So we need a new topic! National Signing Day part 2 is this week, Wed. There won't be much action, although there are still some big time names that are unsigned. Jordan Burch a 5 star DT who verballed to So.Carolina but did not sign with them in Dec is the biggest name out there unsigned. Zach Evans a stud RB, but somewhat troubled, signed with UGA and then they released him from his LOI. I'm not sure he's eligible to sign another LOI on Wed, he might be one of those kids who you'll know for sure when he actually enrolls at a College, maybe Texas A&M. Avantae Williams is the only other top 100 player who will be signing with somebody...The Gators are the likely one. Teams are right now in Winter Conditioning, getting bigger stronger and faster! Irish Spring Game is likely to be April 18th. Also I saw an article on The Athletic where they re-rank the class of 2016 based on how their college careers went. Clemson was re-ranked from #11 to #1 Alabama was re-ranked from #1 to #2 Florida was re-ranked from #12 to #3 Notre Dame was re-ranked from #15 to #4 UGA was re-ranked from #6 to #5 Michigan was re-ranked from #8 to #6 Minnesota was re-ranked from #46 to #7 ..obviously the biggest move of any school Ohio State was re-ranked from #4 to #8 Utah was re-ranked from #37 to #9 Washington was re-ranked from # 29 to #10 Their criteria... The point system we’re using for this is no different than in past years. Much like the recruiting industry’s five-star rating metric, we’re using a basic 0-to-5 scale. 5 points: All-American, award winner, top-50 NFL draft pick 4: Multiyear starter, all-conference honors 3: One-year starter or key reserve 2: Career backup 0: Left the program, minor or no contribution To track how these classes fared, we’re counting 2016 scholarship signees, transfers who joined the program in 2016 and walk-ons in this class who were later put on scholarship or developed into starters. Each player in a class gets a score from 0 to 5 points based on what they’ve achieved during their playing careers. The intent here is not to project what they might accomplish in 2020 if they’re returning as fifth-year seniors but to stick to what they’ve proven so far. These classes tend to end up with roughly 25 signees, but some signed many more and some ended up with significantly fewer. Because recruiting classes vary in size, we focus on the class average (total points divided by total signees). The hit rate listed with each class is the percentage of signees who did not leave the program via transfer, dismissal, ineligibility or injuries. Players who got their degrees and chose to become grad transfers are not deemed misses. In addition to evaluating production and retention, our rankings also weigh a program’s success during this four-year period. We add a bonus to each team’s average, derived from its total number of wins from 2016 through 2019. Thus, the adjusted average for a class is its average score plus its wins bonus. For example, LSU went 42-11 over these four years, so its class average received a bonus of 0.42.
I'm pretty sure the Aggies are not pursuing Zach Evans. RE: the rankings... The word "rank" is in there for a reason.
Looking at the top QB's from Patrick Mahomes year, 2014...it's a forgettable bunch. Kyle Allen was #1, didn't do much and bounced around in college a lot. Will Grier was #2, was kicked out of UF, and did well in college at WVA, so far a backup in the NFL. Keller Chryst was #3, has had OK career at Stanford, but nothing special. David Cornwell was #4...who's he? Drew Barker was #5 ....Milk Carton? Jacob Park was #6...working at Chik Fil A? Brad Kaaya was #7...Feeding the Dolphins in Key West? Sean White was #8 ...Up and down, mostly down, Gus Bus kicked him off the team eventually. Clayton Thorson was #9 ...He actually had a good career at Northwestern but most of us don't know that. Caleb Henderson was #10...Serving Pulled Pork in Chapel Hill? Any way you have to go down to #22 to find Patrick Mahomes.
Kind of an interesting article on the expense of being an elite level program. Georgia spent 3.7M dollars on recruiting last year. Smart makes 7M/year, his staff makes 6.4M/year and they spent 3.7M on recruiting. Somebody on another board put it in perspective. Those three amounts add up to $17.1 million per year. That's $5 million less than Georgia allocates to its Department of Veterans Service each year. It's $15 million more than Georgia allocates to its Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities. It's nearly $4 million more than Georgia allocates to its Department of Public Health. All three of those organizations do much more to help the people of Georgia than UGA's football team does. You'd think influential government leaders would eventually get involved in the ridiculousness that NCAA football has become. _______________ Football recruiting expenses jumped more than $1 million to $3.7 million in the most recent fiscal year. The Bulldogs already led the nation in the previous fiscal year—by $250,000 more than Alabama—according to numbers reported by USA Today. Clemson reported spending $2.2 million on football recruiting and Oklahoma $1.28 million for the 2019 fiscal year. Georgia’s football recruiting spending in fiscal year 2019 is more than five times what it was in fiscal year 2014. Georgia spent nearly two and a half times more money in fiscal year 2019 recruiting football players than it spent recruiting athletes for its other 20 teams combined. Football support staff spending was $5.6 million, up from $4.9 million. _______________________________________________ Georgia athletics shows robust surplus but football spending drives increase in expenses
I'd be curious the source of the coaches' salaries and recruiting $. If it comes from donations to the athletic program, it's not coming out of taxpayers' pockets and therefore not taking money away from worthwhile social programs. If it's coming from tax dollars, then the concern about misplaced priorities is valid.
