Potpourri

Screw the jerks from Collie Station at Dead Dog Field….i hate them….let them wallow in the SEC….

Maybe Aggs can play Citadel, an actual military college.

Taylor T Room
Hip hip hooray to you. Great article and very informative.

It seems that when Texas considers a kid for scholly they get a boost in the rankings. Our offenseive recruiting has been terrible those years.

If Mack was CEO of a major corporation his would be on the hot seat. He is gambling that next year will be a great year. I think he will get done and will be playing in the bcs champ game in the next 2-3 years. If not playing twice in a row.

I like what the womens Baylor coach said in ref to the Aggies, “You cannot file for divorce and expect to sleep in the same bed”

Aggies play at SMU next year.

The Heisman race was proof in pudding.

Andrew Luck= Houston Texas
Robert Griffin=Copperas Cove Texas
Case Keenan= Texas

What happen with the recruitment of the listed above??
 I am sure I missed some Texas QB that did well in other programs.

Fozzie was all-Big 12 KR this year, Kyle Hix got an all Big 12 honorable mention. The point still obviously stands. Dear mercy that’s a dreadful lot.

Our little brother down in Collie Station reminds me of the son of one of my friends. After high school he came in one day and told Mom and Dad he had joined the Marines because “he was tired of taking orders”. My little friend was relieved of his delusions shortly after his arrival in San Diego. Sadly, I dont believe aggy will ever lose their delusions. They were so sure it was all upside and no downside going to SEC. Now instead of facing reality they blame Deloss.

Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat

minor correction, Sam Acho plays for the Cardinals. He’s been getting great reviews so far this season, btw.

@striker

Dunno about Luck. Maybe we passed because we were all in on Gilbert?

Story is that we wanted RG3 to play safety.

Keenum was the typical “too small, arm too weak, system QB”. I heard him on the Dan Patrick Show the other day and he said that Houston was his only D1 offer. We never even gave him a look but neither did anyone else.

First of all, great post. Really enjoyed the read.

Isn’t A&M already playing SMU in the next couple of years? I heard some Ags talking about trying to get the game moved from SMU’s stadium to Cowboys Stadium. (I realize this was probably scheduled before A&M’s move to the SEC was announced.)

Regarding the offensive recruiting during those years, I have a hard time looking at that list and seeing examples of players that were “good enough” or the “easy signature” (I realize this list is the best of those classes so your point is still valid). I’ll grant you Mitchell and Harris, but even Mitchell was an Aggie lean early in the process. The rest of the players on that list all had us recruitniks foaming at the mouth (and not just because of Rivals rankings) and all had very solid offers from other big time programs. Huey and Allen were both Aggie locks. Kirkendoll was stolen from OU at the relatively last minute.

Personally, I look at that list and see the results of piss-poor development at OL and WR, an overall sense of entitlement/softness that permeated that side of the ball post-VY, and a couple of injury casualties in Fozzy and Irby.

“I am sure I missed some Texas QB that did well in other programs.”

GJ Kinne and the kid at Oregon.

@Stryker: “I think (Mack) will get (it?) done and will be playing in the bcs champ game in the next 2-3 years. If not playing twice in a row.”

+1

@Striker. Sorry ’bout that.

Perfect description of the Aggies’ ability to hold onto two contradictory thoughts simultaneously.

Boiled down a little, it goes: Everybody loves us! Everybody hates us!

The one thought that always remains uncompromised is: Texas is as obsessed with us and wants to do us harm. The Ags are famously irony deaf.

Delete the “as.” Maybe that makes me an ass.

How bad was Texas recruiting on the offensive side of the ball from 2006 to 2009? This bad. In that period, Texas recruited 40 offensive players, a number 50% larger than the defense had (27).

I think you’re talking about 2006 to 2008 here.

Note that our offensive recruits were mostly 4 stars, and parts of nationally ranked classes, and you have to ask if the Rivals rankings mean anything.

