I think he stepped away from Tech football in the spring, but seems to have entered the portal in October. Could be he wasn't planning on taking his final year of eligibility and then changed his mind?
Smoke that we've offered a Penn State DT, and a couple FCS as well. Staff is getting the jump on recruiting/portal right before the offseason.
They killed both during this period last season imo. If they can have similar success this time around it would be huge for the positive momentum of this program. One difference this time around: need at least 2 OL from the portal high on our board. Last time we got only 1 low on our board
Penn DT. A beast in the Ivy League and he's gotten offers from just about everyone today. Vandy, Louisville, UNC, Duke, GT, Oregon St, Miami, Illinois, Rutgers, Houston, Pitt... the guys probably losing track of messages in his inbox at this point.
I think if we started Drones earlier and ran the offense we are running now we probably could have won Purdue and Marshall. Sooo...not that far off I don't think. If nothing else we are a much better team now than we were in the beginning of the season.
Staff is getting the jump on recruiting/portal right before the offseason.
They killed both during this period last season imo.
A bowl game wasn't on the table last year, and we also didn't play UVA. Not sure how any staff can handle ESP, Portal recruiting, the ever-shifting coaching job market, and prepping for a bowl game all in one 3 week period.
The schedule has to change:
Eliminate early signing period
One transfer period (after NSD). Could even do it after spring camp if you want to discourage transferring.
The transfer period is a little more difficult. You want the students to be able to enroll in a new school prior to the semester beginning, but still have time to consider. And thus, there is really two periods in which that can happen: winter break and spring/summer. From a player perspective, it is ideal to transfer before the spring semester to get acquainted with school, attend spring practice, and be able to use the facilities of the football team during the off season. Thus, for them, the winter break portal period is ideal. But for coaches, the winter break portal period is worst time for them.
But I agree that ESD could be removed assuming that would still allow HS recruits that want to enroll early to sign and begin classes in January.
Curious about your thoughts for eliminating early signing period? I thought HS kids liked it to get coaches out of their ears and coaches liked it because they know who is REALLY 800% committed (/s on the percentage thing, but serious on knowing who they actually have on board).
My memory is that Fuente and Co. were plagued by flips near ESD, don't recall it happening last year for us, but late decommits happen as we saw recently.
When created, ESD was never intended to be the primary signing period; it was expect that just a few kids would sign then. Turns out coaches pressured committed kid a to sign at the earliest day possible, so ESD signings became the norm.
One of the reasons mid season firings are the norm now is because of ESD. Firings/hirings used to happen after bowl season. Now, with ESD, coaches are fired earlier and earlier, in hopes of keeping a class together.
In general, coaches are too busy in December. In a three week period, coaches have to rerecruit their roster, scour the portal, land recruits, and prep for a bowl. I know you're thinking 'these guys make millions per year, why should I care if they're too busy?' Well, the rich teams can afford an analyst army that make this stretch more manageable. Other schools don't have that luxury. Spreading the calendar out would eliminate one small advantage the big schools have, in addition to improving quality of life for coaches.
I think spreading out/separating bowl season, signing day, and transfer period would provide a better fan experience.
Edit to add: these things should be ordered:
Bowl season
High school signing season
Coach firing/hiring season
Transfer portal season
Spring practice
Transfer portal season 2 (if we absolutely must have a second)
Fall practice
Football season
Repeat
Obviously #3 can't be legislated, but if you time the rest of these appropriately, #3 will fall into its proper place.
Makes sense. I don't have an opinion on coaches being busy, but being able to focus on the bowl game definitely makes sense. I was kind of going off some tweets I'd seen about HS kids wanting to sign and be done with it so they could focus on the rest of their season and school. Not sure if that's the norm or not, just have seen it a couple times.
Yeah, the firings aim not sure would change much, early firings and quick replacements would give the incoming coach more time to retain the class, but I honestly can't remember how many times the schools hire a new coach (because how many current coaches are willing to walk away mid-season?), so you're left with an acting head coach who is often one of the coordinators. And unless the school is using that as a trial period to see if they can turn the ship around and hire them, that seems worse than waiting til the end of the season because then the kids ave no idea what coach they'd be committing to. And unless it's one of the best blue bloods where you know an excellent coach will be coming in, why wait and see?
Granted, I don't pay attention to the classes of coaches that get fired to see how many fall apart.
The reason the portal is open in December is that so players can enroll at their new school in January and be eligible for spring ball at their new school. A portal period in Jan/Feb means that players in the portal can't enroll until summer and would miss spring ball.
I agree that there is too much going on in December for coaching staffs but I don't think you can move the portal timing.
Maybe we should get rid of first transfer period - a lot of fans and coaches feel like the portal is abused. If athletes are forced to transfer after spring ball, maybe we'd see less 'tampering,' because coaches would be less inclined to go get a new player if said player doesn't can't go to spring practice. However, there's still an avenue for players to leave bad situations.
I like these ideas to help make everything less chaotic immediately after the regular season and to disincentivize tampering since your transfers wouldn't get spring ball, but I think it really makes roster management challenging if the players you coach through spring decide to leave.
I think it really makes roster management challenging if the players you coach through spring decide to leave.
Roster management is a challenge now
I think the new challenge would be preferable to a 3 week period where every coach is insanely overworked (but I could be wrong)
Presumably, eliminating all but a post-spring transfer period would decrease the number of transfers, thus make roster management easier (but, again, I could be wrong)
1. Well, yeah.
2. Probably.
3. I think it would be fewer, but possibly more detrimental. You'll have players that are planning on transferring wasting everyone's time through spring ball and when they transfer the staff will have to bring someone in that has to get up to speed with just fall practices.
I like having one signing day and one transfer portal, but I think it makes more sense to have the portal opened after championship week and signing day in the spring.
I think the biggest thing this whole conversation highlights is the importance of the support staff in today's game. The recruiting support staff should be doing all the heavy lifting here making it easier for the coaches during the busy time.
He's not in the Portal; unless he is this is a non-starter.
And I'm pretty damn sure Pry and Co. (among others) likely sent out very strong feelers already last year---if we were looking at VMI's MLB, you can be sure Henderson was higher on the list than that.
Love to see it happen, but have very little suspicion that it will.
Besides, if he does go in the Portal, Kirby Smart will offer him late and sign him---because Kirby needs to make sure he is 6-deep at MLB.
Jesus our offense skill positions could be stacked next year.
Drones and Wells back at QB
Tuten and Thomas back at RB
Jennings healthy at WR, with Felton, Gosnell, and Lane
Gallo healthy at TE, with Wright and Gosnell
Add in a DL with APR, Fuga, and Nelson
a LB corps of Jenkins, McDonald, and Lawson
DBU of Canteen, Strong, Delane, Lovett, Johnson, and Phillips
And that doesn't include incoming freshmen or transfers in.
90% positive, Jennings, Felton & Gosnell all walked on Senior Day. Not sure what to take of that.
On defense, Fuga, Jenkins, Canteen and a couple others walked.
I think that would depend on where his draft grade comes in tbh. If you are a RB then I think anything better than Round 5 then you go. The RB position in the NFL is far less valuable these days, so if you are going to get paid you need to do it early. Not sure where his stock is, but if it comes back round 6 or 7 (which basically means just as easy to go UDFA) then I think you stay.
7 rounds of players that get 5th or higher ratings
Too bad the rating services cannot be a bit more accurate than this. You would think by now they could. These young men need their grade to be as accurate as possible.
Well, it's complicated. Let's say that there is a wr rich class (meaning there are a bunch of wrs that get graded in the first few rounds, meaning, essentially, that they are good enough to get 3rd round or better. But there are a bunch of teams that don't really need a wr so they draft other positions of need in the earlier rounds and those wrs drop to the 4th, 5th and 6th rounds. There's more that goes into where a player gets drafted than simply their talent. NFL teams have to balance their rosters (and salary expenses) so they may not always take the "best available" if they are at a position that the team doesn't need (or maybe they think they can afford to wait on a certain position -like wr from my example above- if there is more supply than demand)
So you might have 6 wrs who are comparable and they all get graded as 2nd round values but there are only 4 teams that need to grab a wr in the first 2 rounds. Maybe they need OL or DL or some other position that the management thinks is more important than wr. 4 of those guys might get picked up in the first couple rounds but it's anyone's guess who of the 6 will be left out. They're all basically the same in terms of measurables and production but when draft day arrives there are more wrs available than teams that need them.
I'm not sure there's a player on this team that "should" be leaving early for the NFL draft this year. Of course that doesn't mean someone won't.
Of all the things Fuente did badly, number one for me was his inability to retain talented players that he should have been able to keep on the roster. If Pry is going to get VT back to the top tier of college football, he'll need to be able to do a much better job of that.
Strong has the best advanced stats of any VT DB ever and this was his R-JR season. If he's not first-team all-ACC it's a travesty. He's going pro.
Replace DB with QB and TE and you just described Jerod Evans and Bucky Hodges. Not saying Strong won't go pro, but being really good in college doesn't mean you should leave early for the draft. If he knows he's going to be a 4th rounder or better, then it's probably not a bad decision though.
Man just went through RB'S from 2014 until now and boy your right outside of Henderson it's average at best and a lot of multiple transfers or no stats.
Who was the other low 4*/high 3* we went after when it looked like Tyree wasn't coming here? Seems like his last name was Brown from the RVA area. We missed on him as well.
TRANSFER OFFER: Virginia Tech extended an offer to New Mexico's two-year starting C CJ James who has ties to a pair of current #Hokies including QB Pop Watson. Check out more on James and VT from @TimThomasTLP for TLP Insiders here: https://t.co/kWP54ZnqZ1— The Tech Lunch Pail (@TechLunchPailD) November 28, 2023
Here's another offensive line offer for the #Hokies to UTEP OG Justin Mayers who earned All-Conference USA Honorable Mention honors last season and is expected to earn more All-CUSA honors this season once their awards are released https://t.co/5DXSJDor6Y— Tim Thomas (@TimThomasTLP) November 28, 2023
It's gonna be fascinating to see what he does over the next few years. The shine is definitely wearing off already, and like you said, there's plenty to negative recruit with already. He got a pass for the year one turnover, but if it's a year in and year out exodus it's going to be harder to keep pulling talent in at the same rate. Plus, if you're showing everyone who isn't contributing immediately the door, it's going to be hard to develop any talent.
O-line, D-line (DT), and Linebacker. Also, any really good skill position players if we have room. I hope they remain selective with the recruiting class coming in and tell the guys currently on the roster if they have no future with the program so they can continue to build this thing right. If they retain the right folks this team can be special next year! Pry did say look for the 2024/2025 seasons for Hokie football to be back where it wants to be. 3 games this year were lost by a touchdown, 2 without Drones starting (Purdue and Marshall). This team was close to ending the year 9-3.
I was just thinking this morning that this was on of the most fun 6-6 VT teams to watch. They definitely played more like 8-4 or 9-3 in the last 2 months.
I will always question what could have been if Drones had started vs. Purdue, Marshall, and Rutgers. I also question what causes the team to play like they did vs. FSU, UL, and NCState where they just kind of took too long to show up or did not look as aggressive and confident out there. And how do we look so much better with Drones vs. Wells that against Purdue, Marshall, and Rutgers we looked like one of the worst overall teams in college football? Consistency will have to be fixed. As much as I loved watching them you kind of didn't know what team was going to show up for the game.
Drones started against both Rutgers and Marshall. In one of those games, he passed into triple coverage when his legs could have easily gotten the 1st down (I think it was 4th and 2 inside the red zone). I think he got coached up a little on trusting himself, then as he successfully performed, Bowen schemed better to take advantage of what we had in our OLine and how they could successfully run plays with them.
I think those two games were basically learning curve with Drones and Bowen.
I think I recall a press conference saying they tried to play Drones with the Grant Wells game plan/package from the start of the season, but it wasn't even the whole package they had prepared for Wells. They didn't realize until after those games that they needed to adjust the game plan to be a lot more specific to Drones and that he could handle a lot more than they thought.
I mean in ACC play we were consistent, we easily beat the 5 worst teams, we got handles by the 2 best teams and then we did some stupid things but made a game out of it with the 3rd best team. We are 4th in the ACC, tied with GT. We played like the 4th place team. Hindsight is 20/20 but when you look back we beat the bad teams and lost to the good teams (in acc play). In the 5 ACC games we won our average margin of victory was just over 24 points with 17 being the smallest we saw.
Beating the bad teams badly is probably one of my favorite things this season. Last time we did that we were winning 10 games a season and going to conference championships. Let's hope we can continue this into next year.
TSL had an interesting stat this week. I think it was: there were only 5 P5 teams who won 5 conference games by more than 17 points: Michigan, Georgia, Mizzou, Oregon, Virginia Tech.
Pretty sure I botched the stat, but it's something like this.
Virginia Tech finishes the season with a +8.3 scoring margin in conf. games.Among 16 teams with as big a scoring margin, Tech was the only one not ranked.— Shelton Moss (@SheltonMoss21) November 26, 2023
Even when we were winning 10 games a year we really struggled to put teams away. Far too often we never got to the situation where the backups could get repa against teams that they should have been possible. That seems to be something that might change going forward, and should help out with some of our depth issues, if only to keep the starters as fresh as possible all year.
It feels like this was the first year (other than 2010) that we beat everyone in conference that we were supposed to beat, and lost to everyone in conference that we were supposed to lose to.
I was talking to my dad about this last night. Beamer would try running the clock out once we were up by like 2 TDs. The problem is that in some of those games, we'd be having tons of success passing the ball, but you figure to runout the clock, you want to prevent interceptions, so you run the ball. We'd run the ball and couldn't get the first downs needed to actually run out the clock. And teams came back on us. But it was like once he got into running out the clock mode, he'd never go back to what had been working earlier in the game. I love CFB, but I like keeping the foot on the gas until you KNOW it's out of reach.
You guys must not be fully remembering VT football in the 1990s and early 2000s. Beamer actually started to develop a reputation for running up the score on teams. I specifically remember him being criticized after pummeling Maryland 55-6 on a Thursday night game in 2004.
I think this was before he started running up the score. I got to Tech in 92, and it was not the same program we had in 99. My first couple of years the joke was we were one of the greatest first half teams of all time.
There was a 1992 Bonehead cartoon in the CT that was a single panel, with Bonehead telling the employee at the ticket counter, "18? But I only want to stay three quarters!"
I'm a 96 grad myself! My first year of VT football was that '92 2-8-1 season full of late-game defensive collapses (I believe there was a 50-49 loss to Rutgers at home on the last play of the game). Little did we know at the time it was because our defense was full of future studs like Cornell Brown and Antonio Banks, but were underclassmen that year.
Can we all at least agree that running up the score is underrated? And fun? And we should do it more often?
