IT Live: Arch's Biggest Weakness & Texas' Elite Edge Room

Summary

Inside Texas Football – July 21, 2026

Episode Overview

In this episode of Inside Texas Football, hosts Tex Homer and Paul Waddington dive deep into two main topics: the persistent short-passing struggles of quarterback Arch Manning and the evolution of Texas’s elite edge rusher room. With their trademark irreverent, analytical banter, the hosts break down statistical insights, share unique observations on coaching and player development, and offer a live Q&A with listeners. Along the way, they contextualize Texas’s progress under coach Sarkisian, muse about NFL draft strategy, and reflect on the nature of recruiting success at key positions.

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Main Discussion Themes

1. Arch Manning’s Short Passing Weakness

Defining the Problem

• Arch Manning excels at most passing distances:
  • Deep balls (20+ yards): 14.4 yards/attempt
  • Intermediate (10-19 yards): 10.1 yards/attempt
  • Behind line of scrimmage: 7 yards/attempt
• But between 0-9 yards (true short passes): “He averaged 5.3 yards per attempt, which is horrendous.” – Paul Waddington [04:03]
  • This figure is lower than his yardage behind the line, which is highly irregular.
  • Manning hits a reasonable completion percentage (about 69%) but receivers get “no yardage … no yards after catch. So we are not hitting guys on the run.” – Paul Waddington [05:05]
  • Favorite Sark/Quinn/Manning shortcoming: Lack of easy “gimme” throws or YAC (yards after catch) opportunities.

Breakdown of the Issue

• The offense “just doesn't feature” easy quick game passes (slants, stop routes) that other college offenses rely on. [06:38]
• Short throws—like the classic “trips speed out” or Air Raid-style stick routes—are not consistently schemed, even though they're “such easy money throw at high school and college levels.” [07:37]
• Possible reasons explored:
  • Is it the offensive line? “These 0 to 9 yard routes … are literally designed to relieve the pressure.” – Paul [10:32]
  • Is it cognition or mechanics? “His feet got weird in that situation … He decides to rifle it as hard as he can … behind the guy to their feet.” – Tex [11:00]
  • Is it chemistry or depth perception? “I don't think at times he could gauge Wingo's speed well either … chemistry stuff.” – Tex [26:18]
  • Is it drops? Even if every drop were a catch, “his yards per attempt doesn’t even break six.” – Paul [12:10]

Responsibility & Solutions

• “The conclusion you come to is: Arch Manning stinks at this. Our offense kinda stinks at it in support of him. But I think he's the primary culprit.” – Paul [12:45]
• “If this gets addressed, we reach a lot of our goals in 2026. If it doesn't … there's just something missing.” – Paul [13:35]
• It's “multifactorial” and involves feet, chemistry, cognition, and scheme, but ultimately: “Just fix it … if we want to reach our season objectives.” – Paul [27:26]

Memorable Quote:
“Pass fail. This is a problem. It’s mostly Arch’s fault, and he's got to fix it.” – Paul [27:23]

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2. Recruitment & Development of the Texas Edge Room

Historical Perspective and ‘The Dark Days’

• Early Sark years and prior: Texas struggled to identify and develop pass rushers, fielding “volume shooters” and injury-plagued, miscast, or simply underwhelming transfers and recruits (e.g., Ray Thornton, Jet Bush, Ben Davis, etc.). [44:10]

Transformation & Recent Success

• Fast forward to 2024–26: Texas routinely produces 7+ players with 15+ pressures per season and 41 sacks, “mostly from a four-man rush.” [44:41]
• Key to the turnaround:
  • “We got better at evaluating and recruiting the edge position.” – Paul Waddington [44:50]
  • “True blue-chip edges have the lowest bust rate in recruiting. Expending the resources to land a five-star edge generally pays off.” [47:09]
  • Shifted focus from “volume shooting” and undersized/tweener prospects to big, long, prototypical athletes—“the iron law of edge evaluation.” [45:32]

Process & Hiring

• The staff (notably Kenny Baker, Lyle, Clark) has become much more disciplined, enforcing positional standards:
  • Top NFL edges “all look a certain way.” Recruiting now requires “heavy trait evaluation.” [49:02]
  • When you miss on measurables, “You have to have a freakish offset” (e.g., rare speed/athleticism). Otherwise, “it's not going to happen for you.” – Paul [45:32]
• “If you create a team of exceptions, you suck.” – Bill Parcells quote, relayed by Paul [53:29]
• “Edge is a very trait-heavy eval position.” [53:15]

Memorable Quote:
“We have just been nailing edge evaluations since 2024... Just go get Colin Simmons, Lance Jackson, Richard Wesley... Those guys are probably going to go 4 for 4.” – Paul [48:05]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On “prima donna” QBs & NFL leverage:

  • “The Mannings have not been shy about, you know, working the system to get to the place where they want to go ... I wouldn't put it past the Mannings to do that again.” – Paul [14:41]
  • “Nightmare is Arch purposely missing the easy throws to lower his draft stock? People are asking. That's pretty smart… How do I get to pick five?” – Tex & Paul, bantering [14:07–14:23]

• On Offensive Simplicity vs. Coaching Complexity:

  • “Is it the Rube Goldberg machine where instead of just pressing the toaster down, you touch a domino and … after 37 minutes of machinations ... That's what offensive coaches get caught in.” – Paul [16:58]

• On the evolution of player standards:

  • “We started going—let's get Colin Simmons, let's get Lance Jackson, let's get Richard Wesley, let's get Justice Terry ... you're going to see those guys are probably going to go 4-for-4.” – Paul [48:05]

• On standards and exceptions:

  • “If this guy's not 6'3 with long arms, get out of my office ... The purpose of a standard is, you just miss on some guys.” – Paul [53:47–54:00]

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Detailed Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:45 – Show Intro: Episode preview; Arch Manning’s weakness, edge room evolution
• 03:40 – Arch’s Short Passing Game: Statistical breakdown, ecosystem issues, and positional comparison
• 07:37 – Offensive System/Scheme: Why the ‘easy money’ throws aren’t featured; BYU influences
• 13:35 – Stakes for 2026: “This is the thing that will be missing” if not addressed
• 14:07 – Draft Stock Conspiracy: Arch’s accuracy and the NFL
• 16:58 – Coaching Overcomplication (Rube Goldberg analogy)
• 26:17 – Chemistry with Receivers: Talking about Ryan Wingo’s route depth consistency
• 27:26 – Pass/Fail Solution: “Just fix it.”
• 34:05 – Comparative Stats: Texas QBs vs. national averages on short throws
• 43:03 – The State of the Edge Room: From past mediocrity to present dominance
• 47:09 – Why blue-chip edges hit: “Lowest bust rate”
• 53:29 – Trait-based Edge Recruiting: Bill Parcells quote; how exceptions drag down a unit
• 57:07 – Defensive Depth: The luxury of now being worried about 4th-string players
• 59:36 – O-line recruiting & standards: “Haven’t enforced a standard floor...”
• 61:08 – O-line as a “floor” position: “If everyone’s even and pretty good, I’ll take that over a couple superstars with major weaknesses”
• 62:06 – Conversion D-linemen to O-line: Untapped value and modern recruiting trends
• 62:31 – Show Close & Reminder: Inside Texas promo

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Tone & Style

• The episode is energetic, analytic, and laced with humor and inside jokes. The hosts frequently riff off each other, weaving in audience questions and teasing regular collaborators. Technical observations are colored by personal anecdotes and bits of nostalgia about Texas football’s long journey back to prominence.

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For First-time Listeners

Missed the show? Here’s what you should know:

• Arch Manning’s short-pass inability is the single biggest technical obstacle to a playoff-level Texas offense in 2026, and it’s more about Arch than about scheme or receivers.
• Texas’s pass rush, previously a glaring weakness, is now one of the best units in the country—due largely to a shift toward recruiting players with clear, elite traits and upholding strict position standards.
• The staff isn’t afraid to challenge narratives (including about the Mannings' NFL maneuvering), poke fun at coaching quirks, or dive deep into the details of player development.
• Listeners get an unvarnished, data-driven look at the program’s strengths and flaws—with plenty of laughs and lively fan engagement along the way.

