foxbat

Especially given that Texas hadn't really made a lot of noise since A&M joined the SEC. The good news is that A&M will be playing Texas again annually. The bad news for Texas is that A&M, since they now HAVE to share the stage with Texas, will be looking to make it ugly each season. The extension is not all unexpected given what they paid for Fisher and where he is right now in terms of A&M's performance. I'd be interested in seeing the terms of payout for buyout.

I always love opportunities like this in sports. We had a season about 15 years ago, where we had a kid that had been in treatment at Reilly, but he could not be in a contact situation. We made him a team coach so that he could hang out with his classmates even though he couldn't play. At the end of the season, we had him wear his uniform to the last game of the season and told him that we were going to take his picture for team pictures. He was still wearing his uniform during the game and, toward the very end of the game, we had a fumble recovery in the endzone for a TD. We were already ahead by two TDs before the recovery. For the two-point conversion, we called time and I went over and talked with the opponent's head coach ... I had already cleared things with the kid's dad. I explained the situation and asked if we could get our player in for one play. He explained to his defender what was going to happen and that contact couldn't be made with our player due to his medical condition. We put our player as a wideout and had him do a down and out ... we then ran the ball right up the middle just as we had told the opponent we would do so that there' was no chance of the ball being near the player so he wouldn't get hit/hurt. The kid was so elated that he got to get in during a real game, you would have though he caught the game winning catch. Just a couple of seasons ago, we had a similar situation with a kid that couldn't play due to treatment at Reilly and we also made him a coach for the season. For him, we had him be the on-field defensive coach and had him call the defense for the second half of our last game.

My son kicks for Harrison's JV and also suits up for varsity, but hasn't kicked there yet. Last week, they played Brebeuf's JV. On his first kick, he had a boomer. On his second kick, the coach had him kick it line drive. He drilled the front line guy right in the head and bounced it right up in the air.

It's somewhat different in play at the youth level, but the general concept of position control still holds. We'd spend a day a week on special teams before the first game of the season ... so a day out of five practices ... and then a half day out of three days after the first game. Our kickoff teams were notorious for possession changes with probably 1 out of every 3 or 4 of our kickoff resulting in us getting the ball back. Of the others, we often could pin a team deep ... which, as you mentioned with discipline, was almost as good as a long pass for field position as, if you could make a youth team start at their own 20, the chances of them getting a score that series was really low. Add to that that most teams had trouble punting ... more specifically covering punts ... that that made the situation more problematic. On punt returns, we were probably 50% on scoring TDs. As might be expected, we almost never punted ourselves. As a former colleague of mine used to state, there are way too many things that have to go correct on a punt for it to have the one good outcome and way too many things that could go wrong for the many bad things that could happen. Every time another team punted to us and the punt returner would take it to the house, I could be heard on the sideline saying, "That's why WE don't punt."

Probably not as big as Myles's buyout was. The addition of OU to the SEC is just going to magnify that pressure next season if O is still around. Given that Fisher is going to be on the hotseat himself if A&M doesn't make it to the national championship series this season, I'd expect Fisher and A&M are going to be looking to embarrass LSU.

That is true to an extent, but I suspect that it is mitigated to the extent that, realistically, the gaps in games where mercy rule is triggered vs. those where it isn't, is of less consequence. I would venture a strong guess that, when a team plays its JV vs. starters, the two teams aren't close in true Sagarin scores to begin with. As such, the difference in scoring carries less impact. In a sense, it like the inverse of betting red/black in roulette vs. betting a column or a specific number. Two teams that are close to each other in Sagarin ratings would likely see a 35-14 score count more than two teams separated by 20 Sagarin points where the higher-rated team wins 35-14. Sagarin's PREDICTOR has a blunting effect once the scores get to a certain point ... running up the score has much less impact once you get to that 35-point point The old ELO-Chess rating took out the point differentials as a weighting, but I noticed that Sagarin has removed those from his stats. In theory, they don't matter much at all until you have a decent number of data points, so they wouldn't be overly reliant/helpful at this point of the season. Will be interesting to see if they are added back later on in the season.

