Sorry, misspoke a bit there. They don't exist yet because we're not there yet. I'm saying after everything's been burned to the ground, there will be studies, because there always are, and they will overwhelmingly show that any destruction was politically motivated, not pragmatically forced.
Fact is, the current situation is that most football programs vastly overspend to justify their own overspending. "We have to spend this much, or we'll cease to exist." But it's all bullshit. The sport can be as simple as getting a field, some pipe chairs, some pads, and a coach or two. Div III teams exist. Heck, high school teams exist. Small high schools in effin' Idaho have football teams. There is nothing inherently cost-prohibitive about football for an academy of any size. So it's all about managing expenses, and most programs (such as Rutgers and LSU) deliberately mismanage their expenses to scandalous, well-documented and well-publicized extremes for the malicious intent of crying poverty when the knives come out.
So there is financially absolutely no problem with paying players. No, they won't be all paid the same, but where does that ever happen? Does everyone get paid the same where you work? Oh, there'll be some shouting and fist-pounding, but inevitably the third-string lacrosse player will not make as much as the starting quarterback.
But a lot of places will cut their lacrosse programs not because they can't afford it, but to convince everyone that the big bad mean gummint forced them into financial ruin. But what's really happening is, they are sociopaths who will not hesitate to annihilate college lacrosse to fabricate a point about how sharing is evil. And I'm saying, don't fall for it. These people have less than zero credibility.
I feel like softball is way outperforming expectations, and it's a young team! Maybe not quite ready to catch Northwestern, but I don't think "catch Northwestern" was on anyone's minds at the start of the season.
Brian: that's a marketing fee; they can just cut back on marketing.
Entitled people give up nothing. Not a penny. It doesn't matter that they're sitting on billions; it's about principle to them. It's an insult to so much as impede their quest for more, let alone demand that anything go to anyone else.
Force athletic departments to choose between having all of the money and dying or taking part in a rising tide lifting all boats, and they will burn it all down out of pure spite. They'll cancel all sports except football and basketball and blame it all on everyone else, even with reams of studies published that it wouldn't have been difficult to make it work.
I have to imagine there would be quite a few states in this country that are falling all over themselves to get any access to that sweet, sweet UAE money. As in, literally all of them.
I'll be shocked if there's a state in the Union that has the principle to say no, because I'm basically shocked when I see someone act on principle at all.
I'm gonna knock the system. Billions of TV revenue are disappeared on a scale that would make Al Capone blush in his grave, so coaches are reduced to begging for money on the phone because some 17-year-old thinks he's entitled to be a millionaire before he's even put on the uniform.
It's embarrassing that May and Day are spending significant working hours on fundraising a glorified money laundering operation for teenagers. They're both extremely wealthy (or will be soon, in May's case) but explicitly forbidden from even treating a player to a damn burger with their own money. It's madness.
Yeah, imagine the positional improvement they could've had the past few years over schlubs like CJ Stroud (1st round pick), MHJ (1st round pick), Garret Wilson (1st round pick), Chris Olave (1st round pick), Paris Johnson Jr. (1st round pick), and Smith-Njigba (1st round pick), if only they had their booster program's shit together. If only! Just imagine the superior talent they could've acquired instead.
I think those are kinda funny. Pondered making one myself, for the irony. Get me a spoiler like it came off the boom of a P-38, 'cuz I ain't dusting anyone with 1.5L under the hood. But -- and here's the rub -- I decided that'd be a ridiculous waste of money for a joke.
Nah, this is more like, when I see a Ford F-750 or whatever with those big rig vertical exhaust systems and six tires and truck nuts and patriotic decals. . . and a perfectly pristine cargo bed. Meaning it's not a work truck, it's a gorram white-collar commuter. You could be doing the exact same thing in a used Kia, but you're mortgaging your future on a boner surrogate.
They're always stacked. I've been following B1G football since the mid-90s and there was never a year OSU was not stacked.
