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The 3 things working against us

Fab5Coug

Hall Of Fame
Nov 10, 2007
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Been thinking a lot about the state of our program and college football in general.

For as long as we've been Cougs, RECRUITING has always been a limitation for us. Mike Price was able to find creative ways to make recruiting work for him. Sinking money into the FOB and Martin upgrades, along with hiring Mike Leach helped narrow the gap as well. But, no matter what we do, it's always going to be an uphill battle. It will always be USC, Oregon, Washington & UCLA getting first dibs on the top 100 or so recruits out west (this ignores all the outside programs that recruit CA as well). At best, we are left to battle it out with the Cals, Arizonas, OSUs, Utahs & Colorados for the remainder of the talent.

That's fine and WSU has managed to get by on creative talent evaluation and "coaching up" up the kids we do get. Simply getting kids in the 100-150 range of talent in the West is close enough that we can knock off UW 1 out of every 3 years and USC about once a decade. It is what it is. But, during the Leach era, we saw a new tactic, applied mostly by Oregon of POACHING COACHES. Leach managed to assemble a great staff and one by one, we saw Simmons, Manning, Wilson, Grinch, Harrell, Mastro, Big Joe plucked off by our competitors. Oregon got tired of losing to us, so not only improved their staff, but decimated ours.

I'm excited for this new staff, but we're kind of kidding ourselves if Morris has huge success that he won't end up the next OC at Texas Tech, or Texas, or a head coach at G5 program. Excited for the new RB coach and hope he can bring in some Destiny/Luvu/Hercules types. But, if he does, we're crazy to think Oregon or USC doesn't come calling for him. This relatively new tactic seems to make it far more difficult to be a school that just consistently out develops our competitors.

Now, and this could be a big one, the TRANSFER PORTAL. We're in the early stages of this one, so I'm hesitant to call this the death knell for a program like WSU. But, I can certainly foresee a scenario where promising young talent is poached off our roster and lured away with big money NIL deals at SC, Oregon, UW. Maybe the JDL/Cameron Ward situation works out ok for us. We may be lucky we have Morris and he's got the Ward connection. In the future, it may not work out that way, and you really can't consistently trade Power 5 starters for FCS players.

Again, if the portal becomes more and more prevalent, then how can the WSUs, the OSUs, even the Utahs get by with just out developing the rest of the conference?

I don't know how this all plays out and I don't know what the solution is. All this seems to add up to really hinder a program like WSU. Hopefully I'm wrong.
 
Its all about relationships and personalities. Even now more so with the transfer portal. Some coaches just have the ability to relate to and connect w high school kids and many coaches just struggle w it. I do think this new staff will be better at it. Social media, credibility, reputation, personality all leads to getting those kids to visit your campus. That official visit is a really big deal. Unlike Leach's dumb philosophy, bring them when the the weather is nice so they can experience the game atmosphere.
Getting guys like Morris who can say he was Mahomes OC in college and Filani who was drafted and played in the NFL will help in that credibility piece.
 
The coach poaching issue is a huge one. Other stuff can be dealt with to an extent (although I think people underestimate how major other hindrances are, too), but it is very hard to overcome coaches being poached, especially at a school where building relationships with recruits is arguably more important than at some other places.
 
Been thinking a lot about the state of our program and college football in general.

For as long as we've been Cougs, RECRUITING has always been a limitation for us. Mike Price was able to find creative ways to make recruiting work for him. Sinking money into the FOB and Martin upgrades, along with hiring Mike Leach helped narrow the gap as well. But, no matter what we do, it's always going to be an uphill battle. It will always be USC, Oregon, Washington & UCLA getting first dibs on the top 100 or so recruits out west (this ignores all the outside programs that recruit CA as well). At best, we are left to battle it out with the Cals, Arizonas, OSUs, Utahs & Colorados for the remainder of the talent.

That's fine and WSU has managed to get by on creative talent evaluation and "coaching up" up the kids we do get. Simply getting kids in the 100-150 range of talent in the West is close enough that we can knock off UW 1 out of every 3 years and USC about once a decade. It is what it is. But, during the Leach era, we saw a new tactic, applied mostly by Oregon of POACHING COACHES. Leach managed to assemble a great staff and one by one, we saw Simmons, Manning, Wilson, Grinch, Harrell, Mastro, Big Joe plucked off by our competitors. Oregon got tired of losing to us, so not only improved their staff, but decimated ours.

