. His worst game of the season came against 4-8 TCU to give u an idea of how good he was that year.

Gilbert was a sophomore that had 13 starts under his belt when he left.

I think it's safe to say with added development, Texas would have had its best quarterbacking of the last six seasons.

 

[Ketchum]

Mr. Ketch,
I haven't even read the rest of your article, but your summation of what is taking place with the QB's I think, In My Opinion, is SPOT on. Thank you for the insight. If some will look at the "Logic" to your points, maybe they can put their pitch forks and torches down for a while, trust that these gentlemen are trying to do what is best for Texas Football, and get on board and support their team...

Bless you.

 

[Big Ed Bookman]

CS would be roasted by the fans and media if Swoopes was not ready to perform in a backup role.

CS and Swoopes will be roasted when Swoopes throws his first incomplete pass. Should he throw an interception, beer bottles will be hurled. Should he fumble, fires will break out in the stands.

My heart goes out to Swoops when he makes a mistake - the pressure on him is enormous.

 

[jsg1554]

You again? lulz. Keep fighting the awful fight.

a. I haven't asked you to ignore anything. I've implored using context and as much of it as possible.

b. No one has reported that is a near sure-fire starter. That hasn't happened. That might be why logic isn't supporting it.

But.. Anwar said that Swoopes was "not even close" ahead of Buechele!

Gotta love getting held up on one phrase in one article 3 weeks before the first game starts. Strong knows what kind of hornets nest he's messing with if Swoopes beats out Buechele week 1 and subsequently struggles. Sure we've seen him crumble in front of a live crowd. If Swoopes starts, just know that Buechele isn't ready, that isn't the end of the world. We don't give the full court press to a new OC without some assurance that Strong won't get fired short of a 4-8 colossal failure. Who knows, maybe we get a complete redo of last year. Swoopes falls apart against ND, but Buechele doesn't look great either. We bench Swoopes after week 1, Buechele looks like the future against Rice and Cal and then looks exactly like Heard through conference play. Granted this is a better team with a consistent offensive philosophy, so we pick up a few wins against Iowa St and Tech. We are back at square 1 going into 2017, this time without Swoopes and are left hoping Sam Ehlinger is the future.

 

[Ketchum]

Fair enough. So I'm assuming you don't agree with the "source" that said TS was expected to be named the starter and was head and shoulders better?

That's what was written last week. And it set off a nuclear war around here. And now it seems that the entire report was wrong.

a. It was never reported that Swoopes is expected to be the starter. The source indicated that as right now (Thursday) believes Swoopes is a clear leader.

Anwar and I have both stated that this isn't what we would do, but we can't be any clearer that we believe our info comes from very high up the totem pole and we absolutely believe it reflects the view from the top.

 

[Big Ed Bookman]

Nadia Comăneci

Nadia Comăneci is a Romanian former gymnast, winner of three gold medals at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal and the first gymnast to be awarded a perfect score of 10 in an Olympic gymnastics event. She also won two gold medals at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.

View embedded media

How about a change of pace?

Did anybody else notice the rack Nadia bought for herself after she hung up her gymnast slippers?

She went from a AA to a DD - Don't believe she still has 'em but for a while she had an incredible shirt full.

Just thought I'd mention it.

 

[Ketchum]

There may not be 90k Longhorn fans there but it will be about 85k and 20!k Irish fans.

That's what I'm thinking.

 

[DB1984]

no, the number of people not getting it within the context of the number of people reading it is quite small.

No. There must be many of us just too tired to keep saying the same thing in multiple threads, but [sigh] here goes......

Mods keep using the word "logic" when they conclude that sharing reps 50/50 means TS is significantly ahead of SB (otherwise SB would get ALL of the reps) when there are not enough facts to support only one "logical" conclusion. IMHO the only thought process that would conclude that TS is waaaaay ahead is if a senior coach told me that....and one told Anwar just that (I have never doubted Anwar's reporting). I do not know what to do with such a statement because it flies in the face of LITERALLY EVERYTHING else that I've read or saw (e.g. spring game film).

Now even you are discounting the full quote from the highly placed source's "TS is waaaaay ahead of SB and it's not even close" by saying the following:

I personally don't believe either quarterback is capable right now of being way ahead.

That line is not the thing everyone should remain obsessed about. I've literally paid it very little attention other than to understand that the source felt very firm about his position.

So what am I left to think? Why should I discount the source's clear words? But IF the source feels that TS is only slightly ahead of SB then the 50/50 reps could just be a way to keep testing and evaluating them? Sounds logical...I can live with that....but TS waaaaaay ahead/not even close? Tough to swallow.