I was there for the second one. In hindsight, maybe I shouldn't have snuck in a full fifth of Captain Morgan's.
Me: "We took 'em behind the watershed. THE WATERSHED!"
Others around me: "Huh?"
I also vaguely remember insisting strongly on separate checks at Waffle House much later that night, and when it came time to order, only asked for water.
Maybe I'm missing something... but is there a scenario that Gallo starts over Wright anymore?
This was about $$$-which I mean.... I've left jobs for more money, so I can't say I blame him. It is a shame we aren't competitive enough to keep him, but at least we aren't Washington State or Oregon State and watching our athletics becoming irrelevant.
That's a good point about the portal. You don't pay a market rate if you think the payment is a detriment to the team as a whole. There are only so many dollars to go around, and building a team must be looked at as collective.
If Wright is chasing NIL dollars, and those NIL dollars are more than the NIL dollars of all other TEs on the VT roster combined, what is the right business decision for VT? or double the NIL dollars of all other TEs combined? or triple the NIL dollars of all other TEs combined? At some point, whatever the market is willing to pay, may be not in the best interests for VT.
Yeah, I mean, 28 receptions isn't lighting the world on fire. Could be he's chasing NIL money directly, could be he just wants an opportunity where he gets featured more. I think we should give these guys a little more benefit of the doubt. If he thinks he can get more work, get more featured, and boost his draft stock elsewhere, he'd be crazy not to do that.
NIL money is great, moving up a round or two in the NFL draft due to increased production gets him a bigger first contract and a way better shot at a second.
*EDITED, had last year's reception total at first. Point still stands.
The DE from BC, Shitta Sillah, is entering the portal, as is the LB Chris "Pooh" Paul from Arkansas. All-time name team opportunity to have Shitta and Pooh on the same defense.
Not sure what happened with this one, i remember we were in for him last cycle before he committed to BC, but he wound up decommitting around ESD and then going to Charlotte.
GPA or credits transfer problem? No shade intended, but Charlotte was the safety school in case you didn't get into App State or ECU when I was looking at colleges.
Anybody see the Matt Rhule presser today where he said "A good quarterback in the portal today that can make a difference costs $1m, $1.5m, maybe$ 2m.". First time I have seen a coach give specific numbers. I wonder if that sets the market or whether it was already set there
Depending on the school it's higher. Sam Hartman going to Notre Dame got at least eight national brand NIL deals. The big ones Dollar Shave Club, Beats by Dre, Under Armour, Leaf Trading Cards and Homefield apparel. Those are just the big ones. My understanding is he has another 15-20 smaller deals as well. Got to give him credit though. As part of most of his deals, he sliced a bit off for all his Irish teammates.
...and this is where the whole concept of "NIL" gets lost on me...
I had no idea that Sam Hartman was shilling for any of these companies and I probably consume more College Football than 95% of the rest of the population.
So how effective can he possibly be as pitchman?? So then what exactly is he being paid for?
Dollar Shave Club??? The guy has taken on a shaggy beard since going to ND...its ridiculous.
It's time for some honesty here. Most of these players have little to no value as sponsors from a National Brand standpoint...if you put Sam Hartman without his football jersey in a National TV ad, 75% of the U.S. won't know who he is. Regional and local ads don't generate $1 million of income...not close.
This has devolved into pay-for-play and nothing more. It's a broken system that makes no sense for those who are actually supplying these NIL dollars and once those people realize that, the floor is gonna fall out and this will collapse.
College football is going to remain something of a debacle until there's some degree of regulation. Transparency regarding compensation, some common sense rules for eligibility/transferring, and even a salary cap would all make the sport fairer and more sustainable.
I don't know how any of that actually happens, but right now it's like a start-up pro league with no rules.
I had no idea that Sam Hartman was shilling for any of these companies and I probably consume more College Football than 95% of the rest of the population.
Most of these players have little to no value as sponsors from a National Brand standpoint...if you put Sam Hartman without his football jersey in a National TV ad, 75% of the U.S. won't know who he is.
I think you're kinda looking at this wrong...
If you air a national TV ad, you're hoping a few million people will see it, some small percentage of those million viewers will be interest, and some small percent of that percentage will actually purchase something. Sam Hartman's tiktok page has ~270000 likes and ~60k followers but just 15ish posts - that's an absolutely insane ratio. He's probably looking at a ~20% engagement rate on each post. So by doing social media advertising, your casting a much smaller net, but hopefully converting at a way higher percentage.
Consuming College Football is very different than (a) consuming notre dame football or (b) following celebs, pop culture, fashion, etc. I got a friend who's big into the LA fashion scene. She learned who Caleb Williams was because she reads GQ. Now she's a fan of his because he's from LA and he's a fashion influencer or some shit. I don't care that Caleb Williams thinks dresses are cool. She thinks he's bold and cool, and now wants him to win more football games, and is also obsessed with his 'aesthetic.' All this to say - just because you aren't seeing it, doesn't mean (some of) these guys aren't bringing some value to legit businesses.
This has devolved into pay-for-play and nothing more.
In many cases yes, but there are different NIL markets. A useful oversimplification/good rule of thumb:
If a player is just taking money from a collective, more often than not, it's just pay for play from former (and new) bagmen who share an LLC.
If a player has a deal with an actual product, it's likely a business decision to sponsor them. Is it a good business decision? Well, someone at the company likely believes it is. Otherwise, they wouldn't do it; they'd give to a collective.
If a player is running an entrepreneurial venture - giving lessons, designing workouts, running youth camps, etc - they're probably charging above market rate due to their 'brand' (aka, this is mostly legitimate).
He has 60k followers on tiktok. This video of him shaving has well over 200k views. He has two other tiktoks that are approaching a million views. On instagtram he has over 300k followers, way more posts, ranging from 10k-60k likes per post.
Yes..wonderful...provide me with any proof that any of this sells razors.
I can pay an intern $12/hr to create something to go viral on social media...why would I pay Sam Hartman six figures?
Provide me with the slightest bit of proof that Caleb Williams "acting" in Dr. Pepper commercials sells one more case of Dr. Pepper...it doesn't.
If we are going to use anecdotes from friends as evidence here...I've got one too. A friend of mine works at an Ad/P.R. agency and happens to know that the Taco Bell ads with Davante Adams have been an abject failure and akin to flushing money down the toilet. There were serious conversations about scuttling the campaign entirely but alot of money was already sunk. Few people can I.D. Adams and even fewer understand why he would have a Taco Bell in his house...and he has been a Pro-Bowl level NFL player for 10+ years....he has 1.3 million Instagram followers.
But Quinn Ewers and Carson Beck are moving >$1 million dollars of product via social media accounts?? Sure.
NIL is largely a fallacy other than for a select handful of players. Always has been.
Do players deserve a cut of any profit from sales of their jerseys, cards, ect? Absolutely.
Do they potentially deserve a cut of the gate at the Stadium? Probably.
Do they create value that is anywhere near what is being reported in these NIL deals?...No--99.999% of the time.
It's not sustainable in any fashion. There is no consistent R.O.I. -- for companies and even less so for individuals contributing to these collectives. It will collapse.
I just think that applying a rational business framework to college athletics doesn't really make the most sense when we know that college fanbases are largely irrational
Again - I think your conflating collectives and brand endorsements - these are two very different things.
Regardless, It's not about what players 'deserve' - it's about seeing what they get. And right now collectives are willing to pay. Most of the people giving to collectives aren't looking for a cash return on investment; they're looking to help their program win a few more games. That's the return on investment.
Now, the brand endorsements are different. As KingJames alluded to above, there's a lot of conflicting opinions amongst smart people as to how well celebrity advertisements work. Maybe that market will fall apart, maybe it won't. But again, this is completely different from collectives.
The collectives establish the relationships with the businesses that provide funds that eventually go to the athletes--those businesses are largely seeking endorsements . Yes, they also get private money as well. It would be interesting to know what the split is but since the entirety of this process occurs behind closed doors (a sure sign that this is on the up-and-up), we'll never know.
So for instance...Sam Hartman announces he is in the Transfer Portal..he is notified by Notre Dame that he gets X number of endorsements for Y dollars if he commits. That offer comes from the "collective" but the money is coming from the companies. If he doesn't commit to Notre Dame those offers go *poof*.
Thus, he has a fractional established NIL value from his own "brand" - but magically has exponentially more value if he plays for Notre Dame--i.e. Pay for Play.
Name. Image. Likeness. --if your economic value is intrinsically tied to the University whose football team you play for isn't NIL a fraudulent concept?
There isn't an argument that the system has produced the market that now exists...the argument is that (1) is there any logic to this system? (2) is anything about this sustainable?. I think both answers are resoundingly no.
The collectives establish the relationships with the businesses that provide funds that eventually go to the athletes--those businesses are largely seeking endorsements .
This is the lie the fans are told. Dr. Pepper, Dollar Shave, etc - companies like that don't go through collectives; they go through agents. For example, Caleb Williams works closely with Smith & Company (source - SBJ) to get a deal with Beats Headphones (among others). Kyrone Drones, on the other hand, is going through Triumph, and he getting paid to do social media shoutouts for fans at a highly inflated rate.
The former is a legit endorsement. The latter is a vale for pay for play. Most football player NIL falls into the latter bucket. Sam Hartman likely falls into the former (I'm guessing, given the size of the businesses he works with)
is there any logic to this system?
Does it make business sense? No. But people aren't economically rational. People make irrational decisions all the time (plug for the econ nerds: The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis is a great book about the two individuals who founded the field of Behavioral Economics, which basically is a study of 'irrational' decision making)
is anything about this sustainable?
I give $200 a year to triumph because... idk I want VT to win and I have $200 laying around? It's sustainable as long as I have $200/year laying round. Which will hopefully be the case for the next 30 years of my career (maybe I won't be so fortunate, we'll see). Multiply that by however many VT fans are in a similar or better financial position I guess?
Is it sustainable for programs to pay 7-8 figure buyouts every 3-7 years? We thought not, but it's been sustainable for nearly 20 years now. I'm not saying there won't be a bubble, but I am guessing that the courts will rule revenue college athletes as employees before the NIL bubble bursts (I see this ruling coming in the next 3ish years).
This has devolved into pay-for-play and nothing more. It's a broken system that makes no sense for those who are actually supplying these NIL dollars and once those people realize that, the floor is gonna fall out and this will collapse.
This isn't that much different than what's happened before, it's just in the open air now. Remember when UVa's "collective" was paying the Thoroughbreds 100k+ each to play over there last decade? It's the same thing now, but now the money is being laundered through NIL.
You can change the system as muchas you want, at the end of the day money is going to change hands.
Previously it was largely from agents and apparel companies. I really had no problem with that.
Want to buy Zion Williamson's mom a house in hopes he will sign with you? No problem..provided you are a legit agent and there is a contract involved.
But asking individuals to donate to this??? Like Dave Doeren prodding recently for NCSU donors to free up a grand in a crummy economy? I do have a problem with that.
It does appear we might be targeting Offensive Linemen
12/4 added offers to Montavious Cunningham OL, Daylan Dotson DE, Kenan Johnson CB, Fernando Carmona OL, Alex Howard LB
So far:
12 OL
2 DL
3 LB
2 CB
Interesting note: How do we feel about our offense? We haven't offered a single offensive skill player yet wild transformation from this time a year ago.
I really like three staff targeting OL with 2 years left. That feels like the right stop gap approach to the time it will take to recruit and develop an OL considering where we are.
It's one of the hardest jobs in the P5. They care, so its not Vandy or Northwestern or Indiana. They are in the bread basket of college football, so you have to win and fight off GA, Bama, etc for players in your back yard. It's a very tough job that 2 hall of fame coaches did "meh" with somewhat recently. I have heard that Frank encouraged Shane to take that job for 1 reason- the admins know how hard it is, so they will be patient- like Dave Braine was with him.
Based on Shane's first two years there are lots of places that would hire him if fired. I'd hate to give examples because I don't want Shane going certain places, but I could see him doing well at a lot of middle ACC schools.
That's not the full schedule. They open with ODU, Akron, and Wofford. Found three wins.
Klempsun is beatable. Kentucky is Jekyll and Hyde. Vandy is a guaranteed win. Ole Miss is hit or miss. Mizzery has the best WR in football and that's about it. And the Aggies will find a way to beat themselves.
Breaking: Oregon State QB D.J. Uiagalelei is entering the NCAA transfer portal today, sources confirm to @PeteThamel. He'll choose between the NFL draft and a new college home in the upcoming weeks.ON3 and 247 Sports first reported Uiagalelei's intention to enter the transfer... pic.twitter.com/vmrjr5c1ew— ESPN (@espn) November 30, 2023
BREAKING: NC State QB MJ Morris plans to enter the Transfer Portal, he tells @On3SportsThe 6'2 205 QB will have 3 years of eligibility remaining Went 3-1 as NC State's starter with 7 TDs before redshirting https://t.co/zP9FO6k1shpic.twitter.com/ZxLrzOdywU— Hayes Fawcett (@Hayesfawcett3) November 30, 2023
Sorry I forgot the /s. I'm sure he didn't have anything good to say about us.
That said, did you see where he made it to the final cuts for Chargers (as WR)? That dude is an athlete, same we/they couldn't get the best out of him.
ASU's Drew Pine has entered the Portal. He is graduating and has 3 years eligibility remaining apparently- repeat that sentence out loud. So VT could have one of the many 7-8 year unicorn players we see constantly. We should pursue him with all of this experience.
Yeah dude it's not that fucking complicated. Red shirt year, 4 years, if you were enrolled in college athletics during the craziest year for the world in a long time you get a free year.
The older I've gotten and the further college football spins out of control, I've increasingly found myself reading his posts and their replies and thinking "why are you booing him, he's right."
I don't care enough about Covid eligibility one way or the other to have strong feelings about it, or strong feelings about reading posts about it. That's not the thing keeping Virginia Tech from getting back to 10 win seasons. So if he wants to make that the latest dead horse, he can have at it as far as I'm concerned. Besides, all you have to do to get him off of it is bring up something else that pisses him off.
This is hardly a personal attack. This is GGC doing his job as a Mod and trying to reduce noise. DC continually bring up this issue despite it having been clearly explained to him multiple times is noise.
I usually just roll my eyes and ignore it like you said.
It's a transfer portal thread. He's giving another example of an issue he's raised with the system. The fact that others don't share his opinion and are tired of hearing it does not make it noise. Nor does his sarcasm.
And it wouldn't hijack the thread if those who will never agree just ignored it. I don't have the time to do it, but I bet we could find 100 similar examples of community guideline violations being ignored just because the target is DC and SOME of his opinions are unpopular. I can't think of a single other poster who has every single word, comma, etc., criticized to this degree. I'm tired of THAT shtick. There is just as much "noise" on the threads from folks who are constantly attacking what are at least debatable arguments most times.