Transcript

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[Tex Homer]

Good morning everybody. Welcome to IT live. I'm Tex Homer. That's Paul Waddington. Because it's the Tuesday show, we are going to talk about Arch's biggest weakness and can he solve it? And also, Texas has built an elite edge room. But how do they actually do it from our dark days just a few years ago. Everyone head over to Inside Texas. Right now. We have a flash sale. If you join for $1, then you get 50 off your first year link in the description below. Don't just watch the videos, right Paul, you got to go read everything. All right.

[Paul Waddington]

Better in writing.

[Tex Homer]

I was gonna say there's a lot of good stuff that does not make this your channel and you need to check it out.

[Paul Waddington]

But once your biggest weakness, Connor, is it that you love too much.

[Tex Homer]

Yeah, I was gonna say, I try too hard, you know, you work too hard. I'm too. Yeah, I'm too much of a perfectionist. I think that's what it is.

[Paul Waddington]

So in a prior life, you know, I used to. I hired a lot of people in interviews. I was gonna say, how do you

[Tex Homer]

even want that answered?

[Paul Waddington]

It seems just like, don't ask the question because it's stupid.

[Tex Homer]

It's dumb. Yeah.

[Paul Waddington]

Like, any sort of question like that. Like, questions and interviews should be based on, like, things you've actually done. Like, tell me about a time when you. Blah, blah, blah.

[Tex Homer]

Right.

[Paul Waddington]

But people are like, what do you think your strength is? Like those. You're an idiot interviewer.

[Tex Homer]

Right.

[Paul Waddington]

Because people could just say whatever they want. But I literally had someone volunteer. Like, one of my problems is I just care too much. I know. It's my biggest weakness. And I was like, oh, what a burden that must be.

[Tex Homer]

We. I had one interview question at this radio station in college, and they were like, if you could. If you were any kitchen utensil, what would you be?

[Paul Waddington]

A spatula.

[Tex Homer]

I was like, just shut up. I think I said, I don't know. It was super corny.

[Paul Waddington]

You're like, I think.

[Tex Homer]

I think I said a walk. I was like, I can combine different departments into one thing. It was so dumb.

[Paul Waddington]

You're like, a walk. So I could walk out of here.

[Tex Homer]

The whole exchange was so dumb.

[Paul Waddington]

So I can hit you over the head right now.

[Tex Homer]

Yeah, it was. I was like, what. What is it? What did we learn here, you or I? All right, so the big thing with Arch, we know there were a lot of struggles last year, and this is the one that I harp on all the time. If this gets solved, look out, because this is going to supercharge the offense. And Paul wrote a whole article on it.

[Paul Waddington]

I did.

[Tex Homer]

And what. What is that premise Ball?

[Paul Waddington]

The premise is that Arch Manning was very good in a lot of areas. And Arch Manning, where he wasn't very good was often because the ecosystem around him was failing. But there is one distinct discrete area where Arch Manning is mostly the problem, and that is on throws between 0 to 9 yards from the line of scrimmage, short passing game, not behind the line of scrimmage, not intermediate, not deep. We're talking about zero to nine yards. In that range, he averaged 5.3 yards per attempt, which is horrendous. If you'll notice, there's other quadrants, 14.4 yards per attempt on deep balls. We like that. 10.1 yards per attempt between 10 to 19 yards, we like that. And even behind the line of scrimmage, 7 yards per attempt, which is for gimme throws. That's. That's what you're looking for, right?

[Tex Homer]

You should not have your behind line of scrimmage higher than your short throws.

[Paul Waddington]

That should not happen.

[Tex Homer]

Yeah.

[Paul Waddington]

Known as an irregularity and it that really for many reasons that highlights why this is such a problem. Also, he did complete a reasonable percentage of those passes. We all remember the misses at that area. You know, throwing behind Wingo and across or etc. Yeah, he did hit 69 of them, which isn't great, but not bad. The point is there's no yardage getting yielded. There's no yards after catch. So we are not hitting guys on the run. We're not getting guys on the run. That's part of Sark's construction of the offense that he needs to relook at. But also there are a bunch of candy throws in College football between 6 and 10 yards where your guy catches it and then turns around and runs another three or five or seven and your five yard pass through the air goes for 14 yards. Like that was Colt McCoy's entire career. Right.

[Tex Homer]

So that was the whole spread. Even Air Raid was just pick those up.

[Paul Waddington]

Yeah. And. And we're terrible at it and Arch Manning is terrible at it and we've got to get better. And so in the article, because I know people are going to come with their excuses, well, what about the O line? What about receiver drops? I address all those things and basically show you the issue at the end of the day is Arch Manning and to a lesser extent the structure of Stark's offense, which we can also talk about.

[Tex Homer]

I do want to talk the structure of Sark's offense because you know what?

[Paul Waddington]

We're not going to talk about it. I just decided.

[Tex Homer]

You just said we could.

[Paul Waddington]

You just said go to the next.

[Tex Homer]

Anyways, the edge room's pretty good.

[Paul Waddington]

Yeah, I'm very petulant today.

[Tex Homer]

So the structure because Quinn wasn't. Now Quinn's numbers are way better than this, especially behind line of scrimmage. But one thing is we were just never really good separate maybe than RPOs at times from just those quick end breakers too. Those gimmes over the middle. That was never a Quinn strength. It's not been an arch strength. And some of those slants are easy money. Like if you throw that quick end breaker at the right time, you can score. We don't have a lot of those and we should with like a Wingo around, that's a big thing. And then you'll address later in the article. But just the easy stop routes, I think of Iowa State, they would drive me nuts because they would just spam those gimmes wherever you lined up. If you played off, we're gonna do it at five yards. If you did that, if you lined up on inside, we were going to throw outside. If you lined it outside, we're gonna throw inside and just constantly five or six yards. It's just not a huge feature in the Sarkeesian offense, even through Quinn's era, even though Quinn was a good short thrower.

[Paul Waddington]

Well, you know what's weird is such an easy money throw at the high school and college level, which is you'll go trips or even twins one side to the wide side of the field. You'll have your inside receiver run a speed out. So not even like a proper 15 yard deep out or like an NFL route. Literally the guy takes three steps and just starts running towards the sideline. And then you have everyone else run straight up the field. Clear routes, right. So whether they're running zone or man, they kind of have to carry that route. The initial fly, you know, the initial streak routes a little bit. And if you throw it on time and you hit that guy in his upfield shoulder, it's going to be like 7 yards. If they defend it well and if you actually get a block up field, you can turn that thing up the sideline and get like 30 and it's easy money. And we're just like, we're terrible at that kind of stuff. And, and as you said, Sark doesn't really scheme it in. You know what's really weird is that's what he grew up on at byu. That was the entire BYU offense. It's what's really funny. It's jarring. If you actually go back and watch his 1996 season, which I did one time, I don't know why I was going to write an article just drunk at 2am well, it was like too fast an article. It's actually still, I think, going to be. I've got to find a way to do it either here on video or an article. But basically it's how that year was formative to Sark and you can see things that he likes today from that BYU offense in 96. But if you watch that BYU offense, forgive the tangent here, you're expecting like 5 wide, they're throwing the ball around the yard. It's double tight, it's twin backs and it's the entire offense is run through their tight ends and running backs and it's all like. And they did, they do throw downfield with those guys, but there's a lot of just like gimme drop off quick game. And then they're running like tight 260 pound tight ends up the seam and getting 40 yard gains. And it's really interesting and it kind of makes you realize oh okay. This is when it got impressed on Sark's mind that going 12 personnel you can get favorable matchups.

[Tex Homer]

I, I have this theory, I did it for the PK video that all coaches are system or they're coaching themselves. How PK coached the edge room was how he played at Boise. And so it's like I, I just. That works perfectly. You just confirmed my bias where it's like at some level when they were 18 or 19, it's where it kind of stuck. But I don't know why you don't call it because RPOs were a major, major in the Alabama run was a major influence. And those have just kind of Wayne now I think defenses have figured out RPOs more too. So that's a huge factor. But Arch is not good at those either.