They're going to do well and they might actually beat us. What's tragically hilarious is just how far they have to go. I mean, that they'd:
Put a HC with a career 56-8 (!!!!) record in the hot seat,
Run a good starting QB out of town, and
Sell their parents to glue factories just to beat Michigan
. . . All in the same year? Imma say it: that's Little Brother II. I ain't saying that because the last three years made me forget the prior twenty-some ass-kickings. "Little Brother" isn't about rivalry records; it's how much the program's identity is warped by Michigan Complex. While not quite to the level of STAEE yet, this is getting silly.
Only if the problem is something like football. Then the wallets open up and flip upside down. If the problem is humanitarian, no, sorry, there just isn't enough to go around.
Ohio has a lot of stupid money sloshing around, apparently.
I love football, but in my head, I put it in its place as entertainment. There are tons of things these benefactors could spend their fuck-you money on to improve that shithole of a state, but this is what they're doing.
P.S. Random thought: imagine the boost to Ohio's economy if they put all this NIL money toward academic scholarships instead.
Title IX is a red herring, and a particularly odious one at that, because a lot of bad people are extremely eager to get rid of it. Not saying you are, I'm just saying, be skeptical of vocal opinions about Title IX when they say, "This could be a potential problem," because that's usually a dogwhistle for, "I want this to be a problem, for want of an excuse to repeal it."
Fact is, even before we get to Title IX, we're gonna have an extremely heated debate about players on the same team. The starting QB is naturally going to demand more money than the third-string linebacker, and the latter is going to naturally argue for equal payment for all. As far as precedent goes, no one expects all employees at any workplace to make the same money, and this status quo coasts along fine next to equal opportunity laws. Equal opportunity =/= equal pay. So, once they're considered employees, I see the starting QB winning this battle.
Which means pay is going to be unequal before female athletes factor in the conversation. And since women's athletics don't bring in nearly as much revenue, that they won't get paid as much will inevitably result in a slew of Title IX lawsuits that I predict with confidence won't get very far, excepting special cases like Caitlin Clark (who single-handedly raised basketball ratings during her time in college).
Sorry, I think I'm being misunderstood a bit here. The conversation upthread is focused on program-player negotiations, but I'm not on that. I was replying to bluebyyou on this:
Regarding Brian's comment that the single transfer rule was correct, I would agree that the rule would significantly reduce movement in and out of the portal.
I'm specifically focused on Brian's rant (starting about 29:50) about portal abuse, and him saying the NCAA should use loss of eligibility to restrict that. I'm opposed to using the NCAA for anything, but also against restricting horizontal movement in general. The courts ruled against it for a reason. (But I'm also saying Brian should be able to point a finger at someone like Derrick Harmon and laugh.)
I think that's a moot question, at least as far as Michigan goes. In every case I've seen, a walk-on that gets significant playing time gets awarded a scholarship, and anyone who doesn't, doesn't go to the NFL.
There's the rub though: wrt employment agreements, treating them as such would be nice, because something like signing contracts would go a long way toward providing stability. But I consider that a different approach than going, "NCAA, fix this," because the very reason programs can't offer contracts is the NCAA's insistence that players aren't employees. Putting the fox in charge of henhouse security doesn't go well.
I also don't think it's a controversial take to say that Derrick Harmon isn't made of the same stuff as Michael Barrett.
I don't know if regulating behavior of this sort ever works for the better. We're not talking about crimes here; we're talking about simple self-interest. Brian doesn't like the optics, but he's really just bitching about the world we all live in now.
That said, while I wouldn't try to throw regs at a portal frequent flyer, I think it's long past time we drop the "happy trails" bullshit and call a spade a spade: if you're transferring multiple times for more PT, you're a coward. Seriously. You're in competitive sports and the first thing you do when the coach starts someone else is to run away from competition?
Let's not have the NCAA -- a embarrassingly incompetent institution -- try to implement a fix here. But can we at least throw tomatoes at fragile snowflakes who transfer more times than they have years of eligibility? I ain't rooting for a player whose first reaction to adversity is to leave town. After all, a guy who soils his pants next to a teammate probably lacks the requisite mental toughness to face a powerhouse opponent.
