Winter Workouts 2017

Discussion in 'On The Field' started by Godz40acres, Jan 17, 2017.

  1. Godz40acres

    Godz40acres Happy Feller

  2. Godz40acres

    Godz40acres Happy Feller

  3. Godz40acres

    Godz40acres Happy Feller

  4. Godz40acres

    Godz40acres Happy Feller

  5. Godz40acres

    Godz40acres Happy Feller

     
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  6. Godz40acres

    Godz40acres Happy Feller

  7. ProdigalHorn

    ProdigalHorn 10,000+ Posts

    You have to at least take a look at him. I suspect Herman is aware of Heard's QB credentials from HS, and considering the lack of depth we have there coupled with the numbers we have at receiver, you have to see if he takes to a new system and new coaching.
     
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  8. Godz40acres

    Godz40acres Happy Feller

    As Yancy McKnight develops his new strength and conditioning program at Texas, he says there will be alignment in his role. There will just be urgency and responsibility as well.

    “The sense of urgency and I think the sense of every time they walk in the building, that they have to know they are coming there for a purpose and a reason, and has to be mindful of not just coming to work, but they’re coming to get better,” said McKnight on Friday.

    This week was an evaluation week, getting to know the players and testing their strengths not just on the bench press. Next week will “truly” be week one, McKnight said.

    But there’s already a system in place to show that urgency. Similar to Houston, McKnight and Herman developed a three-tiered system, giving each Longhorn either a “gold,” “green,” or “crimson” label. Each category lets the players know just where they stand among their peers.

    Gold represents the players that are “mature and handle their business.” As McKnight put it, coaches don’t have to track them down. Green means they are on their way to the gold status.

    Crimson is for “our guys that need help, that can’t get to class…If you can’t do all those other things and can’t set your alarm clock, we’re going to have someone do it for you,” McKnight said. And everyone will know who has the crimson title, developing a "peer pressure" type system to push everyone inside the locker room.

    But those labels aren’t permanent.

    “It’s ongoing right now,” McKnight said. “Everyday is an evaluation.”

    Evaluation, itself, is one of McKnight’s biggest role as the head strength and conditioning coach. He’s essentially the head coach until spring practice begins and then he’s again the head coach come the summer. That’s where the alignment buzzword comes back into play, McKnight said.

    The relationships McKnight has begun to form since he arrived in Austin are a process. He’s not going to earn his players’ trust immediately and they aren’t going to earn his off the bat either. Things take time, even getting back into full workouts since Texas had the last five weeks off with no bowl game.

    “You have to see how guys respond to things, that’s just trial and error,” McKnight said. “It’s like most relationships, very awkward at first but then you kind of work through those things and you find out what makes guys tick and what guys respond to."
    [247]
     
  9. Godz40acres

    Godz40acres Happy Feller

    I know most of what I'm posting ain't sexy stuff, but at least it's Texas Longhorns Football related; and that makes me happy. It also allows me to put off doing chores I don't wanna do.

     
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  10. Godz40acres

    Godz40acres Happy Feller



    On Friday, new head strength and conditioning coach for football Yancy McKnight was made available to the media.

    On where the team is at: “Really this week was an evaluation week. We tested on Tuesday and Wednesday. This is our first Monday lift for next week, really and truly, week one. Same thing with our conditioning workout today. It was good. I think the guys are hungry, eager, eager to work. Got a lot of good looking bodies, size, and potential. Just got to get to work.

    On what his role is right now: Just like them, they don’t know me, I don’t know them. At the same time from a training standpoint, we have to get a little bit of an evaluation to see where we are – point A. Just like I told them, I’m not real concerned about it. I know where we’re going to go and the journey to point B started yesterday. I’m excited about it and I think the kids have been great. They really have. Really good attitudes and really open. It’s been exciting.

    On how he builds with the team: I think relationship is important. You know what, it’s like I told them day one on the team meeting, relationships, just because I’m a coach, yes there is some respect factors that you’re going to have automatically because you’re a coach. But, at the same time, respect and trust is earned, not given, and that’s both sides. I told them that same thing. I don’t expect them, right this minute, to respect me completely or trust me completely yet. I’m going to work day and night, every day and every minute, to earn it from them. And likewise. I think they’re hungry.

