UF is not the only SEC team with a Portal Issue

Eight years ago, nobody was signing anybody in early December as there was no ESD. ESD is also in late December, not early.

Doesn’t really matter who leaves because they’re transferring and who leaves to graduation, declaring, or because they’re hanging up their cleats. There is no initial counters rule anymore so all that matters is being below 85 when the season starts. If you lose 50 total, you need 50 total to replenish your roster. If you lose 30 total, you need 30 to replenish your roster. Right now, our roster is almost full again, even with your supposed “bad” numbers of transfers. You think the number is bad, because you’re not paying attention to the other numbers.

On3 posted an article just a few days ago that has us at 81/85 right now. The outgoing transfers are not going to equal the incoming transfer numbers, and the +/- there is mostly irrelevant as long as the roster is filled back up. It makes little sense to try to compare our transfer +/- to other school’s transfer +/- unless you’re also going to dig into the rest of the numbers. How many of their kids left due to graduation, draft, transfer, and how close are they to 85? How many hs kids are they signing?

If you want to make the argument that we should be replacing transfers with transfers, you could, but that’s another argument. An argument that would require us to take a much smaller hs class.

Please note, I’m fully aware of the NCAA getting rid of the initial counters rule, and also fully aware that we need to be below 85 scholarships when the season begins. I’m also aware that we’re already very close to 85. We only have room for about four more players, hs or transfer, unless we send more players to the portal, which will further affect the +/- number you’re worried about.

 

It seems there are also 1-2 spots at the start of the season where walk-ons get a scholarship

 

Even if we are completely full, the transfer +/- will be way in the negative. If we tried to get that number even right now, we’d be 10+ over the 85.

 

Hoping for the best, but not optimistic.

 

Great thoughts. That’s what we need to emphasize, that because we have lost a high number of transfers AND we are in a very critical year we’ve got to bring in double digit transfers. Another major point to consider is that over half of our transfers were starters. That in itself makes it so important we bring in numbers and guys that can make immediate impact.

 

. I’m fine being within a couple of the 85 and having a couple to give out to walk ons. I have no reason to believe we won’t be right there.

 

And we didn't oversign like Alabama and Georgia do every year.

This program desperately needs a jump start to build a little momentum, and it already has an uphill battle with next year's schedule alone.

EDIT: Credit to paidinfull, I should've said "sign over 25" rather than "oversign."

 

The counters rule has been eliminated, so nobody is “oversigning”. There’s no limit to how many you can sign. Bama gives out walkon scholarships almost every year, just like we do, so they’re usually just shy of that 85 cap, just like we are.

 

Thanks for the clarification, and I shouldn't have used the word "oversigned." I think that's part of the trick though.

It's the way they get to the 85 cap. Maybe I'm wrong, but doesn't Florida have something against gray-shirts? The way I see it Bama and Georgia sign a crazy amount of players every year, including players who will ultimately be gray-shirts. And they get to 85 by some combination of ushering players out the door, graduation, the draft, the portal, etc.

Florida is in a position where they have to cling to a lot more of their guys, even guys who aren't necessarily good just to maintain depth and a roster near the 85 scholarship limit. Georgia is so good, they're ushering out chicken because they never settle for less than steak, and they're in a position where they don't have to.

 

Gray shirts are a mythological beast, and really don’t help you at all. They were a work around for the initial counters rule, which no longer exists. Giving a gray shirt one year meant you’d have one less counter available the next year. People talk about them all the time, but they rarely happened before when counters were an issue, and will likely never happen again now that counters are not an issue.

The goal for everyone is to be at 85 before the season starts. It’s better to be slightly under than over, because you don’t want to be cutting kids right when the season starts. They wouldn’t be able to enter the portal until after the season, so you would be royally screwing anyone you boot at that time. Most of these numbers really need to be worked out in the spring.

 

But can't you make these decisions to usher guys out in spring? I know that's awfully early in the process to prepare for the following season, so you only have so much of an idea of who your best guys are, but there's more roster flexibility now than there's ever been. That has to be worth something, right?

Also, can't gray-shirts be used as a way of signing players you like without getting over the 85 limit, knowing you will probably get a lot of turnover the following cycle, or lack of depth at a certain position the following cycle. In other words, my understanding is it has more utility than countering the counter rule if you will. That said, I take your point that it doesn't make or break programs. Most quality D1 players say no to offers like that, and programs like Bama never offered many any one cycle.