They’re also dumb. Like, really dumb. Dangerously dumb. I’m seeing Harvard grads everywhere turning everything they touch to shit, and that’s because you don’t need to study if legacy is your qualification. The ones who get in the hard way are sharp as razors but they’re a vanishingly small minority that serve to legitimize the American Habsburgs.
It’s to the point I consider Harvard a degree mill now, except no one’s caught up to reality. That's terrifying, and visibly damaging the country.
Saban’s a pundit now, and he’s always had good business sense. He has to show he’s more than a Tide homer to broaden his appeal, so praising Sainristil is a smart move because he was on the team that ended his coaching career.
Saban knows football, but that feelingsball gushing was over-the-top for him. Sounds like he’s polishing his act, which TBF is what a professional entertainer would do, but if that’s how he’s rolling then I wouldn’t take much of what he says seriously.
There is no one planning ahead. We’re talking about a rentier class milking college athletics for all it’s worth, at whatever deteriment to athletics itself. They’ll burn the whole thing down to preserve the status quo for one hour, and to avoid sharing a single penny.
The really scary thing isn’t what football is about to become. If it actually collapses, these psychopaths will just move their ill-gotten gains to something that might actually matter, like infrastructure. Then you’ll start seeing people die.
Eh, whoever put that together is a fake Ben Mason fan, maybe even a fake football fan. You don't make a fullback highlight reel entirely out of carries. That's as uninformed as putting together a pocket QB's highlight reel of sneaks.
Ol' Murderface was a fine short-yardage and changeup back, but he didn't earn his nickname carrying the rock. His job was to go find the free hitter and give him the pain. It's thankless, dirty work, and he excelled at it.
MSU hires something other than human garbage to coach their program for the first time in at least a generation and twenty players jump ship.
Everyone wants to make that a statement of where MSU is, but I think it's a horrifying revelation of what it was. I mean, we have tons of evidence otherwise, but this also basically confirms the Dantonio Express running between Spartan Stadium and the local correctional facility was hardly a joke.
A hypothetical NFL "booster" doesn't care about depth pieces, like that reserve G/T hybrid. You'd use any extra money to bring in elite talent, as in, elite by NFL standards. But those guys already make a ton of money. Mahomes, for example, makes $40-50 million a year, and that's just his NFL contract. What kind of extra offer do you make to a guy already swimming in "fuck you" money? You could offer an endorsement deal, but you'd actually want Mahomes selling your crap.
College is a different beast because the players were (illegally) denied pay, so the starting point was essentially zero. A lot of players these days are legacy, but some four- and five-stars still do come from lower-class families where even $50k can be life-changing.
This isn't related to anything, but in the banner photo. . . damn, that's a practiced hand. I was a wire harness engineer in a past life so I know, keeping a consistent taping interval is surprisingly difficult. There's no creasing or gaps either. It's beautiful work.
Honest question: Why should he care how many players May recruits? If he just wants a new scene, then this indecision is weird. But if it's about playing time. . . sheesh, he hasn't even begun to compete for a spot. Does GW3 have any confidence in his game to win the job? Did May tell him he's riding the bench no matter what (which would go against everything we know about May so far)? If no and no. . . why does GW3 fancy himself a competitive athlete, if he's afraid of competition?
I'm old enough to remember the story of an M athlete whose position was challenged by a five-star wunderkid (an obstacle far more daunting than GW3's). After some soul-searching he marched into the HC's office, told him he's gonna prove he's the best one for the job, and worked his ass off. Things turned out pretty well for Tom Brady.
GW3 has control over how he himself prepares for next season, and it's the only thing he has control over. He could tell May, "I'm gonna prove you wasted your time on these transfers." This is what he's doing instead. I'm like, OK, happy trails man, but if we're allowed to mock OSU for being sawft, at least they showed up. What do we even call this? Where's the dawg in you, GW3?
