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Ketch's 10 Thoughts From The Weekend (Go medium, young man...)

I saw SRV live in Fairbanks Alaska a month before he died. It was an amazing concert where he won over a very boring crowd and absolutely rocked the house!
Never saw him live. I missed out.
 
Like I tried to tell you those pre-season numbers for Ewers were kinda wild. ;)

We all have our blind spots, I suppose.
I’ll definitely take the L on those!

I just foresaw a high powered offense, which we’ve seen for a large part of the season, but I forgot about Ewers’ predilection for checking down.
 
I’ll definitely take the L on those!

I just foresaw a high powered offense, which we’ve seen for a large part of the season, but I forgot about Ewers’ predilection for checking down.
My Prize Picks losses tell me I should have listened to myself. :)
 
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Random SRV story: I was at Texas Hatters 10-12 years ago and David Torres (RIP) was telling me the story of how SRV got his hat. He would come by the shop when it was still in Austin and hang out. He wanted a hat but couldn’t afford one so Manny told him that he could have a hat but would have to work it off. So, he did odd jobs around the store until he paid it off. He didn’t particularly like being on stage and/or front and center so he liked the idea of a Clint Eastwood spagetti western style hat that he could pull low. So, that’s the hat he had made.
 
... Hold up, Alex Ovechkin is 36 goals away from Gretsky's all-time record? Wow ...
And if you took away every goal Gretzky scored he would still have more than 300 career points than Ovechkin….1200 with the goals.

That’s why Gretzky is The Great One!
 
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Everyone has noticed the open receivers in the middle of the field and Quinn either missing them or checking down to a shorter pass. Hope they work that out during the off week. It is what they are giving us. We need to start taking it.
 
Quinn isn’t throwing the 10-20 yard passes over the middle this year like at all….the question is why?
 
Came across this article the other day about the helicopter crash. And, Superstitious live on Austin City Limits deserves to be ranked at least 10th. Life by the Drop should be ahead of Voo Doo Child because it’s his song and that’s the tiebreaker.

Yep. It’s also a song about his life.
 
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Random SRV story: I was at Texas Hatters 10-12 years ago and David Torres (RIP) was telling me the story of how SRV got his hat. He would come by the shop when it was still in Austin and hang out. He wanted a hat but couldn’t afford one so Manny told him that he could have a hat but would have to work it off. So, he did odd jobs around the store until he paid it off. He didn’t particularly like being on stage and/or front and center so he liked the idea of a Clint Eastwood spagetti western style hat that he could pull low. So, that’s the hat he had made.
Great story.,
 
Everyone has noticed the open receivers in the middle of the field and Quinn either missing them or checking down to a shorter pass. Hope they work that out during the off week. It is what they are giving us. We need to start taking it.
The plays are there to be made. That's a good thing.
 
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I don’t know if this has been posted but LenDale White is over Lincoln Riley.

He probably hates his brisket too.
go away gtfo GIF
 
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ee0e3a40b744e2eebc3b4d949eaa9055x.jpg

As far as bye weeks are concerned, this one went pretty well for the Longhorns.

* A pathway to the SEC title game opened up with Texas A&M's loss to South Carolina. It's pretty simple ... win the final four games of the season and the Longhorns will be in Atlanta for a chance at their first SEC championship.

* The game against a gritty Florida squad was made easier with the injury to true freshman five-star quarterback D.J. Lagway, leaving the Gators with not much other than redshirt freshman Aidan Warner, a transfer from Yale who has completed 9 of 25 passes for 96 yards and an interception this season. In a year when the schedule has offered up a number of sketchy quarterback situations, the Gators could come to town this weekend with the worst.

* Speaking of quarterback injuries, Arkansas looms in a couple of weeks and while the Razorbacks lick their wounds from a 63-31 home loss to Ole Miss, they’ll try to figure out their own quarterback situation after an injury to starting quarterback Taylen Green left them with freshman Malachi Singleton playing most of the second half. Meanwhile, if Steve Sarkisian needed an offensive blueprint for the game in Fayetteville, Lane Kiffin provided him one on a day when the Rebels rolled up 694 yards of offense.

* As far as the Aggies are concerned, they'll have to sweat out the injury to starting running back Le'Veon Moss, who left the game against the Gamecocks with a knee injury. The early word out of the A&M camp after the game was that the injury isn't viewed as a disaster, but it could still be a situation that could see him missing some time this month.

