Ketch's 10 Thoughts From The Weekend (This is personal...)
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This is all very personal to me.
As Orangebloods creeps closer and closer to being old enough to rent a car, time has a way of washing away beginnings. Before the YouTube shows, a decade of radio, an Amazon best-selling book and 20+ years of the site ranking as the No. 1 subscription site in the Rivals network/industry, I was just a lowly regional recruiting guy in the late 90s working on a platform that was years away from being in the mainstream.
Back in the day, everything felt revolutionary. One day, I had one of the owners of Rivals.com telling me that the concept of the War Room would never work and months later I was teaching it to every site publisher in the network at a publisher's conference. For years, Orangebloods created the blueprint for recruiting coverage and everyone else followed.
Before we go any further, I want to say that I'm very proud of the recruiting coverage from 30,000 feet up. In a recruiting world that is forever fluid in a new era of NIL, I couldn't be more pleased with the pulse we've had on the most important recruiting stories of the Steve Sarkisian era. When we hit the home stretch of the 2025 cycle, we were very clear in reporting that all of the clutter could be removed and that the focus was on three players - Justus Terry, Kade Phillips and Michael Fasusi. When almost all national reporters were not seeing Terry to Texas from a mile away, we were very, very bullish.
The truth of the matter is that you guys are generally very pleased with our recruiting coverage. In a recent survey of more than 1,000+ subscribers, more than two out of three subscribers rated our recruiting coverage as either a 9 or 10 on a 10-point scale. Nearly 90% gave us a rating between 7-10. All things considered, as Larry David might say ... "Pretty .... pretty ... good.
Yet, I would concede that I've grown a bit disenfranchised as a content provider on the recruiting front over a number of years. Everyone just does the same thing. The same style of updates. In some cases, it's the exact same updates on the same day.
Perhaps the worst of the group think that was driving me crazy occurred on the day of UT's only official recruiting event in 2025 to date ... the Junior Day in January. Everyone can close their eyes and see the formula unfold. Every site takes the same pictures at the same time. The interviews are all mostly done at the same time ... with the same quotes. The info is posted in official threads on message boards. It's not that there isn't great work taking place across all sites (because there is), but good grief ... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
This is just how I feel about it all. Perhaps it's harsh, but when have I ever pussyfooted around with speaking directly about anything? I might not always be right, but you've known for 25+ years that I won't give you the company line as a default position. It was on that day in January that I committed myself to a refresh of our entire recruiting coverage plan.
Just like the War Room received a jolt in the arm last year with a revision of the ideology of the format (fewer words, more impact nuggets), we want to accomplish the same thing in the coming months with a completely revamped approach. I want us providing content you're not getting elsewhere in formats you're not otherwise receiving them in. The winner in all of this should be you guys. After going into the lab with the Orangebloods team in the month of February during the dead period, we think we're making changes that you guys will notice and come to love.
No one is really breaking commitments these days. What matters more than anything is the storytelling and our commitment is to be the best storytellers in this industry ... every damn day. Along the way, we're going to take some approaches that won't be considered the norm in the industry and we don't care. Unorthodox is kind of what we're going for. We want to be daring. Honestly, what I want is for us to do a great job of this revised storytelling that everyone in this market is forced to change their methods ... and perhaps forced to copy us ... again. I want you all to see and know it.
That's my goal and I'm putting this section in the lede this week because I want everyone to know it. Maybe we pull it off, maybe we don't, but I want you to know that we vow to you to never stop trying new things. Maybe some of you won't be convinced that we're the undisputed champs, but you'll at least know us for being different.
Here's a look at our new recruiting content schedule that we've already begun to unveil. More is coming.
* Everything Everywhere All At Once (Sunday night/Monday morning at the latest) - Updates on every key visit taken by every key recruit on the map for the Longhorns. We'll go anywhere and everywhere to get the updates, even if it means giving an attaboy to our competition. All that matters is that you get the info that matters, vanity be damned. Debuted last Monday to much fanfare.
* Behind Enemy Lines (Tuesday) - Just like during the football season, the purpose of this piece on the recruiting side is to inspect what's happening on the A&M, OU, LSU and entire SEC fronts from its own local reporting, with special focus on the Aggies and Sooners.
* Back in the Day (Tuesday) - A member of the Orangebloods staff will tell a story from decades in the memory banks. DJ Williams/Albert Hollis ... Ryan Perrilloux ... Darrell Scott ... we'll never run out of stories. Maybe we'll collect them all and put them into a book.
* The Rumor Mill: (Wednesday) - Nothing but updates on key recruits for the Longhorns. No schmoes. Just the big dogs. The title of this article is still in the workshop, but we're paying homage to Rivals' Rumor Mill articles, which is among the best content the network produces. We're just a little concerned that the title is a little too much like ...
* NIL Nuggets of the Week (Wednesday) - Another project with a working title, but the purpose of this content piece is to focus on every interesting and important NIL-related moments across all of college athletics.
* Recruiting Rankings (Wednesday) - Yet another project without a name completely nailed down, but we'll be discussing rankings from Rivals and all of the other services. Anything that is rankings related, including the release of updated LSR rankings and a new set of Orangebloods Out of State Rankings created by @CodyCarpentier will be included.
* Truth and Lies (Thursday) - Bring on the damn rumors no matter how wild or outlandish. We're going to talk about them and grade them. I will not stand for unacknowledged elephants in the room. People seemed to like this one when it debuted last week.
* The Recruiting Board (Thursday) - It's the Recruiting Board updated every single week instead of once per month-ish.
* The Friday Refresh (Friday) - Your one-stop shop for a review of every notable event during the last week in Texas recruiting. Never worry about missing anything again if you're traveling for work. We got you.
* The Weekend (Friday) - A primer for every single weekend throughout the entire year when traveling by key Texas targets is taking place. It'll set the tone for the entire weekend by creating a one-stop shop for remembering who the hell went where from weekend to weekend.
We've got a few other ideas that we're workshopping and you know that we'll add Portal Kombat to the rotation when the first sniff of spring Portal discussion starts to emerge.
I hope you guys enjoy what we have in store.
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