College football is a young man's game.
Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian told as much on National Signing Day when he confessed that the "Sark After Dark" social media campaign had less to do with someone's creative marketing campaign and more to do with the fact that these damn high school kids from the 2020s don't operate on Luby's time.
"That's when these kids operate now," Sarkisian said. "They operate at night."
When Sarkisian first made the comments, I thought about how worthless I'd be as a 45-year old father of seven-year old twins. It's not that I'm always asleep when the members of the 2022 class want to do their bidding, it's that the last thing I'd want to do after being awake for 17 hours in any day is have to humor a high school kid between Tweets and Tik Tok posts.
Perhaps we need to replace "GET OFF MY LAWN!" with "LET ME WATCH MY NETFLIX!"
After becoming self-aware to my Monday Morning Quarterbacking limitations, I thought about the ages of Sarkisian's first-year staff.
Stan Drayton is 50. Andre Coleman is 50. Jeff Banks is 46. Kyle Flood is 50. Jeff Choate is 51. Terry Joseph is 48. Pete Kwiatkowski is 55. Bo Davis is 51.
Of course, two members of the staff - A.J. Milwee (35) and Blake Gideon (32) are a couple of whippersnappers, but the most part I found Sarkisian's staff in the same Danny Glover/Roger Murtaugh "I'm Too Old For This Shit" Club, for which I'm a card-carrying member.
Did you know that Glover/Murtaugh was only 41 years old when the first Lethal Weapon movie came out?
It's not that you have to be old to be in this particular club, it's just that you have to have lived long enough to think that waiting for teenagers to drove a top 8 at 11pm night feels like a trip to an inner circle of hell. Even if you're awake at 11am, like Banks probably is, refreshing Twitter probably isn't what you want on your agenda.
I wondered on Signing Day if the comments made by Sarkisian were some kind of foreshadowing for what he might do if and when he needed to name staff replacements in the coming month.
Sure enough, when Sarkisian needed to replace Drayton and Coleman, he did so with a pair of 30-somethings in Tashard Choice (37) and Brennan Marion (34). The fact that both of the new coaches are 29 combined years younger than the men they replace doesn't mean that the Longhorns will automatically be a better coaching staff.
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Maybe they will and maybe they won't, but age itself won't matter.
Yet, when it comes to recruiting and the bird-dogging of high school kids at all hours of the night, the staff feels better positioned with twice as many 30 somethings on the staff than it did before, especially when you consider that the running backs and wide receivers coaching positions are traditionally two of the best on any major college coaching staff.
Make no mistake about it, Choice and Marion have been both hired to make an immediate impact in recruiting. If it doesn't happen, I'm guessing Sarkisian will view the moves as a disappointment. I can assure you that Sarkisian doesn't want to have to offer a dozen wide receivers from the state of Texas in 2023.
I'm guessing Sark told them in interviews that being part-vampire is a big part of the job. After all, #SarkAfterDark is an anthem by necessity.
No. 2 - Updated Portal List ...
With a few names off the list and a few more names in the Portal, here's an updated look at my personal Top 25 available players in the Portal going into the first week of 2022.
1. RB - Zach Evans (TCU)
2. DE Jared Verse (Albany)
3. WR - Jacob Cowing (UTEP)
4. OL - Mason Brooks (Western Kentucky)
5. WR - Isaiah Nayor (Wyoming)
6. S - Brandon Joseph (Northwestern)
7. S - Iseem Young (Iowa State)
8. LB Ivan Pace Jr. (Miami-Ohio)
9. LB - Terrence Lewis (Maryland) -
10. Edge - Lonnie Phillips (Miami-Ohio)
11. LB - Mohamoud Diabate (Florida)
12. WR Taj Harris (Syracuse)
13. QB Cameron Ward (Incarnate Ward)
14. OL Hunter Nourzad (Cornell)
15. LB - Darius Muasau (Hawaii)
16. DE - Jonah Laulu (Hawaii)
17. WR - Deion Smith LSU
18. LB - Kris Moll (UAB)
19. WR Jaden Blue (Temple)
20. LB - Branden Jennings Maryland)
21. OL - Tre'mond Shorts (East Tennessee State)
22. WR Sam Crawford (Tulsa)
23. OL - J.D. DiRenzo (Sacred Haert)
24. WR - Jaylen Hall (Western Michigan)
25. WR Mitchell Tinsley (Western Kentucky)
No. 3 - And then there was one...
