Good choice and not a surprise

Read and watch that here.

presumably ACCNX is a streaming service. Is it put together by espn+?... or separate. I did subscribe to espn+ but haven't used it yet.
Anyone in the the know/can advise?

Ok, so here’s the scoop on Elijah Brown. My source gave me the green light to share just now:

I have been told that he is out 4-6 weeks with a hand/finger injury. What happened is he hit his hand on a defensive player’s arm. I’ve been told his finger has a pin in it.

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The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article about Miami’s TE who is in his NINTH year of college football

“Here’s a summary of what McCormick’s gone through, from his arrival in Eugene in 2016 (the same recruiting class as his former fellow Duck, Justin Herbert, who’s now in his fifth year starring in the NFL):

McCormick redshirted his freshman year, still recovering from an ACL injury he suffered in high school. He played in 2017, but then broke his left fibula and tore ankle ligaments in 2018. That—and complications from an anchor and screws in his ankle, he says—led to missing both 2019 and 2020. McCormick came back in 2021—only to tear his right Achilles versus Ohio State.

Improbably, he returned to play a full Ducks season in 2022—then transferred and played for Miami in 2023.

Now, in accordance with NCAA eligibility rules, the 6-foot-5, 260 pounds, McCormick is at last in his college football swan song.”

ARROW UP - OFFENSE

0 REUBEN - Left after an early 3rd down catch that he turned into a 1st down. Weird injury. Didn't see an ankle turn. Too bad as confidence was rising.

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5 DAVIS - A dozen snaps for the frosh - one for a big one. If he's in the game, it's to get the ball.
13 AYOMANOR - 7 catches but easily could have had 10. Bad misses from the QB including the incredible catch for the TD that was 3-4 yards off the mark. Didn't love the body language towards Daniels in the 4th Q but the frustration is mounting.
14 DANIELS - QB1 was way off the mark all night. I thought the Brown injury would actually help him play better but he is what he is.
20 FORD - Undisputed RB1 was out there for almost every snap. Starting to like this guy. Good vision, strength to finish runs and competitive. Still finding his way in the passing game.
24 BACHMEIER - Out there for a bunch of snaps but looks like he might be falling down the WR hierarchy. Injury to Reuben will put him back up to WR3. Was open 3 different times during the 10 seconds Daniels had on one play.
25 BROWN - Should be noted the walk on got a couple early snaps in each of the L2 games. Who had this Brown from Mater Dei playing in more games so far?
26 IRVIN - CTT's de facto fullback. Didn't get a carry on any of his 20 snaps but he was lead blocking for everyone and was solid in pass pro. Picked up a big first down on a beautifully designed passing play. This guy is tough. I know he took a lot of heat from this board real time on not doing enough to prevent the INT but I saw it differently. First, this is a team guy, he'll give the effort in any role. Although he has been a good receiving back, he is not a WR. He never saw the free safety. If you recall, Irvin has had a lot of success so far on that exact route down the sideline. A free safety had not been an issue. It surprised him when another defender showed up. It looked bad, but that is not him.

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55 PALE - Outside of the very untimely penalties, he was good. It should be noted, this SYR front 7 was not an impressive group on tape.
57 ROGERS - Back to form with a very good game. Also, you take the perfect snaps EVERY TIME for granted. I will say, however, there have been more times this season than I can remember happening LY with comm issues along the OL in pass pro. Impossible for me to tell who is at fault.
58 HOUSE - Starter at LT. He is definitely going through some pains. Ideally should be shirting and looking forward to compete next season after a productive offseason. But the time is now.
69 MAIKKULA - Replaced a penalty-ridden Jack Leyrer at LG in the 2H. Played OK.
78 BAKLENKO - Starter at RT. Did not put a lot of good things on tape in this one.
84 CISSE - Undisputed WR2. Led the team with 8 catches. I like him OK enough but he isn't a WR2 on a great team.
86 ROUSH - I was hoping the extra weight was going to help in the run game but that has not been the case and he looks slower in routes.
88 BLACKBURN - Frosh TE continues to have a small role. Another guy who would have benefitted greatly with a shirt.