A different result in Columbia this weekend might have seen the Longhorns potentially boxed out of a spot in Atlanta, even with a win in College Station, but the pathway to first-season immortality remains open.

Assuming the likes of wide receiver Isaiah Bond and safety Andrew Mukuba were able to heal up with the week off, you'd be hard-pressed to complain about the events of the weekend if you're the type of person who gets a lot of burnt orange stuff as presents under the Christmas tree.

The amount of virtue that will be assigned to this season will come down to what happens in the final four games of the regular season, two of which come against offensively-challenged home foes, while the other two will come against hosting teams that combined to give up 107 points.

Yes, the two looming road games will feel like Daniel walking into the lion's den, but Ole Miss and South Carolina revealed both teams as very beatable. Very, very beatable.

The Longhorns are either a championship-caliber team or it's not, but the possibility is sitting on a silver platter for them.

Let's find out if they can take it.

No. 2 - Go medium, young man ...

To hear Steve Sarkisian tell it, opposing teams aren't giving the Longhorns much of a chance to attack teams down the field in the passing game.

It seems opposing safeties are bailing deep at the snap or the ball, which is significantly contributing to Texas' inability to challenge teams in the vertical passing game. Well, that and the fact that outside of the 2023 Alabama game, starting quarterback Quinn Ewers doesn't tend to have a lot of success when climbing out on these limbs of the passing tree.

Of course, there are a lot of ways to attack a team down the field and they don't all have to feature Ewers heaving the ball down the field to a receiver running a go route. With opposing safeties playing deep, there's a massive part of the field available to the Texas passing game in the areas between the 10-12 yards from the line of scrimmage where the safeties line up pre-snap and the area of the field where they end up dropping to.

The problem is that Ewers isn't sticking those throws in the intermediate passing game the way the Longhorns need him to. Take a look at Ewers' passing depth map (courtesy of PFF):

462541550_533820256127807_3505570031371809902_n.jpg


When throwing outside of the numbers, Ewers has completed only 6 of 17 throws this year between 10-19 yards, for 93 yards. Ewers has been much more accurate between the numbers (11 of 17), but he's turned the ball over twice (vs. zero touchdowns) when working that area of the field.

What's mystifying is that these areas of the field are the areas where he had the most success in 2023. Just look at the numbers:

462579261_572057495320489_8666953791822822080_n.jpg


As critical as I've been of Ewers' play in recent weeks, it needs to be said that I've always felt like his ability to work these exact areas of the field is his No. 1 strength as a player. When Ewers is at his best, these are the throws that make him a guy that NFL teams would covet.

If Texas is going to accomplish its goals on offense down the stretch, these are the areas where Ewers must start thriving in, not the areas where the safeties are hanging out in hopes of preventing the play that Texas rarely executes in the first place.

No. 3 - Out of curiosity ... let's do some cockamamie stuff ...

Out of random curiosity, I wondered on Sunday how PFF would rank the best Longhorns this season in order.

The 80s

1. (88.0) CB Jahdae Barron
2. (84.6) DT Alfred Collins
3. (84.6) S Michael Taaffe
4. (83.0) LT Kelvin Banks
5. (83.) LB Anthony Hill
6. (83.0) DE Colin Simmons

The 70s

7. (78.6) S Andrew Mukuba
8. (75.6) DT Vernon Broughton
9. (75.4) WR Isaiah Bond
10T. (74.6) DE Barryn Sorrell
10T. (74.6) CB Malik Muhammad
12. (74.1) LB David Gbenda
13. (72.1) RB Tre Wisner
14. (71.1) C Jake Majors
15T(70.3) RB Jaydon Blue
15T. (70.3) RT Cameron Williams

The 60s

17. (69.6) LB Liona Lefau
18. (68.9) LG Hayden Conner
19. (67.0) DE Trey Moore
20. (66.4) CB Jaylon Guilbeau
21. (65.5) WR Matthew Golden
22. (65.3) WR DeAndre Moore
23. (64.2) QB Quinn Ewers
24. (63.4) RG D.J. Campbell
25. (62.3) TE Gunnar Helm

On case you're wondering, Arch Manning's season grade is ... wait for it ... 90.1.

No. 4 - Ready or not, here I come ...

I'm taking this weekend off from Orangebloods.

