The instant reaction from recruits following the game Saturday night went pretty much like this...

(Text message with Anthony Hill and his father)




The recruits do have a lot of questions considering the state of the Texas A&M Football program as of late. Following the game Saturday night Jimbo Fisher did answer a lot of those questions for many of the prospects in attendance. In general, the positive side to Saturday night was the atmosphere (I too was very shocked at the amount of people in attendance and the level of intensity from the Aggie fans all the way until the end.)

Conner Weigman's performance was a major positive for the Aggies in all aspects, but especially so in terms of recruiting. I said it in preseason training camp and was laughed at by...pretty much ALL ...what I saw during camp was that Weigman was the best. The way he performed behind such a depleted, chaotic offensive line as a freshman was impressive on Saturday night (I saw it coming esp. after that last drive in the South Carolina game.) I can tell you it was Impressive enough to keep recruits interested. Combine that with ALL of the other young talent playing for the Aggies right now and it is actually a selling point for the Aggies (despite what anyone says from national outlets who do not talk to these recruits on a regular basis and yet think that they know what is going on because they have a large following on social media..wont name names)

The national media and social media (which dominates in the recruiting world) have set up the perfect storm..a top ten preseason ranked team, falling so far to this...headlines claiming that "Jimbo is the no. 1 most likely to get fired..." will create confusion and chaos... but that is the medias job (or so it appears for most) ...get the most clicks and likes.

Yahoo though does say this -

Pete Thamel reports “zero evidence” of Jimbo Fisher’s dismissal, but changes may be coming​

Based off of my communication with the recruiting realm change is indeed needed, but Jimbo leaving the program does not appear to be the answer.

Some more quick hitters based off of what I saw on the SL Saturday and then following up after the game:
- Lafayette, LA, Melvin Hills has been offered
- 2025 OL from Houston Josh Moses has been offered
- TJ Shanahan was not able to attend
- Anthony Evans did not make it
- Johnny Bowens was in attendance
- Deyjhon Pettaway in attendance
- Raheem Vance in attendance
- Tory Blaylock in attendance

Last but not least, Lane Kiffin's comments after the game did not sit well with all recruits parents...

“I mean, 390 yards rushing against a bunch of five-stars is pretty good,” Kiffin said.
'The SEC Network’s Cole Cubelic asked Kiffin what he might wear for Halloween. Kiffin thought Fisher could lend a hand.'
“Maybe Jimbo has a Joker outfit for me.." - Kiffin

Kiffin did not improove his recruiting stock based off those comments from what I uderstand.

More to come...quotes notes etc concerning this matter throughout the week.

If you are interested in sponsoring my Q&A’s, podcasts etc. give me a call at 713.898.5903. 👍​

As many of you know, I grew up in central Illinois before attending the greatest University in the world. I do, in fact, still follow Illinois football but not to the level I do as an Ag (basketball is another story, I'll admit). Three years after a "poll" ranked the Illinois roster as the worst in college football, they sit on top of the Big Ten West (no powerhouse division, mind you) with a 7-1 record. This is a program without a winning record in 10 years! The SEC has its own renaissance team in the Vols and both success stories have a few things in common I'd like us to consider.

1. Great use of the transfer portal and JUCO ranks. Hooker is a Heisman candidate. Tommy DeVito (late of Syracuse and sacked over 80 times there) is a solid efficient QB who makes plays and wins. Both Illinois' starting guards are JUCOs not on the team last year. Their starting center is a former walk on TE. Tennessee has a lot of other key transfer contributors as well, including Bru McCoy.

2. Outstanding player evaluation and development. Illinois' starting 22 is full of players no one here has probably heard of, but will still be playing on Sundays. Tennessee has and has had more dudes, (albeit some "questionably" obtained) but you can't argue with Heupel's identification and development.

3. The "Right" coaches, coaching and schemes. Heupel, as much as we dislike him for being a land thief, is a really good offensive mind. His DC has done his best to cover up pretty big holes with creative blitzing and other stuff.

It's not so long ago that we don't all remember Brett Bielema being unceremoniously booted from Arkansas. He was trying to bring Wisconsin's ground and pound to the SEC about the time everyone else was changing to more spread. Well, where did he go? To the NFL for a few years, to remember, rethink and reconsider. Illinois, last year, got beat at home by UTSA at the start of a 4 game losing streak. Bielema then hired the guy (who he had coached with before) who beat him after having his previous OC with him for 1 year. Lunney, at Illinois, has one star player in Chase Brown, who leads the country in rushing. Even with those limitations, he has been able to build a really cohesive and efficient offense utilizing spread passing concepts, a power run game, and a really good offensive line.

