Early Signing Day Recap with Brandon Huffman | College Football - The Solid Verbal College Football

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the solid verbal Hell for.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Me, I'm a man, I'm forty.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
I've heard so many players say, well, I want to
be happy.

Speaker 3 (00:10):
You want to be happy for a day?

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Edo State is that?

Speaker 3 (00:13):
Whoo whoom?

Speaker 4 (00:14):
And Dan and Tie.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Danner of Esteem, welcome back to my friend. How are you?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
I'm good, very excited for the show, as I am
every time we talk recruiting during the I guess early
signing period or sort of between early signing period of
National Signing Day. Obviously we're having Brandon Huffman on the
show because he's the best, and he is an annual tradition.
I'm good. You know it's it's heated up here. Everybody's
on the edge of their seat waiting for my weather update.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
Tie.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
We are up to I want to say, low thirties,
approaching maybe a forty degree time temp. Yeah, buddy, I'm
gonna go out for like an old man walking a
little while it's all happening.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Tie.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Now, everything is good.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Today's episode is our annual catch up chat with Brandon Huffman,
a twenty four to seven sports who's going to walk
back through the early signing period with us as we
typically do when we do these episodes, we will have
some team specific stuff about players, about coaches, about philosophies
with respect to specific schools, but we also, i think,

(01:19):
try to mix in and we might do it a
little bit more than usual today some of those questions
about just structurally, where is college football at in the
recruiting game? Because the portal has entered the chat, it
has definitely taken on a bit of an outsized influence
with respect to not just how schools are recruiting and
their philosophy about it, but there's this whole hiring circuit

(01:43):
now with coaches and gms, the player personnel side of this,
which definitely was not part of the conversation when we
started this podcast back in two thousand and eight. It
has very much changed the game. So we're going to
talk to Brandon about some of column A some of
as all we see is very gracious with his time.

(02:03):
I'm excited to have that chat as well. Before we
go any further, Hit follow hit subscribes that you don't
miss any of the episodes, go on out to play
bowlbingo dot com. Playbowlbingo dot com. That will get you
out to our Patreon. If it doesn't get you out
to our Patreon. Just go to Patreon dot com, slash
solid verbal either way. At the very top of that

(02:24):
page you will see a pinned post which is going
to give you the nitty gritty details about our game, Bowlbingo.
It is free. All you need to do is sign
up as a free or paid member of our Patreon
to get access to the link. All you need to
do before the game locks at Friday. On Friday at

(02:45):
eight pm Eastern is pick six prop bets from a
big list of thirty that you think are going to
hit over the span the next week. That's it.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
That's it.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Just pick six at the end of the run here
over the next week or so, the winner will get
a fabulous prize. We'll talk about that and then we
do it again in time for the next week of games.
So we're gonna have four straight weeks here at Bulbingo.
We're excited about it. It's our big end of your
game going out again. Playbolbingo dot com or Patreon dot

(03:17):
com slash solid Ruble if you would like more information
on that. That's it. That's the spiel. It's free.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
I love great spiel.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
The whole thing is free.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
That's why we call you Chris Spielman, Right, that's what
you do. Is that what you call behind your back
to a lot of people?

Speaker 1 (03:32):
Fact, okay, all right, Dan, We do it at least
once a year. It's our friend, Brandon Hoffman, National Recruiting Editor,
twenty four to seven Sports. Pleasure to be with you
as always, Brandon. You know, we make like an annual
tradition out of this. We bring you on, We get
the data dump of all things National Signing Day, all
things going on in and around the world of recruiting.

(03:54):
It is a pleasure to be in your company once more.
How are you, my friend?

Speaker 3 (03:57):
Oh? You know what a tradition unlike any other. And
it's fitting because today was typically what would have been
signing Day for the previous six seven years, that third
Wednesday in December, so you know, right on schedule, even
though the NCAA keeps moving the calendar.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
We don't. I had a question about it. It's a
perfect segue. Actually signing Day quote unquote obviously does not
mean what it used to. This was officially our first
early signing day without the National Letter of Intent, which
had been around since like the early sixties, mid sixties.
Can you explain for our audience what exactly guys are

(04:33):
signing in the year of Our Lord twenty twenty five
when they commit to a school.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
Or in the case of Legend Bay not clearly signing.

Speaker 4 (04:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:41):
Yeah, they're signing many things, and what they're signing now
is an intent to enroll. Now, if you remember, the
letter of intent was considered by some to be the
most one sided contract in the sports, where it bound
the player to the school. The school could drop a kid.
They could, you know, tell a kid you're not coming,
blah blah blah. Well now what the players having the
levery it's now an intent to role and it only
binds the school. So the school has to take a

(05:03):
kid once he signs it. But now a player can
get out of it much easier. I mean, we remember
going back, Ty, you're a Notre Dame fan. You remember
the whole Eddie Vanderdo situation twelve thirteen years ago when
you had to go through hoops to get out of
a letter of intent once you signed it. Well, now
you bound the school, but the player has more flexibility.
So what they're also signing though, are typically their revenue
sharing agreements, and most of those are agreed upon in June.

(05:25):
Where you know, now the last week in June, the
early week, the first week in July are becoming more
of the big weeks from a recruiting standpoint, because those
are when guys are making their commitments and you don't
see as much late kind of movement as he did
in the old days. Those guys are agreeing upon their
deals and they're ready to be done and schools are
ready to move on to the season. So now this

(05:46):
first Wednesday you get a little bit of drama. You
get Brian Hartline leaving for a coaching job, and the
drama around Chris Henry. You get some late minute you know,
late last minute coaches know, hey, this guy's going to
the league. We're going to need immediate help. There, We've
got it. We just came into an extra five hundred K.
Do you want to come here? But yeah, now it's
so much more of a formality. These guys have already

(06:06):
been drawing allowances from schools for a couple of months.
Most of these guys are already on campus now getting
ready for January. I mean, it's not as powerful a
day as it once was, and it's kind of sad
on one hand, but then you have all the stuff
that goes on after that. The coach is leaving, the
coach is getting fired, the coach is taking other jobs,

(06:27):
and it kind of opens up that whole Pandora's box
once again.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
At the risk of asking a stupid question, I have
potentially a stupid question. If I had a dollar for
every time I heard somebody complain about the current state
of the college football calendar, I would have an Italian
villa somewhere. I am certainly not any better. I have
done the same Dan and I have both done it

(06:51):
here on the show, but I think it's a valid point. Right,
You've got your early signing period in December, which is
sort of the main event I guess for kids coming
out of high school. We've also got a very active
transfer portal which has just started to kick up, doesn't
officially open for a couple of weeks, and then we've
got another signing period once we get into the month
of February. Then, on top of it, layer in all

(07:13):
of the coaching carousel movement. If I am a top recruit,
why would I want to sign anything in the middle
of the coaching carousel and before the transfer portal runs
its course. What am I getting out of this as
opposed to just waiting to see where everything settles and
then committing to a school.

Speaker 3 (07:32):
Was it Randy Moss who said it's straight cash? Homi, Yeah,
signing bonus, because that's what it is. It's about accelerating
yourself to start getting the NL. You know another thing
that's not talked about a lot. Right now, we're seeing
guys and Dan and I have had this conversation before
because we're both Southern California products. The reclassification that is
now happening in college football or I'm sorry, high school

(07:54):
fotball guys were you know, holdbacks and double holdbacks. Now
they're seeing My recruitment's blowing up because, as I said,
I'm a twenty twenty seven. I'm now two years away
from getting that paycheck, but I'm old enough to be
in this other class. Let me reclassify back up to
my normal grade so I can start getting that NIL
a lot sooner. That's why guys are signing now, because
they're getting those bonuses. They're getting their signing bonuses, they're

(08:16):
getting their allowances, they're getting their infusion of cash much quicker.
And you know again, Remember it's not pay to play,
it's all it's all name, image of likeness. So all
the money they're getting is pure, there's no wandering going on.
But what it is is, go give me the money.
But I still may not sign with you for sure
in four months from now. But thanks for all the

(08:36):
cash you gave me up front, you know, as a
result of this, because technically you weren't allowed to give
me that. So guys are signing now largely to get
to that payday much sooner, and by no fault of
their own. I think you'll go get it. What I've
been fascinated by is the one sided nature of.

Speaker 4 (09:01):
Academia.

Speaker 3 (09:02):
The smart well we would think that they're smart people
in athletic administration that are at these universities, master's degrees,
PhD's blah blah blah, and how they continue to be
reckless with their own money and you know, kind of
allow the money game to be what it's become. But
if I'm the players, Hey, if this rich booster wants
to keep paying me extra to come there, I'm going there.
I'll take that money for them. So really, at the

(09:24):
end of the day, like with everything that's going on
in college football, it's about money. The sooner you can
get to that infusion of cash, the quicker you'll sign.
And now that there is no limit to how many
times you can transfer, how long it'll be to you're
eligible to transfer, and more importantly, that quickly I can
get out of my letter of intent. I mean Julian's saying.
Perfect example, He's sitting in a meeting in Alabama the

(09:45):
year almost two years ago, and Nick Savan retires in
two weeks later, he's at Ohio State and Aaron Oland
in tav and Saint Clair, you know, kind of there there.
I think it was Nolan was the one that was
probably the most impacted by it, and now he you know,
was at South Carolina.

Speaker 4 (09:58):
But that's the thing.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
There's nothing that's really holding the players back anymore.