For the first time since my twins were born in 2014, I'm going to take the entire family to DKR on Saturday for their first Texas football experience. Honestly, neither of my kids is into football at all, but maybe this is just the thing that will help make it a little more interesting.

Therefore, I'll let someone else handle my post-game duties this weekend. I'm ready to have some fun.

I’ve just got to get my hands on four tickets. Oh, and if anyone wants to give me an invite to their suite, I'm perfectly okay with pulling an @Alex Dunlap and flat out asking for it.

help-me.gif


No. 5 - Updated Texas Scholarship Board ...

Steve Sarkisian mentioned this week that they are still recruiting as a staff under the notion that the scholarship limit number they need to work with is 85 and not the proposed 105 scholarship limit that could be in place by August.

The Longhorns are currently sitting at 85. They will slice 18 seniors off the roster at the end of the season. There are currently 21 commitments, which means that the Longhorns are +3 going into next season before any attrition takes place.

Last year, 80+% of power four schools lost at least 20 scholarship players to attrition, so it's safe to project that the Longhorns will have plenty of room to address their needs in the Portal and with any high school players they choose to bring in.

Gbe-7OqbcAAXXqx


No. 6 - If I had a vote that mattered ...

1. Oregon
2. Georgia
3. Ohio State
4. Texas
5. Miami
6. Tennessee
7. Indiana
8. Notre Dame
9. BYU
10. Penn State

Heisman Trophy

1. Cam Ward (Miami)
2. Ashton Jeanty (Boise State)
3 Dillon Gabrel (Oregon)
4. Travis Hunter (Colorado)
5. Kurtis Rourke (Indiana)

No. 7 - Time to panic ...

I almost don't know what to say about the Texas Volleyball team.

Three weeks ago, the season appeared to be on track and an SEC title was within grasp with three straight home games looming on the schedule.

First, Texas lost to A&M. Ok, anything can happen ... I guess.

Then, Texas lost to Missouri. Uh, oh ...

On Sunday, Texas lost to freaking Oklahoma...

excited-fuego.gif


No. 8 – BUY or SELL …
shutterstock_197241950.jpg




(Sell) I'll give them 13, but your point is completely fair. Texas should dominate the Florida offense.



(Sell) I feel like that's the kind of thing that would have been said about Mack Brown with Major Applewhite/Chris Simms in 2000 and 2001 ... and it proved to not reflect his ceiling.



(Buy) The staff doesn't believe in him. I'm not sure that he'll find a better landing spot, especially since Arch Manning seems to like throwing in his direction, but he has to be as frustrated as any player in the program.



(Sell) I'm not sure Texas can afford to be vanilla.



(Sell) They've got to be better and do more, but this group isn't the problem.



(Buy) I'll let you know if I ever need to sell ... you won't need to ask.



(Sell) Give him one more year and get ready to execute a real plan if he fails.



(Sell) I think Texas wins out. Your situation isn't an impossibility by any stretch, but I believe in this team.



(Sell) Great quarterbacks make offensive lines look better more often than the other way around.



(Buy) Don't think for a second that the team from last night will be the one that shows up in College Station.



(Buy) That's probably accurate.



(Sell) Alabama's Ryan Williams will be the best wide receiver in the SEC next year.

No. 9 – Scattershooting all over the place …

... SEC Thoughts: Where was the Georgia that played Florida two weeks ago when they came to Austin? I don't think Texas fans truly realize how good the Kentucky defense is, but they'll know soon enough. You could see South Carolina beating A&M coming from 2,000 miles away. Bru McCoy has 25 catches for 345 yards and zero touchdowns this season. He's never averaged more than 13.8 yards per catch in any season. A possible NFL player? Yes. A 5-star? Not in retrospect.

... I'll never understand Tom Herman taking the Florida Atlantic job and I'm not sure what is going to await him after he eventually loses this job.


... Thank goodness James Franklin isn't at Texas. Can you imagine watching that offense?

... Matt Campbell losing an undefeated season in week eight at home to Texas Tech is the most Big 12 thing that's ever happened.

... Clemson ... what the hell was that?

... Oh, Nebraska ... are the Huskers about to miss out on a bowl?


... What the hell am I supposed to even say about the Cowboys?

... Never seen this before.


... I am not mad at Joel Embiid at all. Philly reporter Marcus Hayes name-dropped his son and deceased brother in an attempt to question Embiid's professionalism. I can't condone the kind of physical violence that would leave Hayes in the hospital ... but a shove? Yeah, I can live with letting a man shove someone that brings my family into places they shouldn't be.

