The recruiting debacle provides anecdotal evidence that we didn't cheat before
Ryan Day simply holds a press conference and gives his payroll budget request ($14 million).
We already have an idea of what D. Moore is being offered to go to Oregon. (I heard $5 million)
Dan Patrick reported that one QB prospect was asking $8million
We lose the Prince of Michigan royalty to Notre Dame (good luck to the kid really).
Raylen Wilson decommit.
The Hunter Wilson pleas for a better NIL system.
This does provide me the sober satisfaction that Michigan wasn't paying players. If we were, we'd be a lot better at this than what we're showing.
Back when it was not legal but everyone did it I could have gone either way on whether we should do it or not. Now that is legal we have no excuse not to be better at this. We should have limitless resources being put toward having the best and most innovative NIL structure in college football. There are other ways to determine a kid's motivation beyond "did he ask for money? Then he must be a bum who only cares about money". Michigan should be able to find those ways to get the motivated kids who love football and basketball as well as an education AND understand their value as an athlete in a multibillion dollar business.
Also... it could possibly, POSSIBLY be due to the coaches in the program signaling instability. This offseason saw Michigan:
- Have a head coach that was desperately pursuing ANY NFL job opening that would give him the time of day
- The coordinator of our vastly improved defense leave after only a season back to his old team
- The Broyles Award-winning OC insult the program on his way over to a lateral job move to be OC at Miami.
Fantastic optics from the outside looking in, definitely appealing to any high-profile recruit that could essentially choose any other program in the country right now.
But if we used the NIL money that this University is capable of garnering, we'd have a top10 recruiting class regardless of any coaching situation. The money alone would get it done.
It's as simple as this. Even with this you're going to get the head buried in the sand consortium grasping on to the "old system" in any way they can.
Exactly. If Mel Tucker can bring in a good class, anyone can with the right NIL.
Michigan should be able to find those ways to get the motivated kids who love football and basketball as well as an education AND understand their value as an athlete in a multibillion dollar business.
I'd argue a recruit who prioritizes education as part of the their college experience would have a better understanding of the value they deliver to the university and would also be looking for more value for themselves in addition to the straight dollars. If Michigan wants/NEEDS to recruit these types of players, they better have an NIL program which delivers opportunities far beyond "here's your paycheck, sign here".
Exactly, why not both? I know Michigan wants to provide "transformational" and not "transactional" experiences but I think that's a bit idealistic at this point. It's a more akin to a job market now. That doesn't mean things other than pay don't matter, they matter a ton, e.g. having a good boss, good culture etc. But if a recruit has two schools they really like and think are great fits, but one is offering guaranteed money and the other is offering a "chance" to make money, which one is the recruit going to pick?
It depends on how it is pitched and the person making the decision. Some people will jump at the upfront guarantee of $5M before stepping foot on campus. Some will decide they will wait 8 months because they believe (or have seen data to prove) they will make $6M once they are part of the team. Michigan is clearly going for one type of person and other teams are going for a different type. So be it. Culture and chemistry still matter for winning as well as the recruiting pipeline. Teams need to build how they best see fit.
That's fair. I just hope that the pool of recruits that fit that mold is large enough to continue to compete with OSU.
It could be that 2023 is just going to be a smaller class, and we'll have better luck in 2024 after another strong season. Another year of NIL data from Michigan players can't hurt either - hopefully If Michigan is going this route, they'll do a good job making the case that current players are making enough NIL money to be competitive.
There's the old saying 'One in hand is worth two in the bush.' If I'm 18, and one school says "Here's $5 million, payable when you sign your commitment letter," and the other says "Yeah, we have tons of money, we'll pay you much more... at some point." What am I going to pick?
There's always the concern if I get injured, I won't get the money. Always take the guaranteed money. Besides, I'm young, I want to show up on campus driving a Tesla and buy myself a nice crib on campus, and a new house for my parents who probably live in very humble circumstances.
Most of these kids come from disadvantaged backgrounds, and are not likely to trust promises or IOUs. Show me the money.
Great point fgs. A firm that says, "your salary will come, but i cannot commit to a number" will not succeed in any labor market in my lifetime/world of experience.
Better live up this win over OSU and big ten title, it ain't happening again for a while.
Eh, we have a shot this year. After that... things look pretty dicey.
It's NOT legal. It's just that everyone has decided to cheat and the NCAA has decided not to enforce the rules.
I applaud your effort to find a silver lining in the apparent state of Michigan recruiting. Unfortunately, it appears to be made of aluminum foil. And not even the shiny side of a fresh piece of heavy-duty foil. This is, at best, the dull side of a corner torn from a piece of dollar store aluminum foil covering a plate of tuna-spinach-spaghetti casserole that is several weeks past its prime.
best description ever...
tuna-spinach-spaghetti casserole that is several weeks past its prime.
Tuna-spinach-spaghetti casserole is past its prime the moment it comes out of the oven.