[Paul Waddington]

There's.

[Tex Homer]

There's something going on with that single read short that messes him up.

[Paul Waddington]

Yeah, I don't know. And people are like, is it injuries?

[Tex Homer]

Is it.

[Paul Waddington]

And I was like, I don't think it's an injury that makes you wing a ball five yards behind Ryan Wingo on a crosser like eight yards in front of your face. And people like the O line, it's like, hey dude, the purpose of these 0 to 9 yard routes is they're, they're not slow developing, most of them. Right. Right now a crosser can take a while. Like, I mean that, that makes sense. But a lot of these 0 to 9 yard routes are literally designed to relieve the pressure of the pass rush.

[Tex Homer]

Well, they talk about it as an extension of run game and not just the screen. Like there's a reason for that. So it does get rid of the offensive line. That's not a factor. On the deep stuff it's a factor. But I don't know if it's a cognitive thing because he can like the speed of the cognition because it's like he recognizes he can read a whole. He can get to a fourth read in these grand patterns no problem. Which is supposed to be hard for a quarterback. But there's something psychologically that's speeding him up. Because if whenever we do Deep dive breakdowns. We would notice his feet got weird in that situation or he would. He decides to rifle it as hard as he can, you know, behind the guy to their feet. And it's like he's not short so he can see the receiver. So we're trying to check that off. Does he have eye problem? Like does he have weird depth perception at that range? Is he near or far sighted? Like trying to figure out all of that. But it's a consistent theme for something that has to be a. Give me something that keeps you out of third and seven, which we're always in. Something that keeps the playbook open to run and pass the. If you. You're gonna have a horrible time if you can't just take these gimmes from zero to nine.

[Ad Read Announcer]

Yeah.

[Paul Waddington]

And so I kind of tried to prefigure all the excuses that people would make. Oh, maybe it's this, maybe it's that. So our receivers did drop the ball a lot. They had nine drops in that range, which is not good. But if you take those nine drops and I credit every single one of them as a catch and just assign the per catch average of the established norm, his yards per attempt doesn't even break six. So even if the receivers have done a perfect job, we still suck in that range. So the conclusion you come to is Arch Manning stinks at this. Our offense kind of stinks at it in support of him. But I think he's the primary culprit. Yeah. And he'll either address it or he won't. So I know, I know people want like a satisfying and so what he needs to do and everyone's like his feet. Oh, I noticed that it's at a 90 degree angle.

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[Paul Waddington]

Cool, great. But I'm just telling you, pass fail. If this gets addressed, we reach a lot of our goals in 2026. If it doesn't get addressed, we're going to have this really talented team that just seems like there's just something missing. I'm telling You. This will be the thing that's missing.

[Tex Homer]

Yep. This is. If I could write an article, my number one thing for the Texas offense would be, I lied. No. Number one be explosive running backs. Number two would be Arch completing short. We have a theory here that I think is highly accurate.

[Sponsor Voice]

Thank you.

[Tex Homer]

Nightmare is Arch purposely missing the easy throws to lower his draft stock? People are asking. That's pretty smart. That's pretty smart. I think that's probably it.

[Paul Waddington]

Arch will only play for the Broncos, and this is his. He's trying.

[Tex Homer]

How do I get to pick five?

[Paul Waddington]

How can I be the number 14 pick?

[Tex Homer]

Yeah.

[Paul Waddington]

Like, he's. He's like, what level of play will get me the. Make me be drafted 14th or, you know, 17th or whatever it is.

[Tex Homer]

So just putting in completion percentages and Claude, they're like, I'll tell you what,

[Paul Waddington]

the Mannings, this will be a whole fun side story after the season. But the Mannings have not been shy about, you know, working in the system to get to the place where they want to go instead of a broken franchise. And people hate it. And they're like, that's prima donna behavior and everything. Multiple quarterbacks have done this. People forget John Elway did that back in the day. But I wouldn't put it past the Mannings to do that again. If just. It looks like Arch is getting aligned to a horrific organization that just has no hope. I don't think Arch minds playing for a bad team. I mean, that's. That's cool. He's a competitive.

[Tex Homer]

Management just can't be awful.

[Paul Waddington]

If you just suck as a franchise, then I think the Mannings, you know, hey, we could see a senior.

[Tex Homer]

Well, it keeps coming out through various outlets, local and national, like, there's no guarantee he leaves this year. And then you'll. And then it'll die down. And then two weeks later, it's like, there's no guarantee he will leave this year. Yeah. And so I was like, I wonder how much of that is leverage. And just like, I mean, look, he likes Texas.

[Paul Waddington]

He loves Austin. He's a cool guy. Everyone likes him. Like, that's all cool. If he gets a good situation, he's going pro. Like everybody.

[Tex Homer]

I do like just that to tell the NFL, it's like, there's no guarantees. Do not send me to the Browns or whatever. Well, I keep seeing is the Mrs. At Ohio State. Yep.

[Paul Waddington]

It happened.

[Tex Homer]

Kentucky.

[Paul Waddington]

One of the things that's interesting, too, is, you know, in the old days as a. As a football player, you played baseball, too, right. And that was your leverage. Like, I'll go play pro baseball. That's what John Elway did, right?

[Tex Homer]

Yeah.

[Paul Waddington]

But you know, Arch, he's a single sport guy. He's got no leverage in that regard. But his best leverage is, I'm just gonna. I'll roll the dice again. I'll go back to Texas.

[Sponsor Voice]

Cool.

[Paul Waddington]

You know, and he'll do it. But it would take a pretty horrific franchise, you know, fixating on him for that to. That to happen. So we'll see.

[Tex Homer]

Sark hates easy money. Sark is definitely always trying to concoct a grand plan where he can hit you eight plays later. So there is frustration with that at times where it's just like, just run it up the middle on third and one, but you can't. Or, you know, just complete short, but you can't. So it's like, is it the Rube

[Paul Waddington]

Goldberg machine where instead of just pressing the toaster down, you touch a domino and the domino goes, and then that hits a mouse, and then the mouse brings a small thing over to a bowl and that rolls down the marble, and then that is ultimately what triggers the toaster. After 37 minutes of machinations, I always think offensive coaches get caught in the Rube Goldberg machine. And so it's really refreshing to see offensive coaches who are like, they're playing off coverage. All right, we're just going to run eight yard stops until they stop that.

[Tex Homer]

Dude. That's what I loved about Gundy. And you talked in another piece of how he wouldn't play, but, like, they were so just like, whatever you provide, we will take. And if not, then we'll run the quarterback. I remember when I got mad in the group chat, it was last season, it was like third and one or fourth and one or something. And we ran like a trick play. And I was. I was mad because it was the. The. What is it? Rube Goldberg machine, where I was like, the fact that we cannot just get a yard and Sark is having to go to two point conversion plays to get one yard. But also, on the flip side, I'm sympathetic because there's no guarantee you're getting that one yard. It just frustrates me that we have to go to these levels of creative plays at times to get like a third and one.

[Paul Waddington]

Yeah. Incredibly intricate scheming.

[Tex Homer]

Yeah, it was motions, fake direction here. It's like, oh, my God, dude, it's the first quarter. We're like on the 30 and we're breaking this out on a third and one.

[Paul Waddington]

Well, the great irony of it is USC Sark is like, hand the ball to Lindell White.

[Tex Homer]

Yep.

[Nino]

Right.

[Paul Waddington]

Like, you know, let's not over.

[Tex Homer]

He also did that. Yeah, he did it. Devonte Smith. Give the ball to devonte Smith. Give the ball to Naji Harris.

[Ad Read Announcer]

Like, he.

[Tex Homer]

He had that level, too. So it's just like, where's that disconnect? Because it's not like he was against SP timing a certain player. He did all those things at Alabama. It's just for whatever reason, it's not timing up with the Texas talent.

[Sponsor Voice]

All right.

[Paul Waddington]

The chat is just as smartened up. We've been joined by Nino's Corner Sports.

