Roster Turnover - one more purge coming

It wasn't loyalty, they couldn't leave because they were forced to sit out a year even though their scholarship was for only one year at a time. The rules were stacked against the players.

If players in the past had access to NIL and the transfer rules of today, they would have taken advantage of them just the same.

 

Hmmmm...sounds a lot like the No Fun League

 

We could easily have 20 spots open considering we have 4 walkons on scholarship. Every year there will be surprises. Napier's recruits are showing to be upperclassmen killers.

 

Absolutely. So many young guys don't blossom right away, get pushed out, or leave on their own. They need a bit more time, but there is no loyalty there, either way.

Chris Doering is an example. No one wanted him; he managed to get walk on status at UF. As a redshirt freshman in '92, he caught his first pass in a game. In '93 Spurs gave him a scholarship, and he brought home the bacon at Kentucky. The rest is history, but it took his loyalty to UF, vice versa, and three years, to bring it to fruition.

A guy like him would be lost today.

 

Kiffin on sports center today:
"Every year half the roster is from the portal. It's exciting."

 

I would be excited too, if I had to recruit to Ole Miss.

 

With the recent decommits, we're now projected to be 9 scholly's over (as of today).

So we must lose 9, at least.

If 20 transfer, that leaves 11 spots open for incoming transfers or HS players.

After reflecting some more, I prefer we don't take any more HS kids (except the top tiers ones, of course) and focus on the portal for impact players.

I think we need to crush the portal this offseason.

 

It depends though, on whether his first philosophy priority is to build for the future or win games next year. I hope it’s the latter, first, for his sake and the program. High quality combat portal players can help you win sooner, and he needs to start winning ballgames, imho.

 

Yep, philosophy has to become way more portal oriented and aggressive relative to moving quickly.

 

He repeated today that we follow the NFL model. Build team through draft (HS recruiting), supplement with free agency in areas of need annually (portal). He has also said he ain't portal ing just for bodies.

Development and annual retention is the focus.

This is the strategy for long term stability top teams are using and will likely continue until/if Grade A players are in the portal every year.

 

Can't really be any other way, never know what's going to be in the portal from year to year.

 

If 20 transfer out, we’ll have about 30 new players on the team next season.

A bulk of those must be used for transfers or we’ll simply be the youngest team every year and rely too much young players.

We’re in an era where starters will transfer out (um, OL) and you can’t perpetually replace them with HS players and expect to compete .

 

Don’t think some of the projected transfers out in above thread leave. No one would take them. Shorter portal window next year. Better for them to grad transfer after degree then before they graduate

 

Considering past experience, we will lose a few to the draft that have no business sniffing the draft.

 

Well IMHO we have plenty areas of need so we need to be portalling big time.

 

Hmmmm....
"portalling"...now that's a new term that I like.

 

If the bulk of new players were portal we would only have 10-15 high school recruits, that is absolutely not going to happen....not should it.
I do agree we need some key components from the portal, but I would like to see that number be 6-8 (of the right players) along with 22-24 in the high school signing class. We brought in double digit portal last offseason but I wouldn't go that high this year unless there is a massive purge of the current roster. And we will need a pretty big purge just to bring in 30.
Everyone wants a big igning class and big portal additions.....then lose their minds when kids leave to enter the portal. I hope people remember it's a necessary evil and there will be players that leave that we don't necessarily want to lose.

 

8 would be my magic number, so we’re largely saying the same thing.

But they need to be impact players imo this cycle.

We still don’t know who is leaving the program, but we’re in an era where starters transfer so I’m working under the assumption we’ll need to replace some relevant production….hence my urgency.

Ps - I meant a bulk of the projected open slots. Not the bulk of the entire class.

 

They don't have to be taken to leave. Said differently, as of today, 9 must leave (will be asked to leave) the team...That's a must to meet the 85 scholly limit. And that's assuming we stick to a 19 player HS class with zero incoming transfers.

 

Yes, bulk of the remaining slots makes a lot of sense. What we probably can't do this year is use slots for unproven guys like Spurlock, Ivory, J Jones. Not sure any of those 3 ever play at UF. Moten and Teradja have been disappointing but I understand those takes.......both had extensive starting experience at Mich and Oh St. The rest of the guys have all played extensively except Carroll who is injured and Godwin who had to depart, so that's 7 productive takes.