 

[DB1984]

My irritation with this site is that you have all taken this one source's opinion and presents it as a done deal despite what you yourselves have previously written. Then you talk to your subscribers like a sage addressing the village idiot when someone dares to question it. It's arrogant and condescending . You like on by telling everyone that your thinking is the only logical way of thinking and the rest of us shouldn't date question. It's pretty poor to treat your customers line they are idiots . Especially since other websites are contradicting what you are putting out as chiseled in stone.

 

[Ketchum]

Ketchum wrote:
The first one is that Tyrone Swoopes and Shane Buechele are both taking shared reps with the first-team offense. We can quibble about who has more snaps on any given day because those numbers are constantly varied, but not one person in the world would claim that up until now it has not been a shared position.

Anyone disagree? Ok, let’s move on.

The second thing that we can all agree on is that if the coaches know with absolute certainty that Shane Buechele is going to start the opener, he needs to be taking every first-team rep that his human hands can get. We’re talking about a true freshman potentially playing in his first game in prime-time on a Sunday night against a top 10 team that just happens to be the most well-known program in college football.

If he takes 1,000 reps every day, it might not be enough if 1,001 are available. I feel like we can all agree to that, right?​

Ketch, in the new high speed style of offense and practicing offense, is the idea of "splitting starter's reps" versus "giving Shane the most starter's reps to get him ready for Notre Dame" really an important distinction?

In the old fashioned, slow-pace, Greg Davis and Shawn Watson style offensive practices, I understand that the reps at QB were pretty limited and it was a big deal how you allocated them. But I've gotten the impression reading about how offenses practice in modern spread offenses like Oregon, TCU, Baylor, and Mike Leach's systems, there are tons of reps available even to three or four QBs.

Just wanted to get your reaction to that. Thanks.

One quarterback takes every snap with the 1s and one takes every rep with the 2s.

The pace doesn't matter.

This applies if you KNOW who your starter is going to be. At the root of this discussion is the opinion and reporting that the decision has already been made.

Logic shows that it hasn't.

We've been running in circles over weird little side details that aren't related to the chief thought to the thesis.

 

[TopSirloin]

Gilbert was a sophomore that had 13 starts under his belt when he left.

I think it's safe to say with added development, Texas would have had its best quarterbacking of the last six seasons.

It's not safe at all. He was terrible his first year at SMU under a coach who had guys put up video game numbers. If Tyrone Swoopes played at SMU, he could have put up numbers better than Gilbert...Garrett Gilbert's sophomore season was one of the worst, if not the worst QB season in the last 20 years of Texas football. The only comparison is James Brown's 1997 season.

 

[Ketchum]

But.. Anwar said that Swoopes was "not even close" ahead of Buechele!

Gotta love getting held up on one phrase in one article 3 weeks before the first game starts. Strong knows what kind of hornets nest he's messing with if Swoopes beats out Buechele week 1 and subsequently struggles. Sure we've seen him crumble in front of a live crowd. If Swoopes starts, just know that Buechele isn't ready, that isn't the end of the world. We don't give the full court press to a new OC without some assurance that Strong won't get fired short of a 4-8 colossal failure. Who knows, maybe we get a complete redo of last year. Swoopes falls apart against ND, but Buechele doesn't look great either. We bench Swoopes after week 1, Buechele looks like the future against Rice and Cal and then looks exactly like Heard through conference play. Granted this is a better team with a consistent offensive philosophy, so we pick up a few wins against Iowa St and Tech. We are back at square 1 going into 2017, this time without Swoopes and are left hoping Sam Ehlinger is the future.

very rational.

 

[Ketchum]

How about a change of pace?

Did anybody else notice the rack Nadia bought for herself after she hung up her gymnast slippers?

She went from a AA to a DD - Don't believe she still has 'em but for a while she had an incredible shirt full.

Just thought I'd mention it.

never even noticed.

 

[Big Ed Bookman]

never even noticed.

Might ought to check your Man Card.

 

[McGarnagle]

He abandoned the team after his coaches and fans abandoned him.

Give me a break. He wasn't abandoned. He got benched. It happens. Suck it up and win your job back.

Or give up and go play at SMU. Whatever.

 

[Ketchum]

Might ought to check your Man Card.

 

[Ketchum]

Give me a break. He wasn't abandoned. He got benched. It happens. Suck it up and win your job back.

Or give up and go play at SMU. Whatever.

agree to disagree.

 

[MBarnett]

1. I would live and die with Buechele and have Swoopes relegated to the 18-Wheeler as much as possible.

2. What do you think I would think after all thee years?

re 2: you said they aren't stupid. so I guess you don't think they are.

 

[BurntOrangeGlasses]

good grief. I literally view you as the worst poster on the site right now. I would suggest going back to your hole. My tolerance for someone who is only here to try and shit on me, and doing a terrible job in doing so at that, is very low.

Something to chew on. This is my "be careful" moment for you.