ARROW DOWN - OFFENSE

3 FARRELL - Player was dressed at SYR. Did not play. Just not a great time to be a 5th-yr senior on offense in this program.
8 LAMSON - Just 2 snaps. CTT is not a romantic.
15 BUTLER - Came on the field for 1 snap. Missed a block and Lamson was stopped on 3rd and short.
34 HAMPTON - DNP
67 ANDERSON - DNP
71 MCLAUGHLIN - Just 2 snaps in short yardage.
72 UKE - DNP
76 LEYRER - Starter at LG benched at the half.
82 RAINES - DNP
83 HARRIS - Just 2 snaps. He and Jackson early transfer portal favorites?
89 UNGAR - DNP



ARROW UP - DEFENSE

O BERNADEL - Stacking up solid games to start the season.
4 MANLEY - Bad game could have even been worse but big play called back with a hold created by Bailey. Was replaced for 2 series in the 2Q and 1 series in the 3Q.
5 GREEN - Starter at NB had a clean game including a gift INT.
6 WRIGHT - Had a good game. Didn't give up much but the TD on him was a bad look.
8 SINCLAIR - Not going to be confused with Fred Warner in coverage, but good job in the run game and pass rush.
11 TAFITI - Starter at FOLB. Active, good game.
14 AYBAR - Best game I have seen him play. Probably because of the usage. April sent him after the QB standing up on the outside.

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21 EDWARDS - Not sure what is going on here but it has not been good to start the season.
23 BAILEY - Well I will be damned. Was situationally subbed for the first time by April. That resulted in a low snap count but when he was on the field, he was coming after McCord. HARD. He was a maniac all night. Making a tackle in KOC and sprinting downfield after the Leigber pick 6 to get more of McCord. It actually looked like he was having fun.

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31 MORRIS - Highest snap count of the season as he was in and out with Manley. But for the most part, those snaps were not good.
32 LEIGBER - Have to love when you can change the scoreboard on D. Usually a really good player when moving forward but he let McCord get out of a sure sack that resulted in a TD.
35 ROSE - Played a few snaps for Bernadel.
44 COOPER - Another OLB that April was sending after the QB more than normal. Results weren't great but the effort was.
45 STAPLES - Made the most of his 10 snaps. Hurried the QB and had a nice stop in the run game.
75 BM-O - Pretty invisible 25 snaps.
91 PATTERSON - It's clear that this guy can rush the passer and that is how April was using him so he could do just that. Got a sack and a hurry.

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94 FRANKLIN/97 ROWELL - Very similar, solid games as they led the DL in snaps.

ARROW DOWN - DEFENSE

17 FRAUSTO-RAMOS - DNP
27 PORTER - DNP
61 MAYBERRY - DNP
98 BUCKEY - 1 snap

Clemson up 21-0 over NC State in the first quarter. Oy vey.. on the other hand NC State isn't impressing me much.

ACC Network

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Memphis? Tulane? South Florida? Might as well rename it from Pac12.

Sad what's become of our beloved college sports.

Read that here.

Anyone driving down from Chicago to Notre Dame for the game? I think I fly in early on Saturday, would prefer not to take the "Irish Express" for multiple hours.

Read that here.

Read that here. ACC schedule got released today. I'll get a write up on that posted soon.

The list of elite coaches who struggled for their first two years - before striking it big in Year 3 - is compelling when looking at Taylor and others:

At least we don't play USC anymore.

Read that here.

Now that they're all back, anxious to learn what the plan/schedule is for getting our men's basketball players ready for upcoming season.
Can they now start workouts directly with the coaches, or is there an ncaa calendar that prevents for now/must be adhered to?

Only 13 uncommitted prospects remain:

1. Consecutive wins! Doing that for the first time in the Taylor era produces a tangible sense of progress in the rebuild, and doing it in Stanford's first ACC game gives a sense of the page being turned to something new. Doing it in exciting fashion with a game-winning kick and a balanced performance in which each phase contributed and was entertaining makes it all the sweeter. Subjectively, it stands with last year's Colorado game as the most enjoyable Stanford football has been in a while. Objectively (based on quality of opponent/margin), it's the third best performance of the Taylor era after last year's Washington State win and Arizona loss (and a win is always a better result than a loss). We are still in the zone of dogged, glacial progress in this rebuild but, considering that we know this team's limitations, a road conference win against a decent opponent is a major cause of celebration.