    On team confidence level after last few seasons: It takes time. Stress and duress brings out character in people. We haven’t done that yet. That’ll be an ongoing thing. That will be done in winter offseason. That will be done in spring ball. That will be done in summertime. That’ll be done in camp. That’ll be done somewhere in the fall next year. There’s going to be a game where, hopefully, it goes the right way, but it’s going to be an ‘a-ha’ moment for our guys and for our program and understand why we do what we do, and they’ll reflect back to some tough mornings in February and all that other stuff. I’m pretty confident in that. People under pressure, that’s when true character comes out. Or, when people aren’t watching is when true character comes out.

    On if he saw anyone when he walked into the program who caught his eye: You look at Connor [Williams], the left tackle. Yeah, that’s what they should look like. The corners are some good looking kids. I think I measured a couple of those kids at 6’2”, flat footed the way the scouts are going to measure them, and you’re like ‘whoa, that’s a good sized corner.’ There’s some kids, you know, Malik [Jefferson] is a good looking kid. Just got to hammer away at them and do what we do, and get them up to speed with what we’re going to do with our program, what the demands are of them in practice, and what their position coach is going to want.

    On ‘working harder than they’ve ever worked’: The one thing that’s great with coach is we train hard year-round. He trusts what we do, he trusts what we do in the weight room, he trusts what we do with the players, he’s seen it when we were at Rice, he’s seen it when we were at Iowa State, and, let’s be honest, there’s not a lot of four and five stars at Rice. There wasn’t a lot at Iowa State. You start looking at it, and we won some games, developed some kids and put some kids in the NFL that weren’t highly ranked kids. We trained hard year round. We trained smart, but we got under the barbell during the season. When you’ve got the support from the head football coach to do that stuff, and sometimes it’s not that way. It’s great for us as a strength staff too, so we can train the guys and they can continue to develop throughout the whole year. A lot of places they don’t want to do that in season.

    On what he thinks his role is: I think the sense of urgency and I think the sense of every time they walk in the building, that they have to know they are coming there for a purpose and a reason, and has to be mindful of not just coming to work, but they’re coming to get better, and that has to be the thought process. In turn, the demand is going to be high. That is a challenge to make them understand that, too. It’s not ‘I’ve got to go lift,’ it’s ‘no, I’m going to go train and develop my craft and get better.’ You’ve got to explain why we do what you do. I think we all would agree if you just go to work every day without any purpose, it’s hard to do that. It’s hard to get up and get motivated, I don’t care what job you do. I feel like we do a really good job of explaining the whys. Why is it important to hydrate? Why is it important to sleep? Why is it important to practice hard? Why is it important to tackle? Why is it important to be on time? To touch the line? To go to dinner when we ask you to go there, or to study hard? Back in the day, no one explained that stuff. Now coaches say this is the why generation. I like it. I was part of that deal where they just told you ‘just go’ and didn’t ask. Now, I like it because to me I get more buy in. The kids, when they see that we have a plan and they see the plan in action and the plan is working for them, the buy in stuff is easy to be honest with you.

    On dividing the team in groups and the names of those groups: It’s crimson for our guys that need help, that can’t get to class. It’s ongoing, right now. Every day is an evaluation. If you can’t get to treatment on time, we’re going to have to put things in place to help you, to remind you, things like that. If you can get to where you are supposed to go and do all your stuff, you get treated like a big boy. If you can’t do all those other things [t]hen you’ve got a lot of responsibilities. You’ve got to check in and do all that stuff. I’m sure it gets monotonous, but once they change their pattern of behavior, we’ll take some restrictions off. You’ve got your ‘gold’ guys... who are doing it the right way, and are mature, and handle their business, and their position coach ain’t going to run all over town chasing them around to find them for class or getting them to a lift or whatever it is. Green guys are transitioning up, green like a traffic light, moving that way.