My point exactly. It's his 4th school. We don't need a QB. Ltr complained about it. You didnt moderate that, but tacitly endorsed it. Therefore, it WAS a personal attack on DC. We all know it.
is anyone else just as lost as i am about this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills
DC has earned every bit of moderation he's gotten on TKP (and probably even more). Comparing one comment of his head-to-head against one comment of Lieutenant Rob is silly and ignores the greater context of the comments.
Using these two comments of mine in a vacuum as some sort of evidence of "personal attack" does an injustice to the definition of "personal attack". What is it you're doing here to me then? Is asking if you're personally attacking me an example of me personally attacking you?
GGC I had been contemplating weighing in, but your comment forced my hand and 100% agree.
He's gotten more than the benefit of the doubt. But the same comments permeate across different posts, and are more than getting old. The "OMG 8 yrs eligibility" conversation is played out and disingenuous at best.
If anything, the leg up votes on some of the replies around his comments support a widespread feeling of the same. The transfer rules are the rules at this point and COVID year goes away next year, so build a bridge and get over it
Here's my thing. If you're gonna moderate, moderate. But a moderator shouldn't be throwing fuel on the fire.
Do I think your comment was a personal attack? No. Was it you picking up a stick and walking towards the bear? Yes.
If you think his comment is noise, tell him and remind him why it is. Then go about your day.
You're the mod, dude. Be the grown up. If you had simply done that, we wouldn't have a whole subthread about whether his comment was/was not noise or whether yours was/was not a personal attack.
You yourself created more noise than his comment did because you decided to be more abrupt than necessary.
This is a weird argument man. The idea that you can grab a single comment each from two people and make a grand conclusion about the history of their posts and the reasons behind the responses to them based solely off that just doesn't track well. Especially when the complaints are about a history of clogging up the board with similar complaints time and time again.
Also, ignoring everything else, even if you're right, "Please give it a rest" is not a personal attack.
Here's where I'm coming from. Is it annoying to read the same thing over and over? Sure.
But, saying "is anybody else tired of this shtick," aka, "this guy's shtick," is a personal attack. It's noise. It added nothing to the discussion. Or, it was a comment for the purpose of riling people up. Call it what you want. All of the above. A and B, but not C. Whatever. The point is we're not supposed to do that here.
But saying, he broke the rules first or he's annoying, or he's been given chances for other things in the past about totally unrelated stuff, so we get to stoke division here, doesn't justify it.
I don't know how to go back and link, but there's examples of his opinions getting downvoted into oblivion just for being negative when we objectively sucked at football. Even Joe had to weigh in at some point.
Again, I don't know how to link, but every time the guy comments, we have people scrutinizing every single word. And, in my view, it doesn't help this site when a moderator is, at least arguably, fanning the proverbial flames. My interpretation of the guidelines is if somebody posts noise (this had relevant content just like the JMU QB so it's not exclusively noise, but I digress), or an opinion you don't agree with, you don't downvote or attack them, or invite others to.
So to me, unless he breaks the guidelines, leave it alone. He did nothing that even comes close in his post. Just seems like we have a different set of rules for when DC comments vs everybody else and I felt like it needed to be addressed.
That's all I'm saying. So anyway, let's get back to discussing why FSU should be in over Washington, or how we're a few transfer OL away from our best offense since 1999.
I'm not mad at anybody and sorry for making y'all feel like you were taking crazy pills.
But, saying "is anybody else tired of this shtick," aka, "this guy's shtick," is a personal attack. It's noise. It added nothing to the discussion. Or, it was a comment for the purpose of riling people up. Call it what you want. All of the above. A and B, but not C. Whatever. The point is we're not supposed to do that here.
Yeah this is where I'm gonna suggest that i understand the CGs and what constitutes a "personal attack" better than you do and to please follow the well intended guidance of the moderator team and dont argue with me about a definition you're getting wrong
There are two users whose posts I insta-ignore now and it sucks because they could be writing some of the greatest posts ever but I'm just not going to read them.
so who is holding a stick and running at a bear? Who is generating noise now? Let it be and move along instead of doubling down and trolling for a reaction lol
You locking the thread with blazing speed was just too damned funny. We get it. You don't like constructive criticism. You're a mod, though. So, keep doing what you want. It's not the first time I have called you out for letting your personal feelings get in the way of being a mod.
I was in the middle of a nice thought out reply but i didnt even get the chance to post it before you commented again, and then again, and now another edit on top.
I said your comment was duly noted. This one is too. Feel free to take it up with Joe
Being a moderator on an online forum to me is no different than being the president of one's fraternity. The job sucks, but someone has to do it.
GGC is about as fair a fella as one can ask for. Based on the inevitable human error rate and the volume of comments on this site, one can't get much better. No, GGC is not perfect but hes our guy and I'll take it. Allow me to quote Keith Gill, "I like the stock"
UNC landing Texas A&M QB Max Johnson to replace Drake Maye. Johnson has thrown for 5,853 yards and 47 touchdowns while completing 60.5 percent of his passes.
Next week is going to be crazy, I think we hit the portal hard. We have a real chance to put together a special season in 2024 if we return our key playmakers and supplement through the portal where we need to. Must win in 2024.
Another QB in the portal, this time it's Jordan McCloud from JMU. Lost their coach and now their QB, can't wait to see them get blown out by an average team in the bowl game.
James Madison QB Jordan McCloud going in the transfer portal. Has 3,413 passing yards 40 total TDs this year. https://t.co/ZAD4rsrT3q— Chris Vannini (@ChrisVannini) December 2, 2023
On to his FOURTH school. South Florida, Arizona, JMU and now most likely Indiana.
And of course his waiver will be approved....unless this is his "graduate transfer" which will mean he doesn't need one.
To clarify...I have no problem with the eligibility rules. I am more fed up with the free agency aspect of being able to jump schools over and over again with the NCAA applying greatly varied results to waiver requests. My problem with this Wild West is mainly with the NCAA.
Even with an "automatic" and freebie year (first transfer), it seems likely that he used his freebie, and does the coach change rule apply any time a coach changes (so you transfer to a program, play a year, coach leaves, so you transfer to another program, play a year, then that coach leaves - do you get to transfer penalty-free (meaning eligible immediately after you transfer that second time)?)
I mean, how else can you have gone to 4 schools (also potentially including graduating and the free transfer after that - can you get a master's in a year and graduate again?(full time, including summer sessions MAYBE?))). Sorry for all the parentheses!
The eligibility and transfer rules are pretty simple.
Eligibility Rules:
A player gets 5 years to play 4 years. A year of eligibility is considered used if the player plays in 5 or more regular season games. The year 2020 does not count. A player can receive a medical hardship waiver from the NCAA if the player plays in 4 or less games in a season due to a season ending injury.
Transfer Rules:
A player can transfer when the portal period is open. There are two portal periods: winter and spring. For a first transfer, a player can play in the next immediate season. For a second or any subsequent transfer, a player must sit out a year unless one of the of the following exceptions apply:
You literally just agreed to "5 for 4" and you're talking about 7 and 9. It does not make sense. It is non sensical.
There is undoubtedly a bit of homer butthurt about immediate eligibility that we've never been able to benefit from but like college football should be like 4-5 years tops. Or else you get 35 year old kickers trying to prove that uva is awesome....
So 4 years out of 7 count but there is there is still eligibility even after a GRAD TRANSFER round year 5?
Yeah I get it. It's 5 to play 4 except for anything you want to whine about. The point of the argument, in case you missed it is the 4 year turnover is what makes college football good.
The point of the argument, in case you missed it is the 4 year turnover is what makes college football good.
I dont think people are advocating that 7 years is ideal. Just that people are stating that the covid year really wonks up a lot of stuff. As upperclassmen age out, it won't be an issue anymore and it'll go back to 5 to play 4 with extenuating circumstances for medical redshirts. Some of which have benefitted us (which Chung was around forever? Justus Reed playing in his 7th year, etc)
Mr. Chumps I do believe we are beating the same drum. All I am saying and in support of what dc was saying is that 7 years is ridiculous. I get the one off rando lineman that's been horrifically injured now and again but 28year old sophomore Stetson Bennett (hyperbole) doesn't make sense
Didn't we have an offensive lineman who got two years of medical redshirt and got 6 years? I thought we did and thought it was David Wang, but he only was here 5 years. (This question is for you GGC - the rest below are just general related thoughts related to the whole multiple years of eligibility discussion)
I saw something saying that there was a 7th year player who was like one of 8. I mean, it's VERY rare, so why get so upset about it? 6 years isn't uncommon, especially with medical redshirts, especially for linemen who frequently redshirt their freshman year.
I mean, unless the kid is really trying to get a master's degree and want sports to pay for it or has gotten injured but still hopes to go pro, I sincerely doubt they WANT to stay in school so long.
And I hope people aren't complaining about the kids having a COVID year, where some schools played way less than a full slate, were sometimes playing against walk-ons, etc. 2020 was a massive shit-show that no kid should be penalized for.
Bottom line - seems like if people have an issue with kids being in school too long, they're devoting way too much brain time to it. My 2 cents anyway.
This is just silly. It's 4 in 5 except for two exceptions. One that is rare and always existed (the medical hardship exception). And another that came about due to a pandemic. THAT's IT.
So, if either of those exceptions apply, then YES, you can transfer after year 5.
And, because essentially any player that played in that 2020 year gets an additional year, all those players can very easily utilize the grad transfer rule.
In reality, you can boil down your complaint to the fact that because of once in a lifetime pandemic, the NCAA felt it was best to give those players an additional year of eligibility. So, pinpoint your complaint: You wish the NCAA counted the 2020 year towards eligibility so that the expected turnover within 5 years was maintained.
And ultimately I think I agree with you and senor gobbles it's entirely a timing thing but I hear about a merc QB hitting the portal so that ND can have a reason to celebrate a 7-5 year after they realize nd ain't that good and I'm tired.
That's it. I'm tired. My 35 year old ads is tired of a stupid game and it's stupid rules. At the same time:
Let's go!
Edit: haha ads. That's supposed to be ass; I,e, pooper. (Did I do that right?)
Never been able to benefit from immediate eligibility less than a week after Daquan Felton, Bhayshul Tuten, and Kyron Drones led us to a victory over UVA?
Was talking about the Fuente era issues with some line men on medical transfer not wording out when unc gets a "5star" wr approved mid year for "reasons"
Whether that application makes sense we're talking about the seemingly unlimited eligibility of players weirding the depth charts
I thought that was just because of the COVID year? I thought the Grad Transfer rule was more about the old rules and not having to sit out a year. I was unaware that you could now play the extra year as a Grad Transfer so that is news to me.
Graduate transfer typically just means immediately eligible without having to sit a year. Unless you are counting the covid year, there's no 5 to play 5 just because you graduated that I'm aware of
I believe the ONLY thing that extends the 5 years is a medical redshirt (assuming you previously used a regular redshirt, because you still only get 4 years).
Sorry, I meant other than COVID since that was a one time only thing. Probably should have said "normally" the only thing is a medical redshirt (with highly rare things like COVID being the exception).
Yep. Mostly disgusted at the political stunt the VA AG took getting involved with their bowl status. What a waste of time and money, they got a bowl anyway, and then their coach bolts for greener pastures and roster is gutted to the portal.
No, so far McCloud is only one and seeing news that Cignetti may still coach the bowl game. Looks like JMU now focused on Holy Cross HC Bob Chesney to replace Cignetti.
Just so you know, I wasn't one of the 2 downvotes you got before locking the sub-thread above. I still disagree, but I apologize for my part in it. Maybe I took it the wrong way. I don't know DC. Never met him in my life. Just not at all bothered by his comment and didn't feel like the response was justified. You say your comment was well intentioned, per community guidelines. I didn't take it that way, nor did several others. I don't think our interpretation was unreasonable, but alas written words can be subject to misinterpretation. Such is if life.
I won't be commenting on that issue further, other than to say, I don't think it's appropriate for a mod to be able to say "I know more about the guidelines than you" and just lock a sub-thread thread. There is obviously some disagreement and it's not limited to the 2 of us. Look at the upvotes/downvotes. There are multiple on each side. So to me, if there is a question about what our community guidelines allow/don't allow, the community should be able to weigh in. Maybe that is a situation where we create another thread for it or have a private discussion. I dunno. Just seems important and like there's a better way for us to do it.
No more hijacking this thread by me. And again that wasn't my intent. Give us all the big uglies, DTs, and MLBers.
It's pretty clear to me you've conflated "singling someone out for moderation" with "personal attack", when the language of "personal attack" is there to avoid name calling, telling someone else to go screw themselves, slurs, and so forth.
Singling someone out for moderation is not the same as alum telling topher to go f himself in a game thread because of differing opinions on firing a coach
So yeah, I didn't say "i understand the rules better than you", but i absolutely did suggest that i understand what the CGs mean by "personal attack" and that you have grossly misapplied it in multiple comments in this thread. It's not really a discussion point -- there's no personal attacks anywhere in this thread. Not even where you indicated i was purposefully violating CGs 😃
So now I'm going to lock this subthread and hopefully we can all actually move on
It's definitely one of a few that are readily identifiable. Unlike after last year, which could only be described as "where do we begin?"
We get this guy, a couple DTs, and/or finally see some meaningful snaps from Givens, I'd feel pretty good about the defense. Think we all know the offense just needs a few big uglies. Worst case just a center and some decent injury luck could do it. With the Moore Brothers at the guard spots and some of the young guys, we'd really only be looking at RT as the glaring weak spot.
It's disgusting that this sport has turned into a place where the starting QB of a team that just missed out on the 4 team playoff who threw for 3700 yards and 27 TDs is forced to transfer out because the coaches think they can buy someone better from another school
It's shit like this, and the FSU screwjob that are REALLY turning me off to the sport right now.
Is there some reason to think that McCord is being forced out? If so, I missed it.
I read this as, he decided to go elsewhere (any reason), and so anOSU will fire up an NIL truck to get a quality backfill. Not that they proactively pushed him out so they could go shopping.
(I kinda figure they're always shopping anyway, but that's a different story.)
Day, after the Michigan game indicated that they would be "evaluating all areas" which most read as looking for a QB that won't throw two critical picks against Michigan. The OSU scuttlebutt all year was that McCord was propped up by his playmakers and that with Marvin Harrison Jr and a couple others gone, his flaws would be that much more apparent.
His entering the portal makes me think the coaching staff said something to the effect of "don't count on starting next year" and he opted to get out, get a bag and guarantee where he lands they intend to start him. The top QBs don't want to waste a bench year that could hurt their possible draft status since they can move without sitting out.
