TIgreen01

Welp, rotating QBs is not what this fan wanted to hear. But it’s where we are and I hope we see one of them really step up and leave no doubt in live game action.

Donors give to a cause. If schmoo is stuck in the aac after this round of realignment, do they start to doubt if they’ll ever reach that next rung again? Does that affect how much they give to programs like nil?

If you’re an athlete from the west coast, why sign to play for Stanford or Cal? I imagine there will be outliers, but by and large you want to play closer to family. I would think these schools better start shelling out huge sums to recruits or they won’t be able to compete with ACC schools once their current rosters graduate.

Did I miss the DB breakdown? I’d pick one of the new safeties….

Bickering over who to give credit for so we can more accurately wildly guess how well this upcoming season will turn out. Man the offseason sucks. We’ll know soon enough, but until then I’ll ride with JD on Stone coming out ahead if for no other reason than he has a great name and I liked what I saw of him in game last year. He’s got moxy and he’s not afraid to hit people. Not necessarily what you want your QB doing, but hard not to love that trait. If and when he gets dinged up, all these split reps should help us have a backup ready to play.

This sounds like a fairly reasonable approach. My question is what is the motivation for an AAC school to leave if the tv money is the same? The main thing driving realignment has always been better tv money and exposure. This would not be that. I assume it is aligning the private elites? If that’s the case, I’m all for them leaving as long as that is all it is. Also, when does a Stanford and/or Cal just make the same decision that the other state UC schools made 3 decades ago, or the University of Chicago and Ivy leagues did in the 1930s? Is football really adding to their profile enough to warrant this madness?

Fair point

Has less to do with knowing what a good one looks like and more to do with recruiting getting guys with straight up talent level to play the QB position. I agree with Cooley. We’re in for a less than stellar year based on how this QB race is going. I’m thinking Morris and staff are going to be able to coach these guys up enough to keep us from being cellar dwellers, but any hopes of competing for a title need to be tempered. Think 2020 when we were coming off of Fine and constantly rotated between Bean and Aune. That looks like what we are facing now with Rogers and Earle. Maybe Morris will stick with one or the other longer and allow them to develop more? Either way, you need someone to grab the job and clearly separate. That’s not happening.

We’ll just have agree to disagree. Also, this is not the beginning of the end. It’s simply the reaction to the FBS agreeing to a 12 team playoff model that gave 6 auto bids to the highest ranked conference champs. Either TV jumped in and said they wouldn’t pay for a G5 getting far in this new playoff (NCAA Bball tourney proves tv numbers drop when blue bloods don’t make final 4) OR the power leagues decided to consolidate to a smaller number of conferences, rewrite the playoff model again and limit who can make it in the first place. Or could be both.

If government funding pays for everything, why do schools so aggressively seek donations?

You’re right about it coming down to the schools, but a little off on the reasons. Forget football. All of us are competing against each other as schools, first. Competing for the best teachers, facilities, etc so we can attract top students and then turn them back into donors and the cycle feeds into itself. It’s proven that big time football programs help drive up donations, student applications and a host of other things that all lead to more money for the school. Nobody is fixing this football conference problem without first addressing the how schools are funded. Pay attention to who makes conference affiliation decisions. It’s not the athletic department. It’s the Presidents.

I’m for any scenario where the private elites(in their own minds) split off and form their own league. The southwest needs an Ivy League for smu to take all their money to. So sick of seeing these schools get included in scenarios where it is clear they don’t pass muster without a billionaire in the shadows greasing the league presidents pockets.

@Cerebus What value does A5 status actually hold? Are we overvaluing this?

Preach! Anyone who thinks these monstrosity 20+ team conferences (seems like that’s where SEC & Big are headed) are going to produce the tv matchups that ESPN and fox so covet is kidding themselves. This is only going to keep shrinking and consolidating until some group of leaders finally figures out a way to evenly spread the money.

💩

Everyone needs to lighten up. I welcome the abuse. It means people are paying attention and are jealous. Also, cheesy trash talk like this make sports more fun.

This is mostly wishful thinking. Looking at that monstrosity of a conference, what matchups would people actually care about enough to drive TV ratings? I don't see many. I think TV has had 20+ years to collect enough data that they fully understand the ratings that that collection of schools are able to drive. I don't think that they will bite on media market alone. They are after brands and matchups that will draw advertisers. You only draw advertisers with demonstrated ratings. Also, I can't see Stanford staying in that version of a Pac12. Or even Cal for that matter. Stanford has enough pull to be able to push into the Big10, or go flat out Independent ala Notre Dame as a backup. I think people are too focused on realignment and discounting some of these bigger brands going independent, instead. Another option for the California schools is to just drop down altogether. There is already a ton of precedent for that within that state and the Cal system. If they think they can't keep up with the Joneses, why keep trying? They value academics more than football.

Thanks for the write up! Really good details. Just based on the listed sizes of these guys, we're going to need a lot of guys rotating in to avoid getting worn down. Teams that commit to the run are going to give us fits.

You’ll have to excuse me, but Congress making federal laws around “college athletes” transferring is incredibly insane. Potentially sending a student athlete to jail over transferring schools?! You have got to be kidding me! Perhaps we should take a step back and find a way to take to money out of the game. That’s what this is all about, really. Money. Protecting the big rich schools who want to control their ability to make money off of these kids.

I know they lost a bunch of talent at WR, but as long as Frank Harris keeps getting granted additional years of eligibility, they are going to be a problem to deal with. I'd have them at #1. Otherwise, a pretty safe bet putting us right in the middle. We have enough talent to compete, but how the new staff works out is too much of an unknown.

Honestly, why don’t they do this? Seems like they could schedule better. At least for football.

If we ever win, whatever acronym/logo/fully spelled out name/branding we are using at that time will be what we’re known as. Period. Why get all up in arms about crap that does not matter?! Offseason sucks

Considering recent history, why on earth would anyone doubt we can compete. Memphis will have a talented roster. They will have to overcome less than great coaching. FAU should be the early favorite. Memphis, based on talent alone, will be expected to either win or be runner up to FAU. I would expect most preseason predictions to put us somewhere near the middle just due to uncertainty around how our coaching staff will respond to the promotions and how the talented new guards will fit in with our historically grind it out style. Personally, I expect us to compete for a top 3 finish. Barring a slower than expected start, I'd still look for us to make some noise in the conference tournament. With the shooters we've just brought in, we're going to be everyone's nightmare matchup in a tournament bracket.

Lots of skill guys listed. When/where is the beef coming?

This kid looks great. Fun tape. Add great hands with above average body control to that track speed resume. Hope we can hang onto him.