2. The team showed resilience and competitiveness out the wazoo, which is becoming something we can rely on. The mentality of the program is a breath of fresh air compared to the last years under Shaw. It's a deeply flawed team but every unit battles and tries to claw out a chance. That's the plus side. The negative side is this team has to dig pretty deep just to compete against very mediocre opponents. Syracuse was extremely overrated by their AP #27 and coaches' poll #30 positions, which was already evident before the game from number crunching and is even more so now. Against such an opponent, we got outgained on a yards per play basis as we always do (last year's Arizona game remains the only time we've been more effective than a power conference opponent on this basis under Taylor) and did worse in yards per play on both sides of the ball than Syracuse's mediocre competition to date (Ohio and Georgia Tech) - much worse in the case of the offense but also worse on defense. We had 1.7 points per meaningful drive and gave up 2.0 points per meaningful drive. [For those wondering how we can win doing worse than an opponent in both points per drive and yards per play......pick six baby! Play of the game bar none.] The upshot is last night was a good, resilient, gutty, team win but still the performance of a bad team.

3. All could see that, while it was a team effort, the defense clearly played better. Nobody is ever going to complain about 26 yards rushing and 1.53 yards per carry allowed to a conference opponent. Don't look now, the vaunted Wisconsin run defense for April we had been hoping for now is ranked ninth in the country in yards per carry allowed and third (!!!!) in rushing yards allowed per game. We did unambiguously better than Ohio and Georgia Tech, which are respectable run defenses and both gave up in the 126-134 yard range and 4.2 yards per carry. April is giving us reason to believe in the run defense. I think this is the biggest story of our season so far. I also want to tip my hat to the pass defense though, as it held McCord (a pretty underrated player for my money) to the lowest passer rating, yards per attempt, yards, completion percentage, and touchdowns (and most interceptions) he's had this young season. I am getting more optimistic about our pass defense. We've now played two of the best QBs we will play all season in Hoover and McCord and the pass defense did very similarly against both (big difference last night was of course getting two huge interceptions). Our national rankings on pass defense are ugly but I think there's a chance those rankings rise as degree of difficulty goes down substantially after next week.

4. The offense was much less impressive. TCU and Syracuse appear to have very similar passing defenses and our passing performance was almost identical in the two games. It appears Daniels is playing at a very consistent sub-par level, reinforced by our passing performance being much worse than the Ohio (bad QB) and Georgia Tech (very good QB) mustered against Syracuse. In the run game, our rushing stats were clearly the best we've had this season. However, as I always emphasize, the enemy gets a vote. Syracuse has atrocious run defense, now 127th in the nation. [But you know what's fun? Guess who the only Power Four team ranked worse in yards per carry allowed is: Clemson.] The truth is that we were under Syracuse's average in yards per carry allowed and rushing yards per game allowed and PFF gave us our lowest run blocking grade of the season (and of course our run blocking grades had already been terrible). I like what some of the receivers and the freshmen running backs give us but the OL is still an enormous, dispiriting problem.

5. He's not as big of a problem as the OL but Daniels is also a problem. Last night's performance was seventh of the eight QBs who've played so far this week in Total QBR and wouldn't have cracked the top 80 any week this season (nor do I expect it to this week). On the season, Daniels is 110th of 133 QBs after being 85th of 127 last year. As I have observed in the past, Total QBR and PFF often don't see eye-to-eye on QBs. PFF likes Daniels much more, slotting him as top 38 percent of QBs nationally, significant improvement over being top 80 percent last year. I don't put a lot of stock into these until the sample sizes are bigger, just giving a snapshot of how metrics I find interesting assess Daniels' play so far. As usual with regard to QBs, the Total QBR conforms more closely with my subjective sense. By the eye test, it just seemed like he left so much meat on the bone with overthrows to Ayomanor (and one underthrow and one spectacular touchdown that was actually overthrown and saved by Ayomanor's greatness), and of course two very bad interceptions that showed poor judgment. He also doesn't have good pocket sense and even some of his athletic leaving of the pocket abandons clean pockets. Ultimately, I think the offense is getting marginally better than it was last year but not because of Daniels (rather because modest improvement from an egregious baseline at OL and because we actually trust our running backs to hand them the ball sometimes). As the rest of the offense hopefully improves, I think Daniels places a lackluster ceiling on this team. Of course, fans will react to that with despair that Brown is out for a month or two with the hand injury. It's hard to escape that what we've seen so far this year makes it very enticing to see what Brown could do.