Just going to have to see how all the dust settles. The fucked up thing is there is another window in May
Regarding Mayer... I'm not sure he'll test well, but he seems like the kind of player that will be impactful for 8-10+ years in the league. Maybe he slims down a bit, but he's too good not to be at least decent in the NFL. Ben fucking koyak stuck around for a bit.. Maybe he still is in the league idk
Listening to the rivals pod with James and Hansen. The national guy that had on said he's heard maye is thinking portal + Alabama
I was saving my "Michael Mayer will be a long-time NFL starter but only an average one" hot take for March, but it looks like someone beat me to it.
If Marcus Freeman is 6'1, then there's no doubt that Vernon is at least 6'5 if not taller...he towers over both of them
This is what I'm afraid of. It looks like Freeman managed to get the university to make some pretty significant concessions, but it's still not going to be enough if the schools that we already can't out recruit are just going to commandeer future top 10 picks every year.
yeah probably, but I'd rather be the ones who are maximizing the opportunity to exploit this dumbass system while we can get away with it.
The Playoff format is way more of a detriment to college football than NIL/Transfer Portal. The latter just add more glorious madness to a sport founded on madness. The former creates a trade off of previous huge games no longer mattering so that a larger number of moderately important games become slightly more important. It’s a god awful trade off.
My stance as well although I am not encouraged by what I see so far. Free agency like this is not good long term for CFB. I do not know what the right answer is yet, but I am not sure this is it.
going beyond 8 was just stupid. That said, I think you are also missing the rematches, importance of conference championship games and the massiveness the end of the season will be for 2 loss teams. The 4 team playoff as an example, compared to the bcs era nd vs usc had a much bigger national impact.
Hope is a hell of a drug - hope that some kid turns into a program changer or that the right system makes you a draft pick will temper as the data come back
Not disagreeing but millionaires funding this madness (the nonsensical portal shit is almost assuredly nil based) generally are. If there aren’t huge deals to be had by moving, I think a lot of the movement slows down.
True I don’t know boosters really. I do spend a good amount of time with millionaires and the only thing they hate more than taxes is negative roi.
D3 with a positive update on Micah Bell and Peyton Bowen (though this is just repeating what he said before)
They'll burn money on a status symbol though. Otherwise no one would own a yacht. And I imagine being the guy that underwrites Alabama's free agent class checks that box in a pretty big way. At least for the time being. I could certainly see the novelty wearing off.
Rivalry week - which is generally the best week of the year - becomes totally unimportant for any top 5 team. Same with Championship week for any of the higher seeds. Logic would dictate kids actually sit out those games.
Beating your bitter rival and winning a conference championship shouldn't be "unimportant." This isn't the NFL where Chicago plays Green Bay twice a year and a Week 17 game doesn't matter when you lock up a playoff spot. Pretty much every team in America's (except ND) goals are: 1. Win your conference championship, 2. Beat your rival, 3. Win a national title. You really think Michigan would have sat its starters last week against OSU and then again against Purdue this week knowing they were in even with a loss in either game? My best friend is an OSU grad who texted me he's rooting hard for USC tonight, because a national title in a year they lost badly to Michigan again would be worthless so he doesn't even want the chance.
I think sitting starters is a stretch, but I absolutely do think an expanded playoff moves college much closer to the NFL model and minimizes the importance of rivalry games, big OOC games, surprising upsets, etc. And I don't believe your friend is telling the truth.
The culture of it all will slowly change toward none of that stuff mattering. The Playoff already proved that with Bowl games. It will with rivalries and conf champ games eventually too (especially when there’s only two conferences). We are slowly just replicating the NFL.
I wonder how this affects coaching/player development/talent evaluation. Like the Cincinnati’s and Boise States of the cfb world are dead in the water. How can a coach ever prove themselves as program builders, talent developers/evaluators when their best guys bail after 1-2 years, and they’re constantly starting over. I don’t think you’re going to see that dynamic of a veteran/upper class laden non P5 team that rises to compete with the trad powers every so often, they’re just gonna get scalped by the “NFL finishing school” programs like USC. Yeah if you’re a USC/Bama it’ll work out fine, but this is a tax on the poor no doubt about it.
Cross-regionalization of conferences (e.g. USC and UCLA joining the Big 10) is a much bigger threat than playoffs expanding. Texas not playing Texas A&M hurts more than a 5 vs. 12 playoff game where Michigan hosts Florida State in Ann Arbor two weeks after playing their hearts out against OSU The BCS was going to ruin college football, then the playoffs, then the expanded playoff..
The thing that makes me think Bowen is all but gone is Brandon Drumm always mentions how he is in constant communication with Jackson Arnold and that a “very, very close source” keeps telling him Bowen is going to flip to OU.
They made a big deal about not putting Angelli in for garbage time against BC to save his redshirt and keep him free for USC/bowl game. I bet this was planned/known.