Same. It's not even like there was anything to invest in, like a team that's losing because it's too young and/or learning a new system. It was a program in year 5, spiraling into collapse. Not only did I not want to follow terrible basketball, there was no valid reason to.
Kind of a toss-up really. There are so many marginal (by NFL standards) players out there, there isn’t much of a difference in ability between Day 3 picks and UDFAs that get signed.
IIRC Kovacs (who went undrafted) said as soon as the draft ended, his phone lit up with teams inquiring about his availability.
Right, it's complete anarchy. Programs are offering money they aren't paying -- doesn't matter if you lied, you still have them stuck for a year, and you're not allowed to sign players to contracts anyway. Programs are lying about other programs. Programs are tampering the hell out of each other because the NCAA isn't enforcing any rules except burgers and cell phones.
This is not an environment to like if you love sports or even have basic empathy. This is a system of, by, and for psychopaths.
Recent Comments
Does he have a brother? We need at least one more, for when the Casons go rolling along.
/ over hill, over dale, we will hit the Dusty trail
Don’t forget “you would do the exact same thing”
I couldn’t tell good form from my own ass but it looks to me like she’s trying to make contact with a breaking ball.
Sorry, misspoke a bit there. They don't exist yet because we're not there yet. I'm saying after everything's been burned to the ground, there will be studies, because there always are, and they will overwhelmingly show that any destruction was politically motivated, not pragmatically forced.
Fact is, the current situation is that most football programs vastly overspend to justify their own overspending. "We have to spend this much, or we'll cease to exist." But it's all bullshit. The sport can be as simple as getting a field, some pipe chairs, some pads, and a coach or two. Div III teams exist. Heck, high school teams exist. Small high schools in effin' Idaho have football teams. There is nothing inherently cost-prohibitive about football for an academy of any size. So it's all about managing expenses, and most programs (such as Rutgers and LSU) deliberately mismanage their expenses to scandalous, well-documented and well-publicized extremes for the malicious intent of crying poverty when the knives come out.
So there is financially absolutely no problem with paying players. No, they won't be all paid the same, but where does that ever happen? Does everyone get paid the same where you work? Oh, there'll be some shouting and fist-pounding, but inevitably the third-string lacrosse player will not make as much as the starting quarterback.
But a lot of places will cut their lacrosse programs not because they can't afford it, but to convince everyone that the big bad mean gummint forced them into financial ruin. But what's really happening is, they are sociopaths who will not hesitate to annihilate college lacrosse to fabricate a point about how sharing is evil. And I'm saying, don't fall for it. These people have less than zero credibility.
I feel like softball is way outperforming expectations, and it's a young team! Maybe not quite ready to catch Northwestern, but I don't think "catch Northwestern" was on anyone's minds at the start of the season.
Entitled people give up nothing. Not a penny. It doesn't matter that they're sitting on billions; it's about principle to them. It's an insult to so much as impede their quest for more, let alone demand that anything go to anyone else.
Force athletic departments to choose between having all of the money and dying or taking part in a rising tide lifting all boats, and they will burn it all down out of pure spite. They'll cancel all sports except football and basketball and blame it all on everyone else, even with reams of studies published that it wouldn't have been difficult to make it work.
Bilbo "stole" a cup = Lake-town must burn.
Mrs. dragonchild (OSU alum) and I agreed that the current President of OSU being a cryptobro is a bona fide scandal.
I mean, he's a cryptobro. The drugs were the least of the problems.
I have to imagine there would be quite a few states in this country that are falling all over themselves to get any access to that sweet, sweet UAE money. As in, literally all of them.
I'll be shocked if there's a state in the Union that has the principle to say no, because I'm basically shocked when I see someone act on principle at all.
Or the Michigan Wolverines (regionally extinct because people suck).
More like a one-two punch. Even OSU has standards, or did.
It’s not even the speech. Mrs. dragonchild went to OSU and she’s aghast to learn her alma mater’s been taken over by a fucking cryptobro.
