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FOOTBALL Portal open..what do we need

MidTennMtneer

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Nov 13, 2013
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Do we have anyone that has announced leaving? Haven't seen it yet. What spots does everyone think we need help on? Or will it mare a difference with some of the position coaches in place?

 
Unless you're 100% certain one of the two recent QB recruits is ready to be the guy, you gotta go QB (even if it's a 1 year rental guy).

OL. Seriously.

Size at WR. Hobbits may be funny characters in Lord of the Rings, but trotting out multiple WR smaller than 5'10 and 180 or so doesn't strike fear into folks. Need a guy who can stretch the field and be a legitimate physical threat.

DL. Pretty sure they lose a couple there.
 
Unless you're 100% certain one of the two recent QB recruits is ready to be the guy, you gotta go QB (even if it's a 1 year rental guy).

OL. Seriously.

Size at WR. Hobbits may be funny characters in Lord of the Rings, but trotting out multiple WR smaller than 5'10 and 180 or so doesn't strike fear into folks. Need a guy who can stretch the field and be a legitimate physical threat.

DL. Pretty sure they lose a couple there.
I know a 6'2" 215 WR he is the kid that torched Vandy from Elon, and Mike Wright the QB from Vandy is in the portal.
 
It HAS to be OL. It was terrible and has been terrible for a while.

I'm pretty excited to see the 2 young QB' we already have, but the portal seems like the place where you can pickup some good talent every year. Nobody wants to be a backup QB anymore, so there are some talented options that will be available.
 
An OL announced last week. Joseph Stone. He was the huge 6-7 guy we got last year but don't think he played st all this year.
 
Linemen, especially OLs.

I only attended one game vs UTSA and there was a vast difference in the eye test along the lines. We looked physically like a high school team vs college guys.

I actually don’t think Stock’s biggest problem is X’s and O’s, his systems can work. His players clearly like him and like playing for him.

What’s killing us is the no-effort recruiting. The roster is built with too many players that are simply not good enough to play at this level. Maybe we can land some transfer portal talent, because the HS and JUCOs were landing are just not good enough.
 
Linemen, especially OLs.

I only attended one game vs UTSA and there was a vast difference in the eye test along the lines. We looked physically like a high school team vs college guys.

I actually don’t think Stock’s biggest problem is X’s and O’s, his systems can work. His players clearly like him and like playing for him.

What’s killing us is the no-effort recruiting. The roster is built with too many players that are simply not good enough to play at this level. Maybe we can land some transfer portal talent, because the HS and JUCOs were landing are just not good enough.
That is just it. Soooo many of our guys have only FCS offers, then us. Idk if we aren't trying to FBS level players or what. I mean all the facilities talk isn't gonna change anything if we still are only matching FCS offers.
 
Linemen, especially OLs.

I only attended one game vs UTSA and there was a vast difference in the eye test along the lines. We looked physically like a high school team vs college guys.

I actually don’t think Stock’s biggest problem is X’s and O’s, his systems can work. His players clearly like him and like playing for him.

What’s killing us is the no-effort recruiting. The roster is built with too many players that are simply not good enough to play at this level. Maybe we can land some transfer portal talent, because the HS and JUCOs were landing are just not good enough.
There’s a kid in the portal from OU. Brey Walker. 6’7” 320. Has one year left. A five * kid out of High School that played a bit the first 2 years but didnt hit the field much the last couple. IMO we should be able to fill a OL with these types that are looking to play one or two more and see what they got left.
It’s not like these guys are hiding under rocks, our coaches gotta go out and sell em. Doesn't appear we have done that in the past and once we get them we have to coach em. And our OL coach hasn’t done a very good job of that.
Looks like this year the portal will be overflowing with talent.
Can we land some of them?
 
I say let’s go after some big names that didn’t work out. Worst case scenario is they don’t work out and all we get is publicity from it. DJ Uiagalelei is exactly what I think we need. I doubt we’d get him because he likely ends up at a P5 but whoever gets him will be the talk of the town and that’s what we need desperately.
 
There's over 1,100 portal declarations so far.

There's opportunity here to land some talent if we put forth the effort. I'd recruit mainly out of the portal if I was a G5 program.
 
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2 that I know of. An OL who was a non-contributor and Andrew Leak, who was more of a special teams guy.
 
So Frank Harris is staying at UTSA another year, and will absolutely be fighting for the AAC. Their collective raised $.

Talk about how one shouldn't donate etc but no matter that. If we don't get something going like this, we will be even further behind.

 
So Frank Harris is staying at UTSA another year, and will absolutely be fighting for the AAC. Their collective raised $.

Talk about how one shouldn't donate etc but no matter that. If we don't get something going like this, we will be even further behind.