They do. They’re far from infallible, but recruiting rankings are a pretty good guide to a team’s talent level.

Thanks for the items. Item 1 really astonished me with the level of futility on the offensive of the ball. One contributing factor was about 10 of those offensive recruits were TEs. That list of top 11 though is just poor poor poor. Out of them I would only list: Kirkendoll, Irby and Snow as players who meaningfully contributed. Maybe Huey or Hix too but those OLs were so bad. Truly amazing ineptitude.

As for item 2, I think scheduling A&M does nothing for the Big12 Texas schools. it actually could hurt them recruiting or prestige wise. Now for Rice, SMU, UTEP, Houston or smaller schools the money could help them. Therefore I think it would be wise for the Texas Big 12 schools to make informal agreements to schedule them in order to keep them from scheduling A&M.

regarding qb recruiting the past several years, my take is that gd was hidebound to never take a qb like vince again. my impression is that he never wanted vince in the first place, because, like ricky, vince was such a talent that greg’s vision for the perfect offense had to take a back seat to optimizing those talents (once mack grabbed his by the ears and made him optimize for vince). note that we refused to take a stellar running back or a running qb anything like as talented as vince in those waning years of greg-rot.

i honestly think greg is two or three bubbles off plumb, and i think he felt he had to field a world-beater passing team that refused to advance the ball on the ground much at all, so that the whole wide world would clearly see what an offensive genius he is.

my take, anyway.

Tokomak
Thanks for the sharing the info. Good to know we at least took a look at RG3. Thanks

him, of course.

That list is insane. 4 years of recruiting on the offensive side of the ball and NO draft picks?!?!?

Our recruiting may have been bad 06-08, but I think in addition to our D, a lot of the reason we played for the NC in 2009 was Colt McCoy, Shipley, Cody Johnson, and of course Hunter Lawrence. Colt was in the 05 class, and Shipley has been here since the 80s, so that doesn’t fly in the face of your main argument. I do think cody should be added to that list. And Harris as the best QB for that time period might be a bit revisionist.

“@Stryker: "I think (Mack) will get (it?) done and will be playing in the bcs champ game in the next 2-3 years. If not playing twice in a row."

+1"

Delusion.

Mack’s got to beat OU (and now OSU, TCU, and WVU) before he can even be B12 champ. That ship has sailed. Sleepy has left the auditorium.

When Mack retires.

I think Brian Kelly the HC of Notre Dame would be an excellent fit for the Texas football program. Good with PR, recruiting and coaching players.

Although Andrew Luck’s dad went to Law School at UT, it has been reported numerous times he showed no interest in QB-ing at Texas. His offer list was heavy on academics (Rice, Stanford, Northwestern, Virginia). The fact that he was considering Rice should tell you everything you need to know about where his focus was in choosing schools. He’s not a native born Texan, and had no connections to the state until his dad moved here in 2001.

If you want to hang Griffin on Mack, I’d probably agree, but Luck didn’t want to come here.

No connections other than Oliver Luck’s time with Oilers, which was marginal at best.

2006 was a particularly bad recruiting class. At least 07 had contributors (Hix, Allen, Huey, Cody, Foz, Kirk, Snow, Newton, Monroe).

Not a single OL from 06 was ever even a back up, I think.
The best QB - Snead - transferred. Harris attempted about 5 passes in his career, I think.
I don’t think any of the WR played.
No RB.
Greg Smith at least tried.
Hunter Lawrence was the headliner for the O in that class. Holy Hell.

The 05 class is actually kind of amazing. It was very small, only 15 players. But SEVEN of them now play in the NFL, most as starters (Cosby, Melton, Miller, Muck, McCoy, JC, Finley). That is rediculous.

Another issue for the Ags in setting up series with locals: Of late, they’ve been showing a disturbing willingness - enthusiasm, even - to break contracts, to say nothing of gentlemen’s agreements. They can point to us and say “Well, you started it”, but their self-professed code of honor - which they never ever shut up about - should preclude them from acting in such bad faith. Funny how that goes out the window when money and pride is at stake.

