MeanGreenZen

I was on the Stone Earle bandwagon last year. He had his chance. He just wasn’t very good. I wish him the best. We can still find a serviceable 3rd string QB from the bottom of the grad transfer portal.

I also give to the collectives and would like my money back from every athlete that transferred. I know it doesn’t work that way though. After losing ALMOST all of our good players from the football team AND basketball team to the transfer portal, I do question why I continue to give to the collectives. The answer, I guess, is that maybe it helps us attract new players to replace the good players that we used to have who left us through the portal. That is the only reason I am still giving. Anyone have any other reasons to help justify it?

Was he run out of town? I mean it is pretty curious that he’s gone to a new school every year. Maybe no one can stand him for long? He was a pretty useable piece for us who was put in a position to do the things he does well. I enjoyed rooting for him. I don’t like it, but I get it if he gets a $$$ P4 offer and takes it. But why would a player like that go from North Texas to East Tennessee (really?) unless he was forced out?

What is East Tennessee?

And you will still play in a stadium that is 3/5 empty. The good ACC schools can’t get out of that conference and away from you fast enough.

Football, Men’s basketball, Women’s basketball, Women’s soccer, Softball, Women’s tennis and whatever other women’s sports you have to have to make Title IX work.

I am reading a book that touches on the history of football. In the early 20th century, college football was WAY bigger than professional football and society considered it gross and off-putting that anyone would play a sport for money. There was only honor in playing a sport for the love of the game. Obviously, nowadays everything is about ME ME ME and “How much can I get?”. But everything old is new again and I could see society swinging back around to the glorification of the amateur athlete.

This guy wasn’t very productive in high school, junior college or the two D1’s he’s been at previously. Pretty sad if this is the level of recruit we can get in football now. Yikes.

JJ went to Eastfield. This dude goes to Northlake. They are in the same conference. Very low level basketball. D3 Juco.

Probably good for the program to be associated with high level QB training. I’m not going to tattletale on them.

I bet Dusty May steered this guy to Ross, who probably steered Rubin to Michigan once it became apparent he wasn’t coming back. Ross and May have a good relationship so I bet this guy can play.

I remember that! I still say “Scrap ‘Em”. I thought it has always been a thing.

The NCAA doesn’t have balls, but it was the court system that cut them off. If the NCAA had its way, there would be no NIL and players could transfer once if they were willing to sit out a year. Pretty good system.

The guy just lost every good player on his team to schools who gave his players more money. Anybody reading this article already understands the reality of what he is stating. The sooner a new G5 system can be implemented, the better.

Don’t kid yourself, Cougar King. There is no “P4”. There is the SEC. The Big 10. And then everyone else. The ACC and Big 12 are just as irrelevant as the rest of G5 in football now and will only become more so…

I hate the portal and NIL too. But North Texas didn’t invent those things and the answer isn’t to quit on your alma mater. We just have to ride this out until whatever is next comes along. Looks like we will have an exciting team next season too.

I see a couple of girls who might make a good walk-on nose tackle.

You can rebuild a college basketball rotation to contend at a high level in one year. That is just 8-9 players. And if you get lucky with 2-3 absolute monsters, you can make a run in any given season. Of course, then those 2-3 monsters will get poached by deeper pockets and you will have to start all over again. But still, it is possible. But we can’t rebuild a college football two-deep in one year. That’s almost 50 players that we need to compete at a high level. And as has been demonstrated, any time we get football players who have any kind of success in the NIL era, they are gone quicker than you can say “Chandler Rogers”. Another reason it is easier for us to compete in the NIL era in basketball is because that sport is dominated by guards. There are LOTS of talented guards available in college basketball and some of the very best can fall through the cracks and land with us for atleast a season. And while many people would say that college football is dominated by quarterbacks (and that position is VERY important)… what really separates the elite college football programs from everyone else are the defensive linemen. The supply of 18-24 year-old humans who weigh 300 pounds with the strength to take on multiple blockers while also having the speed to run down a quarterback is no where near the demand. And these defensive linemen usually take a while to develop. But anytime a defensive linemen shows a hint of promise, he gets funneled to the highest bidder and that won’t be us. Which means we will never be able to compete with the SEC or Big 10 in football.

I’m not saying drop football. Football is important in Texas. But we don’t need to pretend that we are the same level with teams with 5x our revenue who can and do take our best players any time they want. We can’t afford to pay football players and everything else that comes with that. So we shouldn’t. And we should find a level for football that can accommodate that. We CAN competitively pay 8 basketball players (maybe 16 if Title 9 makes us pay the women too). I don’t like any of this. Just trying to figure out the best way we can position our athletic programs in this changing environment.

The P2 schools make 5x our annual revenue. Five times! And most of their revenue is from media deals, ticket sales and donations while our revenue is mostly from student fees. This article mentions a possible 22% revenue distribution to players (collectively bargained pro sports are closer to 50%.). As far as I can tell, our revenue from all sources is running at around $44M annually so 22% is about $9.6M that would go to the players. Where would this money come from? What would we have to cut to get it? Could we increase donations to cover that? I doubt it. I don’t think that you can ask students to pay the salaries of other “students” playing sports. That is not right. I wouldn’t have an issue with the players being compensated via media deals, ticket sales and alumni donations. But at North Texas, that ain’t big bucks. I just worry that the train has left the station on competing in football. Especially since there are teams in the P2 who can afford to pay their BACKUP quarterback more than our entire NIL budget. And every good player on our football team last season has left our school for more money at other schools. At that point, why even pretend that we can compete for a national championship in football? And if you can’t win, why not play something else? Let’s find a different level with a sustainable model that provides an opportunity to really compete. Basketball is a different story because you can put all of your resources into a rotation of just 8 players. And I do believe that we can still compete at a national level in basketball.

Johnell Davis to Arkansas.

You are correct. But the problem is that the SEC and the Big 10 have all the power and the current system only benefits them as it allows them to funnel all of the talent from the less funded schools. The Power 2 have the money to retain all their own talent and can take whatever they want from us. They aren’t going to change this system voluntarily.

After spring ball is when all the programs know if they are thin at defensive line or not. Many are and are willing to pay big $$$ to fix that. That’s why you are seeing so many D-linemen jumping into the portal now. This is when the D-linemen have the most leverage. Yeah it sucks for us, but this is happening at all the P4 schools too. The P4s are also having to bid against each other for their own D-linemen.

You are correct. If he gets a guarantee from a NBA team that he will be drafted in the 1st round then that is a 3 year deal x $2M a year minimum and he will be GONE. But that is a long shot. The Arkansas message boards are sure their Chicken Man money will land Johnell but some big $$$ alums at Kentucky took Calipari leaving for the Razorback job personally and refuse to lose out to Arkansas again. Johnell is benefiting from that bidding war.

Johnell Davis is out of Michigan’s price range. Massive bidding war going down for him right now between Arkansas and Kentucky. He will probably be highest paid player in college basketball next season.