Does anyone else find it weird that this is an institution that is generating millions and paying their coach almost $3M per year, but the fans are donating their money to keep their top player? WTF? No thanks. I get it, that's the system, but I'll pass.

This NIL deal and the transfer portal literally is destroying college athletics in front of our eyes.
 
Does anyone else find it weird that this is an institution that is generating millions and paying their coach almost $3M per year, but the fans are donating their money to keep their top player? WTF? No thanks. I get it, that's the system, but I'll pass.

This NIL deal and the transfer portal literally is destroying college athletics in front of our eyes.
I agree. I am not participating in any NIL crap.
 
Interesting indeed. Essentially he said what I've thought. It's OK to recruit a guy, develop him, and then he leaves. It happens. Do it enough and guys will want to come there because of that. And he will have a pipeline.

It's extra tough work essentially having to recruit two areas, high school and the portal. And I honestly don't think our staff focuses enough on recruiting. They use the excuse of facilities etc. We will see, but I myself really don't see much changing once those facilities are done due to the staff in place. Not enough young hungry go getters willing to adapt to the new norm.
 
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Interesting indeed. Essentially he said what I've thought. It's OK to recruit a guy, develop him, and then he leaves. It happens. Do it enough and guys will want to come there because of that. And he will have a pipeline.

It's extra tough work essentially having to recruit two areas, high school and the portal. And I honestly don't think our staff focuses enough on recruiting. They use the excuse of facilities etc. We will see, but I myself really don't see much changing once those facilities are done due to the staff in place. Not enough young hungry go getters willing to adapt to the new norm.

That's how coaching should work at this level as well. Hire a coach - he wins and moves up - you become more attractive to the next guys wanting to move up. It starts a virtuous cycle.

That's how Western Kentucky has had Willie Taggart, Bobby Petrino, Jeff Brohm, and now Tyson Helton all in the same time period that we were stuck with Stockstill. That's also how they've had multiple conference titles, a top 25 ranked team, a winning bowl record, multiple 9/10+ winning seasons (we've had 1 over 8) and a bunch of NFL dudes.

I've no doubt in my mind that if you swapped the results in M'boro and Bowling Green, we've have 20k fans in Floyd regularly and be headed to the AAC.

The portal is going to work the same way. We're no longer going to work off of landing a HS kid and having 4+ years to work with him.

Everyone you sign - you sign for 2 years. If you get more, great. If not, good too - "hey kid, come here, ball out for 2 and you can move up to Alabama with our blessing."

There's opportunity here for a program and staff to get itself ahead of the game. It looks like Helton and WKU realizes that? Does Stockstill and MT? We'll find out on signing day.
 
Like it or not, NIL and transfer portal are here to stay.

You can elect NOT to participate in the NIL co-ops. That's fine. It's your money (or your businesses money). But also realize that NIL helps with recruiting and player retention.

The transfer portal demands a radically new approach to roster construction. And I'm not sure they've changed their approach here at MT.

One of these days I'll actually write an article how G5 (specifically MT) teams CAN use the TP to grow their program.
 
Like it or not, NIL and transfer portal are here to stay.

You can elect NOT to participate in the NIL co-ops. That's fine. It's your money (or your businesses money). But also realize that NIL helps with recruiting and player retention.

The transfer portal demands a radically new approach to roster construction. And I'm not sure they've changed their approach here at MT.

One of these days I'll actually write an article how G5 (specifically MT) teams CAN use the TP to grow their program.
We don't even have a collective do we? The Blue Raider Exchange is only for businesses.

I'm telling you. We need one and should follow the mold of WVU. Country Roads Trust has one time, monthly, etc donations. You get merchandise for giving, entered in drawings to win autographed memorabilia, etc. They truly entice you to give. $5 or $5k.

Lee has mentioned he wants to make the BRAA more single transaction based rather than membership. Need to do the same when we create a collective. It's part of it now. Wren Baker has even stated he will work hand in hand with the trust as he can with the rules at WVU. It's all one big party now and if we don't get going, we will be even further behind.
 
One positive (and negative) to the transfer portal is that teams will no longer be able to stockpile talent like they did in the past. Kids want to play and start right away, they don't want to ride the bench and pay their dues. So the plus is that a guy that was the backup QB at Arkansas, might want to come to MT to play. Generally speaking that would be a more talented player than what we could typically sign out of high school, so a win for MT. The flip side is he is gone in 1-2 years so you have to replace him.

It's happening everywhere. OK State's QB is highly accomplished, multi year start at a solid program and he hit the portal. The new norm will be that teams could essentially be brand new nearly every season. Whether it's MT or South Carolina.

