Not so fast.
https://www.si.com/college/2024/04/1...college-sports
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Then the Dawgs will be fielding a team of leftovers. Recruiting has become who is the highest bidder gets the best players.
I think it cuts both ways. The flagship universities are going to have complete teams every year, because they can buy a shovel-ready solution at every position. And will continue to have top recruiting classes. Both fueled by NIL advantages.
But these rub against each other - it will be hard to break into these squads for first time starters. And they will not t be able to stockpile depth anymore, because a tier 2 team (for ease just define the top half of the SEC in ath. dept. revenue is tier 1, the bottom half is tier 2) is lurking to give a starting position to second string player. The tier 1 NIL package for player 30 will not be able to beat the tier 2 NIL pacakage for position 10, and the modern college athlete is not going to wait years to play.
And the tier 2 team can also pick off experienced P5 players to plug holes.
The tier 1 team has an advantage but it is fragile. A few injuries or player recruitment busts (especially at qb) and you are struggling. In the past the tier 2 teams would have gaps or perennial weaknesses at positions like cb, ot, de. Now they can plug those holes with near-tier 1 players.
The margins are thinner for everyone - Coaching, injuries, player scouting and development, portal recruiting will be the difference.
Main reason why Saban left. Another thing about the moving around every year or other year is that these players cannot develop properly. Face it the last 2 years the quality of the product on the field has regressed/ The kids have to learn new systems every year and cannot get proficient in their trade/
Agree, until there is some sort of NIL cap or something that will allow school funds to help pay players we are on the decline big time. OM has way more rich alumni interested in athletics than we do so they will make out much better in these ongoing bidding wars. We can't even get elite baseball players anymore in the one sport that we SHOULD be a destination location because there are still schools willing even in that sport willing to outbid us. Think how much better we would be this year if we had gotten Holman or Montgomery. We really lucked up that Cal Stephen has turned out to be as good as he is.
I'm ok with being in the middle of the pack with the Sec, if so that means we are pretty good not great. In saying this, I have been told by someone who knows that we are in good shape (middle of pack) with NIL money.
To be fair, while I agree athletics aren't the most important thing, it is usually one of the first opportunities to showcase your school to perspective highschool students. Have you looked at the number of out of state applications Alabama started getting after Saban had been there and won a couple of NCs? It shot through the roof and they are now cherry picking some of the best academic students thus improving the school's academic reputation.
So, in a round about way it would make sense if you care about academics to support athletics. It is like the front door to your university especially for kids that didn't have parents that went to State.
It is true. We are between 8-12 in NIL funding on a given year. OM is not that much higher. They are between 5-9 on a given year. Their advantage is two fold and neither has anything to do with rich boosters caring more about athletics. Number 1 is their fan base understands this is the way of college sports and has completely bought in. Number two is Kiffin. Kids want to play for him. We have rectified point two by hiring Lebby. And we could be in that tier if the same thing would happen in our fan base. Instead, we have people who want to complain that we can't get athletes, but then say they don't want to participate in buying players. We could have just as many $100/month people as they have, but we just don't have the same buy in.
A lot of the media was sold a false bill of goods and had to run with it because it's their job. They lose access or their credentials are taken away then they are unemployable. The posters who who tried to sell it.....well....I don't know what to tell you on that one. Maybe blind faith, maybe sticking up for friends, or maybe just truly believed Arnett was going to adjust.