https://www.houstonchronicle.com/sports/texas-sports-nation/college/article/Texas-college-football-rankings-Time-to-Pony-up-14517848.php?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=TXSN_DailyPlaybook&utm_term=TXSN&utm_content=headlines

Now, DON'T LOSE OUT!

So rank the Cali schools.

Looks like 7-0.

Bobodeluxe said:

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Looks like 7-0.

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Looks like they will drop 50 on them.

Old and Tired Sonny just beat his second ranked team of the year - and is now 7-0.

Selbstschadenfreude

sycasey said:

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Dykes is a good fit at SMU, a mid-major school in Texas. He was not a good fit at Cal.

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What have we learned from Sunshine's Head Coaching record? Evidence show he could be good at small-time schools like LT and SMU, but his only try at P-5 level produced misery, defeat, and NCAA record-setting putrid defenses. So, I wish our ex-HC luck at SMU, or any other G-5 schools where teams with no defense could still win. On the other hand, I offer my condolences for any P-5 program (Arkansas maybe?) desperately enough to retread Sunshine Dykes.

FremontBear said:

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sycasey said:

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Dykes is a good fit at SMU, a mid-major school in Texas. He was not a good fit at Cal.

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What have we learned from Sunshine's Head Coaching record? Evidence show he could be good at small-time schools like LT and SMU, but his only try at P-5 level produced misery, defeat, and NCAA record-setting putrid defenses. So, I wish our ex-HC luck at SMU, or any other G-5 schools where teams with no defense could still win. On the other hand, I offer my condolences for any P-5 program (Arkansas maybe?) desperately enough to retread Sunshine Dykes.

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And he's also from Texas and had no real ties to players or coaches on the west coast. He's better off staying close to home.

Dukes was a pac 10 offensive coordinator. He must've had some west coas ties.

There are two posts I need to put into a save file someplace and just cut and paste. I have to repeat them early and often.

The first is why structural changes in the landscape of college football (and arguably professional sports) has created a "sellers market" for Furd for a certain sort of athlete looking for a particular college choice and why it is fools gold to compare us to them....when the right benchmark for us is really Washington, Michigan and Wisky.

The second is why Sonny/TFS does well in the G-5 and not in the P-5.

The reason is that the P-5 is LOADED with guys that will play on Sunday who play corner and safety. That allows teams to more frequently play either man to man or zone with man principals on the outside and not get burned. They have the athletes to defend all the junk that TFS and Sonny throw at people.

Now will you get yardage? Absolutely! You will also, occasionally, get a breakdown and hit a play that gains a lot of yardage. But you will have a dickens of a time stringing together 8-9-10 play drives that end in a score. Over the course of plays you will throw an incomplete, a holding penalty will be called, your QB or WR will not make the same read on the play and thus run the right route that options not off the play book but on the look. Just stuff "happens". And then you get a 3 or 4 and out and your defense, which had all of a 40 second blow, is right back out there.

You also recruit pass blocker and not run blockers. Not that important when you can flood the secondary and reliably pick up 3rd and 2. BIG TIME problem when you go against P-5 D lines that your guys can not move. If you watched Sonny at Cal OVER AND OVER we would fail to get third and short. Honestly the best thing teams could do against sonny was put us in running situations and then laugh at our ineptitude.

And all you needed to understand that is to watch how BADLY Sonny struggled against Shaq Thompson who simply laughed at everything the TFS threw at him. Now is Shaq an amazing player? Sure. But the fall off from Shaq to other top line P-5 secondary players is not that great.

sycasey said:

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FremontBear said:

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sycasey said:

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Dykes is a good fit at SMU, a mid-major school in Texas. He was not a good fit at Cal.

---

What have we learned from Sunshine's Head Coaching record? Evidence show he could be good at small-time schools like LT and SMU, but his only try at P-5 level produced misery, defeat, and NCAA record-setting putrid defenses. So, I wish our ex-HC luck at SMU, or any other G-5 schools where teams with no defense could still win. On the other hand, I offer my condolences for any P-5 program (Arkansas maybe?) desperately enough to retread Sunshine Dykes.