In the past, few if any coaches had the stones to pull Scholarships for fear of looking bad and possible effects on Recruiting. NIL has actually made it so much easier, because they just demote the player and the money dries up.
Also, while NIL collectives are "independent" from the University, if people really think that individuals within the Athletic Dept don't have a very large influence on the purse strings they are delusional.
So players like McCord could stick around, but they won't play and will watch others eat up the NIL money that was theirs--but that's gonna be a real difficult pill to swallow.
The "numbers always work out" predate the portal by decades. Lots of coaches including Beamer pulled or threatened to pull scholarships.
What is new is that they are pulling the scholarship for their starting QB, a 3rd team all big team performer. Is this helped by the portal and NIL, 100% yes. It's insane to drop your star QB because you think you can do better. But #7 buckeyes means that they aren't getting the ROI on the NIL.
Just to be clear he is a star player because he made the all big ten team, if Drones was honorable mention all-acc we'd be talking about how great he is and all-acc player.
I wonder how much of this is like in a job where, in a lot of cases, you have to go get an offer for the salary you want to press your company into giving you a raise. Do some of these "portal entrants" enter the portal to get an NIL offer they can ask their school to match or they take the new offer?
World class educations, 250K scholarships, food, room, coaching, exposure, stipends, medical staff's, academic support weren't enough. Indentured servitude, ya know. So now we get the NFL- but with more lax free agency rules and no salary cap.
This argument held water when coaches weren't being paid $75 million to NOT coach and conferences weren't raking in $1 billion a year.
People are making all that cash on the backs of players and you're saying they should be happy because they got a "free" $250k piece of paper. A piece of paper that will be basically useless for the majority of them. It's not like an FBS football player is going to have the time to get STEM degree.
The current NIL system sucks, but exploiting players sucked too. There needs to be a middle ground.
I do sometimes wonder if a player thinks he is just going to supplant the incumbent based off his hype/ranking he has from the "experts" without being in program yet. I can appreciate the confidence of some of these prospects have, but some of the choices I see are sometime a little confusing, especially for those talented enough to start anywhere else but the incumbent is a really good player and confirmed coming back.
I get in today's portal world anyone can come and go, but IF Arch does enter transfer portal, this is no surprise whatsoever for me, even with all the hype he got last few years.
Arch is a lock to leave. His uncles and grandfather know that the long game is the NFL, and the NFL is about exposure and playing top competition. He is not sitting the bench another year- bank on that.
I'm not 100% sold on him leaving if only for this quote from Archie in this SI piece
On the flip side, Archie also highlighted that Eli didn't start at Ole Miss until his junior season and how sitting and learning can be also be best course for his grandson to find success.
"Eli had what I think is the best course. He redshirted his first year, was a backup in his second year, and then started in his third year. I think it's a big jump."
Oh yea, don't get me wrong, with NIL nowadays, I bet a lot of players don't care if they start (right away) as long as they get the bag. Or with some senior laden players, get the bag or just go to NFL.
This doesn't have to be specifically for Arch, but I do think some players actually buy into the things these coaches tell them during the recruiting trails that they will be starter within first years of being on campus.
Now with Arch, Texas could have just dropped the heaviest of all bags.
There are 20 Elite 11 QBs in high school football in 2023.
Assume that is the case for all years, that means that there are 80 Elite 11 QBs in college football at any given time, perhaps up to 100, counting redshirts.
There are 133 teams, meaning there is always room elsewhere for a top tier QB
Right now with Covid year and redshirt closer to 120 with the next batch on its way so that puts you way down the team totem pole if you are closer to the bottom of that group and want a guarantee to play. I would guess 50 of those are at P2 schools though so gives guys some room.
Even if it's literally just a guy (not McCord or Gabriel) who literally just wants to get on the field because they love the game (hello JT Daniels) -- let 'em do what they want so they can play.
South Carolina star receiver Juice Wells is officially in the NCAA transfer portal. He's expected to be at or near the top of the portal WR market. He has 965 yards and seven touchdowns in his career. Missed much of 2023 with a foot injury.— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) December 4, 2023
That number is Mind boggling. 2100 in would be an average of like 16 per school if it's just D1
As of 3:25pm, there have been over 1,000 football players that have entered the transfer portal today.That's over 2,100 since the end of the season on Nov. 26.— Tom VanHaaren (@TomVH) December 4, 2023
JUCOs too...Last Chance U (the basketball one) painted a bleak picture for guys looking to get to D-1 (the only place that schollies are always full-ride).
Probably why Netflix canned it...can't let anything out into the ether that doesn't make NIL and Transfer Portal look like a panacea for these players.
The challenge - for both the players and schools is that this is turning into NFL Free Agency if the NFL ONLY allowed 1 year contracts. Players and seek out a better situation and teams can move on from players after 1 year (which I understand was always the case). It must be damn near impossible for coaches to plan or develop anymore. And as always, the rich will get richer. Top programs have both more quanity depth and more NIL money to buy and retain it. Everybody else has to be really good or really lucky in free agency.
Like similar years, I'm waiting to see the statistics headed into next season. How many guys end up without somewhere to play when their program doesn't take them back, how many still can't crack the two-deep, how many find out the grass isn't greener. I'm fine with the portal, provides new opportunities. But man, it won't end well for so many.
Did they do away with the limit on number of portal players a team can pick up? If not, or they did, but it was only a limited time, it seems like a decent number of players would wind up staying.
Still wonder for some of these players if declaring isn't just about trying to get a better NIL deal (like "I showed how valuable I am - pay me what I'm worth").
Thoughts are he is headed to Miami to play with his brother and get some U Bak NIL as a package.
BREAKING: Pittsburgh EDGE Samuel Okunlola has entered the Transfer Portal, he tells @on3sportsThe 6'4 245 EDGE had 5 sacks, 6 TFL's, 6 hurries, & 1 forced fumble. Will have 3 years of eligibility remaining. Is the older brother of 2023 5 Star Miami Signee Samson Okunlola (OT)... pic.twitter.com/Xdzd1uAr1O— Hayes Fawcett (@Hayesfawcett3) December 4, 2023
So far I am still only seeing the same 5 guys in the Portal. Hasn't it been mentioned that with our scholarship count we would probably need to lose somewhere between 15-16 players in order to sign the guys we need from the portal as well as the next class?
Pry mentioned they're still scheduling talks with a bunch of players throughout this week. I'm gonna guess none of them are making decisions without at least talking to him first which is a good thing.
The portal window is open 30 days. There is time to enter, but perhaps opportunities diminish. You can enroll anytime up to about 1 week into the spring semester, but the cutoff would be dependent on the rules of the school.
ah, I'm not best at reading... Yes, the second window is for 15 days in the month of May, pretty much coinciding with graduation for schools that do semesters. It's prior to graduation for schools that do quarters.
At last count, I think VT was 7 over. That's counting incoming freshmen and assumes everyone that can come back is coming back. The 15 or so number that has been floated around assumes about 8 incoming portal transfers (similar number to last year).
VT may not need to trim the roster until after spring practice. That would depend on how many freshmen enroll early for spring semester.
In his press conference yesterday, Pry mentioned the 1-on-1 meetings are ongoing. I imagine we'll see some names enter the portal here soon. Players like Fuga, Gallo, and Wells could decide to hang it up and players like Tuten and Strong could enter the draft. There are still a lot of moving parts.
Let this sink in. Ohio State with 44 🌟 entering the portal just so far and apparently aren't done.
Ohio State players in the Transfer Portal: 5 ⭐️ WR Julian Fleming5 ⭐️ QB Kyle McCord4 ⭐️ RB Evan Pryor4 ⭐️ S Cam Martinez4 ⭐️ DE Omari Abor4 ⭐️ LB Reid Carrico4 ⭐️ S Kye Stokes4 ⭐️ CB Jyaire Brown4 ⭐️ CB Ryan Turner3 ⭐️ OL Jakob James3 ⭐️ C/G Vic CutlerK Parker Lewis...— College Football Report (@CFBRep) December 4, 2023
Personally, I think under Day OSU has gotten very soft on O and D. Too much of a finesse offense now too not built for a physical battle in the cold with a team like Michigan IMO, but talented enough to out-athlete the rest of the Big Ten for the most part.
Agreed Day is the issue. Departures like that signal red flags. Whether is too soft of scheme or development of soft players, it starts from top.
I will grant them that HS evaluations were overall bad from the COVID years and thus the star ratings have way more error baked into them than prior years.
2022 CAA Defensive Player of the Year, x2 FCS All-American, other good stuff (Link Here). Arguably the best player in FCS, Micah Parsons vibes. Dream recruit for Pry and Marve.
Him and APR would be a filthy 1-2 combo next year.
Interesting tibit, teammates with LB Drew Babcock, Whit's son.
Hearing from reliable friends that we may see Tyler Baron in the portal (Jim Baron's nephew.) He has been very productive at Tennessee, but also has a reputation for being a bit of a malcontent.
In a groundbreaking move, NCAA president Charlie Baker has proposed the creation of a new subdivision that would allow schools to directly compensate athletes through trust funds and NIL payments: https://t.co/B1udEuJAJ4— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) December 5, 2023
Have to wonder what this does to conferences. Is this the ticket for FSU and Clemson to get out?
This thread is getting a little cumbersome and it looks like the other shoe is starting to drop on the portal, does someone want to do another outgoing master-thread this year? I will volunteer to do an incoming one again, but I got too much shit on me doing the coaching carousel tables right now.
Don't want to add another link that has to load but go look at 2022 top 15 recruits for the state of Virginia and the number that are in the portal is crazy.
Comments
Did anyone know that JR Walker was in the portal since Oct 30th or am I just late to the party?
This is news to me as well so you are not the only one.
He entered the portal back in the spring
And apparently never transferred anywhere that has been recorded. Did he give up football?
I think he stepped away from Tech football in the spring, but seems to have entered the portal in October. Could be he wasn't planning on taking his final year of eligibility and then changed his mind?
Smoke that we've offered a Penn State DT, and a couple FCS as well. Staff is getting the jump on recruiting/portal right before the offseason.
They killed both during this period last season imo. If they can have similar success this time around it would be huge for the positive momentum of this program. One difference this time around: need at least 2 OL from the portal high on our board. Last time we got only 1 low on our board
Penn DT. A beast in the Ivy League and he's gotten offers from just about everyone today. Vandy, Louisville, UNC, Duke, GT, Oregon St, Miami, Illinois, Rutgers, Houston, Pitt... the guys probably losing track of messages in his inbox at this point.
Cut him some slack, man
10/10
Hopefully we can have the type of success Louisville had this year. Being able to flip a roster in 1 year is wild.
Well to start we'd have to have an 8-5 team to have the 11-1 year next year sooo we might be off by a few wins
.
I think if we started Drones earlier and ran the offense we are running now we probably could have won Purdue and Marshall. Sooo...not that far off I don't think. If nothing else we are a much better team now than we were in the beginning of the season.
Without Rudolph on staff I bet we fare much better on the OL portal
I mean, trying is better than not trying. So, yea, I would hope we fare much better.
A bowl game wasn't on the table last year, and we also didn't play UVA. Not sure how any staff can handle ESP, Portal recruiting, the ever-shifting coaching job market, and prepping for a bowl game all in one 3 week period.
The schedule has to change:
The transfer period is a little more difficult. You want the students to be able to enroll in a new school prior to the semester beginning, but still have time to consider. And thus, there is really two periods in which that can happen: winter break and spring/summer. From a player perspective, it is ideal to transfer before the spring semester to get acquainted with school, attend spring practice, and be able to use the facilities of the football team during the off season. Thus, for them, the winter break portal period is ideal. But for coaches, the winter break portal period is worst time for them.
But I agree that ESD could be removed assuming that would still allow HS recruits that want to enroll early to sign and begin classes in January.
Curious about your thoughts for eliminating early signing period? I thought HS kids liked it to get coaches out of their ears and coaches liked it because they know who is REALLY 800% committed (/s on the percentage thing, but serious on knowing who they actually have on board).
My memory is that Fuente and Co. were plagued by flips near ESD, don't recall it happening last year for us, but late decommits happen as we saw recently.
Edit to add: these things should be ordered:
Obviously #3 can't be legislated, but if you time the rest of these appropriately, #3 will fall into its proper place.
Makes sense. I don't have an opinion on coaches being busy, but being able to focus on the bowl game definitely makes sense. I was kind of going off some tweets I'd seen about HS kids wanting to sign and be done with it so they could focus on the rest of their season and school. Not sure if that's the norm or not, just have seen it a couple times.
Yeah, the firings aim not sure would change much, early firings and quick replacements would give the incoming coach more time to retain the class, but I honestly can't remember how many times the schools hire a new coach (because how many current coaches are willing to walk away mid-season?), so you're left with an acting head coach who is often one of the coordinators. And unless the school is using that as a trial period to see if they can turn the ship around and hire them, that seems worse than waiting til the end of the season because then the kids ave no idea what coach they'd be committing to. And unless it's one of the best blue bloods where you know an excellent coach will be coming in, why wait and see?
Granted, I don't pay attention to the classes of coaches that get fired to see how many fall apart.
I LIKE THIS BAR
The reason the portal is open in December is that so players can enroll at their new school in January and be eligible for spring ball at their new school. A portal period in Jan/Feb means that players in the portal can't enroll until summer and would miss spring ball.
I agree that there is too much going on in December for coaching staffs but I don't think you can move the portal timing.
I like these ideas to help make everything less chaotic immediately after the regular season and to disincentivize tampering since your transfers wouldn't get spring ball, but I think it really makes roster management challenging if the players you coach through spring decide to leave.
1. Well, yeah.
2. Probably.
3. I think it would be fewer, but possibly more detrimental. You'll have players that are planning on transferring wasting everyone's time through spring ball and when they transfer the staff will have to bring someone in that has to get up to speed with just fall practices.
I like having one signing day and one transfer portal, but I think it makes more sense to have the portal opened after championship week and signing day in the spring.
I think the biggest thing this whole conversation highlights is the importance of the support staff in today's game. The recruiting support staff should be doing all the heavy lifting here making it easier for the coaches during the busy time.
Cringing for portal departures too, cause we all know we can't have nice things haha
As long as Pry does not push out Drones so Wells can be more comfortable it will be an improvement over the last staff.
Pry did a really good job last year. A few players had options, but chose to stay. Let's hope for more of that this year.
Jordan.Henderson.
I assume you mean Jason Henderson at ODU.
He's not in the Portal; unless he is this is a non-starter.
And I'm pretty damn sure Pry and Co. (among others) likely sent out very strong feelers already last year---if we were looking at VMI's MLB, you can be sure Henderson was higher on the list than that.
Love to see it happen, but have very little suspicion that it will.
Besides, if he does go in the Portal, Kirby Smart will offer him late and sign him---because Kirby needs to make sure he is 6-deep at MLB.