Right now, they’re really bad partners both with their peer institutions and with their staffing. People are right to be hesitant with them.

the Davis/Brown offense wasn’t really the place for the modestly talented player to reach his potential

For some reason when I read “Davis/Brown offense” I get depressed.

Together those two words are like “Sodom & Gomorrah,” “Arab/Israeli,” “Russo-Japanese,” etc. There were some good times, yeah, but on balance less so.

That 2006 really is putrid, offensively. Only J’Marcus Webb made the League, and he flunked out here. I think Roy Watts had a couple of solid seasons at Cougar High.

We got minutes out of Vondrell McGee and Greg Smith (EBS forever, baby!!). The rest produced bumpkiss. Shocker that there was no offensive senior leadership last year.

Some ‘expert’ guest on Finebaum’s show the other day said that Muschamp was looking at Greg Davis as a potential replacement for Weis. After I got out of my wrecked car, I had to laugh.

Anyone else heard that?

Davis is a good position coach. He was a terrible being coordinator and questionable at recruiting. This is just my opinion. I would hire Greg Davis as position coach but not as a coordinator or in charge or recruiting.

Greg Davis and Will Muschamp in the same room designing scheme. That is a car wreck.

Greg Davis is Narcisstic and Will Muschamp as Adult Attention Deficit Disorder. Not a good cocktail for a team. Adult ADD is a great trait of a coach as it brings flexibiltiy, solution and leadership by actions.

After I got out of my wrecked car, I had to laugh.

That made me laugh.

Only Texas fans could crucify the coaches that took them to two National Championship games. What would Notre Dame give for the record Mack Brown compiled at Texas? Mack would be nominated for sainthood.

Thanks for the comments. Yeah, I meant the 2006 - 2008 classes. Yes, I know TAMU plays the Ags in Dallas at Ownby in 2012. That game was scheduled a few years ago. Personally, I encourage SMU et. al. to play the Ags as much as they want to.

John, who do you think deserves the criticsm for back-to-back losing Big 12 seasons, and 5-7 and 7-5 records and for the miserab;e recruiting and development that is documented in this post?

The media? The fans? Perhaps the horrid LHN?

“The 05 class is actually kind of amazing. It was very small, only 15 players. But SEVEN of them now play in the NFL, most as starters (Cosby, Melton, Miller, Muck, McCoy, JC, Finley). That is rediculous.”

Sorry for the history lesson if you already know this, but that year the coaches knew they were taking a very small recruiting class and had to be very selective with offers. Honestly that is really the last class that I think every scholarship awarded went through that level of evaluation. Ironically 2 of the 3 really big misses that year were total busts in college, and the 3rd wasn’t near the player that Finley turned out to be.

We nominated Vince Young and Colt McCoy.

Davis is aptly crucified as the OC whose juvenile playcalling and dubious recruiting nearly defeated even those great QBs.

Brown… we have mixed feelings. We suspect he delegated certain things, like the evaluation of high school prospect Robert Griffin, or the training of QB Garrett Gilbert, to the wrong people. We are also aware he was the winningest FBS coach for the first decade of this century.

I agree with those who foresee a very bright 2013-2014 for Texas. Hook ’em.

And who deserves the criticism for the first, second and fourth-worst losses (horsefuckings, actually) in history to OU. And four losses in a row to Bill Snyder? And a 2-6 record against KSU. That’s right, KS-fucking-U.

obligatory gideon comment

Gads. Lotta terrific stuff here, both the original post and the comments. Terrific insight and comments.

TTR — Loved the offensive ineptitude stuff . . . and the Aggies and their in-state scheduling was even better.

