Hot Carl

quote:

---

If you’re gonna pay them like pros, then treat them like pros. Make them sign a contract and make them lose money if they don’t perform.

---

What pros lose money if they don’t perform?

Woah

quote:

---

I am not ready to give up on Berry yet, but good riddance to Durham.

---

Based on what? Durham, in a down year, had an objectively better season than Berry last year. And appears to have jumped him the past 2 games for whatever reason. Y’all just need to face it—Berry is not who we thought he was. And that’s ok. It happens. Doesn’t mean he sucks. Doesn’t mean our evals suck. He was clearly just over ranked and will likely benefit next year with a change of scenery/scheme.

Bama’s average starting field position was their 39 yard line. And I don’t know if I heard this exactly right, but I’m pretty sure someone said Bama had 10 offensive possessions. 8 of them were 5 plays or less. (Of course one of those was that 3 play scoring drive). But we got off the field.

I don’t see how any serious person could watch that game and blame the defense at all. It was the red zone offense and special teams where the game was lost.

Nobody seems to be talking about this, but there’s a reasonable chance Georgia and Bama wind up playing 3 times this year. I know CCGs are going away next year, so that will no longer be possible. But there’s going to be rematches. Matchups that seem cool now will lose their novelty at some point.

I’ve been screaming this, but it’s going to absolutely burst the regular season bubble. May take a few years, but it’s coming. People will still watch their own teams play, but will quit watching the other games at the level they have been.

quote:

---

What dumbfrick would opt out of a playoff game!? Come on bruh

---

They’ll be opting out during the regular season. For guys on teams who’ll likely make the playoffs. Guys on teams who are eliminated will start opting out more too.

quote:

---

Spears was a major loss as well

---

Very true. And a lot of people kinda poo-poo that because Benefield has been great at the Star and Thomas has been really good at safety. BUT, it makes us less versatile. I think with Whit hurt, we’d have run a lot of packages with just Dottery as the only LB and you’d have seen Spears or Benefield trying to run down Russell horizontally Saturday instead of Keys.

quote:

---

What the rantards fail to understand is cignetti had a bunch of transfers into Indiana from JMU, so he was able to bring his established team, identity, and culture. Ole Miss paid out the arse to make sure Lane was unable to do the same.

---

The culture and identity part is underrated. I looked this up a few weeks ago, but Cignetti only brought like 13 JMU guys with him. However, they were all old, leaders, and big contributors to both the ‘24 and ‘25 teams. And he kept a bunch of the key upperclassmen and leaders from the ‘23 Indiana team. So he was able to get immediate buy-in and establish a winning culture more quickly.

They obviously sprinkled in some very good portal talent, but the foundation of that ‘24 team was older players who had been a part of Cig’s championship culture at JSU and upperclassmen Indiana players who loved the university and bought in. And when the leaders of a team buy in, the rest follow suit.

I’m not saying this LSU team isn’t bought in, but Kiffin is still establishing the culture the players are asked to buy in to. And he was really set back by Ole Miss making a run in the playoffs. Particularly with their win over Georgia. So many things would have gone differently had they lost that game. But they didn’t, and Lane had to not only share some of his coaches, but the portal timing made it really hard for him to bring a lot of Ole Miss guys to LSU that were familiar with his system and had already bought into the culture. People can say Ole Miss overpaid for them to screw Lane, and maybe that was part of it, but I think it was mainly timing and the optics and uncertainty of leaving a team that lost a close game in the semifinals.

So we only got 4(?) Ole Miss guys. Dottery, Princewill, Watkins, and Harper. Had to try to establish a culture with a roster fill of guys from all over the country. Indiana’s core was JSU and Indiana upperclassmen. Our offensive starters include guys from Arizona State, Wisconsin. Colorado, Maryland, Kentucky, Hawaii, Florida, Ole Miss, and LSU. Most 1st year coaches bring a lot more of their guys with them. Look at how many Iowa State guys went Penn State. That wasn’t an option for Lane, and since he believes in building a program through mostly in-house development with some great portal players sprinkled in, they decided to focus on guys with multiple years of eligibility.

You could hear Lane in pressers leading up to the season trying to temper expectations. He knew depth was going to be an issue. I think he thought with the top end guys we had/have, we could make a playoff run if everything went right and we got good injury luck. And with Green and Whit going down so early, you could tell he was dejected because he knew those were hurdles we probably weren’t going to be able to get over this year.