Speaker 4 (10:03):
So why not sign.

Speaker 3 (10:04):
Why not get a little bit of cash on the
front end, And if things don't work out with your
coach he leaves, you can, you're free to leave.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
I know a lot of people that listen to this
listen for joy of the sport. People love college football.
That's why we do the show. So when you hear
all of this talk about money being the primary motivator.
It is obviously a little bit more of a cynical
take than we would try to trot out there as
we do this show, but it is clearly a factor that, yeah,
we need to take into account here. Is there still

(10:33):
some other element on the recruiting trail other than the money.
Are these guys still looking at systems that they're going
to step into, coaches that they're going to play for,
the culture of the place that they're going to sign with,
or is it truly like eighty five percent money that
is governing where these guys end up.

Speaker 3 (10:50):
You know, I think the right answer to that is
look at the last year's National Championship game. I mean, sure,
you had Quinnshaw Jenkins, you had Will Rogers that were
transfer or Will Howard that were transfers, Riley Leonard who
was a transfer, but the majority of that Notre Dame
roster in that Ohio State roster was homegrown guys. The
year before with Michigan and Washington, yeah you had a
Michael Penis in there who was a transfer, but the
core that Washington team was homegrown. Same with Michigan, that

(11:14):
core that team. So at the end of the day,
you know, Indiana is seemingly an outlier, if you will,
in that the last couple of years, you've had these
teams that have had the quick get fixed, you know,
kind of remedy of the portal. But at the end
of the day, the national champions were the teams that
were still those developmental guys. The Georgia teams that were
winning were winning with the homegrown talent. Maybe you get
a player or two here that just pushed you across

(11:36):
the Finnish line like it did with Ohio State, but
it was homegrown. And I think even look at this
year's playoff teams or the you know, the top five teams.
I mean, yeah, Texas Tech is a team that's got
a lot of transfer guys, But is anybody really giving
Texas Tech a chance when you're comparing them to a Georgia,
when you're comparing him to an Ohio State, when you're
comparing him to an Oregon, you know, Oregon. I still
consider Dante an Oregon homegrown guy. I mean, yeah, he

(11:58):
flipped to UCT at the last minute, but he's been
two of those three years. He was really an Oregon guy.
And you know, Ohio State, the Jeremiah Smith, the Julian saying,
who yes he was a transfer, but he you know,
never did a spring practice at Alabama. At the end
of the day, you still look, the teams that are
winning are doing that largely with the guys that they're
coach recruited and brought in. And if anything, you know

(12:19):
what it's doing is if you're a big time school
that you know that you're still recruiting at a high level,
you don't need to go and get thirty to forty
transfers like a school in Colorado, like the University of
Colorado's doing. You know, Indiana is going to sustain it
now to the point where Chris Signada does not have
to rely on the portal anymore now that he's showing
they're not a flash in the pan. That's going to
help their recruiting. But for the most part, these schools

(12:42):
that have been consistently since the college football playoffs started
in twenty fourteen, I mean, go back to the twenty
fourteen playoffs. Who are the four teams in Okay, Florida State,
their disaster, but it is Oregon, Ohio State, and Bama
all in the playoffs this year, all consistently been top ten,
top fifteen teams over the last decade. So at the
end of the day, if you're a fan of a
school that's still recruiting at a high level, get attached

(13:03):
to those players.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
Right, But the calculus has changed a little bit in
the way that you are able to recruit and maintain
a roster in this nil era. What I'm curious about
because outside of maybe the situations where coaches leave, we've
seen anecdotally fewer crazy decommitments that it seems that there is,

(13:30):
and this I assume is very much tied to these
deals that players are signing or will sign. What can
you say about the creativity of the deals that especially
top players are signing when they commit, not necessarily when
they sign the whatever the intent to enroll. But it
seems like we could be talking about deals that involve hey,

(13:54):
if you don't take any visits, this is your bonus. Hey,
if you stay committed and sign, this is your bonus.
That almost if you do anything or you think about
doing anything dramatic, it's actually going to hurt your bottom line.
Do we have those types of creative contracts?

Speaker 5 (14:11):
You do?

Speaker 3 (14:11):
And it's all languaging And that's why guys aren't you know,
flipping away from their schools like they did in the
old days. You know, back in the old days when
you flipped, it was because there was a double back
of cash at the school that you were flipping to.
And I think that you know, one of the more
fascinating recruitments was Felix Ojo, the offensive lineman that's signing
with Texas Tech or that signed with Texas Tech. And

(14:31):
if you remember when he committed, I think it was
like the fourth of July. I was right around that fourth.

Speaker 4 (14:35):
Of July time.

Speaker 3 (14:36):
We were getting numbers, like pure numbers from reporters saying
that he signed for X amount of dollars. Then you
had other reporters that were quickly saying, well, he's not
really getting that. It's a backloaded deal, like you're dealing
with a lot of creative language. And you have some
that are trying to make the number look bigger because
that's going to entice other potential clients to sign with

(14:57):
them signing with the agent, not with the school. And
and you know you have the school basically say who whoaaha,
we are giving them that much because we don't want
to tick off our locker room of our current guys
who are going to be making less than that, and
they're actually here right now. So you're already seeing the
pasturing on both sides, whether it's the player's representation, whether
it's the school, and the numbers seem to be vastly different,

(15:20):
but there is there is creativity going there. There are
players that we're getting. Hey, we know we're not going
to get you, but we'll give you ten thousand just
to come to this game day visit because it shows
that we're aggressively trying to recruit you. Were trying to
flip you, even though we don't.

Speaker 4 (15:32):
Have a chance.

Speaker 3 (15:33):
We'll give you ten thousand, fly you and your family here,
give you tickets just to come to this game, because
your presence might actually make the kid that we have
a real chance freak out and say I want to
commit or I'm going to make them a bigger priority.

Speaker 4 (15:45):
So there's a lot of.

Speaker 3 (15:46):
Creativity going on behind the scenes. But you're also seeing
some really wild numbers. I mean, by the time we
get to rest to the NFL, the signing bonus he
got from Larry Ellison's going to be somewhere like seventy
one million. They take on a life of their own.
And that's the thing, Like, do I think it's eleven million,

(16:06):
it's probably close to that. Do I think it's seventy
one million? No, obviously not. But the thing is, there's
still so much going on behind the scenes that even
the numbers that you're being reported have some caveats in them.

Speaker 2 (16:18):
What is the situation with parents and choosing agents and
how they navigate And I'm sure it's a conversation with parents, coaches, whoever, trainers.
How are agents being vetted? Are are agents particularly good
at selling you know, top kids in a specific way
right now? And on the flip side, are we now

(16:41):
seeing coaches gms and you talk about like trying to
get a kid to visit for a certain game and
getting a bonus for visiting for that game whatever is
the name of the game now also trying to impress agents,
right because they are wielding a new kind of power.
So the GM of Alabama or Oregon or Florida or whatever,

(17:01):
they have to show agents that they're being serious because
agents are now saying like, hey, I've dealt with these
four schools and they're just more buttoned up, and I
believe their numbers more than these three schools and they
so now they are they have they wield like a
power over recruits in their parents as well. Does that
all sound right?

Speaker 3 (17:21):
It does, and it all depends on kind of who
that that agent has as one of his players. Now,
what we've seen like in the last three or four
years is the more established kind of sports management firms
like a CAAA, like an athlete's first like a Wasserman clutch.
They've gotten in the game, but they're only taking on
eight to ten clients at any time. Those are the
guys that they feel very confident are going to be

(17:42):
first or second round draft picks in three or four years.
So you're making the long term game. But a lot
more kind of boutiques, smaller agencies are getting involved there.
You know, there is no certification that you have to
get through the NCAA like you do for the NFLPA
or the MLBPA. You know, so I would not say
there's a lot of great going on. If I'm a
parent and somebody tells me, Hey, your kid that's at

(18:04):
this fcschool Division two school, there's a need for a
player of his caliber at this position. That school could
probably give you seventy five grand. You are going to
jump on that, right. What they're not a lot of
cases telling you. And you know in the book that
John Talty and Armand Katain wrote about a year ago,
there's a whole chapter on the Jayden Mashotock recruitment. And

(18:24):
you know, a lot of these guys aren't estabised. I'm
not saying this about Jaden's age. I'm just saying that
a lot of them aren't is established. What they're not
telling you is that I'm keeping twenty percent. Your son's
value is actually one hundred grand, but I'm telling you
you're going to get seventy five k. But I'm keeping
twenty five to myself. And all idea was send a
couple of dms and made a couple of calls. So
there are some agents that certainly are legit. They're what

(18:45):
you're seeing now is less of a emphasis on the
general manager role being on the football ability. Okay, that's
fall into the personal department. That's fall into the skytying department.
Whereas when the gas were first brought in, it was
to be hey, these are the guys we're going to recruit.
This is what our board looks like. These are the
five guys that fit our system. These are the guys
that we want to really target. These are the five

(19:06):
that have the analytics and the trades to fit into
what we're doing. Now that general manager is essentially becoming
a negotiator, Like, how are you going to negotiate with
this agent? You got to still have a little bit
of football documen because you need to make sure kind
of in the sliding scale, that what he's asking for
monetarily the talent still matches that. But it's more about

(19:26):
the business side, more about the negotiation side, than it
is about the true football side of it. And that's
why I'm so fascinated about Andrew Luck and Ron Rivera
at Stanford and col respectively, because they're both very sharp.
I did to sit down with each of them in October,
just kind of talking about how they came from the
NFL to this, But they're football guys at the end
of the day, they're both football guys. Now you've got

(19:48):
to add in that layer of negotiating a contract with somebody.
And now we're in an error too, you know, to
Ty's point, we've got guys that the schools are announcing
they're resigning with them.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
Know, which is still weird.