[Tex Homer]

What's up, Nino? Maybe he's scared of routes getting jumped for pick sixes. I mean, sure, but a lot of the times it's like there's no one near him. Like, the defender is back off here. He can get it. I can understand that. Over the middle. You do need a little bit of a more advanced quarterback at times. That is muddy. If a linebacker, especially with these simulated blitzes, they might drop an edge right into slant. They're trying to do that. Yeah. So I get that. But it's just never really been a feature in the Sark era unless it was a dictated RPO for the ball to ever really go there. It's very strange, but it's such a common area for other teams.

[Paul Waddington]

Yeah. And the thing about the crossrout, the crossing route, unless you really mess up and throw it late, it's not getting pick six because you're hitting a guy move. So you don't want to. You don't want to run him into a linebacker who's standing there in zone watching you, because then you. He could either you can get your court. Your court, your receiver destroyed, or you can get theoretically pick six. Right. But other than that, it's kind of hard to get pick six on that concept. It's. You have to kind of work hard to mess that up.

[Tex Homer]

His feet get all out of whack. And that's really the problem. Yeah, exactly. On. On those quick throws. You need them. But also a lot of quarterbacks, like, I'm a stickler for this, but, like, Quinn's feet were horrific all the time. And Quinn would still just be able to. Quinn had just sit back and throw it. So there's a lot. You can arm a lot of those throws, even if you're not perfect, especially at the college level. I think he just throws it hard as hell, and it makes no sense with the direction and then the balls Just will go nose up or nose down, make it flutter or smack right into the ground.

[Paul Waddington]

Well, there is also a tendency to marry like so one thing that I do think people underestimate is you have to marry your drop and the rhythm of your drop and your footsteps to the route. So when you're going a go route on like a deep post, it's like throw and it needs to be that way every time like you, you, you learn those mechanics and it just becomes ingrained in you.

[Tex Homer]

Right.

[Paul Waddington]

Sometimes those short throws, I think they just get taken for granted and so you don't practice the steps or the footwork or like or if you take it in shotgun, you don't move at all. Have you done that before? That much like got something a shotgun and thrown a five yard crosser. I bet you don't spend a lot of time on that. I bet you're throwing deep posts. I bet you're throwing, you know, like cool route tree stuff. I bet you're doing stuff on time trying to strike up the rhythm of your drop to if you go under center to the deep ball. I bet a lot of quarterbacks don't snap, get the ball and then throw something. That's where the old school air raid really is valuable.

[Tex Homer]

Right.

[Paul Waddington]

Because it's all catch ball, throw open guy, like open grass. You're getting the ball and like I'm not even going to my second read. I don't care. So as John Matiere said in SEC media days, you can't think out there, you just throw it to the first open guy.

[Tex Homer]

That's demonstrated at times with Mater. Sometimes there is not. He'll throw it to the ninth safety hidden sitting by that post too.

[Paul Waddington]

That's right.

[Tex Homer]

Could it be a residual from having O line issues in high school? One thing that was awesome about the Manning huddle is it wasn't just throwing go balls. It was like 30 minutes of just basic screens. They understood how to actually evaluate a quarterback and they made a huddle on the most boring throws out there of just catch throw screens. Never seen anything like it, but it showed true knowledge of what an evaluator would need and he had no problem with this. Now of course huddle is a highlight system so I'm seeing things work out. But he threw over the middle fine. And he would do stuff, he would throw these pinpoint like they'd be low but low on purpose. Stuff over the middle where there's a linebacker here, he would roll out and do it. So I didn't see that at all. In the high school tape too. So that's why it's confusing because I saw him do it a bunch, especially even in red zone. I mean, they're at the 5 and he's making these pinpoint accurate throws directly over the middle in the crowd.

[Paul Waddington]

One thing Major Apple White, and to Greater except Colt McCoy. We're really good at where those low middle throws where they're purposely throwing it low to keep the ball out of peril. And your receiver has to catch it low and they may even have to slide to catch it, but you are basically keeping the ball out of harm's way.

[Tex Homer]

Right.

[Paul Waddington]

It's like you're. And you're also, with the throw, you're telling the receiver where the defender is in relation to him. So when you purposely throw it a little low to them, you're saying, hey, the dude's right behind you. Catch it and kind of get down.

[Tex Homer]

Right.

[Paul Waddington]

And so Arch will have to learn some of those nuances. You know, Applewhite kind of had to do that because he had a kind of a rag arm. But Colt McCoy was really good at that. Like just telling the receiver through the ball placement. This is where the defender is. And he used to do that with Shipley all the time. He would hit like one shoulder and it would tell Shipley, the defenders on this shoulder, so spin and run up

[Tex Homer]

field back, turn the opposite shoulder, and

[Paul Waddington]

it's, it's like, it's really sophisticated. And when you see that, like with Quan Cosby and Shipley and Colt, when they were like mind melded, dude, that was awesome. And I think it's fair to say Wingo and Manning were the opposite of mind melded.

[Tex Homer]

What a. What a strange connection. What a strange connection. And it. Half the time it was Wingo doing something weird. The other half, it was ours. They just had, I mean, zero chemistry. We have another question. How hard is it to go look at each one of the 117 plays in isolation and see what was going on for the given play and opponent? If you're talking about looking at short passes, it's for.

[Paul Waddington]

Well, so he's talking about the analysis I did in the quadrants for us. Pretty hard. That would take a lot of time for Texas. Not hard. They could, they could do that. They can isolate that with like their computer algorithm.

[Tex Homer]

Right. And their, their. Yeah. Unfortunately, there's not a quick way for it to tell me. Here are the exact time stamps of every short throw in every single game. So logistically, that would take forever.

[Paul Waddington]

Yeah, we have to Go through every. All 22. And I think that's an assignment we should give Ian.

[Tex Homer]

Yeah, exactly. Oh, he would love that. That's what he's known for.

[Paul Waddington]

But this is. He doesn't like that Ian is simultaneously very hard working and also lazy. But this question, if you mean for the coaches, like Texas, it's not hard at all. And, and I'm fairly confident if we do a lot of self scouting that we are. We have already done this and sort of looked at it.

[Tex Homer]

So you also point out, I think the problem too is that is multifactorial. You point out here that at times he was throwing hard at the risk of unseen defenders. Sometimes he was, sometimes his feet were horrible, sometimes the route was not correct. And so it's just like when it goes that bad, it's normally not a single thing you can pinpoint very easily or else it would have been pinpointed. But the entropy kicks in there and it's. It's affecting. Seven different reasons are affecting why it's not working and that's why. Because I think it pinpointed that easily that it's purely his feet. They could do it.

[Nino]

But he.

[Tex Homer]

There was depth perception, weirdness, all sorts of stuff, man. I don't think at times he could gauge Wingo's speed well either. Either he was running faster than he thought or slower. That some of that's just chemistry stuff. But. And also Wingo was, you know, out for spring, out for fall, so they didn't get a lot of reps. And

[Paul Waddington]

I get the vibe I don't have conclusive proof on this, but from watching a lot of all 22 with you and, and, and Ian, I think Wingo's the guy when they say run the crosser at seven yards, it might be at five and it might be at nine.

[Tex Homer]

Yeah.

[Paul Waddington]

And I think when Shipley and Quan Cosby run that route and they say run it at seven, it's at 7.000. When, when you tell Matthew golden run it at seven, it's at seven. So that's a part of it as well. But again, we're kind of trying to do all this. Why? What could be the possible? And I get the reason to explore the causalities. I'm just telling you pass fail. This is a problem. It's mostly Arch's fault and he got. He's got to fix it.

[Tex Homer]

It has to be fixed.

[Paul Waddington]

Like just fix it. And I know that's not helpful because people like, well, what you supposed to. I mean, I'm not his Coach, I'm just telling you, if we want to reach our season objectives, fix this. So that's it.

[Tex Homer]

I agree some comparatives here. So you had for Fernando Mendoza averaged 8.4 yards per attempt. Let's just. So you guys can reference again in that quadrant. Yeah, yeah. Arch was doing 5.3 at 0 to 9 yards.

[Paul Waddington]

Yeah. And I set our sights a little more modestly, Marcel Reed, 7.4. Yeah. So we want to make fun of Marcel Reed. You know, Marcel one read, dude can like throw the ball between zero and nine yards.

