Ketch's 10 Thoughts From the Weekend (The thing I was most wrong about this season...)
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Agreed, but 7-5 is a hell of a lot better than 5-7 or even 6-6.
This team has lost style points. That helps you with recruiting and moving forward. The USC game was supposed to be a beginning until we saw USC is really not that impressive. The OU game we just didn’t start and finish. The OSU game was a kick in the pants. What we really have is KSU and ISU, not exactly world beaters. TCU exposed us bad. We just caught those guys at the wrong time. What’s sad is there were plays there to be had. Either way we get one win get some extra practices and that helps this team. We get two win a bowl convincingly then it always helps with momentum.
He's on his way to being a head coach soon.
We aren’t going to finish top 5 in recruiting ? Come on Ketch where did you get that from. We still have a chance for number 1 class. Likely won’t get it but top 5 class is almost a guarantee.
Btw I’m not using Rivals. I’m using composite.
Btw I’m not using Rivals. I’m using composite.
Anything on what the staff plans on doing for next year to fix the OL,Running game, and Kicking game? If we lose a WR and a CW I am fine, I think we have to land on some JUCO players and should see more smoke than we do about recruiting DL/OL JUCO players. I hope we can at least get a transfer.
Do the coaches really see so much more out of these players in practice and they just stink in games because the Kickers all look like D2 Kickers and the OL/RB have been bad. The entire board said after 2 games put the freshman in the game to run the ball and it took until the end of the season to see that move made and now when they do run it they go away from it. This is Herman's show he needs to man up and take responsibility for this mess as far as play calling and scheme.
Will Herman be to hard headed to be successful at Texas? He should have a kicking coach and a better OC to fit the Big 12 and his personnel.
Looking solely a qbr with a qb that runs has always been hilarious to me. Additionally, I️ do think Sam takes the majority of the snaps this week and we pull out a 28-17 win on the road.
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I question whether the Longhorns will finish well enough to hold down a top five spot. It's going to be close.
I don't know that Herman knows yet what he's going to do to address those issues. I wrote a week ago that the staff should be going in heavy on JUCO OL.
The coaches have what they have at kicker. They'll have new options next year.
" that 20-point butt-kicking,"
51-41 sucks but it cannot be the above!
51-41 sucks but it cannot be the above!
So who do you hold more resposible for this years record? Herman and staff or injuries and the previous staffs recruiting of talent or lack of talent on the OL and RB/K?
So it would be interesting to know how the transfers have done at their new schools. Do one of you mods want a project?I didn't expect this team to beat USC. I didn't think it would be better than Oklahoma State. Or play in the Big 12 title game.
What I thought about this team was three things ...
1. It would beat Maryland.
2. It would lose two of three against USC, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.
3. It would improve as the season went along and that by the end of the season, it would be playing its best brand of football, which would allow it to win four of its final five games.
Well, I was wrong about No. 1 and No. 2, yet it feels like the thing I was most wrong about is No. 3.
I thought the thing we'd be saying about this team in November is that none of the teams that caught it in September or early October would want a piece of the Longhorns late in the year.
Oops.
The sign of a well-coached team is constant improvement throughout the season, especially with a young team, but the reality of the 2017 season is that this team isn't making the type of progress that would begin to remotely suggest that Texas is peaking at the end of the season.
Weirdly, this team could still end up winning four of its final five games, with two games left to play, which means that as wrong as I've been, I might end up being right about the thing I feel I was most wrong about.
Nothing feels more 2017 than that.
No. 2 – Let's just get this out of the way ...
Starting Sam Ehlinger on Saturday gives Texas its best chance of leaving Morgantown with a W.
Shane Buechele had a chance to make Ehlinger's performances against Kansas State and Oklahoma a bit of a distant memory, but that is not what has happened in the last three weeks.
No. 3 – A quick thought on attrition ...
One of the things that's been coming out of the grapevine in the last couple weeks is the subject of departures from the program once the season ends.
I'm not going to overwhelm you guys with conversation on the subject of attrition because I've done that several times already this year. I just want to remind everyone of one little stat:
Not including this year's freshman class, 72 of the last 157 players that the Longhorns have signed since 2010 have left the program early, a product of attrition. That's essentially three full recruiting classes worth of departures ... or every other one, essentially.
No one would argue that zero attrition is either helpful, healthy or possible, but the task in front of Tom Herman is to stop the outright flood of departures that sees the program losing double-digit numbers each season. When you wonder each season why the program has 10 seniors on the roster, it's not rocket science. Instead of 40+ transfers in every four-year cycle (which is what Texas has averaged for more than a decade),the number probably needs to be in the 25-30 range.
Texas won't be able to sustain any kind of success until it can stop the bleeding out in the talent base.
Just something to keep in mind heading into the off-season.
No. 4 - The Full Breakdown ...