***the timing of the Green and Weeks injuries were devastating, but we’ve actually had really good injury luck all season besides those 2.

Indiana’s starters last year on their championship team averaged over 23-years-old. Second oldest NC winning team behind Michigan the year before, a place where guys stick around to get developed. What’s the average age of our starters this year? You can disagree with his philosophy, but he hedged his bets by building cheap, young depth and adding just enough studs to be able to compete. Which we have. He could have gone all in on 1-year guys and maybe we’d be 8-1 right now. But he’d have to do the same thing again next year. He’s trying to build something more sustainable. Let’s all hope it works out.

You forgot Ross at DE. And I think—I hope—Martinez is ready to grab a starting OL job next year.

And I don’t know what the NFL WR class looks like this year, and I know Harris has skyrocketed up boards lately and is likely a top 60 pick, but assuming Leavett comes back, with the chemistry they’ve already developed, I think offer Harris something big enough to at least make him consider coming back. Give him all that Easton Royal money. He still may leave anyway, but at least make it hard on him.

quote:

---

Good point. Would be great if Auburn pulls it off.

---

Not really. Don’t want to be in group of 3-loss SEC teams with one that beat you 31-13 at home. Best thing for us is for Bama to dominate the rest of their games and beat 11-1 Georgia in the SECCG. We don’t want to be in any part of a discussion with them.

quote:

---

I think Brysten Martinez could start at one of the tackle spots next year.

---

I think he’s got to.

quote:

---

Miret at C is really good.

---

That’s the rumor. But will he be ready next year? Will he be strong enough and be able to handle all the calls? Wish he had been able to get a few more snaps this year in mop up. Specifically to get some real game time practice making calls. Though in mop up, defenses probably aren’t running a lot of games or exotic blitzes or anything, so not sure how much that particular aspect I mentioned would have even really helped for next year.

So do they maybe move Satterwhite over to center next year? Even if it’s just for 1 season? I never thought they just “loved” him at LG, but if he and Harper (when he was still at LG) were pretty even, maybe the tie-breaker was getting Sat some IOL experience so he could slide to center next year.

quote:

---

Hopefully they can get something out of Devin Harper, whether it be at guard or tackle.

---

Speaking of Harper, he’s been kind of an enigma. Or at least how they’ve used him. I think everyone pretty much assumed he would be the opening day LG. Then gets beat out by Bordelon in the spring. (Which says something about Harper). Then it sounded like he was gonna cross train and be our 6th OL and be the 1st guy off the bench at every position besides center in case of injury or poor play. So it was kinda surprising that we went to Satterwhite after replacing Borderlon.

But ok, no big deal. Maybe he wasn’t cross training at all and was working strictly at RT. Then Davis goes out Saturday, and Sean Thompkins comes in. Again, no big deal. Dude started 5 games at LT at Baylor last year and was probably gonna start there for us had we not signed Seaton at the last minute. And people still thought he might beat out Davis and win the RT job.

None of these individual moves is an indictment on Harper in a vacuum. But in totality, it has to say “something.” Is he banged up? Is he not a hard worker? In the doghouse for some unknown reason? He could just not be as good as we—the LSU fans—thought. But he was with Kiffin and Weis at Ole Miss last year. They knew what they had. Was 1
of only like 5 players they brought with them from there.

And Bah is nothing special. He’s fine, but is gonna get handled by good SEC DL. Maybe not gonna give up a lot of sacks or TFLs, but he’s not strong enough to get any push and knock guys off the ball and get to the 2nd level on any consistent basis. Our OL has struggled all year, particularly LG, RG, and at times, RT. (Davis has gotten beat a few times, but is big and athletic with a prototypical tackle build and has gotten a lot better since last year and will probably make a bigger jump next year. I hope he stays).

But with all the struggles at the 3 positions Harper is qualified to play, he’s been behind Borderlon, Bah, Satterwhite, Davis, and now Thompkins. That is a bit concerning to me relative to his even being on the team next year, much less starting somewhere. There’s clearly something about him they don’t like right now. Hopefully it’s just an undisclosed nagging injury that’s been bothering him.