Some of the following predictions I made when the portal was just beginning and others when the NIL was conceived. This one is new..... College recruiting as we know it will end. There is no purpose to it any longer. I think we can assume that the 4 and 5 stars are choosing teams based on the financial package and perks that they can get. I don't think education, love for the particular school or long-term ramifications in the job market play much of a role in the decisions these kids make. It's all about the money, there here and now. You can't convince me that any 18 year old driving an $80K car, wearing a $2000 suit and covered in bling with a 7 figure bank account and ongoing endorsement income is thinking long term. Everything happening at present bears this out. Best case scenario is you have them for three years and then they are gone. If they come up against any headwinds they are gone. If they catch word of a better financial package they are gone. The recruiting expense and process is too time consuming and costly to justify the end results. So all graduating high school players will put their name in an eligibility pool run by the NCAA. Talent evaluators will assign a talent level and remuneration package value to each of them. They will come up with some kind of giant draft which every participating school will be a part of. Schools will be responsible to come up with the money to buy players. Many schools we either leave the NCAA as it is constituted now or will drop football altogether. Agents will become a part of the game, representing players as young as 17. The players will unionize and form a collective bargaining agreement. Bowl games, as we know them will be discontinued. The games we are about to suffer through will be "Exhibit A" as we watch teams gutted by the portal and the promise of the NFL competing against one another with makeshift lineups. They will be replaces with an NFL style playoff system for about 20-24 teams. Players will be offered huge playoff payoffs per game to encourage competition and discourage early defections. Many of the current big name coaches will attempt to jump to the NFL initially as they realize they have lost their autonomy and institutional control. Educational opportunity will be assigned a dollar value which a player can use or convert to cash. The silver lining will be increased openings in schools for truly deserving students. Connections between the football team and the university will be purely a business relationship, a marketing partnership. Players will all have four years of eligibility, period. That will be the only way to try to achieve NFL-type parity. The era of the 24-25 year old QB will soon end. Those are my predictions. Have at them.
Probably at least 80% right. I'd say they will ENCOURAGE the players unionizing... that's the only way a governing body can get a grip on them and force any kind of compliance. A union contract can spell out transfer and other rules.
Add up every college football player who appeared in the transfer portal over the course of Monday, and you get a grand total of 1,127. That represents a 44 percent increase from the previous record-setting day of 780 entries on Dec. 5, 2022. In the next few days, the number of FBS scholarship players available in the transfer portal will surpass 1,000. How packed is the transfer portal after all of Monday’s entries? Here’s a breakdown of the 901 uncommitted scholarship players by position: Quarterbacks: 85 Running backs: 78 Wide receivers: 149 Tight ends: 51 Offensive linemen: 136 Defensive linemen: 104 Linebackers: 100 Defensive backs: 174 Specialists: 24 Eleven FBS programs lost double-digit scholarship players to the portal on Monday. South Carolina led the way with 15 players moving on after a 5-7 season, though only three of them started games this season. NC State, Vanderbilt and Western Michigan all lost 14 on the day, and Cincinnati was right behind them at 13. Only two Power 5 programs have had zero underclassmen enter the transfer portal so far in this cycle: Michigan and Northwestern. Who’s got it better than them?
In 2023, there are 133 FBS teams. If each team has filled its 85 scholarships, that's a total of 11,305 scholarship athletes. The current total of portal entrants (per Terry) is 1,127, roughly 10% of total scholarship athletes, an average of roughly 8-9 athletes per FBS team. Terry's numbers above show a few "maximums". How many of those are "key" players? How many are athletes who haven't seen, and likely won't see, significant playing time? I submit that to assume the cataclysmic changes projected above is to assume that the tail will wag the dog. I'm not into projection based on conjecture. I prefer to see actual results. As I've said before in other conversations, time will tell.
Well, I'm into projections. I look at trends and their potential outcomes. Not everything I predicted may come true but every one of them are real possibilities and some are likely very soon. If I had told you ten years ago that any of what we see happening now was about to happen what would you have said? It is getting easier to predict these things as the game has unabashedly been driven by money and everything else is a distant second.
This was a news blurb on the sports feed this morning. If true it's outrageous. Marvin Harrison Jr. has been offered NIL deals that would “compete” with what he would receive as a Top 5 draft pick, as in anywhere between $20-$25 million in total cash. Harrison is still thinking about coming back to Ohio State, as he wants to beat Michigan and win a Big Ten Championship.
