re: I’m pleased with our coaching staff

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keep wondering the value of a freshman class now. Transfers and NIL deals have clouded the water.

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Depends on the type of players you recruit. Portal and NIL deals don’t seem to hurt us as much so far probably because we don’t get a lot of highly touted recruits that everyone throws huge NIL deals at and that expect to play immediately.

It’s a whole new strategy. The way I see it is there are 3 big strategies

1. Recruit good but overlooked freshman players at positions you really need to fill in the next 2 seasons. Plug in remaining holes with transfers. This keeps from wasting scholarships on a lot of freshman for positions that are filled by a current player who has 2-3 years left. The freshman you sign play positions that lead them to likely get quality snaps pretty quickly due to need, and lessens the odds they hit the portal. This strategy keeps a core group of players each year that have team cohesion and experience to build around. This seems to be our strategy

2. Sign less freshman and hit the portal hard. The Kiffin strategy. This lessens the odds of a bunch of freshman hitting the portal the next year. With a good NIL program in place you can grab a few highly touted players out of the portal. The risk is it can be hit or miss due to lack of team cohesion and experience in the program. Basically you have a ton of new faces each year and can be a challenge to get them to gel as a team

3. Try to sign a huge freshman class of highly touted recruits like schools did before NIL and the portal, only now you give them huge NIL deals and hope that’s enough to keep them on the roster until they get playing time. The Aggie model. High risk high reward strategy, if you can keep the players you could be a powerhouse. But you risk getting a lot of players chasing the money who don’t really want to play for your school. They get money and leave after a year to go where they really want. It crashed and burned for Aggie but on the flip side it seems Georgia does this successfully. Depends heavily on program success and ability of coaching staff to select not only talented recruits but ones with the character and desire to commit to your school long term.