Speaker 5 (20:01):
It feels weird to see it all and Mayava at
SC Yeah, that was the one that this last two
weeks when I've seen the resigning, well, that's the one
that's been kind of the jarring thing like Okay, we're
at that's where we're at now, and you know, after
a few more agreements are agreed upon.

Speaker 3 (20:17):
We're going to see more resignings and it's just like, okay,
this is that's the bizarre part, like where even the
NFL doesn't do that unless it's an extension after you know,
a five year of the contract was played out. So
I think that that that, more than anything, kind of
speaks to where we're at. But at the same time,
if you've got a player who's really good and another

(20:38):
school said, hey, we're one missing piece away, you kind
of have to celebrate the resigning because that guy could
be all that a Miami is missing. He can be
all that a other school is missing. So to win that,
you're at least telling your fan base, hey, we're competitive,
we're in the game. We resigned this guy, so we're
not poverty, we're not broke, we could still be competitive.
So it's just we used to celebrate signy and now

(21:02):
we're signing re signing day.

Speaker 2 (21:04):
One of the things that I think is indicative of
all of this is if you look at top prospects
across various states, big known recruiting states like you know,
Texas and Florida and Georgia and California, whatever, and even
smaller states. And I noticed this with Maryland. I noticed
this with Colorado. You're not seeing fences in the same
way like when you look at the top ten in Texas.

(21:26):
It's not all like UT and A and M. When
you look at the top schools in Florida, I think
the top Florida schools I think have one of the
top five of the top five commits and prospects in Florida. Obviously,
California has been all over the place. The interesting thing
that I think about, too, though, is when you look
at the smaller states like Colorado, like you know, Virginia

(21:47):
or Maryland or whatever that produced good amount of talent
New Jersey, it almost seems like there's a vacuum that
we're seeing, like, for instance, Oregon. Right Oregon, I think
is starting two corners from Maryland and just start signed
a five star offensive tackle from Maryland. How much do
you see vacuums now when in Maryland? Obviously Maryland has
been disappointing, and the Virginia schools haven't recruited all that well.

(22:10):
And you know, we've seen like Alabama hit the DMV
hard under Nick Saban, but their priorities have changed. Do
you notice more and more of these like state vacuums
of the major states and of the you know, somewhat
lesser states.

Speaker 3 (22:23):
You know, it's funny because there's actually kind of like
a two part answer to that.

Speaker 4 (22:26):
Okay, One, recruiting is.

Speaker 3 (22:29):
So national now that you don't need to worry about
putting a fence around your state because the game is
so national, the conferences are so national, the coaches are
so national. You know, I look at UCLA hiring Bob Chesney,
who's never been west of what Pennsylvania in his coaching career,
and now he's coming to UCLA. Well, they're in the
Big ten, so it makes sense he's going to be
you know, he's familiar with a lot more of those
Big ten states. But in the old days, a school

(22:52):
like a UCLA would never hire anybody that has no
West Coast ties. I mean, you think about the hires
that they've made with in Allow since Terry Donna he retired,
and Chip Kelly at least spent time at organing those
in the East Coast guy Jim Moore was from the Northwest,
but everybody else was a UCLA guy. Okay, now they're
going across the country to hire a coach because the
game is so national. The flip side of that is

(23:14):
one thing that Lincoln Riley really struggled with his first
couple of years at USC, and obviously this was to
the benefit of an organ is. He wanted to recruit nationally.
He wanted to recruit Florida, he wanted to recruit Georgia,
he wanted to recruit Texas and use the USC national brand.
And would get these commitments from Georgia and Florida and
Texas in April, but then lose them come December. Those
guys would stay home and people kept saying, why don't

(23:36):
you just focus on your backyard. He hires Chad Bowden,
Boden comes in, they start focusing on their backyard and
they get all those players. They end up with the
number one class. So you're seeing that there's still a
need to recruit locally, but at the same time, you
don't need to just focus locally. You got to recruit nationally.
And I think that's because the sport has become such
a transient game with the portal, Like where am I

(23:59):
going to go?

Speaker 4 (23:59):
Fit?

Speaker 3 (23:59):
It's no longer about Hey, you know this place is
close to home. With my nil deal, my parents get
to go to every game. They've got four flights, two
hotel rooms, or four tickets for every game. So you know,
in the old days, you could only play if the
game was on television, otherwise they'd have to drive. Now
these parents are at every game, the families are at
every game, So you're seeing vacuums. You're seeing an emphasis

(24:21):
on local recruiting in some cases. But at the same time,
if you're only focusing locally, you're gonna you're not going
to be competitive. And you saw that with the Georgia,
You've seen that with Alabama. I mean, you look at
some of these teams and yes, they've got the ability
to recruit nationally, and they do, they still have a
pretty good backyard of talent. I mean, Kaylen de Bor

(24:41):
took a lot of grief in his first full class
in twenty twenty five, because I think they had six
players from the state of California. Well, he was familiar there. Well,
then as he gets his you know, his feet under him.
They're recruiting better in state. But at the same time,
you're Alabama, You're a national brand. You can recruit California.
You can go get the best players in California and
go recruit just those kids from the state of Alabama.

(25:02):
How's that working out for them? So that's the whole thing.
How many times have we seen this? And I know
with Mario Crystaball, there's no state that takes more pride
outside of Texas than the state of Florida. And we
got to recruit the local kids. And you see all
the high school coaches get on Twitter and getting their
feelings that the in state schools aren't recruiting. Well, if
you're Mario, why would you just recruit the state of

(25:22):
Florida when you can go recruit Texas, When you can
go recruit California. We can recruit Georgia, and you can
recruit the Northwest and the Northeast. I mean, it's you
need to focus on your backyard. At the same time,
you better not only focus on your backyard, if that
makes any sense at all.

Speaker 1 (25:36):
Right, Yeah, I had a question about that, and he
kind of answered it. But I wanted to ask specifically
about West Coast kids because we've had two seasons now
with different conference maps Big ten acc obviously both expanding
all the way out to the West Coast. How does
the top talent on the West Coast feel now about
quote unquote staying home given that home means you're going

(26:00):
to play a road game at Rutgers your parents might
not be there. You're going to play on the road
and Charlottesville, Virginia, your parents might not be able to
get there. Is that changing the calculus at all for
schools like Oregon or whoever on the West Coast that
typically would have at least in the recent past and
much different philosophy.

Speaker 3 (26:17):
Yeah, I mean, I think we're at the point now
where if you're a West Coast kid, you're looking to
go to the Big ten of the SEC no matter what.
And that doesn't mean you're looking to go to the Oregon, USC, UCLA,
Washington Big Ten. You're attracted to the Ohio State, the Michigan,
the Penn State Big Ten. You're attracted to the sec.
You know, it's funny because West Coast kids had an
easy time leading and this has been going on for

(26:38):
a decade. I mean, I think one of the most
kind of the biggest jolting reality was the class of
twenty twenty where you had three of the top four
quarterbacks in the country all from southern California and then
went to Clemson, Alabama, and Ohio State, respectively. And it
worked out famously for two of those three, not so
much for the third. But the point being that those
West Coast kids have always been to leave, and now

(27:01):
you've got the Big Ten with four schools in your footprint,
but they're in the Big Ten. It's just as easy
for those guys to leave now because hey, i still
get to play in front of my folks twice a
year every couple of years, but I'm gonna go play
at a factory where there is more financial game. And
you know it's for Nana Mendoza. It was from Florida,

(27:22):
never got recruited by any of the inn state schools,
is going to Yale, ends up at cal Now he's
in Indiana and he's from Miami. So you know, Julian
Saying was signed with Alabama committed and ended up at
Ohio State, and he's from California. I think that we're
now at a point where these guys just want to
play on the biggest stages. They don't care that it's
not in their backyard. They don't care that it's not local.

(27:44):
If I need to go down to South Florida to
go play my college ball, that's going to help my brand.
I'm going to get paid, I'm going to get an
opportunity to win a national championship, get drafted high, so
be it. I'll do it. These players too. Remember this
generation of kids are doing a lot of travel seven
on seven, a lot of travel camps. So they're already
traveling all over the country as it is is fifteen

(28:05):
sixteen year olds, which makes the move. I mean, there's
a reason IMG has been so successful. They're getting kids
to leave as sophomores in high school, they go to
IMG and enroll there. So these guys are already used
to leaving their backyard, but they're doing it much earlier.
So you know, we're now at a point where if
you're a USC and you're a UCLA in Oregon and Washington,
an extent Oregon does recruit better nationally than any of

(28:28):
those three other schools right now, And I think it's
been that way going back to you know, probably when
when Willie Tagger first got there, and I mean they
always kind of recruited nationally. Mean, they obviously had a
lot of guys from Texas as well, but they've become
this national band. I think it was like fourteen different
states were represented in their twenty twenty five class. So
they recruit nationally and Oregon can't do that because they
don't have the elite talent in their state to just

(28:50):
focus on that. But I will give Dan Lanning this.
He does a good job of still keeping those best
players from the state of Oregon at Oregon, which his
predecessors didn't all always do. And that's the thing I
think now kids almost look, if you're staying local, are
you wearing a scarlet letter because you're playing for the
local team, especially those four Big Ten schools. If you're

(29:12):
an Oklahoma kid, you're a Texas kid? Are you If
you're a kid from the state of Texas and you
want to go to the SEC, is going to A
and M or Texas really a flex anymore? Or do
you need to go to a traditional SEC school to
really show your level, and I think that's kind of
the same way on the West Coast right now.

