If you get the chance to look over PFF grades, you will probably see that they are the best available metrics we have. I like to compare the scouting grade against the PFF grade for a measure of talent acquisition and talent development.
Slackman playing in what, Ivy League vs Princely in SEC? Kind of hard to judge that comparison don’t you think? We will see I guess.
That's a valid point. Those who are supposed experts rated him as an elite portal player at his position. But time will tell if he can shine against SEC-level competition. We need him to be really good as advertised, though.
Slackman is ranked just a notch below Prince by ESPN for a reason. Don't let the Ivy League background fool you, he's a monster talent. He's bigger, stronger, smarter and more active than Umanmielen IMHO. The Long Island, N.Y. native wrestled from a young age. After some time off, he got back into wrestling in middle school, and then eventually in high school. Throughout his high school career, he earned several honors and carved a name for himself as one of the top-tier wrestlers in the nation. The highest ranking he ever earned was No. 12 in the 285 lbs division by Intermat. “Wrestling is all about body leverage, playing low and utilizing your hands and feeling leverage points and balancing people. And that’s exactly what you do on the offensive and defensive lines,” coach Ray Priore said. “And I think that really helps him out.” 8. Princely Umanmielen, DE 10. Joey Slackman, DT
Context is important. We are in the same company as 4 top 10 and a top 20 team when it comes to acquiring new talent.
I am certainly not saying you can’t find excellent players in smaller division football. Jerry, Rice and Walter Payton both come to my mind. I am saying it would seem to be extremely difficult to grade players in those lesser competition leagues. That’s all
I still believe that if we don’t start doing a lot better with portal players, transferring into fill all the holes we have that’s going to spell BNs demise.
With 19 leaving and 4 coming in, that's -15 ... that does put us last place on the list, but UGA is a close second at -14 ... Not sure you can draw too many conclusions from that since we at two different levels.
Yes that -15 does look bad. However, you need to look at the big picture. At this time only two SEC teams are on the plus side of the Portal game (more coming in than leaving). This number could change, one way or the other, during the next month or so. Also, beside UF and UGA there are six teams in the SEC that are at the -10 on their portal activity.
You can’t really draw any conclusions from that, because you’re comparing apples and oranges. You don’t know the roster situations of every other school you want to compare to. If we were anywhere close to an equal number of incoming and outgoing transfers, we’d have a high school class ranked in the 100’s like the douchebag up in boulder. If your +/- in the portal is equal, you either took no hs kids, or you had a bunch of upperclassmen graduate or declare. If it’s a positive number, you likely have no hs recruits coming in no matter what your roster looked like before.
Sorry, I don't understand your statement. Having 19 players going out via the portal while having only 4 coming in looks bad. That is 15 slots that have to be filled in. Am I missing something here?
Most of those slots were filled with HS players, and the transfers we’ve already taken. People wring their hands over this stuff year in and year out, yet we’re always right up on the 85 max scholarships when the season starts. Last post I saw on this had us with only a couple spots left as it is. We’ll likely have a few more transfers out, a few more in, and the possibility of adding another hs player or two. The +/- on the portal was never going to be an equal or even close to equal number for us.
Exactly. This has always been tracked as having to be under the limit. Every year always teams lose players to make room for HS kids. It is simple math. If you want an accurate comparison, it is transfer out plus grads leaving plus nfl compared to signees plus transfers in. Portal in vs out is not a meaningful comparison. What is unfortunately happening to us is that we are remaining perpetually young and that is a function of portal out. But that may be necessary.
The free covid year really was the start of having rosters so messed up, but now with virtually unlimited transfers, and completely unlimited counters it’s not really going to get better. You used to just be forced to take small hs classes if your roster got out of whack. Now, you can still take a normal class. You just make room for them, or room makes itself if that’s the way you want to look at it. Teams that have an equal or positive number on the portal +/- will not be the norm. Most teams will have many more leaving via the portal than coming via the portal. Especially teams that place an emphasis on hs recruiting.
Eight years ago, losing 15 to 25 scholarship players a season due to graduation, injuries, early exits was remedied by a big talented signee class of 20 to 25 players in early December. Now days teams are still losing those 15 to 25 players for the same reason. However, some teams (like the Gators) are losing an additional 15 to 20 players to the Portal. Your signee class of 25 cannot backfill the additional 15 to 20 vacant positions. Especially, when they are getting less than a dozen new players in via the Portal and your portal loses are in consecutive years. Please note that DIV 1 College football teams can sign more than 25 players but they still have to be at or less then the 85 cap. At that point in the recruiting game, the college football teams who are hurting in the Portal transfer game, are recruiting from a depleted field of 3, 4, and 5 star recruits.