With the announcements of Omari Abor to Ohio State and Harold Perkins to Texas A&M on Sunday at the UA All-America game, only one uncommitted prospect remains with regards to the elite of the elite prospects from the state of Texas - Arlington Bowie offensive lineman Devon Campbell.
Considering the importance of Campbell to the Texas recruiting class, maybe it's appropriate that Campbell is scheduled to be the last man off the board among the state's Top 25 prospects.
If you haven't turned your attention to the Class of 2023, now is officially the time to do so.
As far as what took place at the Under Armor game, here are a few random thoughts...
a. Kelvin Banks looked all week like the guy we pretty much thought he was - a road shaking punisher in the running game and a work in progress as a tackle in pass protection. If anything, Neto Umeozulu probably proved that he warrants being mentioned in the same breath as every line prospect in Texas not named Devon Campbell.
b. part of me wonders if Banks lost his lofty ranking over the course of the last week. Consider what was written on Sunday by Rivals national analyst Adam Friedman: "The future Texas Longhorn was also one of the best offensive linemen throughout the week of practice. Kelvin Banks, the top ranked offensive linemen in the game and Umeozulu's future teammate in Austin, capped a forgettable week of practice with a similar performance in the game."
c. There seems to be an absolute consensus that Campbell is the No.1 line prospect in the state and it's been that way every time they've all worked out together. .
d. There's no getting around the fact that Harold Perkins is a fantastic get for the Aggies. There's just no one else in the state quite like him and even if he plays at a position with a historically high bust rate, he's among the best linebacker prospects that this state has produced in the modern era of recruiting. It's kind of amazing that so much defensive talent is giving Jimbo Fisher the benefit of the doubt with no definitive defensive coordinator in place.
e. Evan Stewart didn't perform like a five-star this week. I'll back off with the hyperbole for a while. On the other hand, Chris Marshall might have to crack my Top 10 in the final LSR 100.
No. 4 - The GOAT wide receiver?
After posting the greatest freshman season in the history of the Texas wide receiver, I wondered this weekend what Xavier Worthy would have to do to own the triple crown of major career receiving records.
By my count, he would have to average 93 receptions for 1,443 yards and 12 touchdowns over the course of the next two seasons in order to pull it off, assuming that he heads to the NFL after three seasons.
Those are impossible numbers to pull off, but it definitely puts the careers that Jordan Shipley and Roy Williams both had in better perspective, although each of them played four years instead of three.
No. 5 - About Anwar's prediction ...
If you missed Anwar Richardson's Sunday Pulpit, the highlight was a never-too-early-to-go-out-on-a-limb 7-5 prediction for the Longhorns in 2022.
Considering the Longhorns just went 5-7, it's probably not too crazy of a prediction. I suppose my biggest question about a 7-5 season is what it means in the grand scheme of things for Sarkisian.
Where exactly would a .500 record (not including the 2022 bowl game) through two seasons leave Sarkisian?
Does that put him on a hot seat for 2023 with a double-digit win mandate to save his job? Could Texas as an institution be patient enough to ride it out with Sarkisian into 2024 and 2025, regardless of record? Does a decade of losing cause the standards to drop to levels that wouldn't have existed under... dare I say... Tom Herman?
I don't really have any answers. I'm just thinking out loud.
No. 6 - Take that loss, Huggy-Bear ...
How much did that 15-point loss to the Longhorns on Saturday leave an awful taste in the mouth of West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins?
If the flame thrower he used against the Texas fan-base on Saturday is any indication, he might have just swallowed his own vomit at some point during the game.
"This is one of the easiest places to play because they don’t bring people in here," Huggins said. "Go to K-State. Go to KU. Go to Oklahoma State. That’s hard. You can’t hear coaches yelling things out. You can’t hear your teammates. Here, you can hear conversations in the stands, almost .The whole thing to me is mental."