... lulz


... Hold up, Alex Ovechkin is 36 goals away from Gretsky's all-time record? Wow ...

... Premier League Randomness: Thank you, footy gods. These are the weekends you dream of. Man City, Arsenal and Austin Villa all dropped three points, while Aston Villa, Chelsea and Manchester United each dropped two. Arsenal fans on social media are a strange lot. That group acts like the Gunners are Real Madrid. Liverpool needs to give Mo Salah his extension and let that man chase down the all-time greats. He's 11 goals behind Henry. 13 behind Lampard. 20 behind Aguero. 23 behind Cole. Could he score 44 in the next 2+ seasons to catch Rooney for 3rd place? It's a tall climb, but he needs to be given that chance.

No. 10 – The List: SRV

photo2jpg.jpg


It's been more than a dozen years since I did an SRV list for this column.

How is that possible?

I have a feeling there will be much disagreement. He's one of the few artists that I've ever ranked who I'm not sure has an obvious No. 1. Am I wrong?

Let's just get to it.

Last 5 Out: Superstition, The Things (That) I Used To Do, Cold Shot, Change it and Couldn't Stand The Weather

10. Riviera Paradise

I want everyone to know that I stewed for more than an hour over which song to put in the 10th spot.

9. Lenny

It has to make the list ... period. But, is this too low?

8. Little Wing

If I had a dollar for every time I've heard this song in an Austin bar over the years ...

7. Life By The Drop

This is one of the songs that I can't tell if I have slotted too low or just right. It's not one of his guitar scorchers, but it's so authentically him.

6. Voodoo Child

It's Jimi ... but it's still uniquely SRV. It's one of the greatest songs of all-time, no matter how you slice it.

5. Crossfire

I know there will be some calls for this to be in the No. 1 slot, but I like a few others just a little more.

4. Tin Pan Alley

This. Song. Is. A. Whole. Damn. Mood.

3. The Sky Is Crying

My personal favorite. I think this was the song that turned me on to SRV when I was a teenager.

2. Pride and Joy

Written by SRV about an old girlfriend. Thank goodness for her because it gave us an all-timer.

1. Texas Flood

It feels like the quintessential SRV song. It might not be your favorite SRV guitar performance of all-time, but almost everyone agrees that it's in the top 3.
The question about Sark’s “ceiling as a coach being determined over these next four games” is symptomatic of the arrogance some have have about the Quinn-Arch debate. When people believe they know better than the coach who should be starting, and its not the one Sark trots out, they're forced to come up with bizarre explanations that make them look foolish.

The fact is that we simply don't know if Arch is the better quarterback for this team. He has started two games and performed well in one and poorly in the other (193 and 135, respectively). Neither team he faced had a good defense, let alone a Georgia, Michigan, or OU-level one.

Does anyone care to guess how Tennessee’s Nico Iamaleava performed in his first two starts against subpar competition, and how he has fared since when facing defenses with a pulse? As a reminder, he and Arch were considered the two best pro-style quarterbacks in the 2023 class.

Occam’s Razor is likely the the best explanation for why Sark is going with Quinn. Sark has a quarterback who is a known commodity, especially against stout defenses, and Texas has won a lot of games with him. And as much belief Sark has in Arch, he realizes he can’t know how he will perform against good defenses.
 
Great write up. Here is one of my favorite songs from SRV... Played it all the time for my kids when they were little...

 
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I saw SRV at Starfest in Dallas ~1986. He recorded his double live album that night. He screwed up playing Mary Had a little Lamb and stopped mid-song and asked the crowd if he could start again. Great night.
 
I saw SRV at Starfest in Dallas ~1986. He recorded his double live album that night. He screwed up playing Mary Had a little Lamb and stopped mid-song and asked the crowd if he could start again. Great night.
I'm green with envy.
 
@Ketchum Why do you think Johntay is gone after this year? He was flashing to start the year. Is he late to meetings or have discipline issues? I thought he looks better whenever Arch is in the game. Hopefully he stays patient as Sark mentioned getting him more involved last week
 
I remember when Stevie was asked who was the best guitarist he had ever heard. His answer...........................his brother Jimmie. If I remember correctly, they both played regularly at the old Soap Creek Saloon. Alvin Crow and the Pleasant Valley Boys played regularly at the Broken Spoke. The first time I went to the Armadillo World Headquarters, I saw John Mayall. When Austin was full on Austin. Good times indeed.
 