[Tex Homer]

So. And you also have to give. I guess I'll. I'll assign 14 to wide receivers because when I see Marcel Reed, half of what he was doing was just going dink. And then that receiver would go for 50 yards. So some of this too, 14. Precisely. I attribute to wide receivers not doing any much with yak after the ball because Marcel Reed had a huge advantage there. But John Matiere outperformed him here as well. So he was able. You also point out kind of globally how he was able to make up for this, to have respectable numbers.

[Paul Waddington]

Yeah, I mean, arches. Arch is really good at a lot of stuff that if we can just be competent in support of him, you're going to see his numbers explode this year. And that's something that we. I think we were ahead of the curve pointing out like we were very early on saying, hey, Arch Manning actually played well against Florida and all the people who are saying he stunk it up and threw the game away like, you don't know ball. You don't understand what's actually happening on the field. And then you watch it on the all 22 and you're like, oh, my God, how did Arch even, like, how did he even, like, survive the game? It's unbelievable what, what we saw. So now, did Arch have some bad games? The UTEP game is as dreadful a performance.

[Tex Homer]

Dude, it was so bad.

[Paul Waddington]

Ten straight incompletions at one point, right?

[Ad Read Announcer]

Yeah.

[Paul Waddington]

So I'm not like, you know, Arch Manning can do no wrong. But I am telling you, we were so horrid in some areas that it's amazing that Arch, like, was able to keep the ship afloat the way he did. But in this singular area, Arch is mostly the problem and Arch needs to fix it.

[Tex Homer]

It's a great sign that as much as Arch was under pressure last year, he didn't put the ball in harm's way a lot. If the line improves just a little bit, we could see the turnover margins grow.

[Paul Waddington]

Yep. Yeah.

[Tex Homer]

Quinn shot. Imagine Quinn versus Florida. Yep. That would have not gone well. That's not Quinn's game.

[Paul Waddington]

Well, I mean, here's the thing. Honestly. Because people like, what if Quinn had played? Quinn would not have finished the year last year.

[Tex Homer]

Yeah.

[Paul Waddington]

He would have been out in week five.

[Tex Homer]

Yep.

[Paul Waddington]

By week five, he's out. He's done so.

[Tex Homer]

And Arch would have. An Arch would have played anyways, so.

[Paul Waddington]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So people are like, you know, if Quinn starts against Ohio State, we win that game. Well, we don't know if Ohio State would have liked to try it on offense.

[Tex Homer]

Right.

[Paul Waddington]

But also he wouldn't have finished the season. So, you know, I do agree that

[Tex Homer]

if Quinn theoretical healthy Quinn played the short game would have been far improved.

[Paul Waddington]

I agree with that.

[Nino]

Yes.

[Tex Homer]

Yeah.

[Paul Waddington]

But he and Arch are antithetical. They. They are opposites.

[Tex Homer]

They're. Yeah, it's weird.

[Paul Waddington]

It's. It's hilarious. And it's funny because the stereotype of Arch being a Manning is that he's this cold, cool, you know, super sophisticated quarterback and polished. It's like he's actually super fiery red ass, like tough guy.

[Tex Homer]

Yeah.

[Paul Waddington]

Like that's actually Arch Manning. He's like, let's go win the game.

[Ad Read Announcer]

I don't care.

[Paul Waddington]

I'll run through the linebacker. And people think he's gonna be, you know, Peyton Manning, Mr. Analytical. And that is not Arch. He's like his granddad.

[Tex Homer]

Yeah, he definitely has his granddad's traits. The ball knowers test of the off season is when you hear people say Arch played bad against Florida and Georgia. Yep. I hope Sark doesn't talk about having a 1k yard rusher or being the only team to have went back to back in the playoffs or saying a team wouldn't go undefeated or you got a lot here. Or about wearing playing in the spring. Yes. Okay, I. I agree.

[Paul Waddington]

I hope Sark doesn't opine on the Iranian.

[Tex Homer]

It would be weird if he talked about back to back playoffs because it didn't happen. So that I'd be worried about his mental health at that point if he just kept saying it. He definitely wants that 1k yard rusher back. There's no question. That was a big goal of. Let's see. Dre, Appreciate you, man. Is there a stat showing how much time Arch had to throw before the force first defender gets to him? Love y'.

[Ad Read Announcer]

All.

[Paul Waddington]

Dre, an excellent question. We have an informal stat we compiled from our deep dives doing. Look at all 22. And it was sometimes as the ball hit his hands, remarkable. He Was already seeing a free defensive lineman or two or three about to, like, hit him right under the chin. We don't have that formal stat or time to throw, and I'm not sure if anyone's compiled it, but I would

[Tex Homer]

tell you they have time to throw on pff. But that's not. That's just actually the time it took him to throw. Not if a receipt. If a defender was there.

[Paul Waddington]

It doesn't tell you what he did to achieve the time to throw. Right, Right. Did he scramble? Did he. You know what I'm saying?

[Tex Homer]

Yeah.

[Paul Waddington]

And so I can tell you he was the most pressured, most hit quarterback in the SEC and one of the most pressured and hit quarterbacks in all of college football. So the fact that we only gave up 23 sacks or whatever it was last year, if Quinn was the quarterback, it would have been 45.

[Tex Homer]

I was gonna say it would be in the 40s.

[Paul Waddington]

No, it wouldn't have been because he would have been out by week five. Arch would have been the quarterback.

[Tex Homer]

Or it would just have turned into everything as a screen. So, yeah, like, that was. The whole thing with Quinn is that they were cheating the offense by turning everything into short throws, which made some metrics look better and others look worse. But did y' all say what Arch's adot was for all of last season? If so, I missed it, then I apologize.

[Paul Waddington]

Around nine. I think I can look it up.

[Tex Homer]

Yeah. But his. So you have his completion at 69 adjusted. I mean that for short range. Adjusted meaning. Okay, get rid of the drops. That. That can be in the 80s with really, really good quarterbacks. Non adjusted. No, but it should be about 80. It can be low 80s for adjusted. Short for the really special guys, I guess you could say.

[Paul Waddington]

Yeah, I mean, it's. We were not an efficient passing game. So arches ADOT was 9.7. So that's. That's significantly higher than coin yours. You see from the quadrant. I mean, I broke it out. His. His deep passing game was elite. He was. Arch is a great deep ball thrower.

[Tex Homer]

Yeah.

[Paul Waddington]

And he can get better, by the way.

[Tex Homer]

That. Yeah, that's the goal. And if you can just put him in a. In a circumstance where he feels safer, too. I think we can see a lot going on, but yeah, avoid any yips early in the season. Any final thoughts here, Paul, before we talk? The legendary edge room we got.

[Paul Waddington]

Oh, I want to talk about something legendary before our dream.

[Tex Homer]

You want me to. There you go.

[Ad Read Announcer]

I'll do it.

[Tex Homer]

I'll put it. There you go.

[Paul Waddington]

Connor. Waiting for you.

[Tex Homer]

I wanted to time it perfectly when you hit me.

[Paul Waddington]

I want to talk about the legendary Gabe Winslow, the best damn mortgage guy in this great state of Texas. If you're the best in Texas, you're the best in America, baby. And if you're the best in America, you're the best in the world. And I don't know about alien life forms or other planets. I don't know, man. I don't. I don't favor us in an intergalactic war. Yeah, I feel like if they contact us, they have better technology.

[Tex Homer]

I think that's kind of the proof of concept that they concept human history.

[Paul Waddington]

When people with better technology encounter people with inferior technology, it always goes well.

[Tex Homer]

Everyone becomes well.

[Paul Waddington]

Right?

[Tex Homer]

Yeah.

[Paul Waddington]

People come get along peaceably. There's no subjugation I need to be pushing. This mortgage guy, his name's Gabe Winslow. He's badass at what he does. And you could reach him at 832-557-1095. I'm trying to do an ad read, Connor, and you keep talking about, like, alien space war.

[Tex Homer]

Totally apologize.

