Ketch's 10 Thoughts From The Weekend (Let's just talk about it all... again)

[1bigdaddy]

Dear Ketch,
I enjoy your articles immensely. My I respectfully ask you to use the subjunctive tense properly.
If I were Tom Herman. If I were Chris Del Conte.
Great article!

My I?

 

[Rotarran9116]

Ha. Appreciate the “fake insider” title, that’s rich. Also, what has happened since those two losses? Wait for it....we’ve won every game we’ve played. We were backed into a corner early in the season and have come out fighting ever since. I know you may not believe this because Tom Herman bad, but it actually does take time for teams to adapt to new schemes on both sides of the ball

Beating shit teams in four quarter fights is not what we pay for. In year four Tom Herman is in dog fights with OSU, TCU, West Virginia etc etc

That's ****ing awesome dude! All it took was four years to get to this point. Maybe in another four we can play in a meaningful game and not get our ass kicked.

Your bar for success is so low it's pathetic.

Please 300 post fake insider, tell us more about how awesome Tom Herman is.

@drunk randoke this guy is right and we're all wrong. 8 wins is awesome!!!

 

[HornPitt]

I guess I’ve just always thought UT cared more about the person representing its enterprise. Maybe times have changed..

I think we would all agree that Mack rated pretty highly on the morality list..........check out his players' arrest records during the championship runs. It's hard to determine if the players are acting that way because of a culture within the program or if it's a result of having a winning program because the room is full of alpha dogs that are just going to act out. This is what makes Saban and Dabo so valuable.....they seem to usher in these alphas and make them toe the line.

 

[FL-Horn]

Thanks for the hard work. Love reading about the Horns from Jax, FL. Great top 10 What If's! Extremely torn about the upcoming weekend. Hook em!

 

[Ketchum]

What if Chris Simms signs with Tennessee and Eli Manning signs with Texas?

That's a good one.

 

[Ketchum]

So, if CDC isn't speaking with reporters, who's leaking out all this info? Those who work with/for CDC? Or, are you saying that CDC is talking to reporters off the record?

Of course, he is. Brian Davis all but said at the last press conference that he speaks with him often.

 

[Ketchum]

We’ll see soon my man. Year 2 included 4 losses don’t forget.

The Sugar Bowl win really saved that season from being a massive waste and disappointment. Very 1996ish,

 

[Ketchum]

This is my favorite B/S question AND answer of all time.



(Sell) I think there's a very good chance it happens this weekend, but I wouldn't bet my left or right nut on it.

 

[Ketchum]

If the Texans had a 1st or 2nd round pick I might agree, however they don't so not really a big deal. I was happy to see the Texans beat Belichick's Patriots.

Totally forgot. Oh.

 

[Ketchum]

Ketch, have you ever considered that CDC going on record would just further rile up an on-edge fan base. That’s literally the only reason he does not tweet anything about the football program. He reads the comments, he knows what’s going to be said In those replies. Go back and look for yourself even when he posts his newsletter on Twitter. You can believe me or not, but they meet regularly throughout the week and are on the same page. Everything is being handled internally, as it should. That doesn’t mean Tom gets a free pass if he loses Friday. And sure, Tom did a bit of selling and exaggerating in his response to Anwar’s question last week. It was largely for recruiting purposes. He knows the heat is cranked up. In fact, it has been since the TCU loss. They have had confrontations, as any HC and AD do when the going gets tough. To Tom’s credit he has responded very well. And he’s controlling what he can right now and that’s winning. If CDC came out and spoke on the record, what would it accomplish? Would it help recruiting? Or would it just be better to remain quiet and speak on record after the results of this season? What exactly would you do in this case? Have you seen this board when someone says something remotely positive about CTH? Now picture that but on steroids...

I've considered a lot of things, including things you aren't...

 

[Ketchum]

Love this one! Nice work ketch

Gracias.

 

[Ketchum]

I don't know either way. But I'm pretty sure that what sources are telling the mods on different sites is what the sources want the mods to report.