Yes
247 Tracker up
https://247sports.com/college/virginia-tech/article/virginia-tech-footba...
Jesus our offense skill positions could be stacked next year.
Drones and Wells back at QB
Tuten and Thomas back at RB
Jennings healthy at WR, with Felton, Gosnell, and Lane
Gallo healthy at TE, with Wright and Gosnell
Add in a DL with APR, Fuga, and Nelson
a LB corps of Jenkins, McDonald, and Lawson
DBU of Canteen, Strong, Delane, Lovett, Johnson, and Phillips
And that doesn't include incoming freshmen or transfers in.
It would be tremendous if Felton and Jennings came back. Ballers. Difference Makers.
If we can keep all of these people on board I really like our roster. Could use some depth seniority at LB and need OL
And DT. Desperately.
90% positive, Jennings, Felton & Gosnell all walked on Senior Day. Not sure what to take of that.
On defense, Fuga, Jenkins, Canteen and a couple others walked.
Every senior walked no matter if they already graduated, were coming back or not per Pry's request.
Another way that Pry Gets It. They'll never regret walking, only not walking.
Phew... I was dreading the loss of some of those players. Hopefully they stick around.
Yep. Pry wanted them all to walk no matter if they plan to come back or not. IIRC, both Kendricks and Pollard walked the year before too.
There's no way Tuten comes back IMO. I think Jennings comes back and Felton is definitely back. Not sure Strong comes back.
I think that would depend on where his draft grade comes in tbh. If you are a RB then I think anything better than Round 5 then you go. The RB position in the NFL is far less valuable these days, so if you are going to get paid you need to do it early. Not sure where his stock is, but if it comes back round 6 or 7 (which basically means just as easy to go UDFA) then I think you stay.
I'd be worried if I got a 5th round, there are 7 rounds of players that get 5th or higher ratings
Too bad the rating services cannot be a bit more accurate than this. You would think by now they could. These young men need their grade to be as accurate as possible.
Well, it's complicated. Let's say that there is a wr rich class (meaning there are a bunch of wrs that get graded in the first few rounds, meaning, essentially, that they are good enough to get 3rd round or better. But there are a bunch of teams that don't really need a wr so they draft other positions of need in the earlier rounds and those wrs drop to the 4th, 5th and 6th rounds. There's more that goes into where a player gets drafted than simply their talent. NFL teams have to balance their rosters (and salary expenses) so they may not always take the "best available" if they are at a position that the team doesn't need (or maybe they think they can afford to wait on a certain position -like wr from my example above- if there is more supply than demand)
So you might have 6 wrs who are comparable and they all get graded as 2nd round values but there are only 4 teams that need to grab a wr in the first 2 rounds. Maybe they need OL or DL or some other position that the management thinks is more important than wr. 4 of those guys might get picked up in the first couple rounds but it's anyone's guess who of the 6 will be left out. They're all basically the same in terms of measurables and production but when draft day arrives there are more wrs available than teams that need them.
Why wouldn't he?
I'm not sure there's a player on this team that "should" be leaving early for the NFL draft this year. Of course that doesn't mean someone won't.
Of all the things Fuente did badly, number one for me was his inability to retain talented players that he should have been able to keep on the roster. If Pry is going to get VT back to the top tier of college football, he'll need to be able to do a much better job of that.
Strong has the best advanced stats of any VT DB ever and this was his R-JR season. If he's not first-team all-ACC it's a travesty. He's going pro.
There's also rumblings about Wright chasing NIL $$ elsewhere
Replace DB with QB and TE and you just described Jerod Evans and Bucky Hodges. Not saying Strong won't go pro, but being really good in college doesn't mean you should leave early for the draft. If he knows he's going to be a 4th rounder or better, then it's probably not a bad decision though.
Wright is a good player, but does he really have that kind of NIL potential?
Even if he doesn't SEC teams will lie to him and say he does
I mean, how can we say, given that we don't know the market nor do we know what he's currently earning?
Chris Tyree in the portal from ND. So who is last RB out of the state who has done well when they left the state?
who is last RB from the state who has done well anywhere?
Genuinely wondering
Corum at Michigan..pretty much all of them except ford and laborn
Thought he was Maryland high school kid.
Corum was a St Frances (Maryland) player in high school but was born in VA 🤷♂️
Ricky Slade was a bust too
Henderson at tOSU has been a good player.
One might even say serviceable.
(This is the voice my comment registered in).
Man just went through RB'S from 2014 until now and boy your right outside of Henderson it's average at best and a lot of multiple transfers or no stats.
Didn't even realize, but you're all right
Treveyon henderson is doing just fine
Tyree moved to receiver and was a decent contributor this year
Who was the other low 4*/high 3* we went after when it looked like Tyree wasn't coming here? Seems like his last name was Brown from the RVA area. We missed on him as well.
Ramon Brown at Maryland, hasn't really done anything.
That's the one, thanks
Then there is Ronnie Walker who went to Indiana, then UVA now Utah Tech.
Ramon Brown, who flipped to Maryland and has largely been a nonfactor
Edit: I'd drink but I'm sick
NyQuil it is, then
TreVeyon Henderson?
Tyree is going to LOLUVA.
Additional Context:
Additional Context:
Going head to head with Prime on this one
Just play them the clip of Prine throwing the oline under the bus
It's gonna be fascinating to see what he does over the next few years. The shine is definitely wearing off already, and like you said, there's plenty to negative recruit with already. He got a pass for the year one turnover, but if it's a year in and year out exodus it's going to be harder to keep pulling talent in at the same rate. Plus, if you're showing everyone who isn't contributing immediately the door, it's going to be hard to develop any talent.
Given the way their season ended, I'm okay with that.
Taking a page from Duke on the Ivy League linemen
First Team All-Ivy League Right Tackle
Go Bulldogs!
Lots of OL getting offers from the Hokies. Sending a message to the incumbents and the kids, ship up or ship out.
Standout DII OT
VT's early portal strategy. OFFER ALL THE BEEF
Cartman always gets a leg
O-line, D-line (DT), and Linebacker. Also, any really good skill position players if we have room. I hope they remain selective with the recruiting class coming in and tell the guys currently on the roster if they have no future with the program so they can continue to build this thing right. If they retain the right folks this team can be special next year! Pry did say look for the 2024/2025 seasons for Hokie football to be back where it wants to be. 3 games this year were lost by a touchdown, 2 without Drones starting (Purdue and Marshall). This team was close to ending the year 9-3.
I was just thinking this morning that this was on of the most fun 6-6 VT teams to watch. They definitely played more like 8-4 or 9-3 in the last 2 months.
I will always question what could have been if Drones had started vs. Purdue, Marshall, and Rutgers. I also question what causes the team to play like they did vs. FSU, UL, and NCState where they just kind of took too long to show up or did not look as aggressive and confident out there. And how do we look so much better with Drones vs. Wells that against Purdue, Marshall, and Rutgers we looked like one of the worst overall teams in college football? Consistency will have to be fixed. As much as I loved watching them you kind of didn't know what team was going to show up for the game.
Drones started against both Rutgers and Marshall. In one of those games, he passed into triple coverage when his legs could have easily gotten the 1st down (I think it was 4th and 2 inside the red zone). I think he got coached up a little on trusting himself, then as he successfully performed, Bowen schemed better to take advantage of what we had in our OLine and how they could successfully run plays with them.
I think those two games were basically learning curve with Drones and Bowen.
I stand corrected then, sorry for the misinformation.
I think I recall a press conference saying they tried to play Drones with the Grant Wells game plan/package from the start of the season, but it wasn't even the whole package they had prepared for Wells. They didn't realize until after those games that they needed to adjust the game plan to be a lot more specific to Drones and that he could handle a lot more than they thought.
I mean in ACC play we were consistent, we easily beat the 5 worst teams, we got handles by the 2 best teams and then we did some stupid things but made a game out of it with the 3rd best team. We are 4th in the ACC, tied with GT. We played like the 4th place team. Hindsight is 20/20 but when you look back we beat the bad teams and lost to the good teams (in acc play). In the 5 ACC games we won our average margin of victory was just over 24 points with 17 being the smallest we saw.
Beating the bad teams badly is probably one of my favorite things this season. Last time we did that we were winning 10 games a season and going to conference championships. Let's hope we can continue this into next year.
TSL had an interesting stat this week. I think it was: there were only 5 P5 teams who won 5 conference games by more than 17 points: Michigan, Georgia, Mizzou, Oregon, Virginia Tech.
Pretty sure I botched the stat, but it's something like this.
Shoutout Shelton
🎵One of these teams in not like the others🎵
More like "two of these teams are not like the others"
Mizzou is a top ten team
you could probably argue that Oregon isn't a blueblood but I think it's pretty safe to say all those other teams are, besides Mizzou and VT
Ah, I see what you're saying. I'm gonna be a semantic asshole just for fun...The post said "teams" not "programs" lol
Fair enough. Have a leg
HAVE ONE YOURSELF
Even when we were winning 10 games a year we really struggled to put teams away. Far too often we never got to the situation where the backups could get repa against teams that they should have been possible. That seems to be something that might change going forward, and should help out with some of our depth issues, if only to keep the starters as fresh as possible all year.
Brent Pry does not call off the dogs until the game is way out of hand. I like that.
It feels like this was the first year (other than 2010) that we beat everyone in conference that we were supposed to beat, and lost to everyone in conference that we were supposed to lose to.
It's kinda nice to have a predictable product?
so long as the prediction in 2025 is that we win all of our conference games
So you're saying our season produced the expected outcomes? ;^)
I was talking to my dad about this last night. Beamer would try running the clock out once we were up by like 2 TDs. The problem is that in some of those games, we'd be having tons of success passing the ball, but you figure to runout the clock, you want to prevent interceptions, so you run the ball. We'd run the ball and couldn't get the first downs needed to actually run out the clock. And teams came back on us. But it was like once he got into running out the clock mode, he'd never go back to what had been working earlier in the game. I love CFB, but I like keeping the foot on the gas until you KNOW it's out of reach.
You guys must not be fully remembering VT football in the 1990s and early 2000s. Beamer actually started to develop a reputation for running up the score on teams. I specifically remember him being criticized after pummeling Maryland 55-6 on a Thursday night game in 2004.
I think this was before he started running up the score. I got to Tech in 92, and it was not the same program we had in 99. My first couple of years the joke was we were one of the greatest first half teams of all time.
There was a 1992 Bonehead cartoon in the CT that was a single panel, with Bonehead telling the employee at the ticket counter, "18? But I only want to stay three quarters!"
That one sticks in my head.
I'm a 96 grad myself! My first year of VT football was that '92 2-8-1 season full of late-game defensive collapses (I believe there was a 50-49 loss to Rutgers at home on the last play of the game). Little did we know at the time it was because our defense was full of future studs like Cornell Brown and Antonio Banks, but were underclassmen that year.
Can we all at least agree that running up the score is underrated? And fun? And we should do it more often?
That was my first senior year. So frustrating.
And yes, we can agree. And yes, it's fun. And hell yes, we should do it more often!
Definitely enjoyed the '83 Squeaker over the Hoos in 1983 (48-0) AND the squeeze the Orange beatdown of ranked Syracuse in 1999 (62-0)!
I was there for the second one. In hindsight, maybe I shouldn't have snuck in a full fifth of Captain Morgan's.
Me: "We took 'em behind the watershed. THE WATERSHED!"
Others around me: "Huh?"
I also vaguely remember insisting strongly on separate checks at Waffle House much later that night, and when it came time to order, only asked for water.
Good times.
With the focus on water it almost sounds like UVA was involved...
Drinking early
Well poop.
Could that mean that Nick Gallo wants another go next year, and playing time was a concern?
Maybe I'm missing something... but is there a scenario that Gallo starts over Wright anymore?
This was about $$$-which I mean.... I've left jobs for more money, so I can't say I blame him. It is a shame we aren't competitive enough to keep him, but at least we aren't Washington State or Oregon State and watching our athletics becoming irrelevant.
I don't know if we couldn't pay to keep him or more that we don't value him as highly as other players.
That's a good point about the portal. You don't pay a market rate if you think the payment is a detriment to the team as a whole. There are only so many dollars to go around, and building a team must be looked at as collective.
If Wright is chasing NIL dollars, and those NIL dollars are more than the NIL dollars of all other TEs on the VT roster combined, what is the right business decision for VT? or double the NIL dollars of all other TEs combined? or triple the NIL dollars of all other TEs combined? At some point, whatever the market is willing to pay, may be not in the best interests for VT.
Yeah, I mean, 28 receptions isn't lighting the world on fire. Could be he's chasing NIL money directly, could be he just wants an opportunity where he gets featured more. I think we should give these guys a little more benefit of the doubt. If he thinks he can get more work, get more featured, and boost his draft stock elsewhere, he'd be crazy not to do that.
NIL money is great, moving up a round or two in the NFL draft due to increased production gets him a bigger first contract and a way better shot at a second.
*EDITED, had last year's reception total at first. Point still stands.
VT players entering the portal deserves their own post
EDIT - DRINKING
Forgive my ignorance - can players entering into the portal still play in the bowl game?
Depends on the school/coach
My understanding is that they cannot. Our transfer portal entrances after Fuente was fired could not play in the Bowl for JC.
North Dakota OL
Hmm one e short and some jumbled letters of being related to Liz Kitley; we'll take him.
inside linebacker from MTSU
Offering all the OL, DT, and Middle Linebacker transfers. Love it.
Kam Olds to the portal, edge rusher from Midlothian who wound up at Buffalo via FUMA
Gerquan would definitely help in the All-time-Name competition!
On3 Transfer Portal Rankings (at the moment of the posting):
Joey Slackman: 4*, 92.80, #1 DT, #4 Overall
Justin Mayers: 4*, 91.60, #4 DT/#2 IOL, #11 Overall
Jonathan Mendoza: 3*, 89.63, #10 OT, #56 Overall
Gerquan Scott: 3*, 90.21, #8 OT, #34 Overall
Alan Herron: 3*, 87.37, #21 OT, #173 Overall
Easton Kilty: 4*, 91.15, #2 IOL, #20 Overall
Sam Brumfield: 3*, 89.70, #3 LB, #44 Overall
Does Mayers play both sides of the ball or is that a typo?
On3 has him listed as a DL, not an IOL
Have to hope the Hokies at least talk to him.
All-ACC DT
The DE from BC, Shitta Sillah, is entering the portal, as is the LB Chris "Pooh" Paul from Arkansas. All-time name team opportunity to have Shitta and Pooh on the same defense.
Gives me wvu vibes...
Not sure what happened with this one, i remember we were in for him last cycle before he committed to BC, but he wound up decommitting around ESD and then going to Charlotte.