    On peer pressure and the crimson group: Peer pressure is a good leadership tool because it does get guys to step up and say ‘hey, we need you to be academically eligible so we can have you play football,’ or ‘we need you at training sessions so you are 100 percent effective during practice or that way you’re ready to go for games.’ I think peer pressure is good. Then again, like I said, it puts ownership in it, too. When they’ve got ownership and they’ve got buy in, when you go and maybe stub your toe somewhere that you shouldn’t, then it hurts a lot more and it’s not fun. It hurts you to lose.

    On what his plans with Shane Buechele are: We’re going to work on his lower body, get him stronger in his lower body. That’s the one thing with a lot of quarterbacks. I know with Greg [Ward, Jr.] at Houston that he was a 162 guy when we got there and I think we finished at 188 with him. He’s 5’10”, and he’s a strong, strong kid. He was pretty durable this last year. That was what we challenged him with because the year before he was dinged up. I know Buechele kind of had the same thing last year. He got tagged around a little bit. That’s what you’re going in the weight room, you’re trying to build that armor, and trying to get them a little more durable when taking some shots here and there. I think the lower body stuff with the QBs is so, so important because that’s all their power and their torso whip from the throws and everything. You’ve got to hammer the legs with those guys and the power base. [Upper body] is the whip. That’s torso rotation, medball work, band work that they’ve got to do and continue to work on that motion. That’s post your point. I’m not a big press guy that much. We do a lot more back stuff than we do anything front side. The quarterback is a tricky one because you want him grinding right in the middle of it with all the other guys because he needs to be that guy. He’s got to be tough and he’s got to be an alpha, and he’s got to be grimey.
    [IT]
     
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  11. dukesteer

    dukesteer 5,000+ Posts

    Surprised that Warren is not high on the list.
     
  12. Godz40acres

    Godz40acres Happy Feller

    Inside Texas' Coach Venable responds to IT's podcast posted above...

    Spent a good half hour listening to Justin/Ian podcast and enjoyed their respective takes on the first installment of the Herman takeover at UT.

    One of the discussions opined the position best suited for 46 [Malik Jefferson] in the Orlando 3-4 that everyone assumes he’s married to but few envision any possibility that he just might decide to coordinate his base/scheme to fit the talents of his returning defenders. I belong to the camp that believes Orlando’s biggest job/hurdle is to match his first scheme to what alignments his best defenders are able to produce better positive results going forward.

    If Orlando finds a displeasure with results from any particular alignment it might be necessary to tweak his plans in order to achieve more success in the short term. He may find our ability to play a quality 4i technique undesirable but since we can stunt well at LB he has the option of changing to more slants and swims as opposed to regular inside eye base (just one example).

    He may need to teach... plugging ILB’s. The main point is teach the crap out of how you want them to attack and then perfect the technique until they can win the battle with attitude and knowledge. It is one thing to tell any player to win his gap but the winning coaches show him how best to accomplish that result.

    My belief is it doesn’t matter one ounce how much the DC knows or how well he believes in a system—the whole enchilada is how well his staff can teach the system best suited for their talents. I hope Orlando ditches any preconceived final plans until he witnesses the group first hand this spring.

    I honestly believe there is an excellent chance many players will cross-train this spring in order to find their best suited position. MJ alone could be a LOS weak OLB, a inside WLB, a inside MLB, or even a nickel safety. I think it’s more likely he has a bit part in most or all of those assignments.

    I think we are all ready to get ‘em on the grass after the last three seasons. Let’s find out if we have talent that likes this game.
    [IT]
     
  13. ViperHorn

    ViperHorn 10,000+ Posts

    We are painfully aware of what happens this this isn't followed.
     
  14. Godz40acres

    Godz40acres Happy Feller

    Per a poster on another site. I make no claim to the validity of the following.

    I heard some disturbing news at a strength clinic last week. Said at Houston, they had 35 kids that squat 500; last week at the evaluation, Texas had 7. Said when he walked into the facilities, things were haphazard (things like weights with the logo turned upside-down) and his basic reaction was "Well, champions don't reside here!" Only 22 kids made time on their half gassers.

    It bothered me as a Horn fan to know that that is how things were.

    Now, they were coming off break so that might account for some performance lag, but not to the extent of those numbers. He also said they hadn't done olympic lifts in three or four years. Some S&C coaches prefer other methods, so that could be the reason for that.​

    Another poster asked where he heard this.