I think that could have also been written as "Natural grass with a doomed field." 😀

The classes don't matter all that much directly. Sagarin is, for the most part, class-agnostic in its formulation, although size, etc. does play a part indirectly ... i.e., all things relatively equal a 6A school should wear down a 3A school over four quarters. Realize that Linton has played a pair of teams, Sullivan and Southridge, with 86.x and 85.x ratings respectively. Outside of Washington, those are the strongest schedule teams in 3A so far. Monrovia's sitting at 53.x. For Luers, the opponent strengths are Carroll at 77.x and Wayne at 79.x. and Homestead at 65.x. The Wayne strength is fairly decent for 4A, but the others are average at best for the respective class. Toss in that there's the "in-breeding" factor of the SAC for scheduling ... they play a "self-contained" league schedule for their nine games ... and that's going to skew some of the Sagarin numbers that you see for Luers and other SAC teams.

As a former youth coach ... just retired after 18 seasons ... I have typically built my teams around running the ball as priority one. I was explaining to a kid the other day about boxing and telling him how it is certainly possible to knock a guy out with the first punch, but that tends to be rare. Instead, good boxers will use the body shots ... the traditional run game ... to either open up / set up the head shot, wear down an opponent, or both. I always had my lines practice the run against a 6-man defensive line to really work the ability to work the run. Yes, we had a passing game as well, but ultimately it wasn't unboxed until we mastered the run. It also made it easier to get more kids involved/active in the game at that youth level. If it's about the spread, when you are dealing with 10 year-olds, there are only a handful of fast kids who can throw and catch. With the run game, we needed 11 bodies doing work every play and so, I could get the kids who weren't yet fast or quick or good with their hands or who had weak arms or were less than graceful or the big guys involved in the game and keep them interested until their bodies caught up with their interest in the game.

Things are getting interesting in the HC.

Harrison finishes the night up 57-21 over KV. They will face off against Jeff next week. WL wins 69-19 over Western. LCC 42-0 over Northwestern. Final. LCC squares of against West Lafayette next week.

McCutcheon picks up one last TD heading out the door. 62-21 Jeff. Final.

McCutcheon backup QB picks up a TD ... Jeff leads 62-14. WL over Western 55-19 at the half.

Harrison responds with a TD of their own. Up 36-21 over KV with a bit over 7 left in 3Q.

KV scratching back. Opens up 3Q with a TD ... Harrison still leads 29-21 with 10 and a half left in 3Q.

LCC leading Northwestern 42-0 in 3Q.

Harrison leads KV 29-14 at the half.

Jeff now up 62-7 over McCutcheon ... still time left in the first half. Mercifully there will be a running clock in the 2nd half and the trip home isn't that far for the Mavs.

Jeff obviously taking out their frustrations from last week on cross-town rival, McCutcheon. Up 55-7 with 9 mins left in Q2.

Updating my picks to account for Delta ... the team, not the variant ... picking up Cass for September 3. 2 Point Games Delta @ Cass Hamilton Heights @ Rensselaer Lafayette Central Catholic @ Northwestern Twin Lakes @ Tipton West Lafayette @ Western 3 Point Games North Judson @ North Newton Clinton Prairie @ Clinton Central 4 Point Game Sheridan @ Tri-Central

Is that going to impact the JV game on Saturday too? My son suits up for varsity and JV at Harrison.

I'm wondering what the appeal was for IMG. They can pretty much thrash just about anyone they want. Are the pickings that thin for folks that will square off with IMG? It's my understanding that they played Duncanville, TX in 2020, so they are getting top teams with an interest. Perhaps it was the fact that this was a specific game at a specific venue on a specific date that pretty much made them decide that they'd rather face Sycamore than have an open date?

I stand corrected ... there was one person posting about Bishop Sycamore and asking questions ...

Granted it was likely a COVID game, but it's interesting that no one from WC posted how "horrible" these guys were back then or now. As pointed out, IMG actually played these guys last year and apparently didn't think enough about the mismatch or abilities to ring the warning bell this season in a re-match.

Looks like the discussion was Bishop Sycamore back in 2019. Even (apparently) garnering a new GID poster from Bishop Sycamore.