GPA or credits transfer problem? No shade intended, but Charlotte was the safety school in case you didn't get into App State or ECU when I was looking at colleges.
I thought Ecu was a safety school...
Yes, they are which indicates where Charlotte falls in the hierarchy
Personally I'm most excited for Recruiting Gabe to be back!
Recruiting Gabe needs to reinvigorate Belfort and a couple of the others. X really was fun when you saw that group openly working together.
Drones reaching out to the linemen is pretty great too.
Anybody see the Matt Rhule presser today where he said "A good quarterback in the portal today that can make a difference costs $1m, $1.5m, maybe$ 2m.". First time I have seen a coach give specific numbers. I wonder if that sets the market or whether it was already set there
Kid from Wazu apparently has 10 offers, each worth $1 mil.
I'm glad these kids are making money, but at some point it seems like contractual agreements would be helpful here.
Depending on the school it's higher. Sam Hartman going to Notre Dame got at least eight national brand NIL deals. The big ones Dollar Shave Club, Beats by Dre, Under Armour, Leaf Trading Cards and Homefield apparel. Those are just the big ones. My understanding is he has another 15-20 smaller deals as well. Got to give him credit though. As part of most of his deals, he sliced a bit off for all his Irish teammates.
...and this is where the whole concept of "NIL" gets lost on me...
I had no idea that Sam Hartman was shilling for any of these companies and I probably consume more College Football than 95% of the rest of the population.
So how effective can he possibly be as pitchman?? So then what exactly is he being paid for?
Dollar Shave Club??? The guy has taken on a shaggy beard since going to ND...its ridiculous.
It's time for some honesty here. Most of these players have little to no value as sponsors from a National Brand standpoint...if you put Sam Hartman without his football jersey in a National TV ad, 75% of the U.S. won't know who he is. Regional and local ads don't generate $1 million of income...not close.
This has devolved into pay-for-play and nothing more. It's a broken system that makes no sense for those who are actually supplying these NIL dollars and once those people realize that, the floor is gonna fall out and this will collapse.
College football is going to remain something of a debacle until there's some degree of regulation. Transparency regarding compensation, some common sense rules for eligibility/transferring, and even a salary cap would all make the sport fairer and more sustainable.
I don't know how any of that actually happens, but right now it's like a start-up pro league with no rules.
There was literally a social media campaign around him shaving his beard... He has 60k followers on tiktok. This video of him shaving has well over 200k views. He has two other tiktoks that are approaching a million views. On instagtram he has over 300k followers, way more posts, ranging from 10k-60k likes per post.
I think you're kinda looking at this wrong...
In many cases yes, but there are different NIL markets. A useful oversimplification/good rule of thumb:
Yes..wonderful...provide me with any proof that any of this sells razors.
I can pay an intern $12/hr to create something to go viral on social media...why would I pay Sam Hartman six figures?
Provide me with the slightest bit of proof that Caleb Williams "acting" in Dr. Pepper commercials sells one more case of Dr. Pepper...it doesn't.
If we are going to use anecdotes from friends as evidence here...I've got one too. A friend of mine works at an Ad/P.R. agency and happens to know that the Taco Bell ads with Davante Adams have been an abject failure and akin to flushing money down the toilet. There were serious conversations about scuttling the campaign entirely but alot of money was already sunk. Few people can I.D. Adams and even fewer understand why he would have a Taco Bell in his house...and he has been a Pro-Bowl level NFL player for 10+ years....he has 1.3 million Instagram followers.
But Quinn Ewers and Carson Beck are moving >$1 million dollars of product via social media accounts?? Sure.
NIL is largely a fallacy other than for a select handful of players. Always has been.
Do players deserve a cut of any profit from sales of their jerseys, cards, ect? Absolutely.
Do they potentially deserve a cut of the gate at the Stadium? Probably.
Do they create value that is anywhere near what is being reported in these NIL deals?...No--99.999% of the time.
It's not sustainable in any fashion. There is no consistent R.O.I. -- for companies and even less so for individuals contributing to these collectives. It will collapse.
Does any celebrity sell anything? Where is the proof that Ryan Reynolds sells gin? Or Terry crews sells old spice?
Ryan Reynolds was a bad example to go for. Proof he sells gin.
I dont disagree with you.
I just think that applying a rational business framework to college athletics doesn't really make the most sense when we know that college fanbases are largely irrational
Again - I think your conflating collectives and brand endorsements - these are two very different things.
Regardless, It's not about what players 'deserve' - it's about seeing what they get. And right now collectives are willing to pay. Most of the people giving to collectives aren't looking for a cash return on investment; they're looking to help their program win a few more games. That's the return on investment.
Now, the brand endorsements are different. As KingJames alluded to above, there's a lot of conflicting opinions amongst smart people as to how well celebrity advertisements work. Maybe that market will fall apart, maybe it won't. But again, this is completely different from collectives.
The collectives establish the relationships with the businesses that provide funds that eventually go to the athletes--those businesses are largely seeking endorsements . Yes, they also get private money as well. It would be interesting to know what the split is but since the entirety of this process occurs behind closed doors (a sure sign that this is on the up-and-up), we'll never know.
So for instance...Sam Hartman announces he is in the Transfer Portal..he is notified by Notre Dame that he gets X number of endorsements for Y dollars if he commits. That offer comes from the "collective" but the money is coming from the companies. If he doesn't commit to Notre Dame those offers go *poof*.
Thus, he has a fractional established NIL value from his own "brand" - but magically has exponentially more value if he plays for Notre Dame--i.e. Pay for Play.
Name. Image. Likeness. --if your economic value is intrinsically tied to the University whose football team you play for isn't NIL a fraudulent concept?
There isn't an argument that the system has produced the market that now exists...the argument is that (1) is there any logic to this system? (2) is anything about this sustainable?. I think both answers are resoundingly no.
This is the lie the fans are told. Dr. Pepper, Dollar Shave, etc - companies like that don't go through collectives; they go through agents. For example, Caleb Williams works closely with Smith & Company (source - SBJ) to get a deal with Beats Headphones (among others). Kyrone Drones, on the other hand, is going through Triumph, and he getting paid to do social media shoutouts for fans at a highly inflated rate.
The former is a legit endorsement. The latter is a vale for pay for play. Most football player NIL falls into the latter bucket. Sam Hartman likely falls into the former (I'm guessing, given the size of the businesses he works with)
Does it make business sense? No. But people aren't economically rational. People make irrational decisions all the time (plug for the econ nerds: The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis is a great book about the two individuals who founded the field of Behavioral Economics, which basically is a study of 'irrational' decision making)
I give $200 a year to triumph because... idk I want VT to win and I have $200 laying around? It's sustainable as long as I have $200/year laying round. Which will hopefully be the case for the next 30 years of my career (maybe I won't be so fortunate, we'll see). Multiply that by however many VT fans are in a similar or better financial position I guess?
Is it sustainable for programs to pay 7-8 figure buyouts every 3-7 years? We thought not, but it's been sustainable for nearly 20 years now. I'm not saying there won't be a bubble, but I am guessing that the courts will rule revenue college athletes as employees before the NIL bubble bursts (I see this ruling coming in the next 3ish years).
From my expirence 'irrational' decisions is redundant
I want to hire your $12/hr intern that can make things go viral.
I'll pay closer to market value, because one of you doesn't know what that is (or how hard it is).
This isn't that much different than what's happened before, it's just in the open air now. Remember when UVa's "collective" was paying the Thoroughbreds 100k+ each to play over there last decade? It's the same thing now, but now the money is being laundered through NIL.
You can change the system as muchas you want, at the end of the day money is going to change hands.
It's different in where the money is coming from.
Previously it was largely from agents and apparel companies. I really had no problem with that.
Want to buy Zion Williamson's mom a house in hopes he will sign with you? No problem..provided you are a legit agent and there is a contract involved.
But asking individuals to donate to this??? Like Dave Doeren prodding recently for NCSU donors to free up a grand in a crummy economy? I do have a problem with that.
Duke QB Riley Leonard in the portal now too. All pundits pointing to Irish making Hartman like move.
Grayson McCall is in the portal as well.
Didn't know the kid had a kidney problem, but I'm glad it's cleared up.
It does appear we might be targeting Offensive Linemen
12/4 added offers to Montavious Cunningham OL, Daylan Dotson DE, Kenan Johnson CB, Fernando Carmona OL, Alex Howard LB
So far:
12 OL
2 DL
3 LB
2 CB
Interesting note: How do we feel about our offense? We haven't offered a single offensive skill player yet wild transformation from this time a year ago.
Hmmm....something tells me we're looking at picking up an OL. ;^)
I really like three staff targeting OL with 2 years left. That feels like the right stop gap approach to the time it will take to recruit and develop an OL considering where we are.
My man Sugar Shane staring at needing to win 9 games next year to keep his job, IMO.
Sucks for him, but yeah his seat is for sure going to be one of the warmest going into 2024.
I struggle to find 3 wins let alone 9 for Shane next year, here's USCe opponents:
@Clemson
@Alabama
@Kentucky
@Oklahoma
LSU
Ole Miss
Mizzu
aTm
@Vandy
It's one of the hardest jobs in the P5. They care, so its not Vandy or Northwestern or Indiana. They are in the bread basket of college football, so you have to win and fight off GA, Bama, etc for players in your back yard. It's a very tough job that 2 hall of fame coaches did "meh" with somewhat recently. I have heard that Frank encouraged Shane to take that job for 1 reason- the admins know how hard it is, so they will be patient- like Dave Braine was with him.
Based on Shane's first two years there are lots of places that would hire him if fired. I'd hate to give examples because I don't want Shane going certain places, but I could see him doing well at a lot of middle ACC schools.
That's not the full schedule. They open with ODU, Akron, and Wofford. Found three wins.
Klempsun is beatable. Kentucky is Jekyll and Hyde. Vandy is a guaranteed win. Ole Miss is hit or miss. Mizzery has the best WR in football and that's about it. And the Aggies will find a way to beat themselves.
9 wins is not out of the question.
Careful-I'm sure some people said the same about those two games that never happened in 1998 (Temple) and in 2010 (JMU)
Michigan State lost their entire QB room to the portal. Not sure if that was coach pushing out or they just wanted a fresh start away from that chaos.
Coaching change and Oregon St being left out in the P5 realignment cold most likely driving this.
For added context
a.k.a., pay me or I'm going to pro.
You got it lol
Not a surprise but now official
The QB market is hot and heavy this year.
As long as you can pay the $1.5 million NIL cover charge.
UNC OUTGOING TRANSFERS per Raleigh's News & Observer Thu 11/30
LB Jalen Brooks, JR Raleigh NC
Games played: (4) in 2022, (1) 2023 Eligibility remaining: 2 yrs
DL Kedrick Bingley-Jones: Charlotte Rated 4*, USA 12th best DT by 247. Games played: (7) 2022-23
RB Elijah Green: Started the last 5 games of 2022, led UNC with eight rushing TDs.
TE Komari Morales: 29 catches and 4 TDs in 2022, 11 receptions this season.
QB Jefferson Boaz: 6-7 3* recruit played against Campbell 2023, completing 1 pass.
A PK and P also transferring out.
6' 7"?!? QB? Had to look at his recruiting profile/HS tape. It looks ridiculous.
https://247sports.com/Video/jefferson-boaz-east-surry-hs-2018-junior-sea...
Throw some beef on him and give him the QB -> TE treatment
Fu would keep him at QB Paxton Lynch style
5 Hokies currently in the Portal
WR Christian Moss
TE Dae'Quan Wright
LB JR Walker
RB Bryce Duke
DB Nyquee Hawkins
Is there any talk of Fuga leaving? Odd twittertyX post yesterday:
https://x.com/jfuga01/status/1730323192198128007?s=46&t=zUnAY6L44dOK3ti8lpkItA
I thought he was a RS-Senior this year? Thinking he might be out of eligibility.
He still has one year left. COVID year I believe.
Correct. Redshirted '19, played '21-23
FWIW lots of players tweeted something similar. I think graphics department just getting some good shots to the guys for socials
Good name. I feel good about this one.
Interesting that he tagged Brent Davis
Bet Burmiester had a lot of great things to say about us.
Burmeister should have TONS of good things to say about Tech considering the favorable treatment he had here.
Sorry I forgot the /s. I'm sure he didn't have anything good to say about us.
That said, did you see where he made it to the final cuts for Chargers (as WR)? That dude is an athlete, same we/they couldn't get the best out of him.
Live look of our Portal philosophy of the year
Now we need to see this on the linebacker front
ASU's Drew Pine has entered the Portal. He is graduating and has 3 years eligibility remaining apparently- repeat that sentence out loud. So VT could have one of the many 7-8 year unicorn players we see constantly. We should pursue him with all of this experience.
anyone else tired of this shtick or is it just me
remember that time I quit TKP for a year?
Can confirm, sometimes this helps
Yeah dude it's not that fucking complicated. Red shirt year, 4 years, if you were enrolled in college athletics during the craziest year for the world in a long time you get a free year.
Meh.
There was a time when DC got on my nerves.
The older I've gotten and the further college football spins out of control, I've increasingly found myself reading his posts and their replies and thinking "why are you booing him, he's right."
I don't care enough about Covid eligibility one way or the other to have strong feelings about it, or strong feelings about reading posts about it. That's not the thing keeping Virginia Tech from getting back to 10 win seasons. So if he wants to make that the latest dead horse, he can have at it as far as I'm concerned. Besides, all you have to do to get him off of it is bring up something else that pisses him off.
We don't condone personal attacks.
For the life of me, I don't understand how DC is somehow the notable exception to this rule just bc folks don't agree with his opinion/tone.
The post is relevant. Sarcasm is encouraged here.
If you don't like it, just ignore it. The fact that this has 25 upvotes... SMH
This is hardly a personal attack. This is GGC doing his job as a Mod and trying to reduce noise. DC continually bring up this issue despite it having been clearly explained to him multiple times is noise.
I usually just roll my eyes and ignore it like you said.
It's a transfer portal thread. He's giving another example of an issue he's raised with the system. The fact that others don't share his opinion and are tired of hearing it does not make it noise. Nor does his sarcasm.
And it wouldn't hijack the thread if those who will never agree just ignored it. I don't have the time to do it, but I bet we could find 100 similar examples of community guideline violations being ignored just because the target is DC and SOME of his opinions are unpopular. I can't think of a single other poster who has every single word, comma, etc., criticized to this degree. I'm tired of THAT shtick. There is just as much "noise" on the threads from folks who are constantly attacking what are at least debatable arguments most times.
It's not a personal attack and it has 25+ upvotes because that many users are tired of it too lol
Where's your comment about the JMU QB below then?
