don't confuse me talking about one side of what needs to take place with believing that the other side doesn't matter or also need to take place.
Ketch's 10 Thoughts From The Weekend (Continuing my crusade!!!!!)
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yeah, but we're not exactly talking about the sport in a vacuum. We're talking about a program that wants to compete at the highest levels possible.
I'm curious to see what the hell he did at Rutgers, specifically, that made him who he is today.
Seems reasonable. This is developing at light speed in College Football Time.
Yes, this is the moneyball approach to college football.
A high-level GM with pro experience (and dealing with agents) would be invaluable IMO.
I don't think people really have an understanding for what happens next with the Portal after the first full year of NIL.
I believed that this year would have a lot more talent than last year, and I was proven correct.
I think it takes off to an even higher level in 2023 and Texas simply needs to make sure it has ample room to take advantage of it.
You've been saying that almost from the very beginning (long before—was it Miami?—some Florida school essentially did just that). It sounds like a great idea.
It seems that limiting your analysis to players who have completed their eligibility can ignore the best players - VY, Jamaal Charles, etc.
8 years from now it won’t bother me at all if we still have very few offensive players drafted that also completed their eligibility. Especially if during that time Bijan goes first round, Ewers goes number 1, Manning goes number 1, and a bunch of lineman leave early to go in the first round after we win a couple of national titles. You still have lousy numbers of draftees who have completed their elegibility - but great numbers for those that leave early.
Apologies if someone has already mentioned this.
8 years from now it won’t bother me at all if we still have very few offensive players drafted that also completed their eligibility. Especially if during that time Bijan goes first round, Ewers goes number 1, Manning goes number 1, and a bunch of lineman leave early to go in the first round after we win a couple of national titles. You still have lousy numbers of draftees who have completed their elegibility - but great numbers for those that leave early.
Apologies if someone has already mentioned this.
I'm not sure why you think the conversation taking place has much to do with Sydir Mitchell, a player that I believe is a national top 150-250 type of talent.
It will eventually become the norm, but it still sounds pretty radical to most people... and I get that.
Yes, Highsmith is a perfect example of what I've described.
University of Miami Hires Alonzo Highsmith as General Manager of Football Operations
The University of Miami has hired longtime National Football League executive and Hurricanes great Alonzo Highsmith as general manager of football operations, head football coach Mario Cristobal announced.
miamihurricanes.com
There is a lot to this.
I do get that the world is different w the portal.
And we are all in a transition period now.
It is difficult to judge this idea of “does this particular coaching staff know better than the Rivals or composite ratings?”. This staff does have a good track record. There are good 3s maybe this staff can find the ones that will end up as 4s, or succeed as 3s. But I agree we should not be arrogant about that.
Sometimes there are special reasons to take a 3-4 of course.
We did not and will not get every transfer we want. We would have taken at least 10 last year I think if we could have gotten the right ones.
Will the portal slow down some if the “once only” rule sticks? I have not thought much about it, but it is not clear yet how many players we can typically count on from transfers each year.
I am not crazy about the idea but we’re probably going to have more UT scholarship players leaving and being invited to leave in the future.
If the 85 rule stays we do need to be smart about managing the 85.
Thanks for doing this.
Completing their eligibility is just another way of saying... done with college football and not able to change the numbers based on transferring to another school.
It's not leaving players out that leave school early.
Welcome to the site.
Good post.
A few thoughts...
a. I'm trying less to subjectively depend on another human's own bias' and more trying to eliminate as much subjectiveness as possible.
b. There are always good three stars. It's just a 1 in 10 shot to be right on your guess, which is impacted by the bias that is built when you put a ton of sweat equity into it.
c. At the end of the day, I'm talking to you about the future of the sport and not something you can completely see, just as a year ago I was telling you players exactly like the ones Texas has added would start to become more readily available.
I feel like a strong case can be made that taking 15 portal kids this year instead of 7 would have made more immediate improvement for a program that went 5-7 last year.
I mean... where would the 2022 Longhorns be without the Portal?
It seemed, at least in part, that your comments and these are just a few that set your last article in motion were in direct response to Texas taking Sydir. I believe you said the following.