Question; Is all this NIL money what it's supposed to be (players marketing their name and "likeness" while companies use them in commercials and advertisements to push their own brands) or is it money being funneled by rich boosters wanting the players to come or to stay, under the fake guise of "supposedly" using their name and likeness. How many of you have seen ads with these kids? OK I saw a couple for the real well known athletes but this ain't Mean Joe Greene throwing the jersey here. What I'm saying (Mr. Obvious again) is that this is clearly the players getting paid to play and is not about marketing their popularity. I'm not even saying that it's wrong...just that it's disingenuous.
Stu... there are some ads, but by and large its just money being paid to get/keep the kids without any actual reason other than pay to play at school X.
I just drove through coastal Georgia and saw a couple of billboards for an insurance company with a picture of a Bulldog football player. It was no one you would recognize. The implication was that this kid was endorsing the insurance company. That is all I've seen.
As a prime example of how hard it is to build depth at QB in the portal era, like Malik Murphy at Texas who in usual times still be at Texas, but the impending return of Quinn Ewers has sent him to the portal looking to be the starter next year. Well USC is going to bring in a Portal QB, some say Will Howard from KState, to be next years starter has triggered a young QB back to leave rather than stay and wait his turn. USC quarterback Malachi Nelson, the No. 1 recruit in the 2023 class, told the Trojans' staff he is entering the transfer portal, sources confirmed to ESPN on Sunday. Nelson was committed to Oklahoma out of high school, until he decommitted on Nov. 28, 2021, when coach Lincoln Riley left the Sooners to take the same job at USC. Nelson then flipped his commitment to the Trojans to play for Riley.
FWIW virtually everybody expects Irish backup, Steve Angeli, to bolt after the bowl game. These transfer QB, like Riley Leonard don't come unless they are given the starting job. They aren't coming to compete for it, they expect a certain amount of NIL and the job. It's well known that Sam Hartman got 1M or more and was guaranteed the job. He reportedly became good friends with Tyler Buchner and told Tyler that he was guaranteed the job and that is one of the reasons Tyler bolted for a semester at Alabama. From what BuckeyeT said the lack of guarantee of starting, ie having to earn it again, and the NIL money were big reasons why McCord has bolted for Nebraska. Also I've seen stuff that indicates the Buckeyes are interested in bringing in a Grad transfer QB like Cam Ward from Washington State. Have you Buckeyes seen anything on this?
I think he has to for depth purposes if nothing else....it wasn't that long ago we won the Natty having to use our 3rd string QB. We have very, very limited experience at the position. Devin Brown, this years back up is a RS FR and missed alot of reps this year due to injury. A true FR Lincoln Kienholz and a much anticipated incoming recruit Air Noland in the 24 class. That's it...we also have a grad transfer available for the bowl game this year but you're right, developing and maintaining quality depth in the age of the portal and NIL is almost impossible.
Wed is National Signing Day. The Composite Top 10. 1. Georgia 2. FSU 3. Ohio State 4. Alabama 5.Fla 6. Texas 7. Miami ...Cristobal hasn't done much on the field in his 2 years but he is recruiting. 8.Oklahoma 9.Oregon 10. Notre. Dame
"Air" Noland? Could his parents possibly have foreseen that he'd be a highly recruited HS QB? Or did they anticipate he'd be the second coming of Michael Jordan?
Real name Prentiss Air Noland. Got his name apparently from his Dad who was known as Air Jordan in high school. Great name, I just hope he can play. Many knowledgeable Buckeye followers believe the kid has a shot to start next year. I'll believe it when I see it....
I can't remember the number of times "knowledgeable/wishful" Irish fans thought that the incoming "highly rated" QB would be the starter as a freshman. Phil Jurkovec is the last one I remember though, he did have a great HS career for sure, and many were thinking he'd be the best QB when he stepped on campus. He ended his career at Pitt by moving to TE. I'm sure it's happened that a freshman has started from day 1, just right now can't think of one.
I only remember one in Columbus, Art Schlichter in 1978. Didn't work out so well. He threw 5 picks in the opener and Woody got fired at the end of the year for conferring in his own special way with the Clemson kid about why he intercepted the pass to kill off the game winning drive in the Gator Bowl.