Speaker 1 (29:29):
Well, with all that said, and sort of more specific
to this class, I don't want to make too much
of it, but the top three players, all of whom
are quarterbacks at least according to twenty four to seven,
went to Houston, Tennessee and Vandy, which is not typically
the top three that I would be accustomed to seeing.
And I wonder, is this any sign of parody now

(29:51):
with where we're at in recruiting or are we just
talking about kids in Keishawn Henderson, Jared Curtis who are
from their respective area Houston, Vanderbilt and wanted to stay
close to home. What does this tell you about where
we're at with recruiting right now.

Speaker 3 (30:06):
I mean, I think it's incredible parody. I think it
now shows that. And we've heard the rummings, but Elliott
has said this for years that as soon as the
pay gap close, parody increased, and I think you're going
to continue to see that. We saw it in basketball
last year where ag Devants, who's not even LDS, signs
with BYU because of the compensation, So you're going to

(30:26):
see that trickle into football more and more. But it
also you know, does keisha On Henderson sign with Houston
if they're still in the American Conference? I don't know,
but there's a bigger revenue share now that Houston's in
the Big Twelve then there would have been in the
American So maybe the compensations there. Does Jared Curtis sign
with Vanderbilt if Diego pavia is having the year, isn't
having the year he's having? If Clark Lee, you know,

(30:48):
if Clark Lee had left, I don't think Jared Curis
ends up a Vanderbilt. He probably still signs with Georgia.
But you know, Vanderbilt showing that if you do things
to be competitive, you can be competitive on THEE and
you'll be able to attract recruits because you have the
academic a part of it. You've got a great location.
So I think you're going to see more of the
Houstons and the Vanderbilts in the top tens than in

(31:10):
previous years. Now, all that to be said, you keep
trickling down and you still got the LSU, the USC,
the Michigan's, the Miami's, the Notre Dames in this top tens,
the schools that you kind of expect to be there.
But we've seen it in basketball right where we've seen
the Gonzaga be competitive like they have for twenty five years,
because that's all Gonzaga had was basketball, but they were
released competitively winning recruiting battles. And I think with football

(31:32):
now you're going to see schools like the Texas text
of the world. They're going to win more recruiting battles
than they ever did before, and the playing fields getting
even and out a lot more.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
How much of it is and not to say that
you know, you're the schools you mentioned, Ohio State, Notre Dame, Oregon, whoever,
how much of it is the confidence when if you're
recruiting quarterback, if you're recruiting certain players, you're like, yeah,
I don't know if I want to spend that on
a quarterback who's sixteen seventeen, When maybe we just sit

(32:02):
and wait for the North Texas kid and he'll come
in and we've seen him play college footballer we wait
and see, like whoo, bo Nix is on the market, Oh,
you know Dylan Gabriel. Like obviously you look at the
quarterback list, for example, and there's still those huge schools,
But is there a certain amount of thinking if you
are those major places, Yeah, maybe it was just King

(32:22):
Riley Leonard in two years, and that's going to be
how we approach this position because it just seems maybe
more fiscally responsible in the long term.

Speaker 3 (32:32):
You know, it's fascinating because I'll use USC as an
example of that. For all the success that Lincoln Riley
has had as a quarterback developer, and you know, a
guy who's turned out so many first round draft picks,
the only guy he's had from his freshman year to
the end of the end of that time the entire
time was Kayleb Williams and he had him at two
different schools. Kyler Murray was a transfer, Jalen Hurts was

(32:55):
a transfer obviously, Jake Mayaba is a chansfer, Baker Mayfield
is a transfer. So you know, even the best quarterback
developer in college football is still dipping into the portal
and part of it. And it's not because you know, he
didn't develop the younger guys. It's now those younger guys
don't want to wait. And I remember seeing this back
in the old day. Barton Simmons, who's now the general

(33:15):
manager at Vanderbilt, used to say this when we were
at twenty four seven. People would give these quarterbacks because
remember in the old days, quarterbacks were the only ones
that transfer.

Speaker 4 (33:23):
If you were a.

Speaker 3 (33:23):
Backup, then you got beat out by somebody older and
you had to wait. You were going to transfer because
you wanted to get on the field. And they say, oh,
he's afraid to compete. No, that's the problem. He's not
afraid to compete. He wants to compete and he wants
to be a starter. So he's going to go somewhere
where he has the opportunity to start. Now, if you
become a guy who sat in the back for two
three years, you haven't been able to play, you have

(33:45):
no value, you have no draw. So that's why you're
seeing quarterbacks leave early. You better be very confident in
your coach's ability and as if you're that head coach,
you better be very confident in your own ability to
develop and be able to keep that kid patient, like
Sark has been able to to do two Sark's credit,
he's been able to do that with Arch. And you know, again,
Quinnyewerys had his ear in the wilderness, but then he

(34:05):
came back to Texas. Sark has kind of shown that
he's the one guy that will stick with the homegrown guy. Obviously,
you know Ryan Day had c J. Stroud, KB McCord,
didn't necessarily move the needle. They lose him and they
win a national championship. Julian saying, again, I'm giving Julian
san kind of Ohio state credit, even though he did
sun in Alabama. But sure, the Julian sayans, the c J. Strouds,

(34:27):
the arch they're kind of unicorns. It's more often than
not now going to be the Fernando Mendoza's, the Diego Pavias,
the guys that went somewhere else and just needed the
cam Wards that just needed a better cast of characters
around them to be better. And if I'm a coach
and I do have this young guy, but this is
a make or break here. If I can get that
elite quarterback, and he's the difference between us going eleven

(34:50):
and one, twelve and OHO or nine to three and
playing in you know, a regular New Year's stable, I
will sacrifice that two years of development with that quarterback
to go all all in for next year. So to
answer the original question, I don't know that there is
the value in paying a lot of that money to
an incoming high schooler unless you are confident as hell

(35:12):
that he's going to come in and either start a
the true freshman at the latest of the retro freshman,
and you can develop him and give him weapons around
him that will make that investment worthwhile because otherwise, go
take a backup he's probably going to transfer anyway, and
save that money for a bigger name quarterback in a
year from now.

Speaker 2 (35:27):
Yeah, And also it probably makes it easier to say,
like we love him, but we're not going over like
one point one right, that you can set that like
hard cap on, like what you feel like a quarterback
is worth it almost, by the way, makes your job
not obsolete. But like when you talk about like, hey,
this is how I feel about you know, taking Brandon
Faison or Jared Curtis or something like that, like this

(35:48):
is how I feel about him now, but it kind
of doesn't matter because he's only He's not going to
be evaluated necessarily on how he is as a high
school quarterback or a high school prospect. But really, when
you look at like when We talked about the class
with Dante More and Nico and Jaden Rashata and Arch
like most of these guys, most of these blue chip
guys are gone from where they were initially and in

(36:09):
the long term, how they're viewed as high school prospects
like doesn't matter at all, right.

Speaker 3 (36:14):
Right, And you know, it's funny because one guy that
I forgot to mention is Gunner Stockton, who Georgia for
as elital level as they have recruited, you know, their
quarterback recruiting hasn't always been like the elite five star
guy like a Jared Curtis. Remember they did have Delan
Raello committed at one point, but it's been more than
Gunner Stocktons. The Carson Becks that weren't that top end guy,

(36:36):
but a guy that was willing to wait obviously, said
sym Bed it was. You know, he was much traveled.
But you know, Georgia has kind of shown the remedy like, hey,
if you get a kid, get a local kid who's
bought into this program and turn them loose. But you know,
if you go back to kind of those other schools
and you go back to what the investment is, I mean,
it's why you're seeing And I think Arizona State's a
great example of that. When the rumor started up a

(36:59):
couple of weeks ago that Sam Levitt was willing to leave,
you didn't see Kenny Dillingham go on a full on
crusade to say, no, stay here, we need you. Where
the difference is kind of like, hey, you know, we
wish them all the best. We think it for all
the success. Because now if I'm in ASU, I and
I you know, as he's sitting there jostling and posturing
to get more, but you know, more resources now to
stay at ASU, and I don't have the full twenty

(37:22):
million in revenue sharing, I only have fifteen million. Is
it really smart to put twenty percent of my revenue
into one quarterback when I need help on the offensive
line and I need help at the receiver position. So
you're going to see some schools kind of go with.

Speaker 4 (37:33):
A moneyball, right, totally.

Speaker 3 (37:35):
Yeah, you have to. You can't overpay for a corporate Now,
if you're a school that's the bluest of blue bloods
and you have everything but a quarterback, then sure you'll
go pay double digit x amount of you know, eight
digits for a quarterback, but most schools are going to
be able. Hey, if we have five million of extra
money to play with, let's not put all five million
in a quarterback. Let's put two and a half million

(37:56):
in a quarterback, a million to a receiver, a million
toial left tackle, five hundred grand to a corner. Now
we still have the same competitive.

Speaker 2 (38:04):
Chance, right, and say, like, can we approximate eighty percent
of Sam Levitt's production with like Hassan long Street?