On the offensive recruiting — It wasn’t so much who we took as who we failed to take, or even tried to get. The OSU offensive tackle who was All-America and a No. 1 pick a couple of years back. Crabtree. Kendall Wright. The Ags’ stud RBs, Gray and Michel. I’ll forgive RGIII and Luck; the former wasn’t considered Big 12 worthy (he committed to Briles to go to UH), the latter never looked at Texas and if he had, we’d have laughed and said he had to know GG was going to get hurt he expected to play.

UT-06 — Newton and Monroe were in the ’08 class.

Yeh — Davis wanted a “system” QB to execute his perfectly drawn-out play-calling. He forgot that smart coaches matter only if you have players better than, or at least equal to, your opponents.

General — Mack let GD make the offensive decisions, and opposing HS and college coaches figured out that the top running backs would not fit in that system. So we ended up No. 3 in the country one year with a rotation of Ogbannaya and Vondrell and a banged-up Fozzy. And we tried to run the ball with big but severely limited on mobility linemen like Huey and Hix and Ulatosky; those guys should not have been asked to execute a zone blocking scheme.

To be fair, Sherrod Harris did contribute one time by having an excellent narrative twitter feed. He was having a bar conversation with some guy unknowing dude about the bum career of Sherrod Harris, how he was lazy, etc.

And I paraphrase: “And I slapped down that piece of paper with my handle @sherrodharris like I just scored 35 in dominoes. Y’all know how hard it is to score 35 in dominoes?? GOLLLEEE”

The lousy recruiting angle is way over done. You are picking kids when they are 16-18. A handful of them in the state can run a 4.4. You find them, sign them, and hope. You tell me if Darius White wouldn’t have come to UT that OU would have turned them down? No one else was interested in Chiles? We didn’t have a coherent system and we fell asleep on player development. Boise would die for kids like we had.

after my annual review this week, my manager said that the boss of him said, “You’re only as good as you are next year.” i thought that was deep shit man.

I think it is hard to split recruiting out from development. As others have noted, most of the “awful eleven” on offense were offered by other major programs. Failure to develop those players by our offensive and S&C coaches in the Paid Early Retirement Program (h/t Scip) is as big if not a bigger factor than recruiting.

Deferred Early Retirement Program (DERP)

“Only Texas fans could crucify the coaches that took them to two National Championship games. What would Notre Dame give for the record Mack Brown compiled at Texas? Mack would be nominated for sainthood.”

BWAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHA!

“Story is that we wanted RG3 to play safety.”

And he would have been a great one. Were we wrong?
He might have won the Thorpe award and left early for the NFL. How great would THAT have been?

Taylor,

Ownby was torn down in the late 90’s. It’s Ford now.

Regarding the offensive recruiting during those years, I have a hard time looking at that list and seeing examples of players that were "good enough" or the "easy signature" (I realize this list is the best of those classes so your point is still valid). I’ll grant you Mitchell and Harris, but even Mitchell was an Aggie lean early in the process. The rest of the players on that list all had us recruitniks foaming at the mouth (and not just because of Rivals rankings) and all had very solid offers from other big time programs. Huey and Allen were both Aggie locks. Kirkendoll was stolen from OU at the relatively last minute.

Personally, I look at that list and see the results of piss-poor development at OL and WR,

Agree 100%.

That’s something for everyone to keep in mind when discussing recruiting.

haha I can’t even consider Britt Mitchell a tackle. what is it called when a player is doesn’t have the quickness or strength to match up with defensive ends but also can’t run, catch or block in open space like a tight end?

Good stuff TTR!

My only thought on the offensive recruiting is this…how much of the problem was recruits that didn’t live up to expectations, and how much was a deficient offensive coaching staff that seemed to lack motivation, attitude, and a cohesive offensive philosophy. (Thank you GDGD.) I’m curious if some of the four stars that languished here would have flourished in Norman, Eugene, Baton Rouge, or Tuscaloosa under more, shall we say, strenuous coaching.