    It was a strength clinic in Deer Park with the speaker being some guy named Yancy.​
     
  15. Godz40acres

    Godz40acres Happy Feller

    Just a reminder, Yancy also said this at his recent media appearance (posted above):

    On if he saw anyone when he walked into the program who caught his eye: You look at Connor [Williams], the left tackle. Yeah, that’s what they should look like. The corners are some good looking kids. I think I measured a couple of those kids at 6’2”, flat footed the way the scouts are going to measure them, and you’re like ‘whoa, that’s a good sized corner.’ There’s some kids, you know, Malik [Jefferson] is a good looking kid. Just got to hammer away at them and do what we do, and get them up to speed with what we’re going to do with our program, what the demands are of them in practice, and what their position coach is going to want.​
     
  16. Godz40acres

    Godz40acres Happy Feller

    TFB reported that Malik Jefferson had the best max bench press on the team at 435 lbs which apparently even beat out Connor Williams by 20 lbs.
     
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  17. Godz40acres

    Godz40acres Happy Feller

    An hour with IT's Eric Nahlin discussing the latest on recruiting, Hermanator's staff, O 'n D, etc.

     
  18. Godz40acres

    Godz40acres Happy Feller

    [​IMG]

    Texas Strength Coach Yancy McKnight...

    ... Frequently asks players who were highly rated out of high school, "How many stars are you now?" ... "You were a four or five-star coming out of high school, but what are you now? At Houston, we may've brought in two or three star guys. But that's not what they are now. They got developed into more than that."

    ... Previous Texas strength coach Pat Moorer called the area where injured players went to rehab their injuries and put in a lot of other strength and conditioning work "The Pit." McKnight has a similar philosophy and calls his area for injured players "Area 51" - "You know, a restricted zone, should be hard to find ... "

    ... While a lot of college strength coaches don't believe in dead lifting or power cleaning because they are dangerous lifts if not done properly, McKnight believes in those lifts big time to maximize lower body strength. "High risk, high reward. You have to teach those lifts the right way, and we do." McKnight met with former U.S. Olympic weight lifting star Mark Henry on Thursday, and they discussed weight lifting philosophy. "We've got some good teaching resources here thanks to guys like Mark," McKnight said.

    ... At Houston, McKnight said 5-star DT Ed Oliver arrived as a freshman last season at 260 pounds, able to back squat 530 pounds, bench 365 and power clean 305. In seven weeks, at the end of last summer, Oliver weighed 275 and was able to back squat 610 pounds, bench 405 and power clean 335.
    [Scout]
     
  19. Godz40acres

    Godz40acres Happy Feller

  20. Godz40acres

    Godz40acres Happy Feller

    You're lookin' good, Big Beev...

     
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  21. ProdigalHorn

    ProdigalHorn 10,000+ Posts

    Seeing some progress on those horns...
     
  22. HornSwoggler

    HornSwoggler Horn Fan

    Rivals has added another star to Bevo's bio.... up to *********. His 40 time is a little slow but he is going to be massive.
     
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  23. X Misn Tx

    X Misn Tx 2,500+ Posts

    Look at those forearms!
     
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  24. rick mueller

    rick mueller Burnt Orange Bleeder

    IF true, and as stated, that's a big "if", one has to wonder about all the stuff we heard about "culture change" and "toughness" in the past.
     
  25. CoachMc

    CoachMc 25+ Posts

    That only applied to the ping pong tables.. We did get better at ping pong..
     
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    Last edited: Jan 25, 2017
  26. Godz40acres

    Godz40acres Happy Feller

    247 asked, "Who has the most to prove this offseason?" Their writers mentioned several names (below), then gave reasons why.
    • Shane Buechele
    • Kris Boyd
    • John Burt
    • Davante Davis
    • DeShon Elliott
    • Jerrod Heard
    • Holton Hill
    • Malik Jefferson
    • Brandon Jones
    I'm going with Holton Hill. As a freshman he showed signs of being an early AA shutdown corner. Then came 2016 with the mysterious lack of playing time. Some said it was because of this, others because of that; but we never got the real skinny that I'm aware of. If he can get back in the fight, along with Kris Boyd continuing to improve, our backfield has the potential to go from a liability to a huge asset under this new staff.
     
