I think that since Norvell's first year was during COVID that killed any recruiting momentum he typically would have had died and it took him until year two to get rid of some dead weight on the roster and start putting his team together. He needed players that could play immediately since Willie only had plan C & D guys when he missed on plan A types. The portal has changed recruiting now to the point that almost every school is saving spots on their roster for portal players that typically would have gone to a high school recruit in the past. Why take a low three star high school lineman that is a three year development project when there is a G5, two year starter at guard that has been in a college weight room and training table for three or four years that can contribute right away? I think the question is how many spots do you dedicate to the portal and at what positions versus high school recruiting. I'm interested to see how NIL money comes into play with the portal when the playoff goes to 12 teams. How much is a playoff appearance worth to a team? If they think they are a DE/DT or WR/TE away from the making the playoffs, do they throw a ton of NIL money at a player on another team that they came in second with out of high school through a street agent to get them to hit the portal and commit to them? Tua's brother claimed he was offered $1.5M this year, I assume that is the opening offer moving forward.
The winningest teams do not agree with you on the portal. Georgia will have over 30 high school recruits this year. Michigan will have close to 30. OSU and Clemson are the outliers because they try to have low turnover (not because they want portal players). Portals are mostly because of misses. The good teams will gets some, but not build a foundation off of them.
Yep, but look who Napier brought in to help out. Johnson. Pearsall, Torrence to name a few. They all helped immensely. If he can do that in the portal again this year (I think he will) then our team just got close to up to speed in record time. Even though we had other team (position) problems last year that took away from how good our transfers were... and how well they played. However, you're right these portal players are no substitute for great recruiting. But they are very helpful in a pinch... especially if you can get a position of need, and you get lucky on a great player. LSU got lucky with two QBs (one Heisman winner - Joe Borough) in the last 5 years. And their current QB from out west that will be in the Heisman race this year. And several other teams seemed to get good, experienced, QBs that are keeping their new teams near their best performance levels in a while, FSU being one of them. These portal players seem to be MORE than just stopgap players. The portal is more like a second or third recruiting class in the same year. I just hope Mertz is one of those such transfer portal players.
I refuse to talk about FSU anymore. In fact, I can't believe I let myself get drawn into this SOW BS in the first place. As it turns out, after 55 years of being a Gator fan, I don't really like Semis very much. I can live with that.
Count me as happy that @CaptUSMCNole is chatting with us. (Not to discount other thoughts, just saying mine.)
I'm not suggesting every school will be poaching for most of their recruiting class. It will be largely high school and then use the portal at the edges. It will be for somewhere between four to eight kids, where a college ready player can fill in for a misevaluation on a high school recruit or an opening due to a dismissal or left for the NFL earlier than expected. The winning programs are already doing this. UGA took 4 transfers, Bama took 5, and LSU took 9. Let's say your back up QB gets "Lyme disease" and has to take a break from football to deal with it. I'm sure there are some capable G5 QB's that would love to spend their last year of eligibility at an SEC school as a back up for the tidy sum of $100k or so. Schools in rebuild mode will likely use the portal to speed up the rebuild by getting college ready bodies in the door, while trying to rebuild their roster through high school recruiting. There is no more saying wait until year 3 or 4 once the new coaches recruits are on the field since those recruits are no longer locked into the school for three to four years. So they need a balance of portal players and high school recruits to win and show momentum.
Here is some great insight on UFs first public practice in years. Great news on several players performances like Graham Mertz, Max Brown, travis Etienne , Teradja Mitchell, Cam freaking Jackson princely and others.
That was a pretty detailed summery of that scrimmage.. I've been listening to Ali_Peek lately... she's pretty darn good at her craft.
Is that a slant in that video? A slant, being thrown? A slant, being thrown and....OMIGOD....completed?