I'm excited for this new staff, but we're kind of kidding ourselves if Morris has huge success that he won't end up the next OC at Texas Tech, or Texas, or a head coach at G5 program. Excited for the new RB coach and hope he can bring in some Destiny/Luvu/Hercules types. But, if he does, we're crazy to think Oregon or USC doesn't come calling for him. This relatively new tactic seems to make it far more difficult to be a school that just consistently out develops our competitors.

Now, and this could be a big one, the TRANSFER PORTAL. We're in the early stages of this one, so I'm hesitant to call this the death knell for a program like WSU. But, I can certainly foresee a scenario where promising young talent is poached off our roster and lured away with big money NIL deals at SC, Oregon, UW. Maybe the JDL/Cameron Ward situation works out ok for us. We may be lucky we have Morris and he's got the Ward connection. In the future, it may not work out that way, and you really can't consistently trade Power 5 starters for FCS players.

Again, if the portal becomes more and more prevalent, then how can the WSUs, the OSUs, even the Utahs get by with just out developing the rest of the conference?

I don't know how this all plays out and I don't know what the solution is. All this seems to add up to really hinder a program like WSU. Hopefully I'm wrong.

A few thoughts…

Have an identity. Your recruiting is your supply chain. Have schemes that give you a brand of football AND won’t cause issues with your supply chain. If you need 6’5” wide receivers for the offense to go, prob not gonna be an easy go for you. Figure out what kind of kids you can get consistently and then choose your brand of football.

I can’t remember who posted about Oregon hiring away the WSU coaches the equivalent of asset stripping, but they were spot on. Your staff is going to come and go. What you need is a HC that can identify and hire the right guys. There are zillions of great coaches out there. If you can’t find them that’s on you. Especially if you have the resources of a P5 program.

I’m beginning to think that unless WSU can offer multi year, binding letter of intents to hold kids here coming from high school… there is little value in signing high school players. It is too easy for deep pocket schools to put a decision in front of a kid. Option A ~ WSU. Option B ~ $????. Unless you have something legally binding or some gentlemen’s agreement between P5 schools or conferences, your roster could be picked clean. Attrition kills WSU. WSU cannot sign 25 high school kids and only see 8 get to their senior year. Today WSU got burned for their young QB. So did Oklahoma of all places. No one is immune.

The benefit of the portal for WSU is the 1 time free transfer. Once they transfer here, they are losing eligibility if they transfer again. In theory, if WSU or schools like WSU want to hold onto their kids and keep poachers away, the portal offers shelter.

I think kids have a greater appreciation for WSU, it’s staff and the small town the second time around in recruiting. They’ve already been in a college program, they have a better idea of what they are looking for and what they aren’t looking for and maybe more importantly they know what the smoke screen is. Fancy facilities and shiny stuff may look cool as a high school kid… stand on the sideline and clap for 2 years and lemme know how important that stuff is then.

WSU has a tremendous amount to offer the right kids. Find them.
 
Pay the really good assistants more and they will stay. W/o a good football program our athletic department is toast. We need to make football a priority. It will pay for itself.
 
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Might even have to overpay to attract and retain good coaches. Paying 600k in this day and age for a DC is probably not gonna bring in a great dc....and if you luck out it surely isn't gonna retain one.

Clemson is a great example of spending $$ to become great.
 
I hate the portal but a couple of things always level this out to some degree I think. First off is inherent laziness. A lot of these these schools and coaches are going to think you can just go build a team through free agency, and get lazy with recruiting. You can plug holes with transfers sure, but the schools that will be successful in the long term are the ones who build through the freshman they bring in and the culture of the program.

Look at the NFL which this emulates. For the most part the teams who draft well are winning. Free agency rarely makes up for shitty drafting. I think you’ll see the same in college. Guys looking for NIL deals and jumping around aren’t going to be great for a football team. Football is the ultimate team sport.
 
I hate the portal but a couple of things always level this out to some degree I think. First off is inherent laziness. A lot of these these schools and coaches are going to think you can just go build a team through free agency, and get lazy with recruiting. You can plug holes with transfers sure, but the schools that will be successful in the long term are the ones who build through the freshman they bring in and the culture of the program.