Speaker 4 (38:11):
Right?

Speaker 2 (38:11):
A usc back up with what seems to be a
good pedigree. It seems like that's where things, I guess
have been now.

Speaker 3 (38:19):
I mean, I'm sure Fernando Mendoza is getting a good
chunk of money to go to in totally, especially when
Miami was in play and he's a Miami kid. But
I also think Indiana has done a tremendous job the
last two years of balancing their books right so that
they're not overpaying for a big name superstar. I mean,
the remember is Dan, you and I are packed twelve guys.
We watched Fernando Mendoza for a couple of years at

(38:40):
cal I remember being at the game. I covered the
cal usc game.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
They dropped like fifty on sc Yeah.

Speaker 3 (38:45):
Yes, and they lost on a miss two point conversion.
But you saw two Heisman Trophy winners and two potential
number one draft picks in Kayleb Williams and Fernando Mendoza.
Kayleb Williams was every bit the penny that he was worth.
But if you would have told me two years ago
that hey, you're watching the guy's going to with a
heismand in two years, by the way, he's gonna do it.
Indian who, by the way, is going to be undefeated,
the Big Ten champion, by the.

Speaker 4 (39:02):
Way, is going to the Rose Bowl.

Speaker 3 (39:04):
Who, by the way, one of the last two times ever,
I would have been like, dude, what is going on.
I know we're in Berkeley and weird things happen, but
that's beyond the realm of possibility. But that's the thing
you for every cam Ward, what was the return on
the cam Ward investment for Miami? They didn't make the playoff? Yeah,
they got the number one pick, but they didn't make
the playoff. You're almost better off making a wider investment

(39:26):
on more players than just going all in on one
year in and year out, rather than unless you have
that one year, we're like, this is the make or
break here. If I'm Ohio State and I've got this
twenty twenty one class that we just need a quarterback
to get us across the line, We'll go get Will Howard,
We'll get Quinshaw Junkiss to go with Treyvon Henderson. Those
two guys make the difference. You put all your chips in. Yes,

(39:47):
otherwise I think you're going to see more schools kind
of do the moneyball approach fair enough?

Speaker 2 (39:52):
I okay, there's a number that I saw, and it's
forty nine. I don't know if forty nine means anything
to you immediate when you think about the class of
twenty twenty six, it is the number of commits and
signees that Rich Rodriguez signed at West Virginia, pushing fifty signings.
I just want to know, how, why, what? What will

(40:15):
happen like forty nine incoming freshmen? What was your reaction
as this class was developing? You know, obviously this is
a different part of the world that you're used to.
But when you see this new reality and you know
usc you've mentioned their class, I think it's something like
thirty five commitments something like that, Like these are just
numbers we haven't seen before. When you see those numbers,

(40:36):
where does your brain go.

Speaker 3 (40:38):
Well, it goes, So this is where we're at because
what we forget to account for is that forty five
guys went into the portal as soon as rich Frod
got there. Remember he got hired after signing date. Neil
Brown was fired after signing day, so he gets their
probably looks at this class that these guys can't play
in the Big twelve, so I'm going to run them
all out. Well, you got to replace those bodies. And
now that there's no longer the twenty five to twenty
eight scholarship cab, you just got to be under that

(40:59):
eighty five cap. You could sign forty nine guys. I
mean he used to be reserved for the Army, Air Force,
and navies of the world to bring in fifty guys
each year. Someone would go to the prep academy before
they got there. But now when you see forty nine
guys in the class, it's not super striking because forty
nine guys just left. The more faceting number will be
of those forty nine, how many make it to year

(41:20):
two at West Virginia, Like, are you signing playable talent
or are you signing death At this point, you're trying
to have eighty five bodies. But of those eighty five,
by I mean, I remember sitting with Chris Peterson back
in twenty and fifteen, twenty sixteen when he was at Washington,
and you know him saying that, like, if we can
hit on sixty percent of our class, we're going to

(41:42):
be pretty happy with the results. Now, if you sign
forty nine guys, that would mean twenty five of those
guys are playing. If you can even retain twenty five
of those guys, that's a victory and self let alone
if they can even play. But now you know, the
days of there being two quarterbacks in the class, those
are few in far between, because you'll know very quickly

(42:03):
if I'm third on the depth tart, he's fourth on
the depth chart, I've got a better chance of being
the guy that fourth. The guy who's now fourth on
the depth trot, the king of the same class he's gone.
So with forty nine players that you're signing, yeah, you're
you're filling your body. But now you've got forty nine
true freshman on an eighty five man power four roster
in twenty twenty six. Is that going to be competitive?
Is that going to win you games? Or are you

(42:24):
playing for twenty twenty eight, twenty twenty nine at that point, I'm.

Speaker 1 (42:27):
Looking right now at your top ten out at twenty
four to seven sports dot com. USC, Alabama, Oregon, Notre Dame,
and Georgia are your top five. To round out the
top ten, it's Ohio State, Tennessee, Texas, Texas, A and
m Miami. A lot of the usual suspects. I don't
really care about the top classes, Brandon. What I care
about is which schools, which programs, did the best job

(42:50):
getting exactly what they need. It's easy, I think, to
stack stars on top of stars to get a high,
highly rated recruiting class. I shouldn't say it's not that easy,
but certainly if you're one of the blue bloods, it's
a little bit easier. Who did the best job to
go out and get exactly what they need to take
the next step out on the field.

Speaker 3 (43:10):
I maybe show my my West Coast bias here, but
I think Oregon and USC both did that. They got
players at positions in need, They got players at premium positions.
See going getting to Keny Peppe. You know, one of
the best offensive linement in the country, you know, getting
key players at key positions that are high school guys
rather than having to go, you know and wait for

(43:31):
guys that are at another school that you're gonna have.

Speaker 4 (43:33):
To overpay for.

Speaker 3 (43:33):
I think that Oregon USC both did probably the best
job of filling needs they you know, Oregon, I think
did it a little better because Oregon's class, I believe
it was the second highest class in terms of average
star rating per player. So while it didn't have the
amount of players signed that a USC did, Oregon was
very particular and very picky about who they took. Now,
there was a couple of players here and there that

(43:54):
Oregon lost, you know, to USC, that would have made
their class even better. A couple of guys from southern
calif point that's stuck. But I think both Oregon and
USC have did a really good job. And I think,
you know, in Ohio State holding on to Chris Henry
when it looked like you might lose him, you know
that that was a victory in itself, especially when Kayden
Dixon Wyatt left two days before to stay home and

(44:15):
go to USC. I think, you know, there's a reason
in US. He still hasn't got to the playoff under Lincoln, right,
But if you look at those other schools that are
in the top ten everyone, shoot, you go to the
top twelve that I'm going through, the top thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen,
I mean every one of the top fifteen. The only
school in the top fifteen that hasn't been in the

(44:36):
playoffs is USC. All right, But obviously USC does have
advantage that all these kids are still going to be
the next Reggie Bush. Just ask them, even though Reggie
Bush stop playing college football twenty years ago. The point
being that if you look at the teams that are
consistently playing in the playoffs or competing, they're the teams
that are still recruiting at a high level.

Speaker 4 (44:52):
And it goes back to.

Speaker 3 (44:53):
Budd Elliott's blue chip rankings and you know the blue
chip ratio. So I think you know those schools, and
what I don't think people give enough credit to those
kind of schools for their consistency in recruiting at such
a high level, knowing that players are going there, and
you may commit to a school and there's a log
jam at your position. Now, nobody did it better than

(45:15):
Alabama did back in the twenty teens. I remember when
Rashaun Evans was coming out, he was the number numbered
three player in the country. He was finalists for UCLA
Auburn and UCLA UCLA Auburn in Alabama. His dad played
it at Auburn. Ucla is told you'll be the next
Anthony Barr and Nick Saban basically said you can come here.
It'll probably three years before you see the field, maybe

(45:35):
four years, because we've got five guys just like you.
The number three player in the country. He goes to Alabama,
doesn't start regularly till the end of his junior year,
becomes a first round draft pick. Schools like the Ohio States,
the Alabama's, the Georgia's, the Organs that can consistently recruit
at a high level and do it each year knowing
that there's a log jam at a lot of those positions,
and yet still convinced guys to come there that there's

(45:56):
something to be said about that they're not one year
flashed in the pans. I mean, remember, we did have
that one Texas A and M class two years ago
or three years ago where they signed everybody and then
like none of those guys stuck with it. They were
kind of an outlier. We had the old MIS class,
the famous Hugh Freese ol Mis class. That was kind
of the outlier. You know, when you have the consistency
of these schools due of signing these players, developing these players,

(46:18):
and even if they lose these players, they are able
to backfill those positions. You know. I think you see
why they're consistently taught programs Brandon.

Speaker 1 (46:28):
Whether it's due to let's say, coaching, turnover, mismanagement, bad philosophy,
take your pick. Are there any recruiting operations that you
look at now based on what we saw during the
early signing period and you're like, yeah, that's on life
support over there at school X.