Question: Because of what the pandemic did to high school sports in general, is this entire nationwide recruiting class a Tuna Spaghetti casserole? To what extent will older seasoned players wipe to floor with them as soon as they are on campus? And by the time they are Seniors, will the younger non shutdown pandemic players be passing them up at great speed?
So, why are we paying a tuna spaghetti casserole millions of dollars for NIL? Non pandemic D. Green would have made 5 million, what if this entire class is a pandemic D. Green?
Take out the human element of competition and look at what the pandemic did the horse racing. It caused a massive and severe drop in the overall strength of the sport.
Maybe not wrong. Lets cancel sports, cancel school, sit at home on computers and watch riots on CNN . . . now pay me.
Man, let it go. The pandemic lockdowns can't hurt you anymore.
To answer your question - what does any of that matter? If we can't do NIL properly now, we won't be able to do it when the "younger non shutdown pandemic players" are ready to be recruited either.
This whole comments seems to be an excuse for you to jabber on about the pandemic and how much it affected all the things you love.
Let it go!
I was trying to pose the theory that recruits who were in lockdown and missed school, practice and games are potentially at a long term disadvantage over the course of their careers. As opposed to those who are now going to get a full high school experience.
This class was highly impacted by the shutdown. That is a fact.
I supposed the long term data 5-10 years from now will tell us what impact it actually had on various sports. I am not obsessed with the pandemic, but it is something that happened and we all experienced it and it will have relevant statistical outcomes. Time will tell.
And yet, someone will bring a Tupperware of that into work and microwave it for 8 minutes, making an already dicey Monday that much more miserable....
Good strategy by you to make sure NOBODY asks you bring a dish to pass. ANYWHERE. EVER.
It needs to be made of gold! We need to compete with these other schools who are paying to recruit kids or we will be a future middling B1G team.
I don't think some of the top CF teams over the last decade - Alabama, Georgia, Clemson, OSU, ND and Oklahoma - are "buying" recruits as much as some like to think. They really don't have to instead pointing to the massive amounts of NIL money that their current star players are pulling in - players like Bryce Young and CJ Stoud and telling HS recruits that the money will be there when they prove themselves. Plus, I assume these schools also point to their success in developing and putting players in the NFL I think that's the basis behind the beef that Saban had with Jimbo.
Now schools like Texas A&M, Tennessee, Louisville and Oregon.- a list of wanna bes -....that's a whole different story with NIL money to recruits, The money is massive and they don't seem to care what other schools think. Welcome to college football - the 2022 version
Logged in just to upvote. Great description of the current process.
In the conversation about recruiting it seems there are at least 3 camps: 1) nothing to see here all will be fine because we are Michigan and JH is the head coach, 2) we are doomed because of NIL, or 3) the recruiting issues are because of Jim pursuing an NFL job. The truth as I see it is that there is certainly something wrong, if only a few recruits were going elsewhere then there would be hope, but there is a lot of smoke here which indicates a growing fire. As to the reasons for the recent recruiting issues its a mix of NIL, Jim issues and our current recruiting staff. I do agree that NIL is likely the biggest reason right now as having a great NIL program would overcome some of the other issues.
Can these issues be fixed? Going all in on NIL would certainly help, winning this fall would help, but if recruits aren't certain about Jim sticking around or his job security that's not an easily fixable thing.
Strap in though, that casserole just might get awfully moldy.
Wow, an analogy using weeks old Tuna Spaghetti. Sounds about right.
Don't worry. We are Michigan. Who has it better than us? We don't need to adjust to the landscape, we are Michigan. These are the inner thoughts of the elites running the University.
....and they are all delusional, fucked in the head living in the 1970s, maybe early 80s.
The Michigan Indifference!
The Leaders at Rest!
I approve this message
+1 Username checks out.
Upvoted for graphic excellence.
- How do we grow the endowment to keep the University solvent for years to come?
- How do we maintain and develop the student body to be successful after college?
- How do we continue to procure research funding and attract top minds to keep the college as part of the academic elite and engaged with relevant industry?
- How do we keep the facilities funded and maintained for the next 10 years?
- How is the health of the multibillion dollar medical program?
- - 99. Other questions about finances of a multibillion dollar entity and the life of the students on campus....and then....
100. What problems is the athletic department creating today?
https://obp.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/pubdata/budget/ubudgetbooksummary_fy22.pdf
These are the real day-to-day thoughts of the people charged with running the University of Michigan.
Guess what? The President of OSU has the same list of things to think about. Somehow that does not prevent allowing the OSU AD to adapt to the 'now permitted to pay players' landscape.
Same goes for the President of ND.
How much longer will it take for people with this wrong-headed excuse-making mentality ('...unreasonable to expect Michigan to do well/care about/adapt to change in football when there are other important things to worry about...') to figure out that they were wrong and make the correct course correction?
For sure Michigan is a higher ranked academic institution than OSU. But guess what? Since 2000 (around the time The Sweater Vest took over football in Columbus and they kicked football into a higher gear), OSU has really improved its academic ranking.