Several reporters have revealed themselves to be mouthpieces for the AD in the last couple of months.

It's clear as day.

 

[Ketchum]

Tom Herman routinely loses winnable games. It’s who he is.

well, yeah.

 

[Ketchum]

It absolutely is. That extension was a huge mistake. Hindsight is 20 20 though

Don't give me that hindsight mess. That was talked about as a "WTF, why?" moment when it happened by a lot of people. Texas never learns from its mistakes.

 

[Ketchum]

The #2 ‘what if’ should have been ‘what if Fred didn’t keep his defense on the field protecting against an unlikely fake punt’. Curry should have never been on the field.

He could have just caught the ball.

 

[Ketchum]

A) Why not? There's not any rule that an AD has to make himself available for comment.

B) Even if he does speak, I still don't see how you think that mean he is painted into a corner. He can literally say anything he wants to a group of reporters and it won't change a thing.

a. It's eventually going to start to look really bad. It already looks bad to those of us with our eyes open. He left Herman and his coaches hanging out to dry for months, has pretended that he didn't and hasn't spoken to anyone since July.

b. If Herman is winning at the time of his comments and hasn't lost, he'll have to be positive and supportive. It's why he won't come out now. He doesn't want to give him public support.

 

[Ketchum]

Our roster has been improving every year. Next year we will have the strongest roster we have had in ten years.

I'm sorry?

 

[sodiumacetate]

Ha. Appreciate the “fake insider” title, that’s rich. Also, what has happened since those two losses? Wait for it....we’ve won every game we’ve played. We were backed into a corner early in the season and have come out fighting ever since. I know you may not believe this because Tom Herman bad, but it actually does take time for teams to adapt to new schemes on both sides of the ball

What has happened is that we have beaten really bad teams and sadly we have struggled to do so. Offensively we do not scheme to our opponents' weaknesses and instead insist on trying to force our conservative game plan regardless of how the opponent is adjusting. OSU's defense against us was identical to what they ran against us a year ago, yet our offensive approach was to try and run right into the teeth of it. The first major change we have made was against WV, where we shifted to more gap blocking and allowed our lineman to play to their strengths (physicality) rather than complex outside zone concepts. It worked great, so why did we wait until game 7 to employ it? It was obvious against Tech that the right side of the line was weaker in zone blocking. That is just one of the many examples of coaching failures during this season.

 

[Ketchum]

If Herman loses to ISU is it more likely he’s gone within a few days or after the regular season?

They'd wait until after the buyout drops in the first week of December.

 

[Ketchum]

Ketch, after watching ou this weekend, do you believe Texas beats them in the CCG?

No.

 

[Ketchum]

Is this poster aware of the role Cleve Bryant played with Mack? No college coach is an angel.

Some are just closer to the devil than others.

 

[Ketchum]

1,2 & 3 on that "What If" list gives me a sick feeling all over again. Each one of them are just brutal for us fans.

Sorry for the kick in the nuts.

 

[Ketchum]

While my support for Herman ran its course a while ago, I would find it fascinating if during his next PC he’s asked again about Urban directly and he says something like,

“You know I don’t focus on things like that, my job is to win football games. But regarding Urban specifically, I coached with him for several years and know a lot about his off the field issues including protecting a coach that was abusing his spouse. During my time at the University of Texas, everyone from the ADs to the University Presidents that I have worked with have always acted with and preached the highest levels of ethical conduct. So for that reason alone, I could never see UM as the coach of the University of Texas.”

While he’d never utter those words, it would definitely make a lot of buttholes pucker.

Bingo. I'd be wildin' out there on the mic with nothing to check me.

 

[Ketchum]

I think there’s a better chance Texas would have played Ohio State in a rematch in 2006, even though most people would not have liked it. With only an early loss to the #1 team blemishing their record, I find it hard to believe the Buckeyes would have been ranked behind the Gators in the final BCS poll.

Hard to say. Ohio State might have caught quite a beatdown IF VY had played.

