re: Caleb Downs

He won’t be able to go through spring practice…not that he needs it. They already started their classes and it was a deadline. He could still go, but I think it is likely OSU. I read they start on the 19th or something like that.

Maybe it is time to just start watching the NFL. At least they have to sign multi-year contracts. Here, it could be a yearly transfer out to the highest bidder.

In my head maybe the portal hit is to squeeze every last dime out of us but who the hell knows I’m muting that shite.

Could be the same for Niblack and Amos.

They can waive their deadline.

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Actual contracts are the only way to make college football less of a shitshow.

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Yeah, but then it will somehow get tied up in the courts forever before it’s ever implemented.

Massive failure by DeBoer. No question about it. Downs and Ryan Williams were the two guys he had to have. If he loses Williams as well, there will be real question marks.

frick em. I'm to the point where it feels kind of ridiculous to have any kind of an emotional reaction to these kids leaving these days. A lot of other schools have already had to deal with this stuff for a couple of years, now it's our turn, and I'm starting to truly understand all of the disillusion that is going on in cfb now. Whoever chooses not to leave, and whoever wants to join, great, but I'm pretty much done giving a shite about these teenagers who are now making more money than all of us, and don't really care about anything else.

Better get used to it. We had "play under the best coach in CFB history" as something to sweeten the pot whenever we were short of the competition in NIL money. We don't have that anymore, and we don't have as much money as the other big dogs, so we're not going to get and retain the same type of player anymore.

If we can get top 10 type talent instead of top 1-3 type talent we'll still be fine with this staff.

The whole thing is just ridiculous, though.

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Actual contracts are the only way to make college football less of a shitshow

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Problem with signing them to contracts is that there's no way out of classifying them as employees at that point, and once they're classified as employees you'd have to have collective bargaining. Every time I think about how collective bargaining would look in college sports, I can't see it as anything besides a totally unmitigated disaster. The disparity of interests among the employees and the short term nature of the "employment" would make it completely unworkable.

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If Saban had waited to announce until after the Feb signing period it might have gone better for us.

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Or we would've had less time assess the damage and figure how to finish 2024 recruiting or handle the spring window.

I’m sure DeBoer tried hard to keep him, but it doesn’t matter because he failed. Downvote and sunshine pump away, but the fact of the matter is that CKD has failed his first major test at Alabama.