Literally right there if you decided you wanted to look for it
My point exactly. It's his 4th school. We don't need a QB. Ltr complained about it. You didnt moderate that, but tacitly endorsed it. Therefore, it WAS a personal attack on DC. We all know it.
is anyone else just as lost as i am about this? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills
DC has earned every bit of moderation he's gotten on TKP (and probably even more). Comparing one comment of his head-to-head against one comment of Lieutenant Rob is silly and ignores the greater context of the comments.
Using these two comments of mine in a vacuum as some sort of evidence of "personal attack" does an injustice to the definition of "personal attack". What is it you're doing here to me then? Is asking if you're personally attacking me an example of me personally attacking you?
I've been side eyeing this all day and all I'll say is I think a personal attack and a grievance against someone are different things.
"Hey guy you suck because you are you"
"Hey guy you are being annoying because this has been talked about ad nauseum, but you keep making it a thing."
GGC I had been contemplating weighing in, but your comment forced my hand and 100% agree.
He's gotten more than the benefit of the doubt. But the same comments permeate across different posts, and are more than getting old. The "OMG 8 yrs eligibility" conversation is played out and disingenuous at best.
If anything, the leg up votes on some of the replies around his comments support a widespread feeling of the same. The transfer rules are the rules at this point and COVID year goes away next year, so build a bridge and get over it
Unfortunately the covid year won't go away until 2025 (because of redshirts) or 2026 (because of medical redshirts).
But it will become much rarer as those with the covid year age out and only 2020 enrollees age out as well. But there will still be outliers
Here's my thing. If you're gonna moderate, moderate. But a moderator shouldn't be throwing fuel on the fire.
Do I think your comment was a personal attack? No. Was it you picking up a stick and walking towards the bear? Yes.
If you think his comment is noise, tell him and remind him why it is. Then go about your day.
You're the mod, dude. Be the grown up. If you had simply done that, we wouldn't have a whole subthread about whether his comment was/was not noise or whether yours was/was not a personal attack.
You yourself created more noise than his comment did because you decided to be more abrupt than necessary.
This is a weird argument man. The idea that you can grab a single comment each from two people and make a grand conclusion about the history of their posts and the reasons behind the responses to them based solely off that just doesn't track well. Especially when the complaints are about a history of clogging up the board with similar complaints time and time again.
Also, ignoring everything else, even if you're right, "Please give it a rest" is not a personal attack.
Here's where I'm coming from. Is it annoying to read the same thing over and over? Sure.
But, saying "is anybody else tired of this shtick," aka, "this guy's shtick," is a personal attack. It's noise. It added nothing to the discussion. Or, it was a comment for the purpose of riling people up. Call it what you want. All of the above. A and B, but not C. Whatever. The point is we're not supposed to do that here.
But saying, he broke the rules first or he's annoying, or he's been given chances for other things in the past about totally unrelated stuff, so we get to stoke division here, doesn't justify it.
I don't know how to go back and link, but there's examples of his opinions getting downvoted into oblivion just for being negative when we objectively sucked at football. Even Joe had to weigh in at some point.
Again, I don't know how to link, but every time the guy comments, we have people scrutinizing every single word. And, in my view, it doesn't help this site when a moderator is, at least arguably, fanning the proverbial flames. My interpretation of the guidelines is if somebody posts noise (this had relevant content just like the JMU QB so it's not exclusively noise, but I digress), or an opinion you don't agree with, you don't downvote or attack them, or invite others to.
So to me, unless he breaks the guidelines, leave it alone. He did nothing that even comes close in his post. Just seems like we have a different set of rules for when DC comments vs everybody else and I felt like it needed to be addressed.
That's all I'm saying. So anyway, let's get back to discussing why FSU should be in over Washington, or how we're a few transfer OL away from our best offense since 1999.
I'm not mad at anybody and sorry for making y'all feel like you were taking crazy pills.
Go Hokies.
Yeah this is where I'm gonna suggest that i understand the CGs and what constitutes a "personal attack" better than you do and to please follow the well intended guidance of the moderator team and dont argue with me about a definition you're getting wrong
There are two users whose posts I insta-ignore now and it sucks because they could be writing some of the greatest posts ever but I'm just not going to read them.
Hmmm.....me and who else?
And don't worry, I don't write great posts.
his first year was a year later than G. Wells. So, by your definition, VT already has a unicorn in Wells. VT doesn't need another, but thanks.
VT also has Jennings, Fuga, Gosnell, Lane, Gallo, and Jenkins that would fall into this category as well.
SMH. That was the quickest thread lock in TKP history.
your feedback is duly noted, and issue is one that was done and dusted and moved past
so who is holding a stick and running at a bear? Who is generating noise now? Let it be and move along instead of doubling down and trolling for a reaction lol
Yep. Guilty as charged. At least I can admit it.
You locking the thread with blazing speed was just too damned funny. We get it. You don't like constructive criticism. You're a mod, though. So, keep doing what you want. It's not the first time I have called you out for letting your personal feelings get in the way of being a mod.
I was in the middle of a nice thought out reply but i didnt even get the chance to post it before you commented again, and then again, and now another edit on top.
I said your comment was duly noted. This one is too. Feel free to take it up with Joe
Step 1: Lock thread.
Step 2: Steal underpants.
Step 3:
Step 4: Then type up nice, thought out reply.
Being a moderator on an online forum to me is no different than being the president of one's fraternity. The job sucks, but someone has to do it.
GGC is about as fair a fella as one can ask for. Based on the inevitable human error rate and the volume of comments on this site, one can't get much better. No, GGC is not perfect but hes our guy and I'll take it. Allow me to quote Keith Gill, "I like the stock"
This right here. Let it go APFOW.
He locked the thread because he locked the previous one and the guy continued to engage. THAT'S why it was fast.
UNC landing Texas A&M QB Max Johnson to replace Drake Maye. Johnson has thrown for 5,853 yards and 47 touchdowns while completing 60.5 percent of his passes.
He'll fit right in at another under achieving program
Next week is going to be crazy, I think we hit the portal hard. We have a real chance to put together a special season in 2024 if we return our key playmakers and supplement through the portal where we need to. Must win in 2024.
Another QB in the portal, this time it's Jordan McCloud from JMU. Lost their coach and now their QB, can't wait to see them get blown out by an average team in the bowl game.
Betcha he winds up at indiana
On to his FOURTH school. South Florida, Arizona, JMU and now most likely Indiana.
And of course his waiver will be approved....unless this is his "graduate transfer" which will mean he doesn't need one.
To clarify...I have no problem with the eligibility rules. I am more fed up with the free agency aspect of being able to jump schools over and over again with the NCAA applying greatly varied results to waiver requests. My problem with this Wild West is mainly with the NCAA.
His coach is leaving so its automatic
Even with an "automatic" and freebie year (first transfer), it seems likely that he used his freebie, and does the coach change rule apply any time a coach changes (so you transfer to a program, play a year, coach leaves, so you transfer to another program, play a year, then that coach leaves - do you get to transfer penalty-free (meaning eligible immediately after you transfer that second time)?)
I mean, how else can you have gone to 4 schools (also potentially including graduating and the free transfer after that - can you get a master's in a year and graduate again?(full time, including summer sessions MAYBE?))). Sorry for all the parentheses!
Anyone tired of this, or is it just DC?
NOTE - not at all an attack on you, ltr, just proving my point from above. This post is relevant. Thanks for sharing!
The eligibility and transfer rules are pretty simple.
Eligibility Rules:
A player gets 5 years to play 4 years. A year of eligibility is considered used if the player plays in 5 or more regular season games. The year 2020 does not count. A player can receive a medical hardship waiver from the NCAA if the player plays in 4 or less games in a season due to a season ending injury.
Transfer Rules:
A player can transfer when the portal period is open. There are two portal periods: winter and spring. For a first transfer, a player can play in the next immediate season. For a second or any subsequent transfer, a player must sit out a year unless one of the of the following exceptions apply:
It's really not that hard.
I know the transfer rules. They're simple, albeit rather stupid. I wasn't commenting on them.
I was commenting on the selective moderation/purposeful violation of our community guidelines by engaging in personal attacks. See above.
Sure 5 to play 4 but you can legitimately be a 7th year senior. The numbers always work, right?
Dc is specifically saying that your predicated rule is not a thing currently. And that is f-ing stupid.
Every single player matches those rules. Just follow the trail. It's not that hard.
For Jordan McCloud, the facts are as follows:
From the looks of it, he can clearly show he is eligible for the medical hardship waiver. So, it seems like he can play in 7th year post HS.
Chaz, stop apologizing for nonsense:
You literally just agreed to "5 for 4" and you're talking about 7 and 9. It does not make sense. It is non sensical.
There is undoubtedly a bit of homer butthurt about immediate eligibility that we've never been able to benefit from but like college football should be like 4-5 years tops. Or else you get 35 year old kickers trying to prove that uva is awesome....
I literally gave the rules and showed how they applied. It's not nonsense.
It's 4 in 5 with exceptions. The exceptions are COVID year and medical hardship waiver. BOTH could be applied in McCloud's case. It's not that hard.
So 4 years out of 7 count but there is there is still eligibility even after a GRAD TRANSFER round year 5?
Yeah I get it. It's 5 to play 4 except for anything you want to whine about. The point of the argument, in case you missed it is the 4 year turnover is what makes college football good.
I dont think people are advocating that 7 years is ideal. Just that people are stating that the covid year really wonks up a lot of stuff. As upperclassmen age out, it won't be an issue anymore and it'll go back to 5 to play 4 with extenuating circumstances for medical redshirts. Some of which have benefitted us (which Chung was around forever? Justus Reed playing in his 7th year, etc)
Mr. Chumps I do believe we are beating the same drum. All I am saying and in support of what dc was saying is that 7 years is ridiculous. I get the one off rando lineman that's been horrifically injured now and again but 28year old sophomore Stetson Bennett (hyperbole) doesn't make sense
Didn't we have an offensive lineman who got two years of medical redshirt and got 6 years? I thought we did and thought it was David Wang, but he only was here 5 years. (This question is for you GGC - the rest below are just general related thoughts related to the whole multiple years of eligibility discussion)
I saw something saying that there was a 7th year player who was like one of 8. I mean, it's VERY rare, so why get so upset about it? 6 years isn't uncommon, especially with medical redshirts, especially for linemen who frequently redshirt their freshman year.
I mean, unless the kid is really trying to get a master's degree and want sports to pay for it or has gotten injured but still hopes to go pro, I sincerely doubt they WANT to stay in school so long.
And I hope people aren't complaining about the kids having a COVID year, where some schools played way less than a full slate, were sometimes playing against walk-ons, etc. 2020 was a massive shit-show that no kid should be penalized for.
Bottom line - seems like if people have an issue with kids being in school too long, they're devoting way too much brain time to it. My 2 cents anyway.
I think it was Kyle Chung was around for 6 years?
Tyrell Smith was one of eight FBS players playing his 7th season at the same school in 2021.
Looks he got a redshirt, medical redshirt, and COVID year which got him to 7 total seasons
This is just silly. It's 4 in 5 except for two exceptions. One that is rare and always existed (the medical hardship exception). And another that came about due to a pandemic. THAT's IT.
So, if either of those exceptions apply, then YES, you can transfer after year 5.
And, because essentially any player that played in that 2020 year gets an additional year, all those players can very easily utilize the grad transfer rule.
In reality, you can boil down your complaint to the fact that because of once in a lifetime pandemic, the NCAA felt it was best to give those players an additional year of eligibility. So, pinpoint your complaint: You wish the NCAA counted the 2020 year towards eligibility so that the expected turnover within 5 years was maintained.
And ultimately I think I agree with you and senor gobbles it's entirely a timing thing but I hear about a merc QB hitting the portal so that ND can have a reason to celebrate a 7-5 year after they realize nd ain't that good and I'm tired.
That's it. I'm tired. My 35 year old ads is tired of a stupid game and it's stupid rules. At the same time:
Let's go!
Edit: haha ads. That's supposed to be ass; I,e, pooper. (Did I do that right?)
Never been able to benefit from immediate eligibility less than a week after Daquan Felton, Bhayshul Tuten, and Kyron Drones led us to a victory over UVA?
Was talking about the Fuente era issues with some line men on medical transfer not wording out when unc gets a "5star" wr approved mid year for "reasons"
Whether that application makes sense we're talking about the seemingly unlimited eligibility of players weirding the depth charts
Wrong- it's 5 to play 5 now- not counting the 50 exemptions given. Grad transfer rule- you can play a 5th year if you graduate and transfer .
I thought that was just because of the COVID year? I thought the Grad Transfer rule was more about the old rules and not having to sit out a year. I was unaware that you could now play the extra year as a Grad Transfer so that is news to me.
I am pretty certain that is the case. If you graduate you can play a 5th year. 99% sure that is the rule- period.
Can you find this in writing somewhere and share?
Graduate transfer typically just means immediately eligible without having to sit a year. Unless you are counting the covid year, there's no 5 to play 5 just because you graduated that I'm aware of
It's still five to play four, I couldn't find anything that said you get a 5th year just for graduating. Link
I believe the ONLY thing that extends the 5 years is a medical redshirt (assuming you previously used a regular redshirt, because you still only get 4 years).
covid year for those who partake
Sorry, I meant other than COVID since that was a one time only thing. Probably should have said "normally" the only thing is a medical redshirt (with highly rare things like COVID being the exception).
Its rare... it also happens multiple times every year now lol. the FAU QB will be playing his 8th year.
And just like that, people didn't care about JMU football anymore.
They will just reload because of how much they outspend the rest of their conference. That said no one will care outside of the Sunbelt.
Yep. Mostly disgusted at the political stunt the VA AG took getting involved with their bowl status. What a waste of time and money, they got a bowl anyway, and then their coach bolts for greener pastures and roster is gutted to the portal.
Is their roster actually being gutted? How many do they have in the portal?
No, so far McCloud is only one and seeing news that Cignetti may still coach the bowl game. Looks like JMU now focused on Holy Cross HC Bob Chesney to replace Cignetti.
Go Huskies
Can we get back to following actual transfer portal activity, please?
No no I'm having too much fun personally attacking people
Classic Hackerman
Just so you know, I wasn't one of the 2 downvotes you got before locking the sub-thread above. I still disagree, but I apologize for my part in it. Maybe I took it the wrong way. I don't know DC. Never met him in my life. Just not at all bothered by his comment and didn't feel like the response was justified. You say your comment was well intentioned, per community guidelines. I didn't take it that way, nor did several others. I don't think our interpretation was unreasonable, but alas written words can be subject to misinterpretation. Such is if life.
I won't be commenting on that issue further, other than to say, I don't think it's appropriate for a mod to be able to say "I know more about the guidelines than you" and just lock a sub-thread thread. There is obviously some disagreement and it's not limited to the 2 of us. Look at the upvotes/downvotes. There are multiple on each side. So to me, if there is a question about what our community guidelines allow/don't allow, the community should be able to weigh in. Maybe that is a situation where we create another thread for it or have a private discussion. I dunno. Just seems important and like there's a better way for us to do it.
