MarkWiley

Yeah you are probably more right than I am, but I'm even seeing 3 stars take the scholarship and keep getting passed over. It's sad.

HS level coaches, parents and kids need to start being honest in their own assessments. Unless you are a 4-5 star national recruit, you need to go straight to D3-NAIA-JUCO-D2-FCS to a place you can build film, then transfer. If you watch closely, you've seen countless kids who are on the traditional development path get leapfrogged by transfers when it's their turn. Coaches are incentivized to give a transfer every opportunity over a long term recruit. Too many kids are holding on to a dream of a path that doesn't exist anymore, they need to suppress their ego and take the path that is laid our for them. I'm not saying this is right, or doesn't need changing, it just is so they need to adapt.

yes. It's marketing, you'll be surprised how much programs pay attention to who is recruiting who. Get one good offer at a top school in a conference then you can expect other schools in that conference to offer as well. FOMO is real.

garrison Smith to FAU.

To be fair, Mercyhurst JUST went up to FCS for football, starting next year. Why? No idea...

I'm sure the closeness of Kent to home is a big factor as well. Being from Ohio and having kids in the MAC is awesome.

I hope they have the guts to give it one year, give the team the chance to get out of OOC with 2 or even 3 wins and get a bowl game. Then see how that chargers the program. Here's hoping.

My fear is that our OOC schedule is going to get reworked over the summer for budgetary reasons.

And that’s the sad reality of the environment.

You could argue people ripping them apart online and criticizing their moves and announcement language is just as slightly damaging as a contract buyout they will never have to pay.

so if your complaint is you don't like the language of their announcement, I can't argue with you. But is that alone why you called them "f-ing a-holes"? Because their announcement was too wordy?

If you really want to complain about the current state, blame the NCAA, blame the MAC for the TV deal robbing the in game experience, blame the university for not doing enough to make the program attractive, the university for terrible on campus promotion... plenty of blame to go around, but blaming the kids for taking advantage of the system they are giving is not fair in my opinion.

well, keep in mind they are 18-22 years old and grew up in the world of social media. We are just old curmudgeons from a different era.

Coaches abandon programs, abandon kids they've recruited, abandon the fans all the time. Now kids get the same flexibility and everyone wants to take shots at them now.

hard to be mad at kids for operating within the environment they are given. You want them to not take advantage of the portal and NIL opportunities? You also don't understand how many of these decisions are out of their hands, we dont know how many are told to leave.

And the coaches hate it. Most coaches were very vocal about it with concerns for the safety of the players. It's going to take teams forfeiting the playoffs, which is a hard thing to do. I would love to see it changed, and also to finally give open enrollment/private a separate playoff bracket.

Forgot Eastern Michigan too. Basically every MAC school has or will offer him.

We are friends with the Stolarski's, Avon is our rival High School. Our coaches are high on Ryan and offered him in the first five minutes he was on campus. Great kid. Holds offers from Toledo, Buffalo, Lehigh and I think OU and Miami.

The Buffalo game was Senior Night.

These are from recruiting visits, they have a photo shoot as part of the day.

When the coach leaves for a P4 job after 2 years he can pull that now junior saying “remember I believed in you first”.

The seniors get to walk off a winner. That’s special.

Lol kicking is hard.

Hey now! Don’t drag the band into this 😂