Wow, I did not think I was shitting on you at all. I simply see inconsistencies in your position. However, I get that you wield the perma ban hammer and, thus, will drop my line of questioning. Before doing so, in what way is my questioning recent OB reporting any more egregious than a half dozen others?

 

[ToadHallGangster]

Wow, I did not think I was shitting on you at all. I simply see inconsistencies in your position. However, I get that you wield the perma ban hammer and, thus, will drop my line of questioning. Before doing so, in what way is my questioning recent OB reporting any more egregious than a half dozen others?

 

[Ketchum]

re 2: you said they aren't stupid. so I guess you don't think they are.

I keep an open mind on these things.

 

[Ketchum]

Wow, I did not think I was shitting on you at all. I simply see inconsistencies in your position. However, I get that you wield the perma ban hammer and, thus, will drop my line of questioning. Before doing so, in what way is my questioning recent OB reporting any more egregious than a half dozen others?

it seems to be your sole purpose for existence on the board.

 

[NovoHorn]

That dude was in one of the Eastbound and Down seasons. I believe Kenny punched him in the face.

 

[Ketchum]

That dude was in one of the Eastbound and Down seasons. I believe Kenny punched him in the face.

a lot of people want to punch me in the face.

 

[MBarnett]

I keep an open mind on these things.

you'll come around eventually

 

[BurntOrangeGlasses]

it seems to be your sole purpose for existence on the board.

Perhaps I've gone a bridge too far of late. My apologies. I'll dial it down...at least for a while.

 

[Ketchum]

Perhaps I've gone a bridge too far of late. My apologies. I'll dial it down...at least for a while.

fair enough. truce.

 

[seanie punkin]

a. What about my second point. You disagree with that?
What second point? About slander, or about y'all and click bait? I haven't slandered you or your site, and I haven't expressed my opinions about click bait. Not sure what you mean here...

b. You need to trust me when I tell you the level of our sourcing on this is high. In theory, it's why you signed up. We're good at our jobs and we don't casually approach these things.
Trust is a fickle thing, and I don't give it unless it's earned. Year after year we read things on internet message boards and then we see an on field product that doesn't match that description. This damages trust. It is obviously not isolated to your site, but it certainly happens on your site. Also, your sourcing is one of the lesser reasons why I joined this site. But yes, I'm paying you for a service.

That being said, I realize that you're trying to hint at the fact that, particularly in this case, your sourcing is elite. That's fine, but as an engineer I know to never fully trust a single data point. You have no idea what frame of mind this person was in when they provided the info. You almost surely don't fully understand their motivation for sharing the info, unless you're paying them perhaps. It also could have been a relatively skewed day in terms of the QBs' performance, they (the QBs or the source) could have been short on sleep, etc. My point isn't that they're wrong; I'm saying in my experience you can almost never be 100% sure.

c. what parts do you think I believe are facts that aren't?
Based on the way you're addressing posters' comments ITT, I gather that you believe basically everything you wrote in that excerpt was factual. Your writing indicates you're using general trends as your basis, but ITT you're defending those same trends as if they were facts and shooting people down left and right without actually considering their POV.

d. Yes, our sourcing indicates that we have a clear understanding as to what is occuring with the chief decision makers on this subject. 100-percent.
If your sourcing didn't involve talking to both Strong and Gilbert about their thought process, then you and I have different definitions of 100%. If it did, then I'm surprised our HC and OC are so candid with the media, but I guess that's good?

e. You do understand most of the others on this board don't do what I do for a living and don't have access to the info the totality of our sources combined bring to the table?
Yes, do you think I'm stupid? FYI, I'm not.

f. what was the point of the Social Justice Warrior remark? Seems unneeded.
This board is a social place. You even jokingly call yourself a social justice warrior, but in this thread you're completely dismissing the opinions of others because you say you have logic, or "facts", on your side. From that I could infer that you think each of those posters - your readers - are illogical and they make things up. But I don't have to infer that you're blowing them off in a way that we both know makes them more frustrated. Is that typical social justice warrior behavior?

 

[The Sundance Kid]

I don't agree that our coaches aren't "stupid". Strong has done some very stupid things thus far, and starting Swoopes would add to the list.

 

[Ketchum]

a. What about my second point. You disagree with that?
What second point? About slander, or about y'all and click bait? I haven't slandered you or your site, and I haven't expressed my opinions about click bait. Not sure what you mean here...

Keep up. From the column that we're discussing and was referenced in out conversation:

The second thing that we can all agree on is that if the coaches know with absolute certainty that Shane Buechele is going to start the opener, he needs to be taking every first-team rep that his human hands can get. We’re talking about a true freshman potentially playing in his first game in prime-time on a Sunday night against a top 10 team that just happens to be the most well-known program in college football.

If he takes 1,000 reps every day, it might not be enough if 1,001 are available. I feel like we can all agree to that, right?