For DC, Bielema chose the coordinator at Missouri. At the time, I thought he was out of his mind as bad as Mizzou's defenses had been. Illinois's current defensive rankings this year:

Total Defense - # 1
Passing Efficiency Defense - # 1
Rushing Defense - # 2
Scoring Defense - # 1

Yes, it's not the SEC West, but think of the relative improvement of a program that has not had a winning record in 10 years, not won a division title in 21 years and has no where near the resources of us or Tennessee even.

Truthfully, I have been extremely disappointed in Durkin's schemes thus far, but his track record seems to indicate that this year has been an aberration. We can only hope. I am much more interested in who the potential OC (and other offensive hires?) will be and how much autonomy Jimbo will give them.

Bielema has reinvented himself at Illinois of all places. C'mon Jimbo, we're rooting for you!

Gig'em!!!

No surprise.

The loudest cheer at our game last night was for a frigging t-sip. Any Aggie that cheered for a sip in front of our team should turn in their Aggie ring if they actually got one.

No wonder Texas thinks we’re their bitch.

What a crazy and amazing life she lived. RIP Loretta Lynn!

I looked at Coach Fisher's wins/losses against SEC opponents with 3 conference games remaining to see the return on the investment of his hire in the SEC so far. He's 22-16 overall, with 3 Conference games left. Here's my breakdown:

Georgia: 1 loss
Tennessee: 1 win
S. Carolina: 4 wins-1 loss
Kentucky: 1 win
MIssouri: 1 win
Florida: 1 win (2022 to play)
Vanderbilt: 1 win
Ole Miss: 2 wins-2 losses (no game in 2020)
Alabama: 1 win-4 losses
LSU: 2 wins-2-losses (2022 to play)
Arkansas: 4 wins-1 loss
MS State: 2 wins-3 losses
Auburn: 2 wins-2 losses (2022 to play)

So versus SEC East: 9 wins-2 losses; versus SEC West: 13 wins-14 losses.

It appears to me that we are just a poorly coached team with the occasional good concept and some young talented players.

What facet of our team would you say has been developed and coached well? You may point to lack of experience but there is a portal that one can you use to identify gaps in talent and we’ve have four top ten classes. There isn’t really an excuse to be playing this many freshmen.

The experienced guys have gotten worse. Outside of Achane and Ainias before he got hurt most of our guys who have been in the program this season look worse.

Our defense and offense are poorly schemed IMO. We made very few adjustments and our guys were out of place in run defense all night. Their slow QB ran for several long runs when we had them on 3rd and long.

How could you watch King and think he was the guy? Ever? How could you look at our line and not try and add a tackle? How could you pass on Sanders who went to Arky? There are gaps in our roster which seemed obvious to even an idiot like myself but weren’t filled.

Durkin, Santucci, Craig, Adazio, Dickey. Five guys who don’t seem to be good. I’m not sure on Terry but I’m assuming he’s a lifer.

Now I am not saying we won’t be markedly better as these young kids grow up but we have so many holes to fill and so many question marks.

It's the best way I can describe the state of our football program. Jimbo is a recruiting- machine but he cannot coach. He is the head coach, quarterback coach. offensive coordinator and responsible for who gets on the field and who doesn't and as the head coach he is ultimately responsible for the defense. In other words he owns the hole ball of wax and the current pathetic state of our current of our football program. We are five games into the season and all we hear at the post game press conference is that we have issues to address and that we will fix them.,. although I've seen no improvement. Just to mention one. Our defensive coordinator continues to run a defensive scheme with three down linemen and very few blitzes. How in the world can you expect to develop any sort of effective pass rush when you have three down linemen going against five pass blockers. We've done this in each of our previous four games and no adjustments have been made, so how is it that we are fixing things. It's been the same crap week after week. Across the field we have a coach who is running the offense and defense of a 4X5 card and is kicking our ass in every phase of the game and our coach has a play sheet that resembles a newspaper with so many plays that makes it difficult to decide what play to run. The result, call time out.
One last thing, Jimbo needs to wright the ship quickly, it's not too late. We have quality athletes who simply need to be coached positively. and put in the best possible position to win. We owe it to them.

Watch the 2 plays starting at the 1:52 mark and ask yourself how in the f@ck does a center not touch a soul while allowing two players to come directly up the middle. One being the player lined up directly over him.

How does the OL coach survive film from last week? If the answer is because his ineptitude finally let CW play, I guess I can hear you out.

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Is it just me or is Tennessee having the year WE were supposed to have?

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Just your average Kyle Field critter.

. . . and I thought y'all might not enjoy it just as much as I didn't.

nm

it’s to hide the fact that no one is being taught a goddamned thing.

(yes, sleeping it off hasn’t helped at all.)

Cuz he forgot

College teams will lose 1 game for each freshman starter. You do the math, Ags. We're holding true sorry to say. That aside, Jimbo needs to quit playing OC and hire a top notch on, hire a new DC, LB & OL coaches, IMNSHO.