To be completely honest, I couldn't possibly care less about the roster. I never did. I couldn't name you 5 guys off the 2019 roster. I don't think I could name you 1. I might not be able to name you 5 guys off of last years roster outside of the QB.
You could tell me that all 85 guys we have on the roster today will be swapped out on August 1st, and I'm still going to watch whoever is out there on the first game day.
College football has always been transient. If you are really into individual players for whatever reason, then, yeah, this sucks for you.
But I really don't see how this makes it all that different from before. Players always come in, they play, they go, they are replaced by a whole new crop. Rinse and repeat every 3-5 years. Instead, now it's every 2-3 years. Not the end of the world.
And again, I don't see why you downplay the fact that our competitors are in the same boat. If everyone in CUSA loses their 5 best players every year, then no one has really lost anything and the playing field is level.
You will still win or lose based on your coach's ability to coach and recruit.
You might look at it as 2-3 years vs. 3-5 years but it goes much deeper than that in my opinion.
I used to help run this site when it first launched. I followed recruiting fervently. I had connections with the coaching staff who would tell me who they were targeting and I would call those kids and their families and talk to them for sometimes a few minutes and sometimes a few hours. When we would secure a commitment, I would get a phone call and asked to keep it hush or do the exact opposite, call the kid and get a front page story on GoMiddle. I was knee deep in recruiting you could say, all while being a student. It was an exhilarating experience and so damn cool to watch those kids then come and develop over 4-5 years. Some flamed out, some became superstars, most became serviceable young men playing college ball and just enjoying the college life.
Kids used to sign and stay at one school for 4-5 years. The implications of this ran deep. They spent their entire college experience at MT (unless they left of course or went to grad school after, but rules were not friendly to those who left so it essentially never happened). Being here 4-5 years as a young adult gave them a great environment to become young men. And I shared this experience because I lived it too (Took me 5.5 years to get my Bachelors!). Often times, the players families would even become ingrained in the community. Many would move here, sometimes permanently, and many still live here to this very day going back to the early 2000's when I was in school. The players and their families really became a part of the community.
With signing day, you could get excited about the prospects because you figured in 2-3 years you would see the fruits of their labor. If you landed some great prospects, you could almost always keep them. See players like Kevin Byard, Richie James, Dwight Dasher, Jordan Ferguson, Reed Blankenship, and I'm sure many more I'm forgetting. If you had enough of these key players at the right time, you could really go on a run if you don't have a bone head coaching staff. Even still, we won many games with Stockstill as coach and those great players in spite of the coaching staff. You'll never see MT go on the road again and beat an SEC team like Missouri or ACC team like Miami. They will just steal all our players before we can become strong enough to do that.
Football now (and basketball) is just a bunch of hired mercenaries. Players no longer come to school to be a part of the culture and build a career/life. I can tell you with absolute certainty that players at MTSU used to look at the NFL as their next stepping stone. Even the back-up DB's thought they were going to "The league." I'll never forget riding home from a long night of drinking and one of the DB's in the back seat talking about how they were going to the NFL. They were barely 2nd string at the time (but did eventually start). Now, kids don't look as the next stepping stone as the NFL. They are looking for the Power 5 offer and the Power 5 money, then the NFL. I can't tell you this with absolute certainty, but my intuition tells me these kids are not coming to Murfreesboro anymore with a plan to be there 4-5 years while they prepare for their next phase. Staying in Murfreesboro is definitely not the plan anymore.
MTSU (and schools like it) are glorified JUCO's now. For me, it's not interesting watching the best players leave every off season. Losing our whole OL a few years ago was devastating. Losing our whole DL this off season WILL be devastating for this upcoming season, mark my words. I can tell you with a great deal of confidence that losing Jaylin Lane + our whole OL ended up costing Rick Stockstill his job (Silver lining, but still bad from a results perspective).
It's not interesting or fun to me when I see the Power 5's take all our best players and then dump their busts on us in the hopes that all they needed was a little playing time. Because history shows that is almost always not the case. They left X University because they sucked and they're not going to be good at MT either. I'm also not really interested in some washed up transfer from Georgia Tech either. I'd rather see someone we signed as a 2 star freshman who worked his ass off for 2-3 years win the starting job and shock the world. But now that player will just transfer if he becomes an all conference type of talent.
It all just feels so futile now. The gap has grown too large between the G5 and P5 in my opinion to hold my interest in the sport. If it still interests you, then enjoy yourself I guess. But for me, it's just not entertaining anymore. Pretty much every good player now sits on a Power 5 roster. G5's are not allowed to have them anymore, and if you do, you can only have them for 1 year.
They can kick rocks. Pro sports is more interesting to me now.
