catdaddyp

Football roster has been updated. Looks like everyone is accounted for except the incoming freshmen and JUCO DT Nehemiah Musika, who may just be enrolling later. Also, it seems former UNC LB CJ Murphy has filled the open LB spot.

https://philsteele.com Site is a little janky and there are always typos, but it’s usually an entertaining read. The magazine comes with online access.

Not sure if anyone else has posted this, but here are a few nuggets from Phil Steele: He’s projecting our most wins since 2017 despite the portal and graduation losses. That said, he has us ranked 10th in the MAC—an improvement from being tied for dead last in 2024. (For reference, we finished 8th last season with 3 MAC wins and 4 total.) Coaching staff got a bump—he ranks them 5th in the conference, up from 8th a year ago. He’s not buying into our OL, DL, DB, or ST units though. He’s pretty down across the board on those groups. Preseason All-MAC selections: QB: Ben Finley (4th Team) WR: Alex Adams (2nd Team) TE: Jake Newell (3rd Team) LB: Gage Summers (3rd Team) CB: Elijah Reed (4th Team) My take: As far as preseason All-MAC goes, I think it’s wishful thinking for Adams after what I saw in the spring game. He didn’t have the explosiveness he had a few years ago. Hopefully he will get some of it back by the time 2025 kicks off. I think it’s more likely Mason lands as an all conference WR. I also think we’ll be fine at DB and on ST. I’m more concerned with our quality depth on the OL and DL. Hopefully we’ve done enough in the portal and through JUCO to shore up those groups so that injuries don’t drastically alter our performance when the backups have to step in.

I appreciate their dedication to covering the MAC, but at the end of the day, those guys are really just fans who happened to graduate from MAC schools—so take their opinions with a grain of salt. We should’ve won more under Moorhead. Just too many close losses. If we don’t come out of this year’s OOC slate at 3-1, I’m going to be disappointed. The MAC is wide open, and we’re one of the few teams returning a starting quarterback. I don’t see us winning at Toledo or pulling off a home win over Miami—those programs look like they’ve reloaded pretty well—but outside of that, every conference game feels winnable. I agree the freshman class is legit, and the portal additions seem to be solid. The 2023 and 2024 recruits should be ready to contribute now too. If Tibesar’s defense overachieves like it usually does when expectations are low and we can piece together a competent offensive line, it could be a fun ride this season.

Just a heads up—I likely won’t be updating recruiting threads much anymore. On3 bought out Rivals and the transition kicks off in a few days. I’ve already stepped back from writing quite a bit, so the timing actually works out. I’ll still be around and talking ball as always, just won’t have much insider recruiting info going forward.

Norton to Marshall. Assuming he qualifies….

I think he’s a new assistant position coach on the defensive side of the ball. The NFL does various coaching fellowships for college coaches during the offseason. Our former CBs coach did one a few years back as well.

He may not be as athletically gifted as some of the other DL we have, but he has a relentless motor. I bet he sees the field simply because of that. Usually guys like that have a great work ethic.

Best guess is he’s being brought in to play Nickel. He actually played well for CMU back in 2022 (excellent against the run and so/so against the pass), but his playing time’s taken a big dip since then.

Started almost every game at LT for N. Alabama last year. PFF graded him solidly as a pass protector.

Honestly, it should be pretty easy to work around. For instance, if it's just two hours a week, players could easily warm themselves up for 15 minutes without coaches on the field and then do a "voluntary" lift for another 15 minutes. Something along those lines. It really shouldn’t make much of a difference. And if the APR ruling ends up going to court, all this back-and-forth is pointless anyway.

At least 6 games should be the goal. And he motivates them by having far more intel on the situation than the forum does.

Yep, this will likely end up being a big hoopla about nothing. APR became an archaic measurement once courts ruled in favor of NIL and NCAA basically allowed unlimited transfers.

Probably because they know this APR ban won’t stick. As soon as a school takes NCAA to court over it, APR will go away. It should have been eliminated already.

We offered Syracuse RB Juwaun Price. I’m guessing one of our current RBs has left the team in some capacity.

I don’t think they’ll enforce it. Bret Bielema has told the committee numerous times this issue was coming and they’ve refused to acknowledge it. The sheer amount of athletes not graduating is going to be a hot topic soon.

I doubt this holds up. NCAA has turned a blind eye to APR in the recent portal era.

On a side note, I remember Skip Holtz attempting to teach Dondrail Pinkins how to throw with the laces. His accuracy steadily got worse over the training sessions and Skip eventually said forget it, it’ll be what it’ll be.

OL Cameron Jones in on an official. We missed on him out of high school. Maybe we land him this time around.

Tahj guiding the air raid offense should be interesting.

Definitely a run first QB. Rushed for 140 yards and 7 TDs in 2023, while attempting only one pass that season.

Yeah, they’ve seemingly done well. Rivals has them #2 comprehensive behind Toledo. Our class is in the midst of dragging itself out of the doldrums of MAC rankings and is now ranked 4th comprehensive according to Rivals. We have a chance to end up 3rd.

He may be a walk-on, but it’s also possible they just haven’t released his official commitment post yet. If he is a walk-on, he’ll probably be one of the better ones we’ve picked up. I think we’ve added three DTs so far, including the two JUCOs. We still need at least one or two more. All things considered, I like what the new DL coach has done so far with the resources we have.

He’s definitely going to help us. Two veteran DL in the last 24 hours. Let’s get a few more…

Great pickup! Brookhart is loading up the WR room.