6.6.2013 Daily Bears Report: Recruiting, NLIs, and Basketball on Grass

SBNATION INTERVIEWS ART BRILES -- You'd have to have been blind not to have seen this link already, but here it is again. I'll probably post it in every DBR for at least a month.

BASKETBALL ON GRASS -- Another outstanding piece from FootballStudyHall that looks at the tendency toward emphasizing matchups on the gridiron the same way teams do in basketball. Very interesting stuff. Baylor is mentioned.

Due to the rise of fast tempo and spread concepts, football is heading in the same direction. Offensive coordinators have uncovered ways in which tempo and spacing allow them to create mismatches for individual stars. They have even created entire systems based on comprehensive tactics to create mismatches.

RHETT BOMAR TALKS 'CRUITIN' -- I don't like to link to Bleacher Report if I can avoid it, but this is something I've actually been interested in for a long time. The whole "Big Red Motors" saga fascinates me. I have a good friend from high school that was on that team and swears Bomar and the OL whose name I can't remember were sacrificed to protect someone bigger. Who was bigger on that team than Rhett Bomar? Yeah.

ATHLON SURVEYS BIG 12 MBB IN 2013 -- They have the Bears finishing third behind, you guessed it, Kansas and Oklahoma State, respectively.

QBs NOT WAITING ANY MORE -- SI.com looks at the growing trend of top-flight QB recruits who transfer out rather than waiting for their chance to play at the school of their original commitment. Stories like this make me even more thankful for Bryce Petty, who could have done the same a year ago and didn't, recognizing that his time would come and learning at the feet of the QB Whisperer was better than sitting out and trying to play somewhere else.

Mandel (the author, not Howie) also talks about the NLI, which he calls the worst contract in sports. I can't help but agree with him on that one.

ESPN THINKS WE'LL GET CANNON ($$$) -- Taking a page from the Crystal Ball, ESPN has started projecting uncommitted players in the Top150. They project Cannon to us. A big part of the reason why...

OUR OFFENSE IS AWESOME FOR WRs -- David Ubben made a video where he talks about several things, including our offense being awesome for WRs.

KEVIN SUMLIN'S REVENGE -- Grantland talks about the incredible arrogance Sumlin met at last year's SEC Media Days for basically being the "new guy" and how he'll handle it now that he's not that guy anymore.

TE JORDAN FEUERBACHER GOT A TEXAS "OFFER," TOLD THEM TO HIT THE BRICKS -- I posted this in the recruiting thread for June last night, but I wanted to talk about it again.

Apparently, what Feuerbacher got was not the traditional "here's your offer to play football for X University! (or the University of X)." His was the Mack Brown Special: a conditional offer that he would get when he decided to accept it. Before you say "well that doesn't make sense," this happens all the time. It's a stalwart of Mack Brown's recruiting arsenal (which, in fairness, has been picked up by numerous other schools) designed to keep his numbers down. That type of offer is how a school like Stanford can say they only gave out five offers in 2012 that weren't accepted. Getting the offer is conditioned on accepting it, and only the absolute can't-miss recruits don't have to play that game.

On the one hand, you can always say that the ends justify the means in this context; Texas has done well recruiting this way and is unlikely to change things wholesale, though they have made changes. On the other, it's base dishonesty for someone to say Feuerbacher (or another kid in the same situation) doesn't have an "offer." If he wanted it, he'd have it. There's no meaningful distinction.

OH, YOU SHOULD READ THIS -- I had no idea before today who Montaous Walton was. This is one of the craziest stories I've ever read.