So I thought I'd try this to get the chatter in one place. Transfers, rules changes, general recruiting, who's leading in the Fulmer Cup, etc! Recruiting is in full bloom, May evaluation period is big in recruiting. Back in the Day at the end of the May evaluation period Mr. Feb aka Mack Brown was pretty much finished with recruiting. Right now OU is atop the Rivals team rankings. 1. OU 2. Alabama 3. FSU 4. UGA 5. Miami 6. A&M 7. Clemson 8. Mich 9. Ole Miss 10. Ohio State I'm more than a little surprised at how well Ole Miss is doing given that they are on probation, had a ton of players leave because they were allegedly lied to by the previous staff and it's hard to imagine all of that negativity resulting in a good class this year...but it is. At Texas most guys are pretty happy with the way recruiting is going for the Longhorns right now. They are especially happy that Herman is looking outside the state at top talent rather than just taking Texas kids. Mack rarely went out of state. Feeling is that Herman is going after the best kids he can get rather than settling for a good Texas kid. At Notre Dame most guys are happy with the overall recruiting (2019) with the exception of no QB yet in this class and our top 2 targets at RB both verballed to Ohio State. Mark Richt is continuing to rebuild the Miami program with recruiting he had a great class last year and has another great class building this year. He's taking advantage no doubt of the turnover at HC at UF esp. You have to assume that MacElwain's troubles affected the recruiting and Richt was able to slip in there with some of the UF kids, while Willie Taggert has deep roots in Fla and was only gone for a year so didn't have to rebuild things at FSU even though he didn't have a good transition class, he's hot right now.
Looks like all the Ole Miss kids who left will be eligible immediately at the schools they transferred to after the probation. I think the WR who went to Florida is the last one and he's expected to gain his eligibility pretty soon. We have a kid here at UofH who is an Ole Miss transfer and he got his eligibility and will be playing this fall. I don't know where the transfer/eligibility thing is going. There is a push to allow kids to transfer and play again right away in a lot of cases, it'd be good for the kids in someways and allow them to have a do over if things don't work out for them at their first choice for what ever the reason. The problem of course is that changes in rules could create a free agency for college players without any controls and while again it might be good for the kid, it'll hurt the game overall. The Grad transfer deal is going on right now, Texas picked up a RB from CAL who could be the starter in the fall. I see that Saban is blocking a Alabama kid from a list of schools, mainly the SEC and future Alabama non-conf opponents. Some people feel that is unfair, and it's certainly done by lots of schools. While nothing official was ever said, when Everett Golson transferred to FSU there were rumors that he wanted to transfer to Texas But that Kelly blocked him since they were the opening game. I'm of the opinion though that if you graduate, you're a free agent and if you transfer to some rival, well you earned the right to go where you want.
It doesn't seem right that a school should have any control over where a graduate does his post grad studies. Then again, players have considerable knowledge of what's in a teams playbook and terminology. When they go to an opponent on the next season's schedule it does present some problems.
I don't really think a players knowledge of the playbook is a big deal, first it's probably not as great as you might think. But still even so, NFL players go to division rivals and other teams on their schedule all the time, doubtful that those players knowledge of the former teams playbook has much if any impact on the outcome of the games.
Well Alabama has now added a home and home with Texas. That's in addition to the home and home with Notre Dame announced earlier. Should be fun.
There is a big difference between the NFL and college ball regarding player movement. The NFL is a year round business. There is plenty of time during the off season meetings, the camps and then 4 weeks of exhibition games to make major changes. Compare that to the college game where changes can be made during a few weeks in August.
Well, sure the NFL is a year around business. But still I doubt that the teams make major changes in response to players coming and going with knowledge of the playbook. James Harrison went from Pittsburgh to NE towards the end of the season last year and he had a lot of years in Pittsburgh. NE won in that game with the controversy over the catch/td that was overturned not because Harrison gave them all his inside information. The Pats had hours and hours of film on what the Steelers do, and they were the better team thanks to the rules interpretation. I have no doubt coaches worry about those things, but there is so much player movement it would seem to me that it's not in actuality a big deal. I seriously doubt the Wade Phillips makes changes to his defense other than the usual tweaks that everybody does no matter what. Maybe change the signals. College kids probably are even less helpful to their new team than any NFL veteran could be. But as I said I have no doubt coaches worry about these things, they are a paranoid bunch.
Alabama/Texas home/home...WOW. That's a terrific series in the making. I hope a retired Nick Saban will be in the stands for that one. ND/Alabama had some great games back in the day. USC going to Alabama when the Bear was there and beating them with some great players who happened to be black hastened the integration of the SEC. USC is coming to Austin this September, another great intersectional game. The ND/Texas game in Austin set an all time attendance record. People/fans love big time matchups.
I notice no one mentioned who Texas dropped to put Alabama on their schedule. That's right football fans UCF. Guess Texas wanted to soften their schedule and Bama wanted to make sure that they could claim UCF has an easy schedule. It's so obvious. :lol:
Well the creative Jim Harbaugh will be taking the UM football team to South Africa next year after Rome 2 years ago and Paris this year. Obviously this has become a tradition. RIP Heisman winner Dr. Billy Cannon. He was a great college player at LSU, played both ways. I saw him play for the Houston Oilers in his first 2 seasons of the AFL and win 2 AFL Championships. He had financial problems after football even though he had a successful orthodontic practice in Baton Rouge due to bad investments and ended up in a counterfeiting scheme that sent him to prison. He finished his dental career as a prison dentist at Angola. RIP.
Well the creative Jim Harbaugh will be taking the UM football team to South Africa next year after Rome 2 years ago and Paris this year. Obviously this has become a tradition. RIP Heisman winner Dr. Billy Cannon. He was a great college player at LSU, played both ways. I saw him play for the Houston Oilers in his first 2 seasons of the AFL and win 2 AFL Championships. He had financial problems after football even though he had a successful orthodontic practice in Baton Rouge due to bad investments and ended up in a counterfeiting scheme that sent him to prison. He finished his dental career as a prison dentist at Angola. RIP.
I see that transfer season is underway, and Clemson has lost a couple of guys. Including the 5 star #1 QB from the 2016 Class in Hunter Johnson of Brownsburg Indiana. He's reportedly talking to Northwestern and Purdue. I'd like to see him at Purdue myself, Jeff Brohm probably better at developing QB's.
Tua Tagavolua is preseason first team All SEC according to Athlon. I hope he makes first team Crimson Tide too!
I think I've seen Tua as the leading Heisman candidate as well... pretty amazing for one really good half of football!