Quote Originally Posted by ZedFedder View Post
If Gabriel does indeed go to Oregon, it stinks, but there are other very capable quarterbacks available.
The ones on Gabriel's level won't even consider us, and the QBs who aren't elite and are just "capable" will still demand a free market price and we have no ins with them. The Lebby connection was supposed to be tue magic sauce allowing us to get real value as far as performance to NIL goes.

This is a big loss and further reinforces the fact we can't truly compete with the big boys in a Portal+NIL world: If we can't land Gabriel with the Lebby connection, what elite player will we ever land? And if all the big players not only recruit HS better than us, but can fill roster holes with elite Portal talent while we hope for "capable", how will a '14 season ever happen again?

That's a good thought experiment, let's pretend that the portal and NIL existed at the end of the '13 season and players were going for the same prices they are now. Dak would have been offered close to a million. Bear and Fred Ross would have been more sought after than RaRa. Some others would be courted, like Benardric McKinney or Dillon Day. Could we have afforded to keep the '14 team together?