More problems resolved:
The Bowden tube was not seating fully, leading to clogs in the hot end. I reversed the tube due to the damage where the coupling held the tube and slight deformation at the end. I cut and sanded the tube for a better fit.
There was a clog inside the hot end and I cleared it partially with a wire. My guess was that the tube wasn’t seating properly, causing the filament to bunch up in the wrong point. I heated up the hot end again to 250 and when I fed the tube in the clog loosened and both went up the tube and out the nozzle. After clearing the tube, I fed the filament and lowered the temp until it came out consistently.
Also, my esteps were not calibrated properly. 93 value gave me… about 93 mm. Setting it to 100 gave me 98 mm. At 102, it appears spot on.
Finally, since the extruder gear appeared to be biting into the PLA, and due to the gear skipping, I loosened the tensioner some.
The fact that anything came out previously leaves me scratching my head. The saving grace had to have been that I leveled the bed before I began the previous print.
Oh, I said this was my son’s printer, but this was mostly something I have used on and off over the past 5 years. I have printed a bunch with it in the past, which is why I eyeballed it and sent the print to tune it on the fly. Generally it is wasteful, but I both considered this as starting from zero and trusted my prior adjustments.