None of this is personal.
I just don't think a program with significant aspirations as a major college football program should be making significant investments in them in the age of the college football portal.
Of course, it's not an opinion that most college football coaches would likely agree with and that includes the entire Texas Longhorns coaching staff. Yet, I'm not going to back down from this particular hot take, which feels like less of a hot take and more like common sense from my perspective. In the coming paragraphs, I'm going to try and pull you to my way of thinking.
Before I hit you over the head with math, I'm going to begin with a little common sense. Two of the biggest issues facing the three-star prospect at a program like Texas are time and patience. Neither the prospect nor the program typically have enough of either.
It just seemed that your take was bad timing, and perhaps that was not your intention at all, in relation to Sydir choosing Texas. The kid commits and in short order you put out your take. There seemed to be an association.
This is my direct response to taking Mitchell. I actually didn't talk about Mitchell in this article because I had already published a piece specific to him a few hours earlier.
Instant Analysis: The largest DL commitment in the last 25 years??
Cliffs Notes: Texas picked up commitment No.18 for the 2023 recruiting class on Sunday with the verbal pledge of Oradell (NJ) Bergen Catholic defensive tackle Sydir Mitchell. Rankings: Here's the industry breakdown... Rivals: (5.8) Low four-star, NR overall nationally, No.15 DT, No.4 in New...
texas.forums.rivals.com
Nothing personal, but it's wildly inaccurate to suggest this has anything to do with Mitchell for various reasons, the least of which isn't that I literally listed his position as one you'd make exceptions for in a world where you are taking fewer lower rated prospects.
"The only exceptions that should be made are the following:
a. An occasional quarterback from the state of Texas. We'll call it the Colt McCoy rule.
b. An occasional BIG defensive lineman. No tweeners. They all need to be either a defensive tackle or a defensive end that is at least 6-4, 240 pounds.
c. Raw two-way athletes that can play on either side of the ball.
d. Kickers or Punters."
Some of you guys make it pretty obvious that you don't read the things you're complaining about.
University of Miami Hires Alonzo Highsmith as General Manager of Football Operations
The University of Miami has hired longtime National Football League executive and Hurricanes great Alonzo Highsmith as general manager of football operations, head football coach Mario Cristobal announced.
miamihurricanes.com
Highsmith's duties seem a bit broad, but maybe that relieves a lot of pressure from the coach allowing him more focus. I would want our guy's duties to be a bit more focused on recruiting analysis & development tracking. In addition to that GM, we really need a football/math/computer geek to set all this up.
Assuming you're not, is Alex available? ;-)
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a. The amount reported by Cowherd and a few others was simply not accurate. Less than a million.
b. They don't have their shit together yet.
I love this column. I read it every week. Maybe, you missed my point about redundancy? You do not use this same topic every week.
Texas following through on their commitments will be huge in gaining new ones through th e portal
Imagine the crop next year and having 15 players to add - would be huge for the team with really any outcome this year / bad - ok - good - great - The level talent we could add would be better from a better year / but in any of the scenarios it would be huge
I typically change the topic every week.
I've been thinking of writing this piece for about 2 months, so I'm pretty sure the redundancy is minimal, other than me talking about in conversation on the board.
You haven’t but you have spent several years analyzing 6.1s and 6.0s vs 3 stars including this OP. I have not seen an in depth analysis on how the programs do develop 3 stars better than Texas.
In addition my question is why can’t OUR PROGRAM DO BOTH? I was not asking you why both is impossible because I don’t think it is. Not every post is an attack on you…promise.
Excuse me if this has been mentioned but it would be interesting to correlate the three star’s offer lists against which ones succeeded. If several top programs want them, maybe they see something the recruiting services missed.
Would certainly mean that what sark is doing on his takes at the moment would actually be spot on - if he had confidence in it coming true of course
Then the undersized DE / the Louisiana TE and the low percentage but large bodied high upside OL takes would all be perfect in both your and my book - some to help land bigger fish / some that have the right profile to really hit when they do
Happy 4th to you and yours. ACES and ou sucks 24/7. Ketch you later.