Anyone disagree? Ok, let’s move on.

b. You need to trust me when I tell you the level of our sourcing on this is high. In theory, it's why you signed up. We're good at our jobs and we don't casually approach these things.
Trust is a fickle thing, and I don't give it unless it's earned. Year after year we read things on internet message boards and then we see an on field product that doesn't match that description. This damages trust. It is obviously not isolated to your site, but it certainly happens on your site. Also, your sourcing is one of the lesser reasons why I joined this site. But yes, I'm paying you for a service.

That being said, I realize that you're trying to hint at the fact that, particularly in this case, your sourcing is elite. That's fine, but as an engineer I know to never fully trust a single data point. You have no idea what frame of mind this person was in when they provided the info. You almost surely don't fully understand their motivation for sharing the info, unless you're paying them perhaps. It also could have been a relatively skewed day in terms of the QBs' performance, they (the QBs or the source) could have been short on sleep, etc. My point isn't that they're wrong; I'm saying in my experience you can almost never be 100% sure.

a. You've been here since 2012. What have we had wrong about the team in the last four years because your notion that we've posted things that haven't translated to the field is pure garbage and you just talking out of your ass.

Name them. Name all of things I've missed on that has eroded trust.

Also, you have a short memory because we absolutely dominated the assistant coach hiring process.

b. You don;t know what we know, who we know and where we're getting it from.

You don't know what you're talking about and you're not listening to the people that do.

b. You need to trust me when I tell you the level of our sourcing on this is high. In theory, it's why you signed up. We're good at our jobs and we don't casually approach these things.
Trust is a fickle thing, and I don't give it unless it's earned. Year after year we read things on internet message boards and then we see an on field product that doesn't match that description. This damages trust. It is obviously not isolated to your site, but it certainly happens on your site. Also, your sourcing is one of the lesser reasons why I joined this site. But yes, I'm paying you for a service.

That being said, I realize that you're trying to hint at the fact that, particularly in this case, your sourcing is elite. That's fine, but as an engineer I know to never fully trust a single data point. You have no idea what frame of mind this person was in when they provided the info. You almost surely don't fully understand their motivation for sharing the info, unless you're paying them perhaps. It also could have been a relatively skewed day in terms of the QBs' performance, they (the QBs or the source) could have been short on sleep, etc. My point isn't that they're wrong; I'm saying in my experience you can almost never be 100% sure.

c. what parts do you think I believe are facts that aren't?
Based on the way you're addressing posters' comments ITT, I gather that you believe basically everything you wrote in that excerpt was factual. Your writing indicates you're using general trends as your basis, but ITT you're defending those same trends as if they were facts and shooting people down left and right without actually considering their POV.

no specifics. Nothing quoted. Gotcha. I see what I'm dealing with.

d. Yes, our sourcing indicates that we have a clear understanding as to what is occuring with the chief decision makers on this subject. 100-percent.
If your sourcing didn't involve talking to both Strong and Gilbert about their thought process, then you and I have different definitions of 100%. If it did, then I'm surprised our HC and OC are so candid with the media, but I guess that's good?

You just aren't paying attention at all.

e. You do understand most of the others on this board don't do what I do for a living and don't have access to the info the totality of our sources combined bring to the table?
Yes, do you think I'm stupid? FYI, I'm not.

You have not proven that in this discussion.

f. what was the point of the Social Justice Warrior remark? Seems unneeded.
This board is a social place. You even jokingly call yourself a social justice warrior, but in this thread you're completely dismissing the opinions of others because you say you have logic, or "facts", on your side. From that I could infer that you think each of those posters - your readers - are illogical and they make things up. But I don't have to infer that you're blowing them off in a way that we both know makes them more frustrated. Is that typical social justice warrior behavior?

Be better. Much better.

 

[Nobis60_BC]

One quarterback takes every snap with the 1s and one takes every rep with the 2s.

The pace doesn't matter.

This applies if you KNOW who your starter is going to be. At the root of this discussion is the opinion and reporting that the decision has already been made.

Logic shows that it hasn't.

We've been running in circles over weird little side details that aren't related to the chief thought to the thesis.

Burt's position on the depth chart must be more volatile than imagined, then, considering that both Swoopes and Buechele threw to him during open practice scrimmage work last Sunday. Swoopes threw to Heard on Monday - this Monday, today - while Buechele hit Burt for a TD. Sounds like some mix-and-match to me.

 

[memhorn]

This reminds me of the "Prince is better than Mozart" debate.

Seriously, though, if we are expected to trust OB staff because they do this reporting stuff full time and have sources we do not, wouldn't it follow that OB staff should trust CS and the other coaches, who -- you know, coach football full time and have lots of sources?

I don't have a clue who will start at QB but I am sure it will be whoever the coaches believe gives them the best chance of winning.