catdaddyp

The plan with this staff has always been to sign 12–15 freshmen each class. This year it’s been slightly smaller so far, though we may still sign a few more. Like Captain alluded to, most immediate impact players are going to come from either the portal or JUCO. Although to this point, our JUCO signees have mostly been depth pieces, outside of a few guys.

Bump before the portal officially opens tomorrow. For portal departures, I’ve only included players who I believe are on scholarship and walk-ons who played significant snaps.

They are announcing their intent. I’m sure there’s tampering going on in a number of situations.

I could be wrong, but based on the film and the other linemen who’ve been offered scholarships, my guess would be that he’s a walk-on.

Durham back in the portal. That leaves Hull as the sole returning starter along the DL…at the moment.

Thanks. I only included players who I believe to be on scholarship to give a clearer picture of impact players, along with how many spots still need to be filled. I think Bivens is a walk-on, so I didn’t include him. If I recall correctly, Mixon was originally a walk on too, but at this point I’d expect he’d be on scholarship.

We all knew this one was coming. Good luck Bruno.

Feels that way. The difference, though, is there’s plenty of potential returning, albeit with limited production at some positions. The roster JoeMo took over was badly depleted in both talent and depth across a number of positions. On top of that, a good handful of the returning players who had upside never developed and left after JoeMo’s first year. On the bright side, other teams across the MAC are losing starters and all-conference players as well, which could lead to 2026 being wide open again.

Yet another one developed by Coach JRod who had few to no offers coming out of high school, now heading out the door to get paid. What really stings about losing Morris is his ability to adequately play anywhere on the OL when needed.

My guess is they feel there will be a solid enough base to make them competitive in 2026 with the retention of their 13–15 “quality” players, plus a decent recruiting class. I’d think this past year was more of a learn-on-the-job experience for their HC, where he found out football at the G5 level is a bit more difficult than at FCS. I don’t know if UMass has the right guy for the job or not, but I’d love to see Akron find a way to retain most of our best players.

Bump for updates and a few notes. - EMU signed the largest class in the first signing period, with many of the signees being freshmen. - Toledo has lost nearly half their freshmen signees due to the coaching change. I don’t think that matters much anymore with the portal having become the more relevant recruiting source, but I thought it was worth mentioning anyway. - Supposedly, UMASS has used their NIL funds towards retention of 15 players, and 13 of them have indicated they will stay at UMASS. - I’ll continue to update this thread as I see more activity.

Laventure to the portal.

https://x.com/chrisbeballin35/status/1998507887379828965?s=46&t=i28PJ0RreaRA57i6LfDzUA First portal commit. OT from Emory & Henry.

Hoped this wouldn’t happen, but figured it would. That does it for the entire 2022 class that ended up producing seven all-conference players.