Look at the NFL which this emulates. For the most part the teams who draft well are winning. Free agency rarely makes up for shitty drafting. I think you’ll see the same in college. Guys looking for NIL deals and jumping around aren’t going to be great for a football team. Football is the ultimate team sport.

Three things…

1) The NFL has multi year deals. Once a guy signs, he is there until cut or deal expires. College football has 1 year deals. How do you build with high school kids when in theory your entire class could leave after their first semester?

2) They only get 1 free transfer. There isn’t going to be “jumping around” unless they are willing to take the hit on their eligibility.

3) Kansas State won a lot of games when Bill Snyder took classes of almost entirely juco kids because the high school talent wouldn’t come.

Dickert and WSU have been burned once. How many times can they watch a starter leave before they say to hell with high school kids?
 
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Been thinking a lot about the state of our program and college football in general.

For as long as we've been Cougs, RECRUITING has always been a limitation for us. Mike Price was able to find creative ways to make recruiting work for him. Sinking money into the FOB and Martin upgrades, along with hiring Mike Leach helped narrow the gap as well. But, no matter what we do, it's always going to be an uphill battle. It will always be USC, Oregon, Washington & UCLA getting first dibs on the top 100 or so recruits out west (this ignores all the outside programs that recruit CA as well). At best, we are left to battle it out with the Cals, Arizonas, OSUs, Utahs & Colorados for the remainder of the talent.

That's fine and WSU has managed to get by on creative talent evaluation and "coaching up" up the kids we do get. Simply getting kids in the 100-150 range of talent in the West is close enough that we can knock off UW 1 out of every 3 years and USC about once a decade. It is what it is. But, during the Leach era, we saw a new tactic, applied mostly by Oregon of POACHING COACHES. Leach managed to assemble a great staff and one by one, we saw Simmons, Manning, Wilson, Grinch, Harrell, Mastro, Big Joe plucked off by our competitors. Oregon got tired of losing to us, so not only improved their staff, but decimated ours.

I'm excited for this new staff, but we're kind of kidding ourselves if Morris has huge success that he won't end up the next OC at Texas Tech, or Texas, or a head coach at G5 program. Excited for the new RB coach and hope he can bring in some Destiny/Luvu/Hercules types. But, if he does, we're crazy to think Oregon or USC doesn't come calling for him. This relatively new tactic seems to make it far more difficult to be a school that just consistently out develops our competitors.

Now, and this could be a big one, the TRANSFER PORTAL. We're in the early stages of this one, so I'm hesitant to call this the death knell for a program like WSU. But, I can certainly foresee a scenario where promising young talent is poached off our roster and lured away with big money NIL deals at SC, Oregon, UW. Maybe the JDL/Cameron Ward situation works out ok for us. We may be lucky we have Morris and he's got the Ward connection. In the future, it may not work out that way, and you really can't consistently trade Power 5 starters for FCS players.

Again, if the portal becomes more and more prevalent, then how can the WSUs, the OSUs, even the Utahs get by with just out developing the rest of the conference?

I don't know how this all plays out and I don't know what the solution is. All this seems to add up to really hinder a program like WSU. Hopefully I'm wrong.
Only three?
 
At the end of the day, there is going to be a reckoning with everything that is going on. To some degree, the talent is going to go to the same schools that is always gone to. WSU is probably still going to be ranked in the 50-60 range in recruiting most years. That said, if player poaching becomes a thing, and I believe that it is inevitable, it could truly lead to the end of college football as we know it. At some point, a framework of rules and cost sharing needs to be established if there is going to be any kind of competitiveness in the sport. Unfortunately, ESPN and Disney don't care about competitiveness. They want super elite teams that they can tout and promote and they don't care if 90 other teams suffer as a result. Their worst nightmare is to have a college football final with Utah and someone like Baylor or O-State. They want big brand names with national name recognition and followings in their championships. Fighting that is going to be tough.
 
Been thinking a lot about the state of our program and college football in general.

For as long as we've been Cougs, RECRUITING has always been a limitation for us. Mike Price was able to find creative ways to make recruiting work for him. Sinking money into the FOB and Martin upgrades, along with hiring Mike Leach helped narrow the gap as well. But, no matter what we do, it's always going to be an uphill battle. It will always be USC, Oregon, Washington & UCLA getting first dibs on the top 100 or so recruits out west (this ignores all the outside programs that recruit CA as well). At best, we are left to battle it out with the Cals, Arizonas, OSUs, Utahs & Colorados for the remainder of the talent.