This reminds me of the NFL prior to the salary cap. The Cowboys and 49ers would stockpile talent and put them on the bench so nobody else could get them. Along comes the salary cap and now almost every NFL team has a shot to win because talent has been spread around. The only concern is the NIL dollars that large programs can pay that we can't (that's the "salary cap" component that is missing). But as far as talent being spread around, we will have access to better talent, just for shorter periods. We just have to be attractive enough to get them to MT.
 
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We don't even have a collective do we? The Blue Raider Exchange is only for businesses.
I don't think it's open for people...yet.
I'm telling you. We need one and should follow the mold of WVU. Country Roads Trust has one time, monthly, etc donations. You get merchandise for giving, entered in drawings to win autographed memorabilia, etc. They truly entice you to give. $5 or $5k.

Lee has mentioned he wants to make the BRAA more single transaction based rather than membership. Need to do the same when we create a collective. It's part of it now. Wren Baker has even stated he will work hand in hand with the trust as he can with the rules at WVU. It's all one big party now and if we don't get going, we will be even further behind.
That's a question - a GREAT question - for Lee.

The rules re : NIL have changed things so much. I need to get in the NCAA rule book and figure out what is allowed - and what is not.
 
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One positive (and negative) to the transfer portal is that teams will no longer be able to stockpile talent like they did in the past. Kids want to play and start right away, they don't want to ride the bench and pay their dues. So the plus is that a guy that was the backup QB at Arkansas, might want to come to MT to play. Generally speaking that would be a more talented player than what we could typically sign out of high school, so a win for MT. The flip side is he is gone in 1-2 years so you have to replace him.

It's happening everywhere. OK State's QB is highly accomplished, multi year start at a solid program and he hit the portal. The new norm will be that teams could essentially be brand new nearly every season. Whether it's MT or South Carolina.

This reminds me of the NFL prior to the salary cap. The Cowboys and 49ers would stockpile talent and put them on the bench so nobody else could get them. Along comes the salary cap and now almost every NFL team has a shot to win because talent has been spread around. The only concern is the NIL dollars that large programs can pay that we can't (that's the "salary cap" component that is missing). But as far as talent being spread around, we will have access to better talent, just for shorter periods. We just have to be attractive enough to get them to MT.
That's exactly why Saban is pushing for NIL now. He was against them getting paid at first. But if any school has relied on depth and next man up, it's Bama. And he knows without NIL and the portal, that depth is gone.
 
A collective would be great - I'm in Knoxville and run in a lot of UT circles (I know - eyeroll), but google "Spyre Sports volunteer club". You can give as little as $5 bucks a month, and you get some stickers, can buy some T-shirts, and have a chance at winning some autographed stuff. It's a neat way to participate and it benefits the players. UT "bought" a 5-star QB recruit from California with Spyre's NIL money - they haven't sniffed a recruit that highly touted in a decade.

We don't have anything like that, and probably no one willing to start one, but even though I hate Stockstill and won't support the MT Athletic Department until he's gone, i'd kick in a few bucks to the till if I knew it went to players.

We won't be outbidding UT, but maybe that might make a difference between a kid deciding on MTSU, WKU, or Arkansas State.

I don't know if MT's AD would get behind that - technically, NIL collectives and Athletic funds run off the same pool of donors - every dollar that goes to collective is one that's not going to the school/AD.
 
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.........
I don't know if MT's AD would get behind that - technically, NIL collectives and Athletic funds run off the same pool of donors - every dollar that goes to collective is one that's not going to the school/AD.
And that's where Lee comes in. Someone outgoing, not afraid to be out and about, to engage. Who can convince that person that wanted to give $2k to the BRAA to give $1500 to them and $1500 to the collective.

ADs are posting on Twitter left and right asking for donations to collectives and there is even language written in to new coaching contracts requiring the school to advocate support for collectives to help the coach get players.

There is a balance but a good dept understands that balance and uses it to their advantage. I follow a sports attorney on Twitter who is always posting good and bad examples of NIL things schools do. A balance can legally be found, absolutely.
 
I don't know if MT's AD would get behind that - technically, NIL collectives and Athletic funds run off the same pool of donors - every dollar that goes to collective is one that's not going to the school/AD.

I see it as an investment that can raise the attractiveness your school to recruits and, in turn, raise the profile/talent of your athletic programs which could result in more donations to the school.
 
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I doubt it. Too old and set in their ways. I've described this staff as sclerotic.

The potential is there, but not with this staff.
Didn’t I hear Stock talking on Greg’s show that they were just a minor league for P5’s? Think we said “ we developed them and P5 takes them “. Sounded like he was complaining about it, not embracing it .
I may have took his comment wrong, appears coaches like Helton look at it differently
 
One of quick thing re : NIL & MT

MT did partner with an organization to provide a NIL store for MT athletes (temporary store).
 
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