kreed5120

Definitely, there was money exchanging hands before, but nothing to this scale. Now you have companies like Tyson and FedEx committing reportedly $5 million/yr. The tattoos or free car is pretty small scale compared to the money that is getting thrown around now.

I still think there is value in recruiting high school players. Even if there is less of a priority compared to previous years. At the end of the day there is still a finite amount of NIL money that we can spend and we can only promise so many transfers playing time. I also think the caliber of incoming freshmen that we can attract becomes greater as more and more P6 programs specifically look to recruit transfers instead of high school recruits. Therefore high school players that previously were playing in the Big 10 or Big East are now going to find their way into conferences like the MAC or MVC. The reality is no program is running a 13 man rotation. Spending 2-3 of those 13 scholarships looking for your next Enrique Freeman, Ali, Tribble, etc IMO is worth it. It also allows you to build relationships that way you can recruit those players again in a year or two when they're looking to transfer again.

I think he has baseball and softball mixed up. I believe baseball is what's in Avon.

That was challenged in court and overturned. The NCAA just updated their rules last week to not limit transfers as it wasn't a rule the courts would let them uphold. As it stands, the NCAA has no power over player movement. It's the wild wild west and nothing can be done to modify it.

Certainly he seems connected enough that he has some business connections in the Akron area. I'd imagine the collective is more than just him at the moment, but I'm not sure who else is helping to bankroll it as nobody really advertises it.

I don't really think Groce ever really got away from the concept of wanting to be a guard center team. He just happened to stumble on an All-American big, which he didn't even recruit. When you have a player of Freeman's caliber, you adjust your scheme to fit your roster. Now that Freeman is gone, Groce is just returning to how he normally constructs a roster.

This is exactly why I've been saying if you think a player is good enough to give you 5-10 minutes, there is no point in red-shirting in today's game. It's better to use scholarships on players you can help you now as there is no promise of a tomorrow.

The clock still stops inside of 2 minutes after every first down. Before it was any first down throughout the entire game. The stopping of the clock inside of 2 minutes to reset the chains already functions as mini timeouts. That makes a two minute warning redundant.

A two minute warning in college football is completely unnecessary. You already have the clock stopping on first downs. The last two minutes of a college game already feels like it takes 15-20 minutes.

Anything worth noting in the article? I'm not able to read

I'm not talking about necessarily competing with the P5 teams. That ship long sailed. The thing is other G5 and mid-majors are starting collectives so if you don't utilize NIL, you're now not just below the P5 in the pecking order, but also below all the other mid-majors as well. You've now become a low-major. On par with the likes of the MEAC, SWAC, or whatever other cupcake conference that are out there.

He's from Brooklyn. Him going from Brooklyn to Cornell was probably the bigger culture shock.

I can't remember the coach who originally popularized it, but it seems Akron is adopting the get old; stay old mantra. We were going to have an old team last year, but we still went out and added experienced players to the roster. This year we graduated 4 seniors so we went out and replaced them with 4 new juniors/seniors.

It looks like we got our Tribble (prior to 2023-2024) replacement. Tough nosed guard who can play defense, get to the rim, and is willing to get gritty. Hopefully Groce and the rest of the staff can work with him to improve his perimeter shooting, like they did Tribble. That seems to be the main thing missing from his game. Overall, I'm pleased with this add.

The rich getting richer. The poor getting poorer. The B1G was the big winners in adding value. The SEC, ACC, and Big 12 were bunched up next. The Big East and A10 notably made big improvements as well and look distanced from the pack. Everyone else is bringing up the rear. The MAC does look to be near the top of the best of the rest, but still miles behind the top 5-6 conferences.

I think this is more about the differences between the haves and have nots. Players like Johnny Manziel at Texas A&M or Joe Burrow at LSU certainly move the needle and made money for their school therefore they should be paid. It's probably realistic for players to get paid at the the top 30-40 or so schools as they're competing at a semi-pro level. When you get to the MAC level, no one player is going to drive 100s of thousands to millions of extra dollars for the school. The MAC is really what amateur athletics is about, but now we're forced to try to spend like a semi-pro team to maintain our status. Using Ali as an example, I'm glad he returned, but him returning didn't directly lead Akron to selling 1000s of extra season tickets.

You don't have to like the system, but it's either adapt or be left behind.

I doubt that's the case at Akron. It looks like between tuition, room & board, and other fees, the cost of attendance at Akron is nearly $30k now. That's not including what you'd have to pay the player on top of that. That would seem very wasteful spending when you have limited resources to start.

They did say in the interview that Okonkwo wasn't who they were initially targeting. He became suddenly available and was too good to pass up. I wouldn't be surprised if Harris and Wilson played a part in recruiting him.

For those of you that aren't able to get around to listen, I'll list a few takeaways. - Bud says Akron is still looking to add 1, maybe 2 players. - Akron is taking a moneyball approach relying on algorithms to determine players value and who to target. - They are working on developing a system for one-time, quarterly, and monthly donations reoccurring donations. There will be different tiers where you can get t-shirts, hats, courtside seats, attend a practice, etc based off donation size. - Football collective was just recently started with a large donation. I'm sure there are other things that I might have missed.

9 out of the top 10 losers are also mid-majors. Not to mention the losers are losing a lot more NET OVR (not familiar with what that metric exactly is) than the top gainers are gaining. I'm counting in total 13 P6 (including Gonzaga) on the top gainers. That's nearly half the list. I'm only counting 4 P6 on the top losers list. Furthermore, there are 350+ D1 basketball programs and only about 1/4 of them come from a P6 conference therefore one would expect more mid-majors on both lists. Either way the data shows mid-majors are getting hit much harder on transfers. That's not to say a program like Akron isn't holding their own, but for every Akron there are 3 or 4 CMU types out there that have had their roster gutted.

Ali had more to do with how raw he was as a player. A 6'8 wing is big even by P6 standards. I do think you will see more and more of those big sized developmental players trickle down to the mid-majors. It doesn't make sense for an Iowa State or Northwestern to take a flyer on developing a player for 2-3 years when they can just go buy a proven contributor from Kent, Akron, Toledo, etc. The MAC is the AAA farm system now. We both develop the players and now take the guys who are being sent back down.

FedEx announced a $5 million per year commitment in NIL to the University of Memphis. One has to think this will make them the top program in the AAC. https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/sports/college/memphis-tigers/2024/04/19/fedex-memphis-athletics-nil-fred-smith-football-basketball-laird-veatch/73376523007/

I still feel last years team never reached its peak potential. Tribble was probably the only player that exceeded my expectations coming into the season. Freeman may have slightly exceeded them too, but I expected a big year from him. Ali had a good year, but I expected more from him, particularly as a floor spacer. Everyone else fell well short of what I thought they'd do. Per kenpom, last season was Groce's 4th best Akron squad. I want to say next year's team won't be as good as this one, but it's not like this year's team was all that special. The MAC on paper looks weaker. I think we can make it back to the tournament next year, but we probably won't be the odds on favorites to win the MAC.

Not a strength and conditioning issue, but I also don't think we had much of an answer for Kalkbrenner. It's easy to see why he won Big East DPOY. He only was credited with 3 blocks, but he disrupted every shot within 5 feet of the basket.