Reference agricultural…there is NO incentive for any current Big XII teams, or Texas teams, to play the cow college in the foreseeable future. Several others have pointed out that those dolts stepped on just about everyone’s toes they could to get out of the Big XII and into the SEC. No surprise, but they especially slammed UT…and yet, they think the Horns, or anybody else left in Texas or the Big XII wants anything to do with them? Adding to the Baylor Lady Bears coach’s comments, agricultural made their own bed, and only they would be surprised that NOBODY they left behind wants to climb in it with them. I hope I NEVER see another UT/agricultural game in ANY sport for the remainder of my life. agricultural deserves every bit of the jailhouse lovin’ they’re gonna get in the SEC for the next couple of decades at least.

I think there is some hidden yardage we should look at here.

Losses to (at the time) key players. Newton, Buckner (god his one handed catches made me drool), Brewster, and a myriad of others who either quit football because of injuries, were forced out due to legal issues, left early, or flat out transferred because of depth. Also, Sherrod Harris, who had almost graduated and was like….mmmm….pass (he saw the writing on the wall).

What do you get when half your starters graduate, a 1/4 of them are otherwise ineligible, and Greg Davis is at the helm? 2010.

I just realized that Aggie is the drunk chick at a party that thinks she is being cute or flirty, but just comes off as a drunken whore. She mistakenly believes she’s a solid 9, when really she is lucky to be considered a 6. She keeps tying to take your cigarettes and your beer coyly by “seducing you”, when really you are just giving her stuff so she will go away.

SEC is the drunken frat guy who will realize the next morning exactly how thick those beer goggles really were…and be VERY disappointed. Unfortunately,now she’s pregnant (SEC is stuck with her), and the shenanigans begin.

Cue the circus music. The next few years are gonna be fun.

The 05 class also had ramonce taylor. Too bad he went sideways so fast.

Hate to play the what if game, but if VY stays in 06, we very likely win. In 08, OU should not have jumped us, and particularly if Gideon makes the easiest pick of his career. If gdgd doesn’t insist onrunning colt, we likely stomp Alabama. That would be titles in 05, 06, 09 and maybe 08. Such a different tune.

God I need a drink.

Oh, and here it is.

“Personally, I look at that list and see the results of piss-poor development at OL and WR, an overall sense of entitlement/softness that permeated that side of the ball post-VY, and a couple of injury casualties in Fozzy and Irby.”

Quote from horncasting, great analysis and insight. Absolutely right on. Add to that Malcolm Williams and being played where he did not fit. Watched him in HS and he would have been a super safety in college. Big hitter and a real football player. Just happened to have skillets for hands.

SMU has the Ags on the schedule for next three years. Word is the Ags are trying to break the next year game at SMU. If the Ags and Hogs can keep thier dallas game the Ags see no reason to come up to Dallas twice or have to play SMU at Ford Stadium. I look forward to watching the Aggies drown in the Hell of the SEC, also known as “the bottom of the conference”!

If I was in charge, I’d do all I could to help bury what’s left of Ag football. I’d sign up Rice and SMU for true home and home series as long as they agreed to not play the Ags. Hell, I’d even break DeLoss’s FU4Life stance with Cougar High under the same pretense. That way, we play 5 or 6 home games a year, OU in Dallas, 2 or 3 of Rice, SMU, UH and at BU, Tech or TCU for a total of about 9-10 games in Texas a year. Meanwhile, the Ags would only have about 5 or 6 games in Texas counting their non-conference of La-La, etc., playing nearly twice as many games in Texas, against Texas teams, in a Texas based conference would help annihilate anything resembling big time football the Ags have left. We have a chance to step on their throat and choke those fuckers out. I hope we do it.

That is not to say we have to do that to win recruiting wars or be better than them, but it would just be fun watching them go from below average to embarrassingly horrible. Of course, us returning to MNC contention the next few years would be ‘indescribably beautiful’ as the dad on Christmast Story says about his ‘major award.’