OLU was pretty good during his time here.
Some people treat all written communication like gorram SMS and expect others to deal with their laziness.
Have you forgotten that this is one of the rags that tried to torpedo Michigan's football program for a few cheap clicks?
Well there's one rule, and that's that programs aren't allowed to pay players even federal minimum wage. NIL is just a money laundering loophole.
I'm gonna knock the system. Billions of TV revenue are disappeared on a scale that would make Al Capone blush in his grave, so coaches are reduced to begging for money on the phone because some 17-year-old thinks he's entitled to be a millionaire before he's even put on the uniform.
It's embarrassing that May and Day are spending significant working hours on fundraising a glorified money laundering operation for teenagers. They're both extremely wealthy (or will be soon, in May's case) but explicitly forbidden from even treating a player to a damn burger with their own money. It's madness.
Yeah, imagine the positional improvement they could've had the past few years over schlubs like CJ Stroud (1st round pick), MHJ (1st round pick), Garret Wilson (1st round pick), Chris Olave (1st round pick), Paris Johnson Jr. (1st round pick), and Smith-Njigba (1st round pick), if only they had their booster program's shit together. If only! Just imagine the superior talent they could've acquired instead.
Sigh. . . the world may never know.
At this stage I would assume any listing is a placeholder. These players haven't even scrimmaged together yet.
Feel free to endlessly speculate, though. It's what this site do.
Did something well? I think it's hilarious if they unironically think this is a good look. This is unhealthy obsession.
It's a joke, sir. (Not even mine, I stole it from Blinkin)
You're not obligated to find it funny, but an awkward forced chuckle would've been nice.
I think those are kinda funny. Pondered making one myself, for the irony. Get me a spoiler like it came off the boom of a P-38, 'cuz I ain't dusting anyone with 1.5L under the hood. But -- and here's the rub -- I decided that'd be a ridiculous waste of money for a joke.
Nah, this is more like, when I see a Ford F-750 or whatever with those big rig vertical exhaust systems and six tires and truck nuts and patriotic decals. . . and a perfectly pristine cargo bed. Meaning it's not a work truck, it's a gorram white-collar commuter. You could be doing the exact same thing in a used Kia, but you're mortgaging your future on a boner surrogate.
They're always stacked. I've been following B1G football since the mid-90s and there was never a year OSU was not stacked.
They're going to do well and they might actually beat us. What's tragically hilarious is just how far they have to go. I mean, that they'd:
. . . All in the same year? Imma say it: that's Little Brother II. I ain't saying that because the last three years made me forget the prior twenty-some ass-kickings. "Little Brother" isn't about rivalry records; it's how much the program's identity is warped by Michigan Complex. While not quite to the level of STAEE yet, this is getting silly.
You sure?
Only if the problem is something like football. Then the wallets open up and flip upside down. If the problem is humanitarian, no, sorry, there just isn't enough to go around.
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. . .
Ohio has a lot of stupid money sloshing around, apparently.
I love football, but in my head, I put it in its place as entertainment. There are tons of things these benefactors could spend their fuck-you money on to improve that shithole of a state, but this is what they're doing.
P.S. Random thought: imagine the boost to Ohio's economy if they put all this NIL money toward academic scholarships instead.
Title IX is a red herring, and a particularly odious one at that, because a lot of bad people are extremely eager to get rid of it. Not saying you are, I'm just saying, be skeptical of vocal opinions about Title IX when they say, "This could be a potential problem," because that's usually a dogwhistle for, "I want this to be a problem, for want of an excuse to repeal it."
Fact is, even before we get to Title IX, we're gonna have an extremely heated debate about players on the same team. The starting QB is naturally going to demand more money than the third-string linebacker, and the latter is going to naturally argue for equal payment for all. As far as precedent goes, no one expects all employees at any workplace to make the same money, and this status quo coasts along fine next to equal opportunity laws. Equal opportunity =/= equal pay. So, once they're considered employees, I see the starting QB winning this battle.