 

[RLong68]

Texas basketball cranks up this week with its best roster in at least a decade but doesn't warrant a mention?

 

[Ketchum]

Texas basketball cranks up this week with its best roster in at least a decade but doesn't warrant a mention?

What happened this weekend that I missed? It's 10 thoughts from the weekend, not 10 thoughts on the next weekend.

 

[drunk randoke]

Texas basketball cranks up this week with its best roster in at least a decade but doesn't warrant a mention?

Herman time bro

 

[FrankMank]

I had dinner this weekend with some close friends and their son is in a fraternity at UT which has a couple of scholarship football players. My friends went a parents/son party recently and they had a chance to talk to one of the players. The kid was a little “tipsy” so he was overly honest with his opinions. He said that he absolutely hates playing football at UT. He said the environment is completely toxic, and despite Herman’s claim, the locker room is not united. He specifically said that there is one of the player leadership council (my friends gave his name but am excluding it for this post) is extremely divisive and unpopular with a lot of the players, but Herman loves him, so he doesn’t get called out. This is just one piece of data, so take this with a grain of salt. But if it’s true, I think this is going to be a long, bitter offseason if Herman is still the coach.

 

[Ketchum]

I had dinner this weekend with some close friends and their son is in a fraternity at UT which has a couple of scholarship football players. My friends went a parents/son party recently and they had a chance to talk to one of the players. The kid was a little “tipsy” so he was overly honest with his opinions. He said that he absolutely hates playing football at UT. He said the environment is completely toxic, and despite Herman’s claim, the locker room is not united. He specifically said that there is one of the player leadership council (my friends gave his name but am excluding it for this post) is extremely divisive and unpopular with a lot of the players, but Herman loves him, so he doesn’t get called out. This is just one piece of data, so take this with a grain of salt. But if it’s true, I think this is going to be a long, bitter offseason if Herman is still the coach.

Was the player a starter?

 

[RLong68]

What happened this weekend that I missed? It's 10 thoughts from the weekend, not 10 thoughts on the next weekend.

I mean, if you pore through your Ten Thoughts, there's a lot of speculation on future events/timelines. Just saying, it's probably worth a mention.

 

[Ketchum]

I mean, if you pore through your Ten Thoughts, there's a lot of speculation on future events/timelines. Just saying, it's probably worth a mention.

Just wasn't on my brain. Right or wrong, it never crossed my mind.

 

[RLong68]

While there's been a lot of dispute about whether Herman's job would be safe pending whatever result emerges from the Big 12 Championship game, there's no getting around the fact that making it to the Big 2 Championship game ...

a. Extends the conversation of an uncertain future from 5-6 days to nearly a month.
b. Would create a potentially sticky situation with the kids in the 2021 recruiting class, the majority of which will sign letters of intent in the days leading up to the Big 12 Championship game.
c. Would follow a six-game winning streak and the best regular-season win percentage posted in more than a decade.

Honestly, I think a lot of that "dispute" comes from the reality a lot of folks simply refuse to consider the real possibility that a loss in the CCG doesn't automatically mean Mensa's gone.

 

[Ketchum]

Honestly, I think a lot of that "dispute" comes from the reality a lot of folks simply refuse to consider the real possibility that a loss in the CCG doesn't automatically mean Mensa's gone.

agreed.

 

[RLong68]

Texas wasn't ready in October to make change for a variety of reasons, which has allowed Herman a chance to thread a needle towards a possible path for a return in the last six weeks. If Texas loses on Friday, he'll need to be ready to strike, optics be damned because of the need to avoid uncertainty in recruiting.

I would be rather stunned if we lost on Friday AND Mensa's gone on Monday. I also have a ton of doubt about Meyer being all but signed, sealed and delivered.

 

[Ketchum]

I would be rather stunned if we lost on Friday AND Mensa's gone on Monday. I also have a ton of doubt about Meyer being all but signed, sealed and delivered.

I'm fascinated by how the admin plays this. Everyone thinks CDC has a full house and I'm just not sure.