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@Ketchum Why do you think Johntay is gone after this year? He was flashing to start the year. Is he late to meetings or have discipline issues? I thought he looks better whenever Arch is in the game. Hopefully he stays patient as Sark mentioned getting him more involved last week
He's barely playing.
 
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ee0e3a40b744e2eebc3b4d949eaa9055x.jpg

As far as bye weeks are concerned, this one went pretty well for the Longhorns.

* A pathway to the SEC title game opened up with Texas A&M's loss to South Carolina. It's pretty simple ... win the final four games of the season and the Longhorns will be in Atlanta for a chance at their first SEC championship.

* The game against a gritty Florida squad was made easier with the injury to true freshman five-star quarterback D.J. Lagway, leaving the Gators with not much other than redshirt freshman Aidan Warner, a transfer from Yale who has completed 9 of 25 passes for 96 yards and an interception this season. In a year when the schedule has offered up a number of sketchy quarterback situations, the Gators could come to town this weekend with the worst.

* Speaking of quarterback injuries, Arkansas looms in a couple of weeks and while the Razorbacks lick their wounds from a 63-31 home loss to Ole Miss, they’ll try to figure out their own quarterback situation after an injury to starting quarterback Taylen Green left them with freshman Malachi Singleton playing most of the second half. Meanwhile, if Steve Sarkisian needed an offensive blueprint for the game in Fayetteville, Lane Kiffin provided him one on a day when the Rebels rolled up 694 yards of offense.

* As far as the Aggies are concerned, they'll have to sweat out the injury to starting running back Le'Veon Moss, who left the game against the Gamecocks with a knee injury. The early word out of the A&M camp after the game was that the injury isn't viewed as a disaster, but it could still be a situation that could see him missing some time this month.

A different result in Columbia this weekend might have seen the Longhorns potentially boxed out of a spot in Atlanta, even with a win in College Station, but the pathway to first-season immortality remains open.

Assuming the likes of wide receiver Isaiah Bond and safety Andrew Mukuba were able to heal up with the week off, you'd be hard-pressed to complain about the events of the weekend if you're the type of person who gets a lot of burnt orange stuff as presents under the Christmas tree.

The amount of virtue that will be assigned to this season will come down to what happens in the final four games of the regular season, two of which come against offensively-challenged home foes, while the other two will come against hosting teams that combined to give up 107 points.

Yes, the two looming road games will feel like Daniel walking into the lion's den, but Ole Miss and South Carolina revealed both teams as very beatable. Very, very beatable.

The Longhorns are either a championship-caliber team or it's not, but the possibility is sitting on a silver platter for them.

Let's find out if they can take it.

No. 2 - Go medium, young man ...

To hear Steve Sarkisian tell it, opposing teams aren't giving the Longhorns much of a chance to attack teams down the field in the passing game.

It seems opposing safeties are bailing deep at the snap or the ball, which is significantly contributing to Texas' inability to challenge teams in the vertical passing game. Well, that and the fact that outside of the 2023 Alabama game, starting quarterback Quinn Ewers doesn't tend to have a lot of success when climbing out on these limbs of the passing tree.

Of course, there are a lot of ways to attack a team down the field and they don't all have to feature Ewers heaving the ball down the field to a receiver running a go route. With opposing safeties playing deep, there's a massive part of the field available to the Texas passing game in the areas between the 10-12 yards from the line of scrimmage where the safeties line up pre-snap and the area of the field where they end up dropping to.

The problem is that Ewers isn't sticking those throws in the intermediate passing game the way the Longhorns need him to. Take a look at Ewers' passing depth map (courtesy of PFF):

462541550_533820256127807_3505570031371809902_n.jpg


When throwing outside of the numbers, Ewers has completed only 6 of 17 throws this year between 10-19 yards, for 93 yards. Ewers has been much more accurate between the numbers (11 of 17), but he's turned the ball over twice (vs. zero touchdowns) when working that area of the field.

What's mystifying is that these areas of the field are the areas where he had the most success in 2023. Just look at the numbers:

462579261_572057495320489_8666953791822822080_n.jpg


As critical as I've been of Ewers' play in recent weeks, it needs to be said that I've always felt like his ability to work these exact areas of the field is his No. 1 strength as a player. When Ewers is at his best, these are the throws that make him a guy that NFL teams would covet.

