wablty

There aren't many gimme's.

New Mexico and Northwestern are probably easy dubs, but that's a lot of 35/65s or 40/60's. They'll get some. I thought they were looking a little salty after the murderer's row run in the 1st half of their season, but that's a struggle for 6-6 unless they really pull something out of their arse.

You're right though. 4-8 is far, far more likely than 8-4. My B.

nm outdated

For a finals match, yeah. And it's the biggest overall in a long time too. Maybe since Karelin lost.

Gable fricking Steveson being back in college wrestling is both hilarious and dumb. Like sure, get the money, get back into shape for the next Olympics or the career in being punched in the face if he goes MMA, but it feels like he's picking on children to be wrestling college kids at this point. Like he has eligiblity, he isn't outlandishly overaged for college wrestling but...

He was the best wrestler in the world*. In the world. In 2022. Got a gold medal.

*not doing pound for pound, in 2022 it was Sadulaev for sure. But if you put Sadulaev and Steveson on a mat in 2022, Gable's almost certainly winning.

If the Oklahoma State kid beat him, it would be one of the biggest upsets of all time.

Well I'll be damned. Turns out people wanted to watch the big games.

Or is it a weird flex that the SEC championship game came in after the championship, the semifinals and the best games of the quarterfinals?

John Henry Johnson is another FB in the Hall.

Alstott is really the only one I think you could make an argument for that isn't just trying to give out charity gold jackets.

If high school athletes were marketable just for being good, you'd see retail focused entities getting involved.

I don't see Target or Walmart or Best Buy or CostCo (or whoever) involved right now.

It's just people with money buying teams.

Seeding is iffy. ASU was the 12 seed. There were not 11 better teams than ASU. There weren't 11 teams with better resumes either.

If you want to clean house, you need to get rid of preseason prejudice.

A series of unfortunate coaching hires. Guys that don't really get the job or do what it takes to win.

Dirk Koetter was a phenomenal offensive mind, but he wanted to be in the NFL. He fricking hated recruiting. He got what he wanted, albeit after being fired.

Dennis Erickson was there for one last hurrah and a pay check. Had the credentials obviously, but the program ran wild. It was just athletes vaguely following the advice of coaches who were indifferent.

Todd Graham almost figured it out, but he had two major issues- Kind of a weird, telemarkety dude. Folks don't really like him. Great eye for coaching talent. His coaching tree is outstanding. Two, he couldn't get over that he's a Texas HS coach first. He didn't put much priority on recruiting SoCal and you have to do that to win at ASU. It's right next door. He wanted to recruit Texas, and be the 3rd or 4th or 5th guy in line. Then all of a sudden there wasn't a Will Sutton on his defensive line anymore.

Herm and Antonio Pierce brought in a ton of talent, but Herm wanted to coach like it was the NFL. They should have brought in an OC who would let their talent blow the doors off people, but they were happy with slow, grindy games. Ton of guys who were good players, but they were shackled.

Dillingham is the first guy in a long time that really gets what ASU is. He's from there. He knows the DNA of the school. They've done a great job finding talent that isn't just obvious 4 and 5 star guys. They really look for guys in the portal who have multiple years of eligibility left like they're supplementing their high school recruiting more than filling holes. Their big jump is when they can get in a higher end DL and OL. And they play like fricking dogs, man. That team plays hard and it wasn't just the Texas game.

The 4/5 game went to double OT. That's what you want your 4/5 game to look like.