    Last edited: Jan 26, 2017
  27. Crockett

    Crockett 5,000+ Posts

    This time last year Chip was predicting Merrick as the starter at QB for 2016.
     
  28. Badass

    Badass 2,500+ Posts

    From this list I will go with John Burt. The good news is I think I read that he gave up track this year to concentrate on football only. So, I think he will deliver!

    Not on this list, but I think Chris Warren needs to step up, stay healthy, and take over the running game!
     
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  29. Godz40acres

    Godz40acres Happy Feller

    Todd Orlando’s Defense

    [​IMG]
    Charlie Strong’s base defense at Texas was a 4-3 Under and the Longhorns would create that front in a variety of different ways from 4-3, 3-4, and of course 3-3-5 personnel packages.

    Todd Orlando’s base defense is a true 3-4. Now he’ll mix and match a few different fronts and basically line up his DL wherever he thinks they’ll be needed to clog lanes, occasionally mixing in four-down looks as well, but the underlying front is three down. In particular, Orlando likes to play a 0-technique nose and two 4i-technique DEs and enjoy the benefits of having four linebackers off the ball who can play wide and off the football and move around in the backfield or on the blitz.

    The other big difference from Orlando’s nominally 3-3-5 defense (that’s the package they spent the most time in at Houston) and Charlie’s is in the coverage behind it. Charlie Strong based out of single-hi safety coverages and had his DBs play a lot of man coverage outside. Todd Orlando’s base coverage is quarters and he uses single-hi coverages mostly as a changeup or for the fire zone blitzes he regularly dials up.

    Quarters is a very flexible base coverage that has lots of different iterations, much like Orlando’s fronts.

    One of the benefits of quarters coverage is that the defense can play two different coverages to either side of the field. Orlando uses 2-read a lot against twin receivers to the field, a pattern matching coverage that can become cover 4 or cover 2 based on the route distribution, and uses the nickel as an underneath zone/run support player.

    On the boundary Orlando calls a lot of “robber” or “sky coverage” where the corner has to play deep over the receiver and the safety helps on inside routes like the post and supports the run. He’ll also mix in normal cover 2 and Tampa-2 as options for obvious passing downs.

    Although we haven’t seen them in Austin in quite some time, these are all really common coverages in the Big 12. What isn’t as common is that Orlando will regularly blitz while playing quarters, a privilege afforded by the 3-4 defensive structure. Either outside linebacker or inside linebacker is liable to join the DL as the fourth pass-rusher while everyone else plays one of Orlando’s quarters calls.

    Finally there are the fire zones, which were an essential component to Manny Diaz and Charlie Strong’s defenses and will remain a key piece of the puzzle for Texas moving forward.

    Orlando vs the Big 12

    Although the Big 12 is down nationally and doesn’t field defenses like you see in other Power-5 conferences, not even the SEC West will stress a pass defense like a round robin trip through the Big 12 can. Orlando’s first priority at Texas may be to get his linebackers up to speed in the fundamentals where they’ve lacked for the past two years, but he’ll also have to tweak his approach to survive and thrive in this league.

    [V]irtually every team in this league has embraced vertical passing as a core element to their strategy. The execution level has gotten high enough that every time teams run a play like this, all of the pressure is on the defense to avoid a single mistake that could mean six points.

    The teaching on the back end has to be excellent to avoid mistakes, match the routes well, and provide enough depth to play nickel and dime sub-packages and continue to do so if there are injuries. Those are tall orders and Texas really struggled in that regard this past season.

    Where Orlando could have a leg up on the rest of the league is his ability to execute rule #5 – Don’t give the QB all day to throw – at a high level. However, if you have DL that are hard for OL to keep their hands on and blitzing linebackers that can come like a ton of bricks off the edges or inside, you can disrupt the whole process by not allowing the QB to see the routes or get a good ball off cleanly.