Here's an updated look at the Texas attrition numbers over the course of the last four years:
2014 (8/15/13-8/14/14)
(13) Aaron Benson (transfer), Joe Bergeron (transfer), Josh Cochran (injuries), Chevoski Collins (dismissed), Deoundrei Davis (transfer), Bryant Jackson (medical), Montrell Meander (dismissed), Chet Moss (dismissed), Jalen Overstreet (dismissed), Kendall Sanders (dismissed), Leroy Scott (dismissed), Kevin Shorter (injuries) and Kendall Thompson (injuries)
2015 (8/15/14-8/14/15)
(11) David Ash (injuries), Duke Catalon (transfer), Cecil Cherry (transfer), Kennedy Estelle (dismissed), Rami Hammad (transfer), Cameron Hampton (transfer), Desmond Harrison (dismissed), Darius James (transfer), M.J. McFarland (transfer), Miles Onyegbule (injuries) and Curtis Riser (transfer)
2016 (8/15/15-8/14/16)
(8) Adrian Colbert (transfer), Bryson Echols (transfer), DeAndre McNeal (transfer), Ryan Newsome (transfer), Derick Roberson (transfer), Jermaine Roberts (transfer), Jake Raulerson (transfer) and Dalton Santos (transfer)
2017 (8/15/16-8/14/17)
(10) Peyton Aucoin (transfer), Jean Delance (transfer), Jordan Elliott (transfer), Erick Fowler (transfer), Brandon Hodges (transfer), Erik Huhn (transfer), Kai Locksley (transfer), Jake Oliver (graduated), Marcel Southall (transfer) and Blake Whiteley (transfer)
Imagine an offensive line that had the likes of Estelle, Hammad, James, Raulerson, Delance and Hodges as options in the line-up.
No. 5 – The elephant in the room ...
The Longhorns had a number of big-time national prospects on hand this weekend in recruiting, including a number of player whose presence would enhance the current 2018 recruiting class.
No matter how well the coaches recruit, no matter how much fun the kids might have on their visits ... the kids that visited will remember this when they go home.
No. 6- Two words for the Texas basketball team ...
Hot damn.
I'm not going to go overboard with hyperbole because we've certainly done that before with this program.
H-o-w-e-v-e-r ...
That was a hell of a first impression. I want to see more of Mo Bamba. I want to see more of Matt Coleman. I want to see more of Dylan Osetkowski.
I want to see more of this.
Bring on New Hampshire on Tuesday. I'm in.
No. 7 – Buy or Sell …
BUY or SELL: My high level of disgust is appropriate?
(Buy) The program is essentially Dirk Diggler in a parking lot in the 1980s, sometime after Little Bill commits a murder-suicide on New Year's Eve and before the last scene when he's about to make his return to porn. You have every right to be disgusted.
BUY or SELL:This year’s team beats last year's team by two touchdowns or more?
(Sell) It probably wins by a touchdown. The question you'd have to ask is whether this year's offense could take advantage of the easier defense it would be facing. Hard to argue that it would at this point.
BUY or SELL: If UT won the MD game the narrative of this season would be noticeably different.
(Sell) Even if we wiped away that 20-point butt-kicking, this would be a team likely headed to 7-5 instead of 6-6. Changing that game doesn't change the uninspired level of play from this team down the home-stretch, does it?
BUY or SELL: The defense feels the impact of losing Holton Hill against WVU and Tech, causing Texas to lose both games?
(Sell) Texas is going to beat Texas Tech.
BUY or SELL: Ton Herman’s tenure at Texas will ultimately be judged by his ability to recruit offensive linemen in the next two recruiting cycles?
(Sell) Tom Herman is going to be judged by his ability to coach the quarterbacks and linemen he currently has in this program. The incoming prospects from the next two classes won't likely make a monster impact in the next two years, at least not if history is an indicator.
BUY or SELL: Reading OB is a beating, win or lose?
(Sell) Let's cut Texas fans some slack. I haven't seen any couches set on fire in the streets. You don't hear horror stories about the way the fans treat visiting fans. Do they get a little ugly on message boards? Yes. However, that's basically every college football fan base, especially those that are on a decade-long cannonball into an empty pool.
BUY or SELL: Texas finishes with 7/8 wins, signs a top-5 class and has momentum going into a 2018 winnable Big 12 that is losing A TON of starting QBs?
(Sell) I think Texas might finish with seven wins if it wins the bowl game, but I don't see a top-five finish in recruiting and I don't know where all the momentum is coming from. Also, I feel like we leave every year saying the Big 12 is there for the taking the following year, so let's stop assuming that will be the case.
BUY or SELL: Connor Williams is a Longhorn next year?
(Sell) All the buzz behind the scenes is that he's out of here.
BUY or SELL: Kansas is the worst team in the past 25 years to score 27 points at DKR?
