The 2014 College Football Thread.

[AdamVR4]

Texas is going to play a ball control offense and lean on it's defense. Kind of crazy given Texas HS offenses and the awful Longhorn defense last season...

Why? It worked for Strong at Louisville and it's a way of hedging against a lack of depth on offense... There are ~4 players Texas can't afford to lose and one of them was senior center Dominic Espinosa. A guy that could have ended the dry spell (6 years?) for Texas NFL draft picks. He got rolled up on and his ankle was broken... ~260-lb RS-Fr Jake Raulerson botched ~3 snaps (1 recovered in the end zone for the only UNT TD), and let Ash take a few significant hits. Unless the O-line guru we poached from Okie State (Wickline) can work a minor miracle, Raulerson and Ash are going to get rag-dolled by BYU and UCLA who play 3-4's with huge nose tackles.

My only criticism of Strong so far is that he left Ash in this game for too long. I can't wrap my head around it.

Now, our defense was completely different than anything we've seen in years. I don't recall a single missed tackle. UNT is starting over on offense and it showed, but the defense was fundamentally sound... UNT never got more than 8 yards on a play and had less than 100 yards on the day. Our walk-on safety (Haines) got a pick and a mackbrown-trash-heap LB (Cobbs) got a pick 6 and showed off some serious speed... 4 picks in all.

On the positive injury front, the former 5-star LB (Hicks) out of Ohio is healthy again and looking as bad ass as ever coming off his torn achilles. J-Gray (RB) also looks great coming off his own achilles...

UCLA's offense looked awful against Virginia, so I'm suddenly feeling a little bullish about that game (maybe it will end in a 0-0 tie!), but it will depend on how healthy we are after BYU, who looked impressive against UConn... In week 2 last year, BYU's Taysom Hill ran for 283,954 yards, a handful shy of Vince Young's record, got Manny Diaz fired and sealed the fate of Mack.

[AdamVR4]

Aaaaand Ash got another concussion. Out for BYU, at least. For his sake he should probably retire. Swoopes will be the guy... He should have been redshirted last year, and he's still quite raw. There's only 1 "guaranteed" win left on the schedule.

[Echo419]

The University of Georgia has Todd Gurley and you don't
-Chris Fowler

TFG(Todd F*cking Gurley) as we like to call him here. for those of you that missed the game as badly as Gurley ran over the Clemson defenders we had 2 others do that same thing one being true freshman Nick Chubb and another that just blew by the defense like they were watching him on their couches. all in all I'd say we have 5 total RB's that could start on literally any other team.

defense. Jeremy Purit appears to be the truth. Clemson was literally shut down in the second half. literally. not going to lie I was nervous in the first half but the second half was complete lights out.

[Echo419]

here's the true freshman Chubb's no shoe TD run.
Georgia Freshman Nick Chubb Rumbles for Incredible, Must-See 47-Yard TD Run

[DK77]

I still don't understand how Texas doesn't have enough depth and talent. I get that they've underperformed the last few seasons but they still should have had guys that were among the best in the country. It blows my mind that they didn't have anyone drafted last season. It's amazing what happens when the coach actually makes guys focus on tackling fundamentals LOL

[Echo419]

I still don't understand how Texas doesn't have enough depth and talent. I get that they've underperformed the last few seasons but they still should have had guys that were among the best in the country. It blows my mind that they didn't have anyone drafted last season. It's amazing what happens when the coach actually makes guys focus on tackling fundamentals LOL

miss on a couple of top recruits and have a shit couple of seasons and it's not hard to see. losing is conatgious and when you don't have top fresh blood coming in it becomes a downward spiral right down the toilet.

[AdamVR4]

Mack Brown's sales pitch got old, and the classes just haven't lived up to the hype in YEARS. Colt McCoy and Jordan Shipley made up for all the average players around them. The current team is made up of players from as far back as the 2010 class (#2 class nationally, 5 are still with the team, 0 draft picks). Thats the class that came in the wake of losing to Bama in the MNC and then mostly watched from the bench as we went 5-7.

I'll spare you the whole list, here are the 2-deep players that are out... off the top of my head:
Injured: QB (Ash), C (Espinosa)
Suspended indefinitely: RB/WR (Daje Johnson), S (Turner), OT (Harrison), OT (Estelle),
Kicked off team: RB (Bergeron), WR (Sanders), RB/QB (Overstreet), WR (Meander)

BYU destroyed our veteran line last year and this cobbled together thing has like 4 combined starts. Good luck Swoopes.

[Mikes2nd]

That sucks for Ash. Two bad concussions... I would expect him to get out of football. I think Strong is doing the right thing, but its going to hurt. Going to take a while for Texas to get back on track.

Mack slept on his hands for years, which was horrible. then you have to replace him and get his mindset out completely.

Hicks is a traitor

[stealthee]

I really give little credence to the performance WVU had today. Towson is an FCS school and WVU did what they were supposed to do against lesser competition. Their performance last week in the loss to Bama showed me more of what they are made of more than today's blowout of Towson. Next week will be a real litmus test against Maryland. If they go in there and can beat Maryland soundly, then that will give me some hope to a good season this year. If they go in and struggle and/or lose, then it means they really haven't gotten any better than they were last year and it will probably be a long season.

[Vantage]

I just...I just don't know. Every team in the Big 10 is a fucking disaster.