It sounds to me like Huggins hasn't quite figured out that the Longhorns have built its home-court advantage on being able to hear what he yells out. The joke is on him.
Seriously, if Huggins really wanted to talk about the Texas crowd, it would have been gutsier to do so before the game and not afterwards because it feels a little like sour grapes.
I guess if you've swallowed your own vomit, maybe sour grapes doesn't taste so bad.
No. 7 – BUY or SELL …
(Sell) The vibe at the moment is that he'll be staying put.
(Sell) I think we'll see on occasion, but I don't expect it to be a staple of the offense from week to week.
(Sell) You can feel free to ask this question again a little later in the year, but at the moment this is a roster with question marks all over the place and a head coach that has never remotely enjoyed that kind of on-field success in his three stops thus far.
(Sell) Easily.
(Buy) You'd have to be a real homer to not acknowledge that Aranda just pulled off the single-best job of coaching any of us have ever seen in the history of the Big 12.
(Buy) Before the end of the season, we might see Sarkisian go completely with youth/his guys.
(Buy) He's my starter at the edge position at this point. I don't know who Texas has that will be better.
(Buy) Of course. Money talks and so much else walks.
(Sell) Doomed? Nah.
(Sell) OU seems to have calmed the chaos down a little.
(Buy) You're basically asking me if the Longhorns have a draft-eligible junior coming into this season that will go before the end of the first three rounds and I don't see that person yet, even if a couple of players could emerge into that type of prospect.
(Buy) Absolutely. It's a wrinkle that makes a lot of sense for this team.
(Buy) I expect Texas to have at least five new starters from the Portal by the time August rolls around.
No. 8 - Scattershooting on the sports weekend ...
... I really fell for the Michigan hype and thought they would beat Georgia. I feel like a dumb-dumb for giving the Big 10 some benefit of the doubt. In the end, it definitely feels like the best two teams in the country are meeting for the title.
... Texas fans are never going to get over how Tom Herman handled Jaxon Smith-Njigba's recruitment and that's completely fair. He's good.
... Not a bad showing by the Big 12 in the bowl season at all.
... Props to Mike Gundy for a 12-win season. Every time I doubt the guy, he makes me pay for it.
... Should Mack Brown have stayed in television? Is a 21-17 record in three seasons at UNC good enough?
... Rest in peace, John Madden. There will never be another like him. Back in the day, if he was talking about the butt sweat of the Dallas Cowboys offensive line, you knew that the Cowboys had it going really good.
... My expectations for the Dallas Cowboys going into the playoffs are minimal. Maybe we'll win a playoff game, but it's hard to really expect more than that. We're like Michigan football.
... Kliff Kingsbury out-coaching Mike McCarthy is a sentence I never thought I would type.
... Ja'Marr Chase is some kind of football player. My goodness.
... Someone is eating steak tonight!
... I really don't know how to put into words what I think about the Antonio Brown situation, but he did himself a world of harm on Sunday. Feels like he needs some help.
... The D'Onta Foreman Tour continued on Sunday... 132 yards and a touchdown,. Keep it up, D'Onta!
... The benching of Foreman might have cost @Alex Dunlap a first-ever Orangebloods fantasy championship. Congrats to @a_hornsfan for his first title. The best team all season proved to be the best on Sunday. Kudos.
... A Kevin Durant/Joel Embiid playoff series would be a lot of fun.
... Consider me a very frustrated Liverpool fan at the moment.
No. 9 - Top 10 The Rolling Stones ...
If last week was about The Beatles, then this week should be about their British partners in rock and roll immortality.
Read it and weep.
11. Dance Little Sister
10. Beast of Burden
9. Start Me Up
8. Jumping Jack Flash
7. You Can’t Always Get What You Want
6. Wild Horses
5. Sympathy for the Devil
4. Honky Tonk Woman
3. Satisfaction
2. Paint it Black
1. Gimme Shelter
No. 10 - And Finally...
Rest in peace, Betty White. For all of the things she did in her career, I'll always remember her as Rose from the Golden Girls, a show that I watched with both of my maternal grandmothers.
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