Speaker 3 (46:52):
There are schools like that that you kind of wonder
what were they doing. You're seeing it more in the
portal though. You're seeing it more with the portal where
now because the portal's more expensive, you're throwing more money
at players in the portal, and you're like, that's the
guy you're giving that amount of money too. So you're
now seeing what schools that kind of did have those

(47:14):
life supports, they're now understanding, Shoot, we've got to be competitive,
and I think, you know, going back to the Stanford
and cal analogy, it was a they were the two
that went with a general manager overseeing football. They're the
ones that are making the decision on who's going to
be recruited, who's going to be offered, because now they're
in a completely different part of the country from a
conference standpoint, they are, you know, in a completely different

(47:35):
situation than they were comfortably in the PAC twelve that
they changed their entire approach. Stanford is, you know, now
taking some transfers in. They're doing a little bit more
with nil, They're doing things that you would have never
thought transferred. I think it's an easy one to say,
but I still think with you know, Clemson has got
to modernize, and I think that we saw some hints

(47:57):
that maybe it was changing, and maybe they didn't change,
but it's either evolved or get left behind. And I
think we're starting to see that now where a duke
in of Virginia are playing in the a SEC Championship game.
You know, where if you're clemsing, you can no longer
rely on what you did in twenty eighteen anymore. That
is an eternity ago into this modern era of recruits,

(48:19):
and so if you're not modernizing, nobody cares about the
slide in the locker room. If you're not winning, okay,
you've got to win. You've got to be taking care
of these players. You've got to be compensating. And if
you don't change that approach, then it might be time
to find a new coach. Might be fine to find
a new philosophy in doing it. But I think that
there were certainly some schools that you kind of look
at and you're like, what are you doing? And it

(48:41):
got remedied in the off season with coaching changes.

Speaker 2 (48:44):
I want to take the flip side to that very
mean question, Ty, it's such a mean dude.

Speaker 1 (48:49):
What he knows? Just people want to know. People want
to know, and I understand why Brandon doesn't necessarily want
to answer that he's a good job answering.

Speaker 4 (48:56):
I know an on the other sip from Clemson, So yeah,
it's okay.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
What I want to know is because we do see
results get dramatically better for a number of teams every year. Right,
we saw how much Virginia invested, for instance, in the
portal last year. Obviously we've seen what Texas Texas Tech
has done in terms of its aggression successfully even like
this year with Arizona, right that Jedfish did a good

(49:21):
job recruiting in Tucson and laid the groundwork for that roster,
and they brought in a bunch of transfers and new
coaches and everything like that. I wonder if you look
at the last year or even this year's class, and
it's impossible to know, obviously with high school players, but
when you look at what whatever team has done, is
there a team that you're like, they're not good right now?
I really like the groundwork that's being laid, and I

(49:45):
really like their aggression, be it you know, high school, portal, whatever,
where you're like, there's interesting things happening to that roster,
and maybe not this year, but in the coming two
three years, they're kind of interesting.

Speaker 3 (49:59):
I think, no question, Virginia Tech, and you know, at
the expense of Penn State, Virginia Tech is that program
that we know that James Franklin kind of track talent.
We know that he can win ten games a year,
we know that he can be competitive. And that's in
a conference where you had two ginormous programs in Ohio
State and Michigan. Even before Oregon got there, you had

(50:19):
Ohio State, Michigan. He was still competitive in the Big Ten.
Now what's he going to do in the ACC where
it's like Florist State can't seem to get out of
their own way. You're not entirely sure what Clemson's doing
in the year of our lower twenty twenty five and
Miami it's always one or two game time decisions or
you know, game decisions away from being eight and four
or twelve and oh, there is the perfect inrow there
for Virginia Tech in twenty twenty six to be competitive.

(50:43):
But really twenty twenty seven, twenty twenty eight, I don't
think it'll be the long slow burn like it was
a Virginia And by slow burn, I mean it was
what year three for Tony Elliott at Virginia when things
finally turn around. But we're now in an era two
where Tony Elliott might get a little bit of gray,
and that doesn't even take into account what he went
through that first year with the tragedy that happened at Virginia.

(51:05):
Just from an on the field standpoint, we have seen
Deshan Foster get fired after fifteen games We saw Trent
Bray get fired after eighteen games, and that was at
their alma maters. Okay, we saw that. You know, coaches
are no longer making it past year two anymore. Brian Harson,
I don't think made it past year two when he
was at Auburn. You're seeing less patience and more willingness

(51:26):
to pull the trigger quickly and make a coaching change.
So are we even going to see situations like Virginia
anymore where they're gonna let it kind of percolay for
a couple of years before you finally have that breakthrough season.
Or is every school now expecting a Kirk Signetty type
of rejuvenation in year one? Everybody thinks, now we need
to be able to do what Indiana has done in

(51:49):
two years. No, I don't think that's possible. I think
that might be more of a unicorn. I mean, shoot,
it took Joey Maguire five years to really get Texas
Tech cook him, and he was recruiting at a pretty
high level. But our school's going to be patient enough,
and I think Virginia Tech has been through the wilderness
enough over the last decade that they will be patient enough.
But I don't think they need to be too patient
because I think that conference is in a position and

(52:10):
Virginia Tech's in a position in that conference where they can,
with a couple of good off season portal maneuvers, can
be very competitive in that conference pretty quickly. So that's
the one that I would say put up in there.
And it's large because we know the kind of recruiting
that James Franklin can do, but now he can do
it in a much more attainable conference.

Speaker 1 (52:29):
He got me feeling bad now, Dan that I asked
him a mean question. You shouldn't feel bad. You're a
journalist here. Let me I'm not a journalist.

Speaker 3 (52:35):
Let me.

Speaker 1 (52:36):
Let me go in a different direction, Brandon, Who are
your pet players from this most recent class? Who do
you like? Who would you go to bat for? Who
would you want on your team if you were a
GM out there right now?

Speaker 3 (52:49):
I mean, I'm a It's an easy one to say,
because you know he is the best, in my opinion,
the best player in this class.

Speaker 4 (52:57):
It's Keishaan Henderson.

Speaker 3 (52:59):
Just watching the way he carries himself, watching the way
he plays when he came to the All American Bowl
last year. Last year was the first year they brought
underclass from to the All American Ball they named the
All American Ball in San Antonio. He was the MVP
there and you could just see that he had this
confidence in himself.

Speaker 4 (53:14):
And the talent was there too.

Speaker 3 (53:16):
But I think that he is the kind of dynamic
player that takes Houston from Hey there. You know, it's
a cute season they had under Willie Fritz two this
team could very much be a Big twelve contender each
year that he's behind center. So that's kind of an
easy one.

Speaker 2 (53:30):
But you know, let alone what he's going to do
at Ohio State in three years.

Speaker 4 (53:33):
Yeah. Well, I mean how.

Speaker 3 (53:35):
Many times did we see the first month of the season. Oh,
you know, future Miami quarterback Jaron Cabeselli have a great game.

Speaker 4 (53:42):
There's always that.

Speaker 3 (53:43):
But there's also for Tita money in Houston, so I
don't know that's that much of a possibility. But you know,
if I'm going to go with a couple of guys
that I think have a chance to be very special,
and you know, Zion Eely, whether he sticks with Maryland
after year one, this guy is flat out incredible. I
watched him at the Paul Anesian Bowl last year as
a junior, he was phenomenal the entire week. And I

(54:05):
am a big fan of elite explosive edge rushers like
that that can absolutely disrupt an offense, and I think
that he has that chance. Now. You know, mikel Loxi
has another year, Lake Washington's coming back. I mean, Maryland
might be in showing mode for MIKELXI, but a guy
like Zion Eely is the kind of guy that could
save a job.

Speaker 4 (54:22):
There's you know, some jadeveon clowney to.

Speaker 3 (54:25):
His game, just that explosiveness that he could be a
true kind of program changer of Dylan Stewart at South
Carolina type, where Zion Eally is that guy that I
think is, you know, the one we're going to be
talking about a ton next year, largely because Mike Glosi
has to play him from a stance of like you
got this player held on to him, you got to
get him on the field. Now. The only downside of

(54:46):
Zion Eey is he doesn't play offense, and Maryland still
is going to have to find a way to score points.
But he's going to be a guy that I think
is going to get turned loose and really be utilized
in you know, a way that he can become a
household name even though he's playing defense in a very
offense driven sport. So those are probably two of the guys.

Speaker 4 (55:04):
But I think go on the long.

Speaker 3 (55:06):
Term here, and I'm not doing this just to play
kay Danny or I love t Daron Ball, you know,
I think he's one.

Speaker 4 (55:12):
Of those guys.

Speaker 3 (55:12):
In one thing we've seen with the organ is they
do a really good job of distributing the carries at
the running back position, and it seems like one guy
goes down, one guy gets injured, the next guy comes in.
I mean Jordan Davison. Literally, I remember seeing this kid
in seventh grade and you kind of forget about him
because he's at modern day. You know, there's this glut
of running back. He comes back and completely changes his
body and he looks awesome as a freshman, and you know,

(55:33):
they're just they do a really good job of their
running backs. And so he's that guy that I think
he's not a top fifty player, but when we're talking
future freshman All American next year.

Speaker 4 (55:42):
He won't be the guy.

Speaker 3 (55:43):
Jordan Davison'll be the guy. But this is the guy
that comes in and gets you six hundred fifty seven
hundred yards here, and then he becomes your feature back
in twenty twenty eight. So that's one name to kind
of put a pin on too that maybe is in
the household name of a zion E. Leap of Akeishan Henderson,
but a guy that I think is going to be
a very big impact player in college.