Oh my... recruiting isn't quite over, and apparently we had a couple of scholarships held back for some significant adds. 4 star DT McKinnley Jackson and 4 star RB Darvon Hubbard finish out the 2020 class. Phew... big finish for Jimbo!
I would like to tag onto what Sid said. I've mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. The state of Texas allows ZERO state funds to be used for college athletics. ALL of the money for our state school AD's comes from revenue or donations.
I think the point is not that tax dollars are coming out of some social fund, but that how society values things like Football over helping less fortunate. You could argue that all those donors who funnel millions into their favorite team, could just as easily funneled them into a program that helps the less fortunate. Now to be fair it very well could be that those rich boosters also do lots of good thing with their money and that giving to their college is only part of it.
I wonder if there are any Div 1 programs that get tax dollars or University funds? It would seem to me that at least the money that comes into the Power 5 programs through the Conference Networks and other TV deals, along with ticket sales, concessions, merchandise, advertising, rich donors, etc...they are are all self sustaining. Plus the money that flows into the Ath Depts from football funds all those minor sports that generate little or no revenue. I wonder how Texas State, Stephen F. Austin, Sam Houston, UTSA, etc make it...they don't have TV contracts, they probably don't generate a lot of ticket sales or other revenue streams. Where do they get the funds to support their sports programs?
I've heard, but don't know for a fact that L$U is funded by the state. Easy answer to your question Terry: Pay for play games. It's why you see the FCS teams and the smaller FBS teams so willing to get their brains kicked in by the Power 5. Getting paid $1.5 million to play in a big stadium goes a long way for them.
That's surprising. LSU has 100K fans at every home game, probably sell tons of gear, concessions, advertising,etc. Then there is the money that comes from the SEC Network, what's that 30 or 40 million a year or more? It seems like, esp in the SEC, there should be no teams getting state money.
Pretty good breakdown of Alabama football budget. Interesting that only football and basketball make money. What you learn reading Alabama’s $164 million budget
I didn't quite understand why that article said Alabama listed only 79 football schoarships but that 99 football players received athletic aid.
Terry, Grier wasn't kicked out of Florida but the coach wouldn't agree to his, and his fathers, demands that he would automatically be given the QB job back when he came off probation. It actually hurt our program as we struggled at the QB position for years and it may have cost Coach Mac his job. But it was the right thing to do. I think Grier may yet become a good NFL QB.
I don't know what the distinction between "scholarship" and " athletic aid" is. Maybe there are 79.5 on scholarship but 99 receive the new pay that is allowed. I don't know.
"Florida was re-ranked from #12 to #3" ..... maybe Mac knew more than we were giving him credit for. Bill is correct on Will Grier. He left on his own but many including myself think Mac was short on diplomacy and how much he needed Will Grier. It was key to UF's success to keep Grier.
One of the things that has come up with regards to recruiting at ND, is that Kelly wants to use private air travel to assist the Irish in being more efficient in recruiting. The Clemson coaches visited ND last year and that was one thing they noted that they did that made them more efficient than the Irish in recruiting was using private air travel rather than booking commercial flights. It's of course stirred up the Irish fans as they think Kelly is just too lazy to get out there and work and he's using the lack of access to private air travel as an excuse for his recruiting effort. Turns out that at Florida that Dan Mullen not only uses private air travel but he also uses helicopters to get around cities when he's there, so he can be more efficient in getting to all the high schools he wants to visit. I wonder how many of the top recruiting schools are now using private air travel and adding in helicopter flights in bigger cities. I know under Sumlin A&M used a helicopter quite a bit, called it the Swagcopter. With more and more schools going national in recruiting. The number of players from So.Cal/West Coast coming to the SEC is increasing, and I know Texas is going out of state more as well. ND has always recruited nationally. Florida’s Dan Mullen says helicopter recruiting not just for show, but also not for everybody