OSU was not really that impressive of an academic institution back in the day. But they have improved a lot as an academic institution and have, accordingly, moved up the rankings. Somehow being 'all in' on winning football did not prevent that from happening.
The entire premise behind Michigan face plant on the new NIL world is based on the mistaken premise expressed in your post--that seriousness about being and elite academic institution requires NOT being 'all in' on being a top football school and instead requires a Michigan to pose and preen about 'the right way.'
It's mostly football yahoos here--that's what the site's about. Your rant doesn't change the list of priorities, nor should it. OSU's been cheating and paying players for forever. We're not them. Hope we create an academic league and quit the NCAA--that's what my last letter to Mary Sue Coleman was about, and there are others mulling it.
I grew up in Michigan--Tom Harmon's mom was, for a time, my grandmother's maid. We worshipped Michigan and M football. Three generations of my family and my entire immediate family--two brothers, mom and dad--went to Michigan. I went to high school and college in A2, and used to hit the Washtenaw Dairy for my doughnuts on game days. You don't own this institution, meanings or legacy, and you don't dictate the way this is going to go. Torch and pitchfork guys with dilated eyes from too much corrupt sports TV watching are not going to carry the day here. Sorry. We aren't going to become the shit schools, their yahoo followers, their corrupt and mindless boosters, any of it. You be them. Go to OSU--send your kids there--maybe they can play the crapified brand of semi-prof football that college football has become. Michigan isn't going with you.
Go play intramurals brother. But make sure you donate to the AD and buy 4 season tix before you do...that football program has to pay for a lot of scholarships for other sports programs
I hate to break it to you, but you’re holding onto an image that doesn’t exist anymore. The day we decided scholarship athletes didn’t need to meet the same standards as other students is the day we decided to compromise our standards for winning.
If you think our football players haven’t been getting a little extra here and there, you’re naive. We already took down banners for our basketball team because of impermissible benefits. Let’s not pretend it didn’t happen.
Paying players is basically legal now. So you don’t get to look down your nose at OSU for doing so. We need to embrace it, support our players. These guys sacrifice a lot and they go through a lot to represent our University and they give us something to be proud of each Saturday in the fall. Instead of acting like it’s a crime to pay them, support it. God knows most of them deserve more than they get, but we will focus on the few that are over paid and we’ll take a stance that they don’t deserve it because one guy received NFL money before ever playing a snap in college.
Great, another "We're Michigan and we're better than everyone else" post.
Yes, OSU got into some trouble which caused a winning HC to lose his job. They course-corrected, now they're in an environment where cheating isn't necessary and they're positioning themselves to succeed. And they did so better/faster than UM did when it found itself in some trouble with the basketball program a few years back. Maybe we're not so holy after all.
And, as another poster pointed out, OSU is doing so while improving the academic standing of their university. Meanwhile, UM is positioning itself to go the way of NWU: a great coach, mediocre program.
Barf
I can tell you with 100% absolute certainty that nd’s president spends zero seconds pondering the health of its multibillion dollar healthcare system (because it doesn’t exist). I get your point, but… just not precisely apples to apples.
Historically, Michigan has been very competitive in sports.
It is also important to recognize the athletic environment has always had issues, has always been shifting, AND recently made a huge step change with NIL.
I think this step change is something Athletic Departments should pause to consider how they want to operate in the new world. It's fine if OSU, Alabama, Oregon, Texas A&M, Florida, Tennessee, etc want to blindly jump in and bid/pay as much as possible for top recruits. Michigan was seldom competitive for those players in the past anyway.
If Saban & Day need to disclose how much it's going to cost to hold their team together, fine. What does that say about their programs?
This is a dividing line change for college sports. I'm guessing a school like Tennessee will not be able to keep up with $8M dollar QB's long term and they will fall back again. Other schools have the capability to keep this up long term. There will be tiers developing and Michigan may decide they don't want to play like the very top tier (small grouping) of teams want to play. They may play in the next tier down and that would align with where they have been historically.
I don't think that we needed proof that Michigan wasn't paying players in the past - this is pretty much an accepted fact. Whether you derive satisfaction from this fact though, is probably about as divisive as recent events occurring in our nations capital. Moreover, it has been "discussed" ad nauseam on this site.
Just trying to bring a little levity to a frustrating situation
Who is Hunter Wilson
Also, which recruit was Dan Patrick referring to? Was he a Michigan target?
He wouldn't say. Let me see if I can find the youtube clip.
Probably Nico Iameleava, the 5* QB from CA that committed to Tennessee. He was the first big rumor of a large NIL contract (estimated $8 mil), and his lawyer has since (allegedly) negotiated an even higher deal ($9.5 mil) for another QB recruit to sign with Miami.
OP has a moral objection to saying “Dick in” so he substituted Wil.
New transfer portal dude
We probably should have been cheating because we suck at doing it legally