This year's UT squad has blue chip, first round pro prospects at WR: Williams LB: Johnson CB: Vasher OT: Scott DT: Wright and potentially, V. Young In addition, these players will likely be drafted, possibly even in the mid to high rounds: DE: Thornton RB: Benson, Young TE: Scaife (maybe not b/c of injury risk) WR: Johnson S: Pearson And that doesn't really count this year's freshman, who haven't really been seen enough yet Arkansas has blue chip, first round pro prospects at: OT: Andrews CB: Carroll In addition, some players are likely to be drafted: S/LB: Bua CB: Richardson RB: Cobbs FB: Pierce and maybe QB Jones. So you tell me, who's got more talent?
Sam, don't forget about our other OT, Justin Blaylock, an absolute beast, built in the Leonard Davis mold. NFL scouts loved Ivan Williams as a FB until he got injured. Garnet Smith will play on Sundays as well.
Texas should win, but it will be close...ER is coming back but I'm not sure this is enough... If Texas wins, kiss this season good-bye...
Sam, your point, while not relevant to my explanation of why recruiting isn't the be-all-end-all, is interesting. What are you basing your draft projections on? This is a very critical question that is cloaked in the issue of the hype surrounding the UT program.
www.nfldraftblitz.com http://proxy.espn.go.com/ncf/columns/story?columnist=kiper_jr_mel&id=1626317 http://proxy.espn.go.com/ncf/columns/story?columnist=kiper_jr_mel&id=1622719 Just as a representative sample, but on nfldraftblitz, UT has 3 seniors in the top 20, 4 in the top 100. UA has 1 at 55. I don't think it is a close call whether or not Texas has more pro prospects than Arkansas and has more players that will get drafted.
The faulty assumption in this logic is to assume that a collection of good pro prospects would make up a good college team. That is not always the case.
Good pro prospects means they have the physical talent which is the basis of any good football team. It's up to coaches to develop that talent.
You are barking up the wrong tree. Your tag-team partner in crime, Trader Jorge, made this claim The fact that significantly more UT players will (apparently) be drafted higher than UA players is pobative of the hypothesis that they have more natural talent than Arkansas. A very simple syllogism; the assumptions it makes is that the prognostications of draftniks are not wildly off as far as who is a pro prospect and who is not, and that the NFL drafts for talent. I didn't say that the disparity in talent would necessarily make them a better college team at all times; it is obvious that a few saturdays ago, it did not.
So Mack is going to sub out the entire 1st team offensive line on the 3rd series? Brown also said he will continue to substitute the entire first team offensive line with the second-teamers when Young enters the game. He started making such wholesale changes against Rice and continued against Tulane. Brown had never before made such mass substitutions as part of the game plan at Texas. Is that a wise move? KState is no Tulane.
Yes, but central to the argument is the depth of the talent. You have in no way accounted for this, as your response only speaks to 4 of the 12 players that you listed. INCOMPLETE ANALYSIS Defend yourself, SamFisher
We should get McLain to ask those nfl scouts he watched the game with which team had more talent. Cal beat USC, but there isn't anyone on this board who thinks Cal is more talented than USC, right? Tozai, my brother was a trainer for UT and he said it was pretty well known that we had/have a pretty lax conditioning program. Maddog.........but, it all starts at the top.
Do the research yourself on the websites, you're a big boy and can point and click. You do know that each time you advocate this position you devalue your own opinion re:football in general?
That should end this argument. gr8-1- Just out of curiosity, could you give any specific details about what was so lax or what was wrong with Mad Dog's training. I don't know what he really does, but I'm interested. What I do know is that a s & c coach should be concerned with many things other than strength, including nutrition (not from Oprah), flexibility (hamstring injuries, Roy & Scaife talking about lack of flexibility), conditioning (Mad Dog's not the best role model), and training football player's like athletes, not powerlifters. That also means not every position should be doing the same workouts. I remember reading one of the fluff pieces on the official site talking about how many resources Mad Dog has and how he goes to conferences around the country to learn the latest techniques, but I don't know if any of these things are really implemented. The S&C should be the least of our concerns. People over emphasize it. Our players do need to be in shape, and our strength training should be focused on injury prevention, strengtening the core, glutes, and hamstrings, AND increasing RFD/explosiveness, not just max bench press etc. The only info I've gathered is that the players have a requirement to work out I think 3x a week, and can optionally come in to do wahtever else they want (i.e. biceps). I do know we're not a HIT school (thank God) and we do power cleans. I think most of the players have a generic workout unfortunately, but I'm not sure.
What point are you trying to make TJ? I don't see how anyone could disagree with the statement that Texas had one of the most talented teams in the nation. Physical size, speed, strength, potential...the whole package. What do you not understand about this? I think you are talking about talent as in how you use those qualities, which I agree we do not do as well as we should.
INCOMPLETE ANALYSIS Defend yourself, SamFisher You have yet to show any logical argument why Arkansas has more natural talent than Texas. As you stated, the win could be a result of talent or coaching, so you've yet to show any evidence of your own theory. Why don't you defend yourself and prevent even an initial analysis?
Major, your point assumes that the recruiting guru's and draft experts are better judges of talent than actual results on the field of play. Basing your analysis on this assumption is questionable at best. Lest you forget, Arkansas showed clear superiority on the field and won the game. Let's not lose sight of that. If that's not an objective, logical argument, then I don't know what is. In the absence of any other objective talent evaluation, all we have is the performance on the field of play. Attempting to judge talent by outdated recruiting lists, which gauge a player's talent at the end of their high school career is clearly flawed, as I pointed out. Attempting to judge talent by some projection of where a player might be taken in next year's draft is not a clear cut, definitive way to judge talent. Based on Sam's link, you are only judging a total of 5 players which were on the field. Hardly a complete analysis. Sam has failed in his attempts to support his opinion. The death blow to your entire argument is that if Texas were as talented as you claim, then their natural talent would have prevented them from being physically manhandled while attempting to stop Arkansas' ground game. This did not happen, and as a result, your argument is laid to rest.