If Texas is going to accomplish its goals on offense down the stretch, these are the areas where Ewers must start thriving in, not the areas where the safeties are hanging out in hopes of preventing the play that Texas rarely executes in the first place.

No. 3 - Out of curiosity ... let's do some cockamamie stuff ...

Out of random curiosity, I wondered on Sunday how PFF would rank the best Longhorns this season in order.

The 80s

1. (88.0) CB Jahdae Barron
2. (84.6) DT Alfred Collins
3. (84.6) S Michael Taaffe
4. (83.0) LT Kelvin Banks
5. (83.) LB Anthony Hill
6. (83.0) DE Colin Simmons

The 70s

7. (78.6) S Andrew Mukuba
8. (75.6) DT Vernon Broughton
9. (75.4) WR Isaiah Bond
10T. (74.6) DE Barryn Sorrell
10T. (74.6) CB Malik Muhammad
12. (74.1) LB David Gbenda
13. (72.1) RB Tre Wisner
14. (71.1) C Jake Majors
15T(70.3) RB Jaydon Blue
15T. (70.3) RT Cameron Williams

The 60s

17. (69.6) LB Liona Lefau
18. (68.9) LG Hayden Conner
19. (67.0) DE Trey Moore
20. (66.4) CB Jaylon Guilbeau
21. (65.5) WR Matthew Golden
22. (65.3) WR DeAndre Moore
23. (64.2) QB Quinn Ewers
24. (63.4) RG D.J. Campbell
25. (62.3) TE Gunnar Helm

On case you're wondering, Arch Manning's season grade is ... wait for it ... 90.1.

No. 4 - Ready or not, here I come ...

I'm taking this weekend off from Orangebloods.

For the first time since my twins were born in 2014, I'm going to take the entire family to DKR on Saturday for their first Texas football experience. Honestly, neither of my kids is into football at all, but maybe this is just the thing that will help make it a little more interesting.

Therefore, I'll let someone else handle my post-game duties this weekend. I'm ready to have some fun.

I’ve just got to get my hands on four tickets. Oh, and if anyone wants to give me an invite to their suite, I'm perfectly okay with pulling an @Alex Dunlap and flat out asking for it.

help-me.gif


No. 5 - Updated Texas Scholarship Board ...

Steve Sarkisian mentioned this week that they are still recruiting as a staff under the notion that the scholarship limit number they need to work with is 85 and not the proposed 105 scholarship limit that could be in place by August.

The Longhorns are currently sitting at 85. They will slice 18 seniors off the roster at the end of the season. There are currently 21 commitments, which means that the Longhorns are +3 going into next season before any attrition takes place.

Last year, 80+% of power four schools lost at least 20 scholarship players to attrition, so it's safe to project that the Longhorns will have plenty of room to address their needs in the Portal and with any high school players they choose to bring in.

Gbe-7OqbcAAXXqx


No. 6 - If I had a vote that mattered ...

1. Oregon
2. Georgia
3. Ohio State
4. Texas
5. Miami
6. Tennessee
7. Indiana
8. Notre Dame
9. BYU
10. Penn State

Heisman Trophy

1. Cam Ward (Miami)
2. Ashton Jeanty (Boise State)
3 Dillon Gabrel (Oregon)
4. Travis Hunter (Colorado)
5. Kurtis Rourke (Indiana)

No. 7 - Time to panic ...

I almost don't know what to say about the Texas Volleyball team.

Three weeks ago, the season appeared to be on track and an SEC title was within grasp with three straight home games looming on the schedule.

First, Texas lost to A&M. Ok, anything can happen ... I guess.

Then, Texas lost to Missouri. Uh, oh ...

On Sunday, Texas lost to freaking Oklahoma...

excited-fuego.gif


No. 8 – BUY or SELL …
shutterstock_197241950.jpg




(Sell) I'll give them 13, but your point is completely fair. Texas should dominate the Florida offense.



(Sell) I feel like that's the kind of thing that would have been said about Mack Brown with Major Applewhite/Chris Simms in 2000 and 2001 ... and it proved to not reflect his ceiling.



(Buy) The staff doesn't believe in him. I'm not sure that he'll find a better landing spot, especially since Arch Manning seems to like throwing in his direction, but he has to be as frustrated as any player in the program.



