Do you still look at high school recruiting the same?

I gave up a while ago. With Bama paying players under the table and no one honoring their commitments, it was hard to get invested in it.

Why would you? To me, recruiting is now a year to year thing across classes. You have to re-recruit practically your entire team every season. Blue chips any given year will be on a wait and see basis with programs with larger bank accounts.

I would absolutely hate being a college football coach right now. Without contracts or proper rules for NIL, it's far worse than being a pro coach.

The unlimited free agency for players is going to have a reckoning at some point. The carrot will be schools or associated 503 paying the football players, the stick will be contractual agreements that require all parties to consent to ending the contract before terms are complete (with a litany of player and school advantaged termination triggers of course).

We're in the Wild West era of NIL+transfers because the NCAA has abrogated their interests on this front due to a litany of litigation Ls. Eventually the power players are going to agree that something must be done to rationalize the labor-side business of the sport. Part of the reason the NFL doesn't have a D-League is because they know most of these high schoolers are poisonous assets to hold. Eventually several school's collectives are going to get over-committed to dead weight and the money is going to demand a reckoning.

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Do you still look at high school recruiting the same?

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No. Because of the portal, signing a good player only means you’ll have them for one year. When you actually had to sit out a year to transfer, that deterred a lot of the nonsense. Outside off the field stuff and getting dismissed, transfers were rare

How can you?

Now it’s only 50% of your roster building efforts

I mean there's really not much of a reason to follow it that closely the letter of intent they sign isn't worth the piece of paper that it was written on.

I’ll pay attention to offensive linemen more than anything. It seems like they are more subject to stay with a program and develop than other positions.

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I used to follow it but now I loosely follow it because of the portal recruiting. What about you?

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Wtf man, are you aware that without HS recruiting there would be no portal? In any case the portal thing is too new to know if a team of mostly mercenaries is the key to success, lasting or flash in the pan one and done.

So far I've seen mixed results with coach Primes squad in Colorado and then of course Mich State, but neither resulted in a conference championship much less playoff berth. I think Freshwater and the Rebs will be something to monitor closely next season, but even if it does work there's no guarantee he can keep bringing in fresh soldiers of fortune every year and have the same results.

I think there is still a lot of value in bringing in high school recruits, immersing them in your team culture and coaching..and only using the portal to fill any talent holes that may crop up from either players leaving for the NFL, transferring for whatever reason or simply not panning out.

I haven't followed recruiting since 2008. It's basically just copium for mediocre teams