Speaker 1 (56:00):
I have three programs specifically that I want to ask
you about. They're not schools that finished in the top ten,
just the side of that shut Lehigh's class look like. Yeah,
we'll talk about Lehigh on a separate episode. Washington, Florida State,
North Carolina. Three schools that are interesting for a variety

(56:22):
of reasons, most of them different from one another. But
Washington as of now stilgitfish who knows there's time, Florida
State with Mike Norvel obviously on the clock to try
and turn that around. And North Carolina, which is nothing
if not interesting now that Bill Belichick is in town.

Speaker 3 (56:40):
Yeah, I am very intrigued by North Carolina. Obviously, you
know is Bill Belichick and the coach these guys he's
bringing in for more than three years. But not unlike
West Virginia, they have a large amount of talent that
they're bringing in. They're bringing in nearly forty guys. So
those are players that Michael Bardi and Bill Belichick said, hey,

(57:00):
we're bringing you in and you need to be ready
to compete. And I think that those guys are going
to get on the field early. They are going to
be a pretty young team, but there's some talent there obviously.
You know, bringing in a quarterback like a Travis Burgess,
you're gonna bring him in with the hope that he
can come in and be a guy for you and
maybe you go with the youth movement. We obviously have
seen Bill Belichick, you know, never be having a version
to playing young quarterbacks and going with a younger model,

(57:23):
So it would be surprised if he goes that route.

Speaker 2 (57:27):
Ty, come on, stay current.

Speaker 4 (57:31):
But but I thank you, thank you.

Speaker 3 (57:34):
I think with North Carolina, though, they they've got to,
you know, have hit on all those guys because the
portal clearly didn't work for them, and they better evaluated
these guys, but they got to develop them. Florida State,
you know, it was two years ago that they were
undefeated in the regular season, so you you know, you
expect them to recruit at a high level. But when
Miami seems to be doing a much more aggressive job,
and then you know there's all the talk about Mike Norvell.

(57:56):
Is he going to survive this? Is he going to
do it? They're recruiting coming off the two inten season
was actually better than you would have expected, but they
still aren't winning the key recruiting battles like they did
in the old days under jimbo Fisher and like they
did under Bobby Bowden. And I think that you know
what Florida State needs to do right now is they
need to make sure that they hit on the portal,
because as great as the portal was for them in

(58:18):
the twenty twenty three season, it was a disaster for
them in twenty twenty four, and it wasn't that great
in twenty twenty five, So they can't afford to play
young talent. I think North Carolina's got a little bit
more flexibility with playing some of the youth there, but
Florida State they've got to win right now, which means
that I think of those three, Washington did the most
impressive job because for them to have a top twelve

(58:39):
class and really not have a huge amount of talent
in their backyard, not like that you know, the state
of Washington did in the late twenty tens, when you
know you have the JT two Molobiles and the MKA
bucaz Ghoset type. I really like what Washington did in
this class. And it wasn't just with West Coast kids.
I mean, they go down and they get a kid
like Jordan Clay who's been committed to Baylor for some time,

(59:00):
a top one hundred kid, they get him. Mason James
out of Oklahoma, out of Norman, they go and get him.
You know, Washington is now showing that they're quarterbacks from
the East coast. I think he's from New Jersey. I mean,
Washington for so many years, and I've said it on
the show, there's not a fan base that wants the
local kids to stay home more than Washington and takes
it more personally when a local kid doesn't stay home.

(59:20):
But Washington always seemed to want to just recruit the
West Coast. Now they're expanding with you know, Jedfish, They're
having experience all across the country. He's director of recruiting,
Marcus Griffin, all those assistant coaches that have been all
around the country. They're recruiting more nationally, and so seeing
Washington be a number twelve class, This is what happens
when you have a full year. Remember when that coaching

(59:41):
change happened at Washington, it was in mid January, and
so he lost a lot of those players. And nowadays,
if you are hired in January, you still have eleven
months till signing day, but you're six months, seven months behind.
That attention had already been turned to the twenty twenty
five class by the previous watching Washington coaches by in August,
jeded Fish goes there, tries to salvage roster.

Speaker 4 (01:00:01):
So now you're seeing what he can do.

Speaker 3 (01:00:03):
He did it with his class of twenty twenty five
after he had been there, but now the twenty twenty
six class you're really seeing. And if you look at
his two best classes at Arizona, it was after he
had his feet under him, and that was the te
Map class. That was the Noah Fafide and you know
a lot of those players followed him to Washington, the
Defusion Price Socks, the Jonah Colemans. I really like what
Washington did in this class, and I think that you know,

(01:00:25):
if you look at it again, two years ago, they
played for a national championship, and they recruited really well
under Chris Peterson, did not recruit really well at all
under Jimmy Lake, and it was tempied under kailn to Board.
But Jed Fish is getting him back and there has
been a huge focus on recruiting homegrown talent. So of
those three, I'm the most intrigued by Washington, and I
think that they've got a lot of players there. Cody Green,

(01:00:46):
who was committed to Oregon modern day aligneman, but he's
from Seattle originally. I would be shocked if he's not
starting on the offensive line for University Washington when they
opened the season next year. They've got some key players
that they had a freshman All American on the offensive
line this year, and that means you're doing a good
job of developing and getting those players into the position.
I think that you know, Washington has a couple of
guys in this class that they were a pretty young team. Yeah,

(01:01:08):
they're gonna lose Denzel Boston, they lose a couple of
other guys, but I really like the youth of this
team and I think that they can really compete for
a playoff spot, assuming DeMont Williams is back and Jetfish
doesn't go somewhere else.

Speaker 2 (01:01:19):
It seems that and it's my opinion that we're kind
of in a holding pattern right now because of Michigan
has a top twelve class at the moment, and they
don't have a signed head coach at the moment, and
so it seems like we are due for dominoes. We
just had Bruce Feldman on and he said he always anticipates,

(01:01:41):
you know, the carousel to keep spinning no matter what.
Washing Excuse me, Michigan has a top whatever twelve ish
class right now that I think they have the number
one edge rusher, the number one running back in this class,
and you have a roster with a ton of talent,
and then you could see dominoes based on who takes
that Michigan job. A lot of big names that a
lot of big schools. Do you anticipate from your end

(01:02:03):
of things, from your side of things, for things to
get particularly hairy in these next three weeks in the
recruiting world potentially.

Speaker 3 (01:02:12):
But I will give Michigan this that they did recruit
really well and to the point that they've only lost
two commitments. Two guys that sign in the last week
since Sharron Morton. I remember, they don't have to wait
like the portal until January. Second, they don't have to
wait for the five days after a new coach is
hired to put their names in the portal. Those guys
can ask out of their letter asap, and only two

(01:02:32):
of those have done that, and only one was a
top two pour to seven guy. Matt Love with the
tight end out of Montana, who was leaning heavily two
tests As Tech for the majority of his recruitment, ultimately
signed with Michigan. He ended up signing with Texas Tech
last week. But I think given all the term will,
all the stuff that's gone on in the last week,
for Michigan to only lose really one impact player and

(01:02:53):
only two guys total, and now you could potentially bring
in a Kalendabre or a Kenny Dillingham or any other
coach that's being linked there, I think that that's pretty impressive.
But that goes back to what I said at the
very beginning of the show. A lot of times guys
are still signing for other reasons than just the football
part of it. And hey, let me at least see

(01:03:13):
through streme practice to see if I'm a good fit
for this coach and if I'm a good for this scheme.
Or that's when the coach gets there, he may see, hey,
we don't want big athletic tight ends, we want small,
unathletic tight ends. Or we want you know, bigger linemen
that can't move around, but they're massive. They may fit
differently schematically.

Speaker 1 (01:03:30):
I think.

Speaker 3 (01:03:32):
Given the way rosters are and that you can quickly
fix with the portal, a lot of it will be
will really shake out for Michigan in that January second
to the sixteenth window because by then you should have
a coach in place.

Speaker 4 (01:03:44):
You'll know where you have your knees. And if you're a.

Speaker 3 (01:03:45):
Player who may have been told by Shroanmore, hey you're
gonna come in and play as a freshman because we
have a need there. Well, now this new coach comes
in and brings four guys at the position. Now you're
not going to be on that quicker path to playing time.
So now it might be the time to league. But
remember a lot of these guys are moving on a
campus like in the next week to ten days too,
so you kind of got to move a little bit
quicker if you're Michigan, and we may have more clarity

(01:04:07):
by Friday night or Saturday.

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
By the way, Similarly, LSU, I think actually leads the
nation in average recruit rating right now in a smaller class.
What do you expect from there? As Lane Kiffin tries
to both keep this class together and solidify more in
the next whatever month and a half.

Speaker 3 (01:04:24):
I think the Portal king is going to be the
King of the Portal come January. He is going to
enhance that class and enhance that roster in the month
of January. But I think we are people forget Lane
Kiffin had the number one class in the country in
twenty thirteen despite having limited scholarships because he inherited the

(01:04:45):
Pete Carroll mess and he had the number one class
in the country. Back in twenty thirteen, Jalen Ramsey was committed,
any Vanderdos was committed. They had so many elite players
and then the season fell apart. But he was recruiting
to usc with sanctions with fewers scholarships. Okay, now it
doesn't seem like there's any real sanctions anymore, not that
it really matters, because Lane is now going to be

(01:05:05):
able to recruit at a very high level. Lamar Brown
is greeting him at LSU when he gets there. I think,
if we are going to really talk about, what's the
school that you know, besides the Virginia Tech who isn't good,
LSU has been fine. They just you know, had a
Kosha couldn't get out of his own way. LSU is
going to be a top three to five recruiting class
I think every year as long as Lane's there because

(01:05:28):
he won't have to rely on the portal as heavily.
And LSU is still a brand name. It's still a
hot name. I mean, they've had a few years where
they've underachieved, but you know, we've gone from my era
where we was always ninety five Nembraska or two thousand
and Miami to now it's all about twenty nineteen.