(Sell) I'm not sure Texas can afford to be vanilla.



(Sell) They've got to be better and do more, but this group isn't the problem.



(Buy) I'll let you know if I ever need to sell ... you won't need to ask.



(Sell) Give him one more year and get ready to execute a real plan if he fails.



(Sell) I think Texas wins out. Your situation isn't an impossibility by any stretch, but I believe in this team.



(Sell) Great quarterbacks make offensive lines look better more often than the other way around.



(Buy) Don't think for a second that the team from last night will be the one that shows up in College Station.



(Buy) That's probably accurate.



(Sell) Alabama's Ryan Williams will be the best wide receiver in the SEC next year.

No. 9 – Scattershooting all over the place …

... SEC Thoughts: Where was the Georgia that played Florida two weeks ago when they came to Austin? I don't think Texas fans truly realize how good the Kentucky defense is, but they'll know soon enough. You could see South Carolina beating A&M coming from 2,000 miles away. Bru McCoy has 25 catches for 345 yards and zero touchdowns this season. He's never averaged more than 13.8 yards per catch in any season. A possible NFL player? Yes. A 5-star? Not in retrospect.

... I'll never understand Tom Herman taking the Florida Atlantic job and I'm not sure what is going to await him after he eventually loses this job.


... Thank goodness James Franklin isn't at Texas. Can you imagine watching that offense?

... Matt Campbell losing an undefeated season in week eight at home to Texas Tech is the most Big 12 thing that's ever happened.

... Clemson ... what the hell was that?

... Oh, Nebraska ... are the Huskers about to miss out on a bowl?


... What the hell am I supposed to even say about the Cowboys?

... Never seen this before.


... I am not mad at Joel Embiid at all. Philly reporter Marcus Hayes name-dropped his son and deceased brother in an attempt to question Embiid's professionalism. I can't condone the kind of physical violence that would leave Hayes in the hospital ... but a shove? Yeah, I can live with letting a man shove someone that brings my family into places they shouldn't be.

... lulz


... Hold up, Alex Ovechkin is 36 goals away from Gretsky's all-time record? Wow ...

... Premier League Randomness: Thank you, footy gods. These are the weekends you dream of. Man City, Arsenal and Austin Villa all dropped three points, while Aston Villa, Chelsea and Manchester United each dropped two. Arsenal fans on social media are a strange lot. That group acts like the Gunners are Real Madrid. Liverpool needs to give Mo Salah his extension and let that man chase down the all-time greats. He's 11 goals behind Henry. 13 behind Lampard. 20 behind Aguero. 23 behind Cole. Could he score 44 in the next 2+ seasons to catch Rooney for 3rd place? It's a tall climb, but he needs to be given that chance.

No. 10 – The List: SRV

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It's been more than a dozen years since I did an SRV list for this column.

How is that possible?

I have a feeling there will be much disagreement. He's one of the few artists that I've ever ranked who I'm not sure has an obvious No. 1. Am I wrong?

Let's just get to it.

Last 5 Out: Superstition, The Things (That) I Used To Do, Cold Shot, Change it and Couldn't Stand The Weather

10. Riviera Paradise

I want everyone to know that I stewed for more than an hour over which song to put in the 10th spot.

9. Lenny

It has to make the list ... period. But, is this too low?

8. Little Wing

If I had a dollar for every time I've heard this song in an Austin bar over the years ...

7. Life By The Drop

This is one of the songs that I can't tell if I have slotted too low or just right. It's not one of his guitar scorchers, but it's so authentically him.

6. Voodoo Child

It's Jimi ... but it's still uniquely SRV. It's one of the greatest songs of all-time, no matter how you slice it.

5. Crossfire

I know there will be some calls for this to be in the No. 1 slot, but I like a few others just a little more.

4. Tin Pan Alley

This. Song. Is. A. Whole. Damn. Mood.

3. The Sky Is Crying

My personal favorite. I think this was the song that turned me on to SRV when I was a teenager.

2. Pride and Joy

Written by SRV about an old girlfriend. Thank goodness for her because it gave us an all-timer.

1. Texas Flood

It feels like the quintessential SRV song. It might not be your favorite SRV guitar performance of all-time, but almost everyone agrees that it's in the top 3.
So the highest rated PPF guy on the team is benched for a JAG (this season)
 
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