[Paul Waddington]

Freaking nerd, man. All right. Gabe is the best at what he does. Over 20 years in the industry. He is incredibly sharp, former National Merit scholar, UT grad. He's got a law degree. This guy's the man. Just the fact that you would even think about jacking around with other mortgage options is absurd. And if you have, shame on you. But you have a chance at forgiveness and repentance by dialing seven. Well, 10 numbers. 832-557-1095.

[Tex Homer]

All right, some final thoughts here. Let's see. I'd love to see some more back shoulder throws this year with Cam. Yeah, why not? I do want. I do wonder if we can get into the cheat code level of the deep game with him where it's just automatic. Just kind of like the clique locket throw in versus Michigan. Just snap and throw. That'll be the big thing. 2024 running game was terrible as well. The lack of running back in 2024 and 2025 hurt everything. Without a doubt. That's why explosive runs are actually the number one thing I have. That's a weird way to phrase that. And then number two would be Arch's short game.

[Paul Waddington]

Was that a Taco Bell reference?

[Tex Homer]

I was gonna say. I was like. I didn't phrase that perfectly.

[Paul Waddington]

Let me. Let's challenge that. I do agree our running game was terrible, but that affected our passing game between 0 to 9 yards, like, to such an Extent. That arch is a massive outlier from every other quarterback in college football, but only that quadrant alone.

[Tex Homer]

I think I'm thinking of it globally, of why the offense was just dysfunctional. I don't think it was necessarily.

[Paul Waddington]

That's. That's not what we were talking about.

[Tex Homer]

Yeah, Stay. Stay on topic.

[Paul Waddington]

It's like you and these freaking intergalactic battles that you want to talk about. Yeah.

[Tex Homer]

You like to talk about space. All right. Any general thoughts on Hudson potentially rejoining the team this year? Okay. My team's doing it, so it's cool.

[Paul Waddington]

Yeah.

[Tex Homer]

If other teams do it, that's lame. So that's how we break that down.

[Paul Waddington]

So getting beyond all the optics of he went to an NFL UDFEA training camp and all that stuff. Let's get past all that. I mean, it is what it is. I don't. I don't have any ability to affect that. So you can spin this two ways. Valuable added depth and another guy in the room that has played football for Texas and started games. Or we're concerned that Lawrence Seymour reported and he's the same height as Emmanuel, Lewis and Webster. So which of these do you prefer? Connor.

[Tex Homer]

Great. Great reference. So we talked. We talked about it yesterday with Eric, and because we're trying to.

[Nino]

The.

[Tex Homer]

The fan fear immediately is, oh, no, Lawrence Seymour sucks. And then the coaches were like, hudson, we need your return. So that wasn't the case. So I feel better about that. So it does look like he'll be quality depth and he doesn't have to go, you know, into the job force. He can make, you know, his 100 grand or whatever playing as a depth piece. So I think there's that. I don't think it's a red flag yet. Of course we'll pay attention as practice reports come out with Seymour, but I feel confident that he just doesn't want to go into the real world when he can go play another year of football.

[Paul Waddington]

Yeah, I mean, a lot of people do that out of college with something called law school. So it's a way for cowards who don't want to face the real market to extend their college experience for another three years.

[Tex Homer]

Then they can bend the world world to their will by suing everything into existence.

[Paul Waddington]

You know that. I'm telling you, I'm telling the truth here.

[Tex Homer]

So where's Sugar Pop? He's not in the chat.

[Paul Waddington]

I went out in the real world like a man, just like Connor. So I think. I mean, honestly, there's a lot of ways you can spin. May just Be as simple as, hey, Hudson's played for us. He started for us. Break glass in case of emergency. Or, you know what if he's legitimately improved and he's a viable player for us? I don't know. But I can tell you he didn't play well for us last year.

[Ad Read Announcer]

Yeah.

[Tex Homer]

What's up, Xander? What's your prediction for the UT vs Ohio State game in Week 2? Can Texas finally beat Ohio State? I'm going to the game, so I hope so. That'll be a fun game to go to.

[Paul Waddington]

That's gonna be a great game to go to, Xander. And it's gonna be a night game, is it not? Yeah. Awesome. So, yeah, I think it's gonna be sweet. I think we're gonna be fired up. I kind of like Texas in this game.

[Tex Homer]

So, Xander, barring any psychological issues with Arch, I like Texas in this game.

[Paul Waddington]

That's right. Assuming we don't miss our first six open thr. Throw it in. Nine yards. Yeah, but, Xander, I think you're gonna have a good experience. I think you're gonna see a great game. And I currently like Texas, but I think Ohio State's a hell of a challenge.

[Tex Homer]

Yeah, I'm fine with Hudson coming back as the depth if that's the issue, but if he's named left guard starter, it wouldn't be a good sign. Yeah, I agree. I agree. But I think mostly he's just like, I want to go back. I hate that that's even possible. But like I said, my team's doing it. Therefore, it's very reasonable and cool.

[Paul Waddington]

Well, like, if it's fan that found that Cam Coleman's been gambling, I absolutely think we should Support him.

[Tex Homer]

Yes. 1,000%.

[Paul Waddington]

He's a victim, and he needs to play. And we can't deprive him of his professional. No, we're not that sleazy.

[Nino]

But

[Paul Waddington]

I. I mean, honestly. Here's the thing, man. Lawrence Seymour reported, and he's 5 foot 4. So that's a problem.

[Tex Homer]

Breaking news.

[Paul Waddington]

I'm just gonna feed that so that it plagues like Eric. Listen, but this is the problem with

[Tex Homer]

the Internet, dude, is it starts off as a five foot four joke, and then it goes through the board extrapolator through a lot of the different sites, and then it ends up on Texas Tech that he is, in fact, five foot tall, and. And Hudson has been brought in to fix him. Don't even put it in the universe.

[Paul Waddington]

The game of telephone, it's going to get recycled through the Longhorn fan networks, and then Eric's gonna have to answer questions about it, like, in a live. Yeah. Where is this coming from? I don't understand. This is stupid.

[Tex Homer]

Yep.

[Paul Waddington]

It's gonna be great.

[Tex Homer]

Be like, no clue, man. I don't know why they're asking that. Honest thoughts from Paul and Homer. Is the Big Ten actually better than the sec or is the competition easier in the Big Ten?

[Paul Waddington]

The top teams in the Big Ten are demonstrably better. They've won the last three national titles, and it's been three different teams, so. But the middle to bottom of the SEC is vastly superior to the Big Ten.

[Tex Homer]

Yep. I agree. 100. All right, let's talk about these here edges. We gots. The article is, why does Texas keep hitting on their edge takes? We weren't doing that, and then we started to do that and it's been cooler.

[Paul Waddington]

And we like when we do that.

[Tex Homer]

Yeah, for sure. So quick breakdown of coming out of the dark decade there. And the early Sark reign. That was horrific. We could not get anything.

[Paul Waddington]

I do love when people complain about Sark, and I'm one of those people. Sometimes you do have to reset to what it was when he took over.

[Tex Homer]

Yeah.

[Paul Waddington]

And when you go watch those games, guys, go watch one of those games from 2021. This year's team would beat them 52. 7. I'm not joking. Yeah. Like it's. I'm not joking, Jack. But yeah. I just think that. I mean, it's unbelievable how far we've come. And no place can you see it more than the edge room.

[Tex Homer]

Yep. Yeah. So you name some of our greatest hits. Ray Thornton. So Jacoby Jones actually could play, but then he kept getting hurt. He was the only, like, bright spot for moments. Not compared to Colin Simmons, but he was capable enough. And then you had OV from Notre Dame. DJ Harris. Yeah. Okay.

[Paul Waddington]

A young strapping lad named Jet Bush.

[Tex Homer]

Yep. We had Jet. And then Ben Davis. That was walking me through memory lane. Haven't thought about a lot of those guys. I think about Jet all the time, though. We do a weekly show.

[Paul Waddington]

You should think about Jet. A great Longhorn and a great contributor to our football. Football team and our rise.