(Buy) At first, I thought this question was full of hyperbole, but it turns out that it was hard to find a game that compares. The 1998 Longhorns let a 3-8 New Mexico State team score 36 points and a 3-8 Iowa State team score 33 points. I went all the back to 1990 and couldn't find any other games that featured a team with less than three wins scoring that many points at DKR.
No. 8 – If I had a vote that mattered ...
1. Alabama
2. Miami
3. Oklahoma
4. Clemson
5. Wisconsin
6. Georgia
7. Auburn
8. Ohio State
9. Notre Dame
10. USC
No. 9 – Eternal Randomness of the Spotty Sports Mind …
* Baker Mayfield is not only going to win the Heisman Trophy, he's going to be remembered as the best of the Oklahoma Heisman winners. What a player!
* Miami has won me over in the last two weekends. My goodness, that was total domination against Notre Dame. Impressive.
* I've been skeptical of Georgia and Notre Dame all year and on Saturday they proved my skepticism to be on point. Goodness gracious, both were beaten like they stole something out of their mom's purse.
* The sign of a well-coached team is steady improvement throughout the season. I feel like that's the definition of the Stanford Cardinal under David Shaw.
* Florida State is 3-6 this season. I can't believe I just typed those words.
* The rebirth of Manny Diaz might be the most underrated story of the 2017 season. Good for him. That's an easy guy to root for.
* I'm not saying that the season ended for the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday, but it sure felt like it.
* Damn, the Rams are fun to watch. I'm starting to believe.
* The Eagles are going to have the division won by Thanksgiving.
* I thought the Saints were headed for disaster after week one. To see them at 7-2, my goodness, Drew Brees and Sean Payton have restored their places in the football universe once again. That was a flat ass-kicking they handed to a decent Buffalo team.
* Chaz Green will see Adrian Clayborn in his nightmares for the rest of his life.
* Ignore pretty much everything you think you see in the NBA in November. Say it 100 times if you need to.
* It might just be that Ben Simmons was worth tanking for. I know Astros fans have to feel that way when they watch Carlos Correa.
* I love Bill Walton.
No. 10 – And Finally…
Shout out to the McCallum Knights from a Class of 1994 alum. It's one thing to go 10-0 in the regular season for the first time in 51 years and it's another to do so with the following notches on the belt:
Anderson W 48-28
Austin High W 56-13
Travis W 72-0
Reagan W 61-0
As someone that went 3-6-1 in his senior season and beat none of those teams along the way, I see you young Knights!
BY and large, most don't find major success after departing, but a few of those offensive linemen have. Adrian Colbert, who could not beat out Dylan Haines, is playing in the NFL.
A short handed team carried by the defense has given out. Reminds me of late round heavy weight boxers, dead legs and arms but still landing some punches.
But I’m hoping—against what i saw—that a little Sam, more young and Carter and some light practices will help revive them. Lots to play for.
Morgantown is no joke and Tech is hard to keep out of the end zone. So they better find some smelling salts and a good cut man.
A good corner-man will be essential in the next two weeks.
Would you say the most likely to de-commit are the following?
WR Moore
LB Adeoye
Who are players committed to other schools besides A&M Texas likes and will go after?
TCU-
Anthony McKinney OL Council Bluffs, IA 6'8" 330 5.8
Kristopher Dike OL Van, TX 6'6" 285 5.6
Esteban Avila OL Grand Prairie, TX 6'4" 308 5.6 3/8/17
Ochaun Mathis DE Manor, TX 6'5" 230 5.6
Tech-
Demarcus Marshall OL Grand Prairie, TX 6'3" 350 5.8
Baylor-
Joseph Ogunbanjo LB Houston, TX 6'3" 208 5.6
Bralen Taylor TE Cuero, TX 6'7" 225 5.6
Stanley Hackett RB Pasadena, TX 6'3" 193 5.9
Joshua Landry DE Houston, TX 6'3" 250 5.8
Joshua Fleeks RB Cedar Hill, TX 6'0" 169 5.8 2/18/17
Jackson Kimble OL Southlake, TX 6'5" 270 5.7
Kansas State-
Christian Duffie OL Houston, TX 6'4" 305 5.6
Spencer Trussell DE Arlington, TX 6'4" 225 5.5
Kansas-
Cartez Crook-Jones DE Grandview, MO 6'4" 230 5.6
Zach Burks DT Coffeyville, KS 6'3" 290 5.5
Josh Smith DE New Orleans, LA 6'4" 247 5.7 6/11/17
Miles Emery DE Overland Park, KS 6'5" 235 5.7
We have 2 guys name Davis that should get the job done. You also have the transfer Hurst from Tarleton who can play a little.
How many of a potential 10 would be names that would shock us ? Kind of like Delance did out of the blue.
I can list 4-6 guys off top of my head that would be candidates but wouldn’t be major losses.
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