Originally Posted by
HawgDawg
This thread changed me from lurker into poster, because I think you guys are on to something, but are missing a few points.
Here's my hypothesis:
Let's just assume for the moment that the "Network" operates by finding booster "sponsors" for elite recruits. Obviously, what the sponsors are willing to put out depends upon the talent of the individual recruit and how badly UNM needs them. The biggest fish require the best bait. So, you have at least three huge fish in the 2013 class. These big time boosters are on the hook for a lot here. Just imagine for a minute that two of them might be in a financial position where supporting these high-priced five stars is comfortable and one is maybe reaching a little bit beyond what's comfortable because he's been an UNM football fan all his life and he thinks this new plan is a good one and possibly the best chance he'll ever have at seeing his old school compete for a natty.
Besides, he has a plan that just might make this all work. (I think for this to make the most sense, we have to assume that the "agent" plan isn't a built-in feature of 'The Network', but rather one rogue, dipshit booster's brainchild). For the sake of clarity, let's refer to dipshit Booster as 'Booster X'. Maybe Booster X is a former player who thinks he'd make a great sports agent, maybe he's just a good-ole boy businessman with connections to upstart sports agents willing to pay a larger-than-average finders in return for a desperately needed, make-or-break big name client. In any event, Booster X has been watching football all his life and realizes that LT is the closest thing to a sure bet he's ever seen, so he signs on to sponsor him, but doesn't inform the rest of the network (or Freeze) about his intentions. Perhaps he fears that Freeze and co. will see his investment plan as too great a risk for the program and might try to shut down his good thing, perhaps he's just a gentlemanly good ole boy who doesn't discuss the unpleasantries of how one makes one's money, perhaps he's afraid that other boosters finding out about his brilliant scheme might make it harder for him to pluck the sure bets for himself in the future. Anyway, he doesn't let everyone else know what's going on. Besides, this is a deal between him and stepfather, right? The fewer people in on the deal, the easier everything works, the greater the deniability.
So, Booster X pays rent on a big home, leases on the family's cars, he gets them the phones and perks that they need, little by little, never in a giant lump sum. That protects him against greater loss in case of an injury or an unforeseeable (and unimaginable) bust. But this guy keeps things up to date. LT gets the rides he wants, everything paid for. When a new Phone comes out, he just takes his old one to Booster X and they swap the sim card into the new one right there.
LT joins up and becomes the big deal that Booster X always knew he would be. His satisfaction in his own brilliance and anticipation of his coming payday grow by the hour. But, the spotlight and all of the talk about "#1 draft pick" creates complications in the plan.
Maybe Freeze, without knowing about Booster X's arrangement, and wanting to ensure that his top recruits make the biggest splash in the NFL draft, thus bringing the biggest media return to his developing program, starts putting ideas in LT's head about Jimmy Sexton. He's the best sports agent in the business. He'll make sure you wind up where you need to be and you get the best deal you can possibly get out of it. LT tells whoever - Freeze, network intermediary - well, yeah, that sounds great but I'm supposed to sign with Agent Y. This is when the Network finds out about Booster X's plan, and they go crazy. Perhaps they underestimate how much Booster X really needs/has anticipated this payday and say "Look, I hate to bust your bubble, but you can't do this." Either a) having an agent that's a former UNM player just smacks of impropriety and we've already got the NCAA breathing down our necks or b) involving uncontrollable outside agents in the Network is just asking for disaster. Also, this plan isn't in the best interest of either the player or the program at large.
Fortunately, they carefully designed their system so that nobody was really supposed to have any incriminating evidence, so Booster X is frozen out of the program for his dumb idea and LT goes with Jimmy Sexton. Booster X is furious, but there's not a lot he can do about it (yet...). The Network thinks it's dodged a bullet by handling this so cleanly.
However, the timing of this situation is a bit awkward for the Network. All of the big time 'sponsors' are tied up at the moment, working on the 2016 class, and now LT is left without anyone to pay for all of the stuff that Booster X was covering. But, they'll manage to work something out and the important thing is that the Network is protected.
I firmly believe that the texts released on Instagram were from the awkward period of transition after Booster X was cut loose. They're trying to clean up a messy situation and could only come up with a really awkward, dangerous (but hopefully very temporary) 'quick fix'.
So LT has to cut back. Where before everything was all expenses paid, now he's having to have people scrape up the rent payments and enough to cover mama's light bill. Maybe after a couple of months the squeeze finally gets to stepdad and he decides to have it out with LT for fouling up his sweet deal that he had with Booster X.
What the Network & co. didn't realize is that LT was such a dummy that he didn't wipe his phone before he traded it into Booster X for a new one, and that an old device with passwords to access the cloud was making the frozen-out Booster X privy to all that awkward shit that LT was discussing through that very same cloud on his new device.
Game. Set. Match.