Which means pay is going to be unequal before female athletes factor in the conversation. And since women's athletics don't bring in nearly as much revenue, that they won't get paid as much will inevitably result in a slew of Title IX lawsuits that I predict with confidence won't get very far, excepting special cases like Caitlin Clark (who single-handedly raised basketball ratings during her time in college).
Sorry, I think I'm being misunderstood a bit here. The conversation upthread is focused on program-player negotiations, but I'm not on that. I was replying to bluebyyou on this:
I'm specifically focused on Brian's rant (starting about 29:50) about portal abuse, and him saying the NCAA should use loss of eligibility to restrict that. I'm opposed to using the NCAA for anything, but also against restricting horizontal movement in general. The courts ruled against it for a reason. (But I'm also saying Brian should be able to point a finger at someone like Derrick Harmon and laugh.)
I think that's a moot question, at least as far as Michigan goes. In every case I've seen, a walk-on that gets significant playing time gets awarded a scholarship, and anyone who doesn't, doesn't go to the NFL.
You're basically "what if"-ing every scenario Brian is not talking about.
There's the rub though: wrt employment agreements, treating them as such would be nice, because something like signing contracts would go a long way toward providing stability. But I consider that a different approach than going, "NCAA, fix this," because the very reason programs can't offer contracts is the NCAA's insistence that players aren't employees. Putting the fox in charge of henhouse security doesn't go well.
I also don't think it's a controversial take to say that Derrick Harmon isn't made of the same stuff as Michael Barrett.
I don't know if regulating behavior of this sort ever works for the better. We're not talking about crimes here; we're talking about simple self-interest. Brian doesn't like the optics, but he's really just bitching about the world we all live in now.
That said, while I wouldn't try to throw regs at a portal frequent flyer, I think it's long past time we drop the "happy trails" bullshit and call a spade a spade: if you're transferring multiple times for more PT, you're a coward. Seriously. You're in competitive sports and the first thing you do when the coach starts someone else is to run away from competition?
Let's not have the NCAA -- a embarrassingly incompetent institution -- try to implement a fix here. But can we at least throw tomatoes at fragile snowflakes who transfer more times than they have years of eligibility? I ain't rooting for a player whose first reaction to adversity is to leave town. After all, a guy who soils his pants next to a teammate probably lacks the requisite mental toughness to face a powerhouse opponent.
They’re also dumb. Like, really dumb. Dangerously dumb. I’m seeing Harvard grads everywhere turning everything they touch to shit, and that’s because you don’t need to study if legacy is your qualification. The ones who get in the hard way are sharp as razors but they’re a vanishingly small minority that serve to legitimize the American Habsburgs.
It’s to the point I consider Harvard a degree mill now, except no one’s caught up to reality. That's terrifying, and visibly damaging the country.
Image embedding is busted. Known issue, probably low priority.
Yeah, yikes. That’s a tough major without the time commitment from football.
Continuing the tradition (?) of brainy nerdy WRs named CJ.
Whatever comes out of everyone going, "As much as possible for me, as little as possible for everyone else."
Well if nothing else it's preparing them for the future, where in the job market the same thing's happening.
Saban’s a pundit now, and he’s always had good business sense. He has to show he’s more than a Tide homer to broaden his appeal, so praising Sainristil is a smart move because he was on the team that ended his coaching career.
Saban knows football, but that feelingsball gushing was over-the-top for him. Sounds like he’s polishing his act, which TBF is what a professional entertainer would do, but if that’s how he’s rolling then I wouldn’t take much of what he says seriously.
There is no one planning ahead. We’re talking about a rentier class milking college athletics for all it’s worth, at whatever deteriment to athletics itself. They’ll burn the whole thing down to preserve the status quo for one hour, and to avoid sharing a single penny.
The really scary thing isn’t what football is about to become. If it actually collapses, these psychopaths will just move their ill-gotten gains to something that might actually matter, like infrastructure. Then you’ll start seeing people die.