That's fine and WSU has managed to get by on creative talent evaluation and "coaching up" up the kids we do get. Simply getting kids in the 100-150 range of talent in the West is close enough that we can knock off UW 1 out of every 3 years and USC about once a decade. It is what it is. But, during the Leach era, we saw a new tactic, applied mostly by Oregon of POACHING COACHES. Leach managed to assemble a great staff and one by one, we saw Simmons, Manning, Wilson, Grinch, Harrell, Mastro, Big Joe plucked off by our competitors. Oregon got tired of losing to us, so not only improved their staff, but decimated ours.

I'm excited for this new staff, but we're kind of kidding ourselves if Morris has huge success that he won't end up the next OC at Texas Tech, or Texas, or a head coach at G5 program. Excited for the new RB coach and hope he can bring in some Destiny/Luvu/Hercules types. But, if he does, we're crazy to think Oregon or USC doesn't come calling for him. This relatively new tactic seems to make it far more difficult to be a school that just consistently out develops our competitors.

Now, and this could be a big one, the TRANSFER PORTAL. We're in the early stages of this one, so I'm hesitant to call this the death knell for a program like WSU. But, I can certainly foresee a scenario where promising young talent is poached off our roster and lured away with big money NIL deals at SC, Oregon, UW. Maybe the JDL/Cameron Ward situation works out ok for us. We may be lucky we have Morris and he's got the Ward connection. In the future, it may not work out that way, and you really can't consistently trade Power 5 starters for FCS players.

Again, if the portal becomes more and more prevalent, then how can the WSUs, the OSUs, even the Utahs get by with just out developing the rest of the conference?

I don't know how this all plays out and I don't know what the solution is. All this seems to add up to really hinder a program like WSU. Hopefully I'm wrong.

Agree with your points.

Money is going to destroy the fun of what we have enjoyed about college football.

Let's face it, college/universities and P5 football are not compatible. It makes no sense to have a university essentially built around a football program (for all practical purposes). It's all corrupting to the system.
 
At the end of the day, there is going to be a reckoning with everything that is going on. To some degree, the talent is going to go to the same schools that is always gone to. WSU is probably still going to be ranked in the 50-60 range in recruiting most years. That said, if player poaching becomes a thing, and I believe that it is inevitable, it could truly lead to the end of college football as we know it. At some point, a framework of rules and cost sharing needs to be established if there is going to be any kind of competitiveness in the sport. Unfortunately, ESPN and Disney don't care about competitiveness. They want super elite teams that they can tout and promote and they don't care if 90 other teams suffer as a result. Their worst nightmare is to have a college football final with Utah and someone like Baylor or O-State. They want big brand names with national name recognition and followings in their championships. Fighting that is going to be tough.
Agree somewhat but I see WSU galling a little lower on the pecking order to schools like Memphis, San Diego St, even Boise State where the non P5 schools are in markets where they are there are lots businesses that can justify spending money on NIL.
 
That said, if player poaching becomes a thing, and I believe that it is inevitable, it could truly lead to the end of college football as we know it.

Money is going to destroy the fun of what we have enjoyed about college football.

Flat - the end of college football as we know it, or more accurately, as I love it, has already come and gone.

HDTH - basically the same comment. It already has destroyed what I love.
 
Agree with your points.

Money is going to destroy the fun of what we have enjoyed about college football.

Let's face it, college/universities and P5 football are not compatible. It makes no sense to have a university essentially built around a football program (for all practical purposes). It's all corrupting to the system.

Money already destroyed college football.
 
They want super elite teams that they can tout and promote and they don't care if 90 other teams suffer as a result. Their worst nightmare is to have a college football final with Utah and someone like Baylor or O-State. They want big brand names with national name recognition and followings in their championships. Fighting that is going to be tough.
Sounds a lot like the AAU model, which is what others and I have been saying for a while.
 
Even Saban is out there now saying NIL needs to be regulated. Of course, this was after the A&M news was making the rounds.
 
You have to wonder if he yearns for the good old days when you'd just slip their parents a 100,000. Man, I'm getting all teary eyed:)
 
Even Saban is out there now saying NIL needs to be regulated. Of course, this was after the A&M news was making the rounds.
The same Nick Saban that was making sure everyone knew how much his QB was getting paid.
 
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