    Don’t be shocked if Orlando decides to tweak his scheme to get as much pass-rushing on the field as possible in order to create leeway for his young secondary. One such route would be taking a DE off the field and creating a 2-4-5 nickel package. That would allow Texas to play both Malcolm Roach and Breckyn Hager on either edge and bring even greater variety with their blitzes.

    Texas hired a good defensive coach in Todd Orlando and the success they’ve had in their secondary amidst serious turnover suggests that his assistants Jason Washington and Craig Naivar are very worthy additions as well. If they can get a young defensive backfield up to speed on fundamentals in this scheme, they may find that they have the tools and support from the offense to adjust to the Big 12 and even offer a clinic on how to play defense in this league.

    [Much more of this article at IT]
     
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  30. Godz40acres

    Godz40acres Happy Feller

    The Hermanator Passing Game


    The Herman passing game [is] a system that can work independently of the power/inside zone run game.

    Basic concepts of the Herman passing game

    The goal with Herman’s passing game is to attack defenses, in space, with athletes when advantages can be found. This may be done in order to exploit run-stopping defensive personnel, to exploit deficient pass-defending personnel, or just to involve skill athletes. It’s not designed strictly to constrain the defense from stopping the run although it can serve in that purpose.

    Here are three of the pass game concepts that Herman utilizes which demonstrate the broader goal of his passing game construct.

    “Follow-pivot/whip dig”

    This is a two-man concept that reveals the way this passing game tends to work. The QB is reading the weakside linebacker and how he responds to the “pivot” or “whip” route. If that LB chases that slot receiver back outside, he vacates the passing window to the dig route, if he doesn’t then he leaves open a passing window to throw to the whip route in the flat. It’s a simple read for the QB and makes for an easy ball control concept.

    Herman’s passing game relies on simple movement keys where the QB is reading defenders for leverage and then firing the ball into windows that the WRs need to be occupying. He may read multiple defenders before delivering the ball but things are generally pretty straightforward and simple.

    “Snag”

    If there are two deep safeties the QB can read the corner and either throw the flat route or the corner route (to the slot) based on whether that corner sinks deep or matches the flat. The slot is being counted on to get open against the safety. Meanwhile the outside receiver is running the “snag” route, which is like a shallow curl route that’s designed to hunt for space between the nickel and the corner. If the cornerback drops to take away the deep route by the slot then the QB is reading the nickel to determine whether to throw the “snag” or the flat route.

    “Houston”

    “Houston” is a favored way to attack quarters and it does so by combining a seam-read route by the slot with the traditional curl-flat combo.

    The deep choice route by the slot should draw in the deep safety and then it’s a simple read of the nickel to see if he chases the flat route and leaves the passing window to the curl route open or not. So the QB will check to see if the slot can get open deep and then make the simple curl-flat read on the outside.

    These aren’t the only concepts that Herman has utilized but they tend to come up a lot and they are indicative of the kinds of plays that he’s tended to utilize in the past.

    Key features of the Herman passing game

    As I’ve already noted, the goal here isn’t to create maximal stress on the defense for how they play the run game. The goal is to have tactics for attacking different defenders in different ways with skill athletes. It’s a more flexible system than the Veer and Shoot but it isn’t close to as effective for landing haymakers unless you have star athletes executing the plays at a high level.

    The nature of the reads puts a lot of onus on the receivers to be in the right spots at the right time. It’s all designed to make things as straightforward as possible for the QB, after all he’s got a lot on his plate with the RPOs and run game and it’s not a great idea to design your offense around requiring high level proficiency in a complex run game and pass game from your signal-caller.

    At Texas I think we’ll see him use empty sets due to the abundance of WR talent, the likely improving play up front with Connor Williams returning, and the cast of potential right tackles increasing.

    Texas may also see a heavy focus on this passing system over the course of the offseason as Herman takes stock of the positive state of the Texas run game situation and contrasts it with the abundant passing game talent that exists within Buechele and this WR corps but relative inexperience with his system.

    No doubt we’ll all be putting our ears to the ground for a dozen different things come spring but the mastery of the Texas passing game could be the one that has the biggest impact on the inaugural Herman season.
    [Much more of this article at IT]
     
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    Last edited: Jan 30, 2017

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