Or you could join my religion. I'm taking tomorrow off due to, uh, Feast of. . . Maximum Occupancy.
Eh, whoever put that together is a fake Ben Mason fan, maybe even a fake football fan. You don't make a fullback highlight reel entirely out of carries. That's as uninformed as putting together a pocket QB's highlight reel of sneaks.
Ol' Murderface was a fine short-yardage and changeup back, but he didn't earn his nickname carrying the rock. His job was to go find the free hitter and give him the pain. It's thankless, dirty work, and he excelled at it.
MSU hires something other than human garbage to coach their program for the first time in at least a generation and twenty players jump ship.
Everyone wants to make that a statement of where MSU is, but I think it's a horrifying revelation of what it was. I mean, we have tons of evidence otherwise, but this also basically confirms the Dantonio Express running between Spartan Stadium and the local correctional facility was hardly a joke.
Yeah OP kind of buried the lede right in the headline, which is kind of impressive.
Scale.
A hypothetical NFL "booster" doesn't care about depth pieces, like that reserve G/T hybrid. You'd use any extra money to bring in elite talent, as in, elite by NFL standards. But those guys already make a ton of money. Mahomes, for example, makes $40-50 million a year, and that's just his NFL contract. What kind of extra offer do you make to a guy already swimming in "fuck you" money? You could offer an endorsement deal, but you'd actually want Mahomes selling your crap.
College is a different beast because the players were (illegally) denied pay, so the starting point was essentially zero. A lot of players these days are legacy, but some four- and five-stars still do come from lower-class families where even $50k can be life-changing.
This isn't related to anything, but in the banner photo. . . damn, that's a practiced hand. I was a wire harness engineer in a past life so I know, keeping a consistent taping interval is surprisingly difficult. There's no creasing or gaps either. It's beautiful work.
Honest question: Why should he care how many players May recruits? If he just wants a new scene, then this indecision is weird. But if it's about playing time. . . sheesh, he hasn't even begun to compete for a spot. Does GW3 have any confidence in his game to win the job? Did May tell him he's riding the bench no matter what (which would go against everything we know about May so far)? If no and no. . . why does GW3 fancy himself a competitive athlete, if he's afraid of competition?
I'm old enough to remember the story of an M athlete whose position was challenged by a five-star wunderkid (an obstacle far more daunting than GW3's). After some soul-searching he marched into the HC's office, told him he's gonna prove he's the best one for the job, and worked his ass off. Things turned out pretty well for Tom Brady.
GW3 has control over how he himself prepares for next season, and it's the only thing he has control over. He could tell May, "I'm gonna prove you wasted your time on these transfers." This is what he's doing instead. I'm like, OK, happy trails man, but if we're allowed to mock OSU for being sawft, at least they showed up. What do we even call this? Where's the dawg in you, GW3?
Same. It's not even like there was anything to invest in, like a team that's losing because it's too young and/or learning a new system. It was a program in year 5, spiraling into collapse. Not only did I not want to follow terrible basketball, there was no valid reason to.
I'm paying attention now, but there's a blank.
For the QB, maybe. The rest of us have to deal with the PbP going “JJ to JJ!” and endlessly laughing at their own cleverness for years to come.
Kind of a toss-up really. There are so many marginal (by NFL standards) players out there, there isn’t much of a difference in ability between Day 3 picks and UDFAs that get signed.
IIRC Kovacs (who went undrafted) said as soon as the draft ended, his phone lit up with teams inquiring about his availability.
You'd think if the data showed someone shot better contested you'd just go, "OK we can guard the other four players with five."
Right, it's complete anarchy. Programs are offering money they aren't paying -- doesn't matter if you lied, you still have them stuck for a year, and you're not allowed to sign players to contracts anyway. Programs are lying about other programs. Programs are tampering the hell out of each other because the NCAA isn't enforcing any rules except burgers and cell phones.
This is not an environment to like if you love sports or even have basic empathy. This is a system of, by, and for psychopaths.