Speaker 4 (01:05:43):
LSU.

Speaker 3 (01:05:43):
It's justin Jefferson, it's Jamar Chase, it's Joe Burrow. LSU
is still a hot name, and they're going to have
the resources there to allow Lane to recruit at a
high level. So it's going to be heavy portal this January.
But I think that twenty twenty seven recruiting class for
LSU is going to be the one that people will
need to start going off crab.

Speaker 4 (01:06:00):
Now we've got to do with LC.

Speaker 3 (01:06:00):
Recruiting at an elite level again.

Speaker 1 (01:06:02):
Yeah, Brandon, let me get you out of here with
a few rapid fire questions. Okay, Big twelve recruiting. We've
got Texas Tech. We've got BYU, both of whom played
in the Big twelve championship game. After that Dan mentioned earlier,
West Virginia's got forty nine commits. That's a lot of potatoes, Okay.
But outside of them, Utah one really high level guy,

(01:06:24):
two four star guys currently sitting at fourth per your rankings.
You've got Arizona and TCU and Arizona State kind of
a little bit further down on that list. Who do
you look at, maybe outside of those top two within
the Big twelve as a program that right now you've
identified as they're a school to watch in terms of

(01:06:44):
overall recruiting prowess.

Speaker 3 (01:06:47):
I think it's Utah And here's why. They have always
recruited at a pretty good level, not an elite level.
But on Friday, when Kyle Whittingham announced his retirement, or
at least they was stepping down I reached out to
almost every Utah commit and not one of them was
worried at all. They all kind of were expecting Morgan
scally to take over. There there that's going to be
one of the most seamless transitions of a head coach.

(01:07:09):
But now there's no longer the looming hangover of is
Kyle Whittingham even going to be your coach? Now it's
Morgan Scalley's show. And Utah showed this year by going
after Devin Dampier, by bringing in Jason beck Is their
offensive coordinator, that they knew that they had some things
to fix, and they did that. And I think that
the best thing that ever happened to Utah is byu
being super competitive in the first two years that Utah

(01:07:30):
was in the Big twelve. Because now we got Utah
dealing with private equity, we have Utah now realized they've
got to get into the arms race. But if you
look at this class, it's really good. They were able
to get Kelvin Obot out of Idaho. He ended up
picking Utah over I think it was Michigan, Oregon and
USC and largely because his head coach, Jordan Gross, was
a first round draft pick out of the same high
school went to Utah. It was a first round draft pick,

(01:07:52):
and he really fit in there. Celesio was committed to Tennessee.
He flipped to Utah on signing day. They were able
to flip a couple of other guys in state. But
what they've been able to do so well over the
last decade is develop players, get them drafted very early,
recruit at a pretty good level, maybe not an elite level,
but be competitive enough. And I think that with BYU

(01:08:13):
getting so good so quick in the Big twelve, that's
almost forcing Utah's hand to have to be just as aggressive.
And I think this class shown with the able to
be able to flip Celestimo up from Tennessee, to be
able to get at Calvin Obot with all the other
kind of more bluer bloods that were after him, that
portends well. And now there's no longer the question of
Morgan scalle Is he going to stay or I'm sorry
with Kyle Whittingham, is he staying?

Speaker 4 (01:08:34):
Is he retiring?

Speaker 3 (01:08:35):
This is Morgan Scalley's team. He's got that roster kind
of how he wants it to be, and I think
Utah is going to be a you know, perennial contender
for a playoff berth even though they didn't make it
this year, They're going to be a team that's you know,
they've always recruited well, You're going to see pretty good
staff continuity there that I think that this class is
going to be a very good class for them in
the long run.

Speaker 1 (01:08:54):
Matt Campbell takes a bigger job at Penn State where
he's going to have more resources. What do you expect
with his recruiting operation at a bigger place.

Speaker 3 (01:09:03):
I think it's going to be incredible because I think
that speaking of guys very much like Kyle Whittingham and
their ability to develop and evaluate and get the right
fits and then turn those guys in, I think Matt
Campbell is kind of the master of that. And we've
seen a lot of coaches like that over the year.
We were always wondering, what's he going to do when
he's got a different logo on that polo? What can
he do when he has more talent to attract and

(01:09:24):
he can do more with more resources. And I think
Matt Campbell, I think Penn State is going to benefit greatly.
They may not have the sexy recruiting classes like James
Franklin brought in. There may not be the one hundred
and ten k strong tweets like James Franklin who really
love recruiting, But I think you're going to have such
a complete roster and players that are going to be
evaluated really well, but more importantly be developed really well

(01:09:44):
and fit. I think I'm not at all saying that
this is going to be USC hiring Pete Carroll in
two thousand and one, not at all, but I think
this could end up being the best backing into a
really good hire that you're going to see in the
twenty twenty five cycle. Who had the most alarming class
to you in the SEC in terms of bad or

(01:10:05):
in terms of really good, every.

Speaker 1 (01:10:08):
Way you want to take it, Man, I'm gonna leave
this one up to you.

Speaker 3 (01:10:11):
Yeah, I mean, I would say that probably the most
alarming class is just how quickly things fell apart with Auburn,
you know, I mean I would have thought with Alex
goli Is getting hired that, you know, two days before
the sagn day, they might have you know, been there,
but there was they were starting to lose so much
traction as it was, you know, all the talk about
Braylen Womack, is he going to stick around? I mean,

(01:10:33):
speaking of I've used this phrase a couple of times
coaches that can get out of their own way. Auburn
just seemingly can't ever get out of their own way.
And they should be able to recruit at such a
high level. There's so much good in state talent and
they've been able to get it, but they haven't been
able to utilize it. Cam Coleman had been criminally underutilized.
So you look at Auburn, I think Golish is going
to do well there, but you know, there's no reason
that with Auburn, with the resources that they have, with

(01:10:55):
Hugh Freezer's job security or not, they still should have
had a better class than the one that they did.
And then, you know, to the flip side, if you're
looking at a class that you're like, hey, this is
you know, kind of intriguing, this is kind of interesting.
It's Mississippi State. I mean, I think that Jeff Letty
did a really good job with this class. And then
going back to Brayln Walt to be able to flip
him too. You know, Mississippi State is forgotten at times,

(01:11:17):
in the SEC, and that's probably because you have a
larger than live Lane Kiffin at the end state rival.
But I kind of like what Mississippi State did this year.
They beat Arizona State early in the season. They were
competitive in some games that you know, they ultimately couldn't
finish out, but there were signs of life there. And
Missisippi State they kind of have to They're much like
Matt Campbell when he was at I of State. They
have to nail the evaluation and development side. And I

(01:11:38):
kind of like Missippi State finishing, you know, with the
class that's just outside of the top ten in the SEC,
because that's still pretty good on the national scale.

Speaker 1 (01:11:45):
I have two more quick ones in that tie. Right
We're going to let you out of here. Okay, I
am looking at your ACC rankings right now. Duke and Virginia,
both of whom played for the conference title, are currently
at the bottom of the ACC recruiting rankings. Is this
a signal to you? Should this be a signal to
other fans of the ACC? Even Louisville is in the

(01:12:08):
lower half of the conference right now with respect to
recruiting rankings. Do you take this as a signal that
these are portal schools.

Speaker 3 (01:12:15):
Now, yes, on one hand, and both were quarterback by
portals and very expensive portal you know, uh, attracting like
getting a Darian Vinza. I mean that costs due quite
a bit of money. But I think that you know,
many Das and Tonilla would love to be able to
develop a guy. But at the same time, you know
they're not going to attract any elite quarterback like the

(01:12:36):
blue Bloods are, so they're going to have to be
heavy portal schools in the long run. But it also
shows you that, you know, and I've said this for years,
you don't necessarily see the bumping your recruiting off successful
season in that immediate class. You see it in the
following class. So I would anticipate that the twenty twenty
seventh class for duke in Virginia is going to be
much better, especially for Virginia, because there worse questions coming

(01:12:56):
into the season. Is Tony Elliott the right fit for
the guy? Now he's won terror flee flicker away from
potentially being in the playoff and turning that thing around entirely.

Speaker 4 (01:13:05):
But now he's shown give me some.

Speaker 3 (01:13:07):
Patience, give me some time, and look what I can do,
and I think Virginia's twenty twenty seven class should be better.
Of course that you now have James Franklin in state
that you're having to recruit against, but I think that
both are kind of geared for the portal. But I
also think they're going to see a better bump in
the recruiting coming in twenty six and twenty seven. And
while we're on the ACC, I do have to say
I'm very impressible what Stanford did in this class because

(01:13:29):
you take a guy like Andrew Luck who hasn't been
in the collegiate game for a decade, and basically put
him in charge of this program. He single handling himself,
was recruiting this class.

Speaker 4 (01:13:38):
Not a head coach.

Speaker 3 (01:13:39):
Frank Wrich did very little recruiting at all. Yeah, the
assistants were doing it. His Stanford recruiting staff was doing
a lot. But I saw Andrew Luck at a couple
of high school games this year. He's getting on the
road to go watch quarterbacks, and one of them was
the quarterback they flipped from Vanderbilt, Michael Mitchell. But to
not