To be clear, I'm not trying to argue with you. I'm just voicing out my thought process to see what works or why it doesn't work. My thoughts essentially are that you want to be in a position where you have such a talent surplus, you have the luxury of being able to usher out good players because of things like work-ethic, and my understanding is that this is feasible in the Spring. That leads to urgency from the guys on the roster which leads to a more intense spirit of competition within the program. That's how I see Alabama and Georgia right now, but maybe my perception is wrong. You're telling me a lot of things I didn't know.

 

So what you saying is that the process is working?

 

IMO, it doesn't make sense to bring in a bunch of extra players and force a bunch more attrition. You're always looking at the overall numbers, and need to have some plan to get under 85 before the season starts. Sure, we could take a few extra before spring, planning for some more attrition after spring. We tried. We lost a handful of commits right before and on signing day, or we'd be over 85 right now, assuming we still took the other transfers we've taken this far. It doesn't make much sense to just take fillers at this point, and this staff has shown they aren't going to do that. They go after who they want, and either get them or they don't, but they don't replace them with just anyone, just because.

You should do some more research on gray shirts. They were never very beneficial to either the school or the athlete, and make no sense now that initial counters are no longer a problem. They also were talked about way more than they happened. Can you name a single player that gray shirted anywhere? I can name one. The highly publicized one from Bama several years back that started this non stop talk about how everyone is doing it and we should too.

Before the initial counters rule was scrapped, you were allowed to take 25 new counters per signing period. You could carry forward a few if you took less the prior year, I think up to 5. So if you took 20 this year, you could take 30 next. If you took 25 every year, then 25 was your limit every year. If you wanted to take 26 one year, you could try to get the 26th to take a gray shirt. That kid would have to postpone his signing until the following year. He would not be allowed to participate in team activities and would have to pay his own way at school until the following signing period. At this time, he would sign, and begin his time with the program, but now the team can only sign 24 more counters for that period. It just didn't really make much sense for either side to do this, especially not with any regularity. It rarely happened, and it's insane how much it get's talked about like it's some awesome secret way to get more kids than you're allowed. The more kids you gray shirted, the less kids you'd be able to bring in the next cycle.

Now that there is no counters rule, there's no reason to gray shirt anyone. You just sign who you want, and figure out the numbers later. Likely after spring.

 

If we were the only ones we would not have commercials from Fansville, Dr Pepper that shows the scary portan cursed on Fansville if we were the only team.

This is not a cheap commercial. I’m not joking bt, this commercial shows unpopular the portal is, not to mention the other commercial.

 

With NIL, does the scholarship limit really matter? The value of the scholarship to NIL money can be pretty low. Is there a limit on how many players can be on the total roster? Could Georgia or Alabama have 85 scholarship players and then pay 30 more $150k each?

 

Sure, but they don’t. Top players get scholarships, and all the other benefits that go along with them, plus the nil money. Your overall roster has to be cut down to 105 players by the beginning of the season, including the 85 scholarship players.

 

Good questions. Paidinfull answered your Q about non-scholarship rostered players. As for value of the scholarship, I wonder if health coverage factors in. It does for graduate assistantships, but I'm not sure about student athletes. If medical is covered by the scholarship, then I'd say the scholarship is worth far more than people realize (it is anyway).

So theoretically, teams could roster 20 players fully-funded by NIL? If that's the case, just wait for programs to take advantage of this. They will do everything to game the system.

 

They could. BYU said they were going to pay tuition for all their walkons, but the rumblings say that never actually happened.

I personally don’t see the point. There’s a whole lot more to being a scholarship athlete, than simply getting tuition paid for. They get everything taken care of for them. Tuition, housing, books, tutors, food, pocket change….soooo many things that you don’t get and aren’t allowed to participate in, on top of the fact that your roster spot is not even remotely guaranteed.

The top kids are still going to go where they’re being offered scholarships. The walkon spots are still going to be filled with walkon type players.

 

Our own Channing Crowder was a greyshirt. I think it was his choice.
That was back in 02 so was part of Zook's first class.

 

I think what's bad for UF is that most of the guys transferring from other SEC teams weren't major contributors. We've lost a lot of starters.