No more hijacking this thread by me. And again that wasn't my intent. Give us all the big uglies, DTs, and MLBers.
It's pretty clear to me you've conflated "singling someone out for moderation" with "personal attack", when the language of "personal attack" is there to avoid name calling, telling someone else to go screw themselves, slurs, and so forth.
Singling someone out for moderation is not the same as alum telling topher to go f himself in a game thread because of differing opinions on firing a coach
So yeah, I didn't say "i understand the rules better than you", but i absolutely did suggest that i understand what the CGs mean by "personal attack" and that you have grossly misapplied it in multiple comments in this thread. It's not really a discussion point -- there's no personal attacks anywhere in this thread. Not even where you indicated i was purposefully violating CGs 😃
So now I'm going to lock this subthread and hopefully we can all actually move on
Jaishawn Barharm, former Freshman All-American linebacker at Maryland entered the portal today. 6'3 240ish. Former blue chip from class of 2022.
Lead recruiter to Maryland was coach Brooks. Coach Pry was lead recruiter at Penn State.
Have to like our chances here. Or at least I would hope. Would be a MAJOR get.
Yes, this is the piece we need.
It's definitely one of a few that are readily identifiable. Unlike after last year, which could only be described as "where do we begin?"
We get this guy, a couple DTs, and/or finally see some meaningful snaps from Givens, I'd feel pretty good about the defense. Think we all know the offense just needs a few big uglies. Worst case just a center and some decent injury luck could do it. With the Moore Brothers at the guard spots and some of the young guys, we'd really only be looking at RT as the glaring weak spot.
Ohio State QB Kyle McCord in this morning
Ok, so now that their starting QB is out, they are not the same team and should be booted from the NY6, right??
OSU is going to be dropping a massive NIL bag to a transfer. Maybe Cam Ward or Dante Moore?
It's disgusting that this sport has turned into a place where the starting QB of a team that just missed out on the 4 team playoff who threw for 3700 yards and 27 TDs is forced to transfer out because the coaches think they can buy someone better from another school
It's shit like this, and the FSU screwjob that are REALLY turning me off to the sport right now.
Is there some reason to think that McCord is being forced out? If so, I missed it.
I read this as, he decided to go elsewhere (any reason), and so anOSU will fire up an NIL truck to get a quality backfill. Not that they proactively pushed him out so they could go shopping.
(I kinda figure they're always shopping anyway, but that's a different story.)
Word is OSU thinks they can do better and McCord was done starting there after the Michigan loss.
Plus they have a 5⭐️ qb coming in as well that they are high on. Interesting times we are in either way.
Day, after the Michigan game indicated that they would be "evaluating all areas" which most read as looking for a QB that won't throw two critical picks against Michigan. The OSU scuttlebutt all year was that McCord was propped up by his playmakers and that with Marvin Harrison Jr and a couple others gone, his flaws would be that much more apparent.
His entering the portal makes me think the coaching staff said something to the effect of "don't count on starting next year" and he opted to get out, get a bag and guarantee where he lands they intend to start him. The top QBs don't want to waste a bench year that could hurt their possible draft status since they can move without sitting out.
Ryan Day is never going to come out and say it, but the writing on the wall was clear here.
McCord wasn't going to be the starter anymore and with that, his NIL was gonna go Bye-Bye...nobody needs the backup QB as a spokesman.
The dirty side of the NIL process--but you know, it's all about helping these poor athletes...lol
Okay. I hadn't been following closely, and didn't pick that up in the initial two posts. Knock on me.
So, yeah, that's a fucked situation.
The situation is very fucked.
In the past, few if any coaches had the stones to pull Scholarships for fear of looking bad and possible effects on Recruiting. NIL has actually made it so much easier, because they just demote the player and the money dries up.
Also, while NIL collectives are "independent" from the University, if people really think that individuals within the Athletic Dept don't have a very large influence on the purse strings they are delusional.
So players like McCord could stick around, but they won't play and will watch others eat up the NIL money that was theirs--but that's gonna be a real difficult pill to swallow.
The "numbers always work out" predate the portal by decades. Lots of coaches including Beamer pulled or threatened to pull scholarships.
What is new is that they are pulling the scholarship for their starting QB, a 3rd team all big team performer. Is this helped by the portal and NIL, 100% yes. It's insane to drop your star QB because you think you can do better. But #7 buckeyes means that they aren't getting the ROI on the NIL.
Just to be clear he is a star player because he made the all big ten team, if Drones was honorable mention all-acc we'd be talking about how great he is and all-acc player.
True, it's not that schollies have never been pulled, but NIL has added a convenient level of plausible deniabilty for coaches.
And like you said, having starters culled from the roster is a new paradigm.
I wonder how much of this is like in a job where, in a lot of cases, you have to go get an offer for the salary you want to press your company into giving you a raise. Do some of these "portal entrants" enter the portal to get an NIL offer they can ask their school to match or they take the new offer?
World class educations, 250K scholarships, food, room, coaching, exposure, stipends, medical staff's, academic support weren't enough. Indentured servitude, ya know. So now we get the NFL- but with more lax free agency rules and no salary cap.
This argument held water when coaches weren't being paid $75 million to NOT coach and conferences weren't raking in $1 billion a year.
People are making all that cash on the backs of players and you're saying they should be happy because they got a "free" $250k piece of paper. A piece of paper that will be basically useless for the majority of them. It's not like an FBS football player is going to have the time to get STEM degree.
The current NIL system sucks, but exploiting players sucked too. There needs to be a middle ground.
So they shouldn't be in the Orange Bowl or nah?
Do we offer him some Hardies Coupons?
Oklahoma starting QB entering the portal.
Will cost a team 7 figures to sign him.
Jeez! This is getting ridiculous! I would hate to be a coach in this mess!
The Wild Wild West era is upon us.
McCord and Gabriel were both not going to start next year so they have to transfer.
Oklahoma backup this year was a true freshmen and is a STUD, and McCord was not very good this year.
The biggest shoe- Arch Manning has yet to drop. That's coming. My guess is Oregon.
I do sometimes wonder if a player thinks he is just going to supplant the incumbent based off his hype/ranking he has from the "experts" without being in program yet. I can appreciate the confidence of some of these prospects have, but some of the choices I see are sometime a little confusing, especially for those talented enough to start anywhere else but the incumbent is a really good player and confirmed coming back.
I get in today's portal world anyone can come and go, but IF Arch does enter transfer portal, this is no surprise whatsoever for me, even with all the hype he got last few years.
The difference is Arch can sit on the bench at Texas and wait while they still pay him 7 figures. They don't care about the money.
Arch is a lock to leave. His uncles and grandfather know that the long game is the NFL, and the NFL is about exposure and playing top competition. He is not sitting the bench another year- bank on that.
I'm not 100% sold on him leaving if only for this quote from Archie in this SI piece
That said, Ewers coming back could change things
The part that is left out of course is that Eli was not the hardest worker in the world until a dose of reality set in.
Oh yea, don't get me wrong, with NIL nowadays, I bet a lot of players don't care if they start (right away) as long as they get the bag. Or with some senior laden players, get the bag or just go to NFL.
This doesn't have to be specifically for Arch, but I do think some players actually buy into the things these coaches tell them during the recruiting trails that they will be starter within first years of being on campus.
Now with Arch, Texas could have just dropped the heaviest of all bags.
This is why I don't get the grumping about certain parts of the portal, especially for QBs.
You're pretty much only going to start one. If you aren't the starter next year, why should you just sit for potentially the rest of your career?
Go to the portal, either for NIL money or for opportunities to play.
There are 20 Elite 11 QBs in high school football in 2023.
Assume that is the case for all years, that means that there are 80 Elite 11 QBs in college football at any given time, perhaps up to 100, counting redshirts.
There are 133 teams, meaning there is always room elsewhere for a top tier QB
Right now with Covid year and redshirt closer to 120 with the next batch on its way so that puts you way down the team totem pole if you are closer to the bottom of that group and want a guarantee to play. I would guess 50 of those are at P2 schools though so gives guys some room.
Agreed, with you and 07Hokie.
Even if it's literally just a guy (not McCord or Gabriel) who literally just wants to get on the field because they love the game (hello JT Daniels) -- let 'em do what they want so they can play.
Shouldn't these student/athletes be hitting the library as exams are right around the corner?/s
No idea if we'd have a shot/can afford him but:
Highland Springs grad, USCe transfer.
Wow, 50+ new comments in the transfer portal thread! Wonder if we got a new commit or someth—
Nah, the holiday season just brings out the best in people... /s
Feels like we are buyers in the portal this year rather than sellers and I like it.
That number is Mind boggling. 2100 in would be an average of like 16 per school if it's just D1
It absolutely destroys HS recruiting. I feel bad for those kids. But now they are going to be paid to play too, so I guess it's not all unfair.
JUCOs too...Last Chance U (the basketball one) painted a bleak picture for guys looking to get to D-1 (the only place that schollies are always full-ride).
Probably why Netflix canned it...can't let anything out into the ether that doesn't make NIL and Transfer Portal look like a panacea for these players.
The challenge - for both the players and schools is that this is turning into NFL Free Agency if the NFL ONLY allowed 1 year contracts. Players and seek out a better situation and teams can move on from players after 1 year (which I understand was always the case). It must be damn near impossible for coaches to plan or develop anymore. And as always, the rich will get richer. Top programs have both more quanity depth and more NIL money to buy and retain it. Everybody else has to be really good or really lucky in free agency.
Like similar years, I'm waiting to see the statistics headed into next season. How many guys end up without somewhere to play when their program doesn't take them back, how many still can't crack the two-deep, how many find out the grass isn't greener. I'm fine with the portal, provides new opportunities. But man, it won't end well for so many.
It's cross the board and even guys leaving football looking for a landing spot in basketball, baseball and lacrosse etc. leaving football.
Did they do away with the limit on number of portal players a team can pick up? If not, or they did, but it was only a limited time, it seems like a decent number of players would wind up staying.
Still wonder for some of these players if declaring isn't just about trying to get a better NIL deal (like "I showed how valuable I am - pay me what I'm worth").
Thoughts are he is headed to Miami to play with his brother and get some U Bak NIL as a package.
So far I am still only seeing the same 5 guys in the Portal. Hasn't it been mentioned that with our scholarship count we would probably need to lose somewhere between 15-16 players in order to sign the guys we need from the portal as well as the next class?
Accurate. Really surprised there hasn't been entrants yet today. You would think they would want to get in early to get the most looks
Pry mentioned they're still scheduling talks with a bunch of players throughout this week. I'm gonna guess none of them are making decisions without at least talking to him first which is a good thing.
I haven't followed the new windows but don't you want to not xfer right now if you want to attend spring semester?
The portal window is open 30 days. There is time to enter, but perhaps opportunities diminish. You can enroll anytime up to about 1 week into the spring semester, but the cutoff would be dependent on the rules of the school.
I meant a 2nd window later after so you stay at VT to finish your spring semester.
ah, I'm not best at reading... Yes, the second window is for 15 days in the month of May, pretty much coinciding with graduation for schools that do semesters. It's prior to graduation for schools that do quarters.
At last count, I think VT was 7 over. That's counting incoming freshmen and assumes everyone that can come back is coming back. The 15 or so number that has been floated around assumes about 8 incoming portal transfers (similar number to last year).
VT may not need to trim the roster until after spring practice. That would depend on how many freshmen enroll early for spring semester.
In his press conference yesterday, Pry mentioned the 1-on-1 meetings are ongoing. I imagine we'll see some names enter the portal here soon. Players like Fuga, Gallo, and Wells could decide to hang it up and players like Tuten and Strong could enter the draft. There are still a lot of moving parts.
Let this sink in. Ohio State with 44 🌟 entering the portal just so far and apparently aren't done.
Day is going scorched earth to beat Michigan.
Heads gotta roll after the 3rd straight L to Michigan, unfortunately it appears to the be players'...
Crazy. You could fill the rest of with 3* and it still would be like one of the best recruiting classes Tech had ever had.
But....but.....they have Parker Lewis
They can't lose.
Loved that show.
We should pick up Parker Lewis.
Can't lose.
Bad evaluations? Bad development? Bad coaching? Or, are the players losing confidence in Day?
Personally, I think under Day OSU has gotten very soft on O and D. Too much of a finesse offense now too not built for a physical battle in the cold with a team like Michigan IMO, but talented enough to out-athlete the rest of the Big Ten for the most part.
Agreed Day is the issue. Departures like that signal red flags. Whether is too soft of scheme or development of soft players, it starts from top.
I will grant them that HS evaluations were overall bad from the COVID years and thus the star ratings have way more error baked into them than prior years.
none of the above.... other schools paying them to transfer
Are any from VA? Evan Pryor is from Nc.
Think we can either get or need any of those OL, LB?
If we can offer them enough money, sure.
We were in for him coming outta high school, played at Life Christian and a position of need
He isn't good. Very slow.
Bill and Mary's stud OLB/DE John Pius (from Arlington, VA) is now in the portal:
2022 CAA Defensive Player of the Year, x2 FCS All-American, other good stuff (Link Here). Arguably the best player in FCS, Micah Parsons vibes. Dream recruit for Pry and Marve.
Him and APR would be a filthy 1-2 combo next year.
Interesting tibit, teammates with LB Drew Babcock, Whit's son.
Hearing from reliable friends that we may see Tyler Baron in the portal (Jim Baron's nephew.) He has been very productive at Tennessee, but also has a reputation for being a bit of a malcontent.
Woody's little brother right?
The funny think about slippery slopes? They always come true. College's to pay players directly with no pretense will soon be here
https://twitter.com/NicoleAuerbach/status/1732050817350242747
There you go.
D1A vs D1B
Embedded tweet for easier viewing
Have to wonder what this does to conferences. Is this the ticket for FSU and Clemson to get out?
You do understand slipper slope is a logical fallacy, right? RIGHT?
This thread is getting a little cumbersome and it looks like the other shoe is starting to drop on the portal, does someone want to do another outgoing master-thread this year? I will volunteer to do an incoming one again, but I got too much shit on me doing the coaching carousel tables right now.
Don't want to add another link that has to load but go look at 2022 top 15 recruits for the state of Virginia and the number that are in the portal is crazy.
Time to bring them home
Locking this one up as we have successfully bifurcated the discussion:
Non-VT portal discussion: https://www.thekeyplay.com/content/2023/december/6/2023-non-virginia-tec...
VT-specific portal discussion: https://www.thekeyplay.com/content/2023/december/6/2024-vt-fb-portalscho...