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Every spring game is full of vanilla formations and plays. Now-a-days it's a Marketing event more than anything else. Lee Owens would run Ben Ruhlin 25 times in the spring game, and people would be expecting Ruhlin to be our star back in the fall...only to be disappointed when he got only a handful of mop-up carries the entire season. It kept Brandon Payne and Bobby Hendry healthy tho. Finley's already enrolled. He'd need to sit if he transferred again. He's not going to go through the hassle of appealing sitting out another season just to transfer to Appalachian State or UAB. He's the odds-on favorite for the starting job here. There were some people, me included, 😀 who saw something special in Enrique Freeman even as a freshman. Soft hands, great footwork...relentless motor. I guess that's what I look for in a spring game...young guys that exhibit the tools to be a contributor one day. Breakaway speed, a WR that makes a circus grab or two. Just getting a chance to see some of the new players in person and see how tall, cut, fast, strong-armed etc. they are is interesting and fun.

Just saw this on X. We were discussing this a few days ago, the true Blue Bloods. We mentioned the top 7 as the true bluest of Blue Bloods. @Illini Zip also mentioned Villanova & @zippy5 also mentioned Michigan State.

To my knowledge we haven’t offered yet, but linebacker Rodney Groce is in the portal. We offered him out of JUCO before he chose UTSA. Committed to Miss. State out of HS and was an All-American JUCO LB. Something to keep an eye on.

As disappointing as it is to fans, JoeMo is running spring like most P5s do, which is limited access. Although, this has got to be the least amount of published video clips since his arrival. I imagine that has more to do with the media department at the school though. A number of G5 programs have gone away from the spring game and are doing something they call “spring show cases” where it’s individual drills followed by a glorified 7 on 7. Thankful that’s not yet the case here. Unfortunately, players can transfer multiple times now. Even in the same year if they so desire. NCAA has had their legs cut out from underneath them. That being said, I’m with you. I don’t think Finley is going anywhere. Even if he rips up the MAC this coming season, I’m not sure if he’d leave. Unless something drastically changes, he’s one of the many that seem genuinely excited to be a part of this program.

Going from a place that prays for your salvation to a place that prays for your death every time you lose.

It's probably also a much harder sell now. In previous years it was come to Akron, we have 2 All-MAC caliber players and you could be that final piece we need to make the tournament. I know you have been dreaming of that since you were a kid. Now it's come to Akron. Our roster is very depleted, but you can easily earn playing time.

Fredrick King - 6'10" 250 lbs Center from Creighton - has entered the Portal. He's from the Bahamas. I wonder if Sammy Hunter would put a good word in for us if he were to be a target of this staff.

Ahhhh!! Thanks. Never heard that one. I have heard of Press Virginia (WV).

@Illini Zip that's what Arkansas used to call their defense. It was VCU's HAVOC before VCU's HAVOC. 40 minutes of full-court press.

40 minutes of hell!

And another player we brought in for a visit this past year (before committing to North Texas) hit the portal. Former JUCO DL Rodney Green. See if anything picks up here.

I’m excited about him. I think he’ll develop into a really good player in a few years. Coach Renna has done an excellent job identifying talent in the defensive backfield. This might be the year we get see a few of those younger guys from the 2022 and 2023 classes play significant snaps.

I know someone who follows Ursuline religiously, pun intended. He said that Tairan is an excellent WR for them, but it looks like we recruited him as a Safety. Hopefully that translates to a lot of interceptions for us.

It sucks, but good point. With today’s Wild West of college athletics, whose to say another school wouldn’t swoop in and “persuade” Finley to transfer if we released footage of him balling.

Can’t believe he did that in BYU’s gym

Give the guy a break. He's just happy he can pitch booze, smoking, and sex to recruits again. Quite frankly, BYU fans are probably semi OK with this. The guy never won a tourney game and finished 5th or lower in the conference 5+(?) times.

That’s awful. He acts like a high school recruit and does it BYU’s gym. I would be pissed as a BYU fan.

I'm not surprised we haven't had a commitment yet. In most years, our transfers have been expected to be role players. One or more transfers coming in this summer will likely start and play a major role. Need to make sure it's a great fit.

BYU got knocked out in the first round by a mediocre A10 team. Their coach gets a 5-year deal from a school that also got knocked out in the first round? Can't say I'd be excited if I were a Kentucky fan.

Kentucky fans doing mental gymnastics to defend this hire when they claimed before Calipari making 7 Elite 8s in 14 tournaments wasn't winning enough. https://tenor.com/x5LA.gif I feel blue bloods, at least in basketball (where you only need 2-3 studs), don't mean as much these days as before the NIL days. Kids are going to care more about securing a bag than going to some storied program that they didn't even grow up cheering for. That enables programs with deep pocketed boosters (Arkansas, Oregon, Texas A&M, etc) an opportunity to narrow the gap if they choose to do so.

Reports are Mark Pope will be the next Kentucky Coach. He has never won an NCAA tournament game...

Ali Ali actually played meaningful minutes as a true freshman on the 2019-2020 MAC regular season title team. He even started 11 games. I'm not going to pretend to be an evaluator of talent, but if Groce thinks he can add something to this depleted roster, he'll play.

He has redshirt written all over him. He reminds me of Ali Ali. Very raw but you can tell he "gets it".

Basheer Jihad to Arizona State https://twitter.com/TiptonEdits/status/1778513363644928108

I've heard from multiple people that Ben Finley is looking very good. My goal is to attend the Saturday morning practice. If it works out I'll take some notes and pictures.