[Tex Homer]

Yep. So that's what was going on in 2021. Which means there was not a lot going on. We could not manufacture anything. Then you have some good stats here. Ben Davis led the 2021 team with two and a half sacks. And then you say something about pressures. Yeah. So Alfred Collins led the team with 15 pressures last year. Seven different Longhorns had more than 15 pressures. And the team averaged 20 and a half pressures per game, mostly from a four man rush. And they totaled 41 sacks. It's a very different world. But how did that come about?

[Paul Waddington]

Well, we got better at evaluating and recruiting the edge position. We were kind of volume shooters in 2021, 2022, 2023. We did get Baron Sorrell and Ethan Burke from those recruiting classes, which is good. But there are a lot of misses and I think some people have forgotten, you know, Tap Walton, Ross, Akana Finkley was a big one, one I cautioned about. And people were like, oh, I guess you know, more than Sark and Nick Saban.

[Tex Homer]

It's like I fell for the Finkley thing.

[Paul Waddington]

I'm like, I guess I did because

[Tex Homer]

I didn't even factor in arm length. It was. You and Kieran would both say all the time they're like, this is not going to work. And I was like, shut up, idiot.

[Paul Waddington]

If you're a short edge, you have to have a freakish offset to that lack of length and height. Usually you need to run like a 4, 440 or BE, you know, be Dwight Freeney. Right. Or Elmis Dumerville. Those guys aren't real common. So unless you have that profile. And also you're kind of a muscled up, like early maturing short edge. Yeah, I know for a fact you're not gonna hit in college. You're just not going to. It's not going to happen for you. So that's just the iron law of edge evaluation. And it's interesting that some people forgot about it.

[Tex Homer]

The measurables absolutely matter at this position.

[Paul Waddington]

That is one of my points. So why did we all of a sudden in 2024 go get Colin Simmons, Xena Umiya Zulu and of course we wouldn't got UTSA's edge. Trey Moore in the portal, who was a very valuable player for us, that I don't, I don't think people appreciate it enough, frankly. 2025, we get Lance Jackson, Justice Terry, who you could define however you like, but I'm, I'm saying he's edgier in a sense because of the four eye and all that kind of stuff. We're doing Smith Aragbo, who I think is very much going to make an impression on us before he leaves Texas. And then 2026 looks, I mean it's very early. Richard Wesley is like the man. If you talk to Longhorn players or listen to what they say about him, they're like in awe of that guy. And then Jamarion Carlton looked great in the scrimmage and he's every bit of 65280 so he'll eventually go inside I think. But we have just been nailing edge evaluations since 2024 and so I have a couple of humble thoughts as to

[Tex Homer]

why let's read such a thing. True blue chip edges have the lowest bust rate and recruiting expending the resources to land a five star edge generally pays off.

[Paul Waddington]

So average fan Joe fan gets all enamored of five star receivers. Five star running backs, even five star quarterbacks, they have pretty high bus rates. You know who doesn't have a high bust rate edges because the very best of the best are already sort of trait quality tested and now it's just a matter of them not doing something stupid off the field. They're pretty much inevitable. So that's why you want to expend the resources to get them and people be like well duh, you want to get five stars. But no, consider the delineation I just made because when we get five stars at some other positions I just kind of shrug. I don't really care absent watching their film and then I could get excited about them. But a five star running back doesn't mean much to me compared to a five star edge because I know I know the hit rate of the two respective positions. So we started going instead of volume shooting we're like let's go get Colin Simmons, let's get Lance Jackson, let's get Richard Wesley, let's get Justice Terry and looks like those guys are probably going to go 4 for 4 by the time they're all Longhorn careers are over.

[Tex Homer]

Paul, what about five star corners like John Meredith types bus rate versus hit rate on blue chip corners.

[Paul Waddington]

My article is not about five star corners Ryan. Good. Have some discipline everyone stay on topic.

[Tex Homer]

God, it just means Paul has not dug into five star corner blue chip.

[Paul Waddington]

That's also what, that's what it means. I also been putting up a smokescreen

[Tex Homer]

that is interesting though. I actually do want to see what that position specifically we enforced positional standards.

[Paul Waddington]

Yep.

[Tex Homer]

So we talked about the heavy trade evaluation.

[Paul Waddington]

Edge is a very heavy trade eval. So when you say draw up the perfect running back, you can actually come up with a pretty wide range of body types and skills and 40 times and everything else.

[Tex Homer]

Right?

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[Paul Waddington]

about, no pun intended, the edge cases, the good edges in the NFL all look a certain way. And so there's a reason for that. And if they have a slight deficit in one area, they have an offsetting part that's like beyond the bell curve. So. And what's interesting is we were recruiting outside of positional standards quite a bit. We were going after a lot of like tweener type edges or like shorter guys, Prince, Dorba, Finkley, all those guys. And then trying to turn them into edges and they kind of had been like high school generalists or defense in defensive tackles sometimes. Or we were kind of going after like really light guys that were not tall and there's just not, it's not gonna work out even when they fill out. And so it's kind of interesting that the two guys that we did hit on between 2002, 2021 and 2023, where we're kind of in the wilderness, we're Burke and Sorrel. They're both archetypal edge bodies. Sorel is the, the bulkier strong edge, but he's 6 4. And Burke is of course the like prototypical long lanky edge with long arms, you know, six foot six, six foot seven.

[Tex Homer]

So you think they're easier to visually evaluate too, just because of the nature of like at the camps you can see them one on one with tackle. With defensive tackles, there's so much more variables. You're getting doubled a lot. There's a linebackers in the mix. Is there something just more concrete too about how an edge has performed and one on one so often?

[Paul Waddington]

Maybe I don't really put a lot of stock at those camp one on ones, to be honest, because the offensive linemen are at such a massive disadvantage. But I do think that you could see the traits more cleanly. And also defensive tackles are just higher mental busts. Don't know why.

[Tex Homer]

Yeah, they're either gonna fail out or the dts have problems. And a lot of times too with being that Large. Like, are they that large because they've been eating a lot in service of becoming a defensive tackle, or are they just very lazy and they've been able to gain all that weight, too? There's this weird mix there.

[Paul Waddington]

Well, edges rarely eat themselves out of their position.

[Tex Homer]

Yeah.

[Paul Waddington]

And when they do, you turn them into a defensive tackle, and they end

[Ad Read Announcer]

up being pretty good.

[Paul Waddington]

Right. Because they retain their athletic trades. Defensive tackles will literally just eat themselves out of football. It happens all the time. So I've seen it with multiple five stars at Texas. You guys remember Taylor Bible, Sonny Davis?

[Tex Homer]

Dude, I had to play against Taylor Bible and Little League.

[Paul Waddington]

Oh, my God, that guy must have been

[Tex Homer]

demolishing kids. Like, it was unfair. There were talks amongst the league about not letting him play or, like, limiting his snaps. He was. He was just throwing children around. He looked like he was like a freshman in high school when we were in, like, in, like our sophomore in high school when we were, like, in sixth grade. Taylor Bible was a. If anybody ask around, didn't Little League football. Taylor Bible got a lot of respect out here. I remember he sucked to play against.

[Paul Waddington]

So, in summary, this is a very trait heavy evaluation position. And as the famous quote from Bill Parcels, if you create a team of exceptions, you suck. Meaning.

[Tex Homer]

I never heard it.

[Paul Waddington]

You. You have to enforce basic positional standards and then every now and then, know when to color outside the lines. But if you're constantly coloring outside the lines and you've got your position coach who falls in love with the. Oh, this kid's different. Yeah, I know he's 5 11, but he's different. He's built different.

[Tex Homer]

It's like he reads good.

[Paul Waddington]

It's like, if this guy's not six' three with long arms, get out of my office. And. And people like, well, you're gonna miss on some guys. Yeah, that's the purpose of a standard.

[Tex Homer]

Yeah, that's.

[Paul Waddington]

That's what a standard is. You just.

[Tex Homer]

It's a sorting mechanism.

[Paul Waddington]

Congratulations, you're. You're getting it.

[Tex Homer]

And I will miss some guys, but I won't miss on my team because my standard will make sure I have good edges. So I won't get every edge, but I will have.