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And he's also from Texas and had no real ties to players or coaches on the west coast. He's better off staying close to home.

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Yes, he's from Texas and has little network in California. I could excuse Sonny for that and give him time to develop necessary recruiting pipelines in California, and rest of the West Coast, had he shown inkling of doing so. Instead, Cal fans hear he made little attempt to network Northern California, including some of the best programs in the Bay Area, programs like DSL. So, was the problem Dykes needed more time (than 4 years) to network in the West, or was it because he didn't really care to? I vote the latter.

MiZery said:

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Old and Tired Sonny just beat his second ranked team of the year - and is now 7-0.

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Good for him. If you subscribe to The Athletic you would have seen an article where Sonny himself talks about how lucky he is to have been the benefactor of 22 transfers (primarily P5 level players like his QB) via the Portal.
He tells the tale far better than me as the vast majority of the kid are from the SMU area (reportedly a football hotbed if you can believe that!!) who left the schools they originally enrolled at out of high school. Schools like Texas .... so, barring more of the same, do you expect him to continue to win in the AAC at the same clip?
I think you know what I think....

socaltownie said:

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There are two posts I need to put into a save file someplace and just cut and paste. I have to repeat them early and often.

The first is why structural changes in the landscape of college football (and arguably professional sports) has created a "sellers market" for Furd for a certain sort of athlete looking for a particular college choice and why it is fools gold to compare us to them....when the right benchmark for us is really Washington, Michigan and Wisky.

The second is why Sonny/TFS does well in the G-5 and not in the P-5.

The reason is that the P-5 is LOADED with guys that will play on Sunday who play corner and safety. That allows teams to more frequently play either man to man or zone with man principals on the outside and not get burned. They have the athletes to defend all the junk that TFS and Sonny throw at people.

Now will you get yardage? Absolutely! You will also, occasionally, get a breakdown and hit a play that gains a lot of yardage. But you will have a dickens of a time stringing together 8-9-10 play drives that end in a score. Over the course of plays you will throw an incomplete, a holding penalty will be called, your QB or WR will not make the same read on the play and thus run the right route that options not off the play book but on the look. Just stuff "happens". And then you get a 3 or 4 and out and your defense, which had all of a 40 second blow, is right back out there.

You also recruit pass blocker and not run blockers. Not that important when you can flood the secondary and reliably pick up 3rd and 2. BIG TIME problem when you go against P-5 D lines that your guys can not move. If you watched Sonny at Cal OVER AND OVER we would fail to get third and short. Honestly the best thing teams could do against sonny was put us in running situations and then laugh at our ineptitude.

And all you needed to understand that is to watch how BADLY Sonny struggled against Shaq Thompson who simply laughed at everything the TFS threw at him. Now is Shaq an amazing player? Sure. But the fall off from Shaq to other top line P-5 secondary players is not that great.

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Except for the fact that anytime a big12 program beats another P5 team that disproves your entire argument.

Last weekends performance by Slovis against our purportedly vaunted defense (which played exceptionally well against Wazzu btw) also demonstrates the logical fallacy of your argument.

Face it guys, the air raid is a legitimate offense. It's not a gimmick at all.

Better yet, LSU is running what essentially is an air raid scheme from a conceptual and overall schematic standpoint.....

Damn I unintentionally necroed this thread. Opened up an old browser window on my work phone. My bad lol

Sonny required a big arm at QB to run the Bear Raid. When Webb Davis went to the NFL there was no one on the horizon that Dykes could bring to Berkeley. He realized he would be fired and moved on before that could happen. A saving grace has been many of our most accomplished defensive players under Wilcox were first recruited by Dykes and staff. It took DeRuyter and Wilcox to perfect their skills.

At the same time, I am surprised how the defense collapsed in Utah, although a loss was expected, and its less than perfect act against ASU, OSU and the Trojans. Maybe the conference has caught up with T.D. and Sirmon? Or, is it the graduation of Funches, Palmer and Kunascyk that has caused all those losses? Weaver can't do it all himself.