[Paul Waddington]

I know this guy runs a 5, 140, but, man, he brings it off the edge. It's like, no, no, he can go do that for someone else.

[Ad Read Announcer]

Cool.

[Tex Homer]

Yeah, they can take that risk. All right. And then also, the staff hires Kenny Baker. Lyle and Clark have both been hits. Absolutely. I agree.

[Paul Waddington]

Yeah. I just think they've Done a good job. And I don't know the degree to which they've influenced or haven't influenced these takes, but what I know about Kenny Baker is that guy was hired before anyone gave him a chance. It was, what are we doing? This is ridiculous. And all that guy has done is like, rack up W's on the recruiting trail.

[Tex Homer]

Dude. I don't even worry about the defensive tackles. I think they're so well coached.

[Paul Waddington]

No, and remember, he was the generalist D line coach before we brought on Alan Clark. So. And before that, we had Bo Davis. And Bo Davis had some strengths, he had some negatives, but I don't think one of his strengths was like, edge evaluation.

[Tex Homer]

Yeah, that doesn't bear out when you look at it.

[Paul Waddington]

Doesn't seem to bear.

[Tex Homer]

Yeah, they're just doing George W. Bush quotes in the chat right now.

[Nino]

Okay.

[Tex Homer]

And then define edge broadly. What do you mean by that, Paul?

[Paul Waddington]

Well, what I mean is we are going to play in a lot of different ways and a lot of different fronts. And so you want Lance Jackson every bit as much as you want Colin Simmons, even though if you stand them in a room together, they look like different human beings. Different, different. Different creatures. Right. One is gigantic and long, and the other one is a bursty, stocky guy with, you know, incredible quickness. There's. There's room in our edge room for both of those because one of them can play the true edge, you know, sort of that we all know the classic edge of a 4:3. The other one can spin down inside. He could play 4i. He could play a 5 tech. He could play 3 tech. You could, you know, have him in greyhound rush pass packages, line up at defensive tackle, right over the guard.

[Tex Homer]

Right.

[Paul Waddington]

And just use a superior quickness on that guy. So I'm very comfortable defining edge broadly and just taking a variety. But within the variety, you have to enforce a standard.

[Tex Homer]

Yeah, I agree. What will it hold for the 20, 27 class? So we're. Yeah, it's crazy. Just think about how far we came, how deep they are. To have Xena as like a third option is crazy. Richard Wesley, we are in a good spot there. I think it's the top room in the country and came a long way from whatever we were doing with the, The Notre Dame and Bama rejects trying to make it happen. I don't even want to knock those guys because they came in and stabilized the program, like, brought in good culture. So I'm not trying to be mean to them. They. That's good. But it's we could not get any pass rush going.

[Paul Waddington]

It's fun to get complex and talk about the intricacies of football and all that. End of the day, if you can get a good pass rush with four guys, your, your starting point for defense is really good. Like you have to kind of screw things up behind that to screw that up, right?

[Nino]

Yeah.

[Paul Waddington]

And then layer in as we have this year, I think good corners. Now you got that next step of, hey, your initial coverage is good. You've got a four man rush. Okay. I'm liking the way this defense is sounding on the big picture. And then you start to fill in all the smaller points and that's how we end up with entire lives dedicated to. I'm not sure who our fourth safety is. And it's like, dude, just so you know, I do the research for the, my book and all that. A lot of other Power 4 schools are like, who is our starting safety? They're, they're not sweating. You know, who's our number five safety? If so. And so, you know, it's like we're

[Tex Homer]

in a good spot.

[Paul Waddington]

We're in a pretty good spot. And, and I don't think we're perfect on defense, but dude, if this thing comes together, it could be a really good, really good unit.

[Sponsor Voice]

So.

[Paul Waddington]

And it starts with the four man rush.

[Tex Homer]

Before we go. Paul, I know you really love press conferences, so what are you gleaning from SEC media days? You really put a lot of stock into what coaches say at podiums.

[Paul Waddington]

I do. I think it's crucial that you can talk your way into wins later in September and October. But yeah, Eli Drinkwood said that the reason that we have not performed in the playoffs or had national champions, the sec, I mean, is that we're not playing an extra gimme game early in the season. Okay, I don't think that's correct. Connor, do you think that's correct?

[Tex Homer]

No. I mean, I mean it'll make it a little bit easier, but I do not think that Drinkowitz is so weird. Like when I hear I like him, I like him and don't like him at the same time.

[Paul Waddington]

He wants like a 72 team playoff.

[Tex Homer]

And yeah, like it's like he would be fun to talk to. Like if you got stuck at an airport, you know, you could be like, he's at least gonna entertain me. But we'll see. I haven't watched the Venables one yet. I need to watch that to see

[Paul Waddington]

what Drinkwood strikes me as a fake it till you make it Guy who made it.

[Tex Homer]

Yeah. Well, until he actually plays a real schedule. So we want to see.

[Paul Waddington]

I'll see that this year, so.

[Tex Homer]

Yeah. But Hardy's coming back, so that's good.

[Paul Waddington]

I'm really glad for that guy. Like, I hope he recovers fully and is good to go.

[Tex Homer]

Yeah. Can we do the same O line process as defensive line?

[Paul Waddington]

Ah, it's a million dollar question.

[Tex Homer]

Yeah. It's not like we haven't got good players. It's just the problem is there's. You need five of them. So it's not like you can get five, five stars. It's gonna cost your whole offense. So there's a little bit of like financial restriction there. But it's not like we, our players suck on offensive line. Like, we have a lot of NFL talent, so I don't know.

[Paul Waddington]

Well, part of the problem is we haven't enforced a standard floor. That's been our issue. Right. It's not been higher level guys hitting. It's been massive weaknesses lined up right next to them.

[Tex Homer]

Right.

[Paul Waddington]

And you can't do that on the O line. Right. So O line is one of the few positions in football you could argue, maybe the secondary, where your mistakes are punished. 10x versus your successes. So you can have a young Connor Moffat can have a pancake against Deton Ryan.

[Tex Homer]

Wait, it wouldn't be against him. I was gonna say.

[Paul Waddington]

Oh, okay.

[Tex Homer]

Maybe in practice you could have a

[Paul Waddington]

pancake against Denton Geier.

[Tex Homer]

Yeah.

[Paul Waddington]

And on the next play, if you whiff and get your quarterback killed, the two plays don't cancel out.

[Tex Homer]

I could have the most beautiful run block for the running back to go seven yards and then I give up a sack, that can lead to losing the game. It's a floor position. It's that you want a solid floor. Now, it's great to have high end tackles, but if your question was you're gonna have two first rounders and everyone else sucks, or you can have everyone who's not even, you know, everyone's a seventh rounder or not even going, but they don't give up sacks. I'm going with. With everyone being pretty good.

[Paul Waddington]

Yeah. And so what. What can we. What can we surmise about Kyle Flood and how he recruits and what his patterns are? And we can kind of come to is this. He prefers pass pro. He prefers size and length, prefers outside running, perhaps to the detriment of athleticism. And he is going to always privilege pass pro over pure run blocking. And so those are kind of broad requirements. Beyond that, I don't know. If he has like arm length, height, weight, all that. We seem to recruit really big guys and then try to get them in shape. That's kind of like the vibe. But then we also go get best available when like, there's a Calvin Banks type who doesn't necessarily. He's like an athletic offensive tackle.

[Tex Homer]

Right?

[Paul Waddington]

So goose be the same. He was not a huge guy. He was tall with a big frame and it was like, we can put weight.

[Tex Homer]

We just knew how freakishly athletic he was.

[Paul Waddington]

I would like to see more of that type and I would like to see more conversions. I think there's great untapped value in convincing mediocre defensive linemen to go become good offensive linemen because they're better athletes than the offensive lineman on average. So I don't know. I'm a fan of the conversion, but it's kind of like falling out of favor in college football.

[Tex Homer]

Yeah, it's very rare.

[Nino]

And.

[Tex Homer]

And also players fight it tooth and nail as well. Everyone head over to Inside Texas. Join for a dollar, then 50 off your first year. Just click that link in the description below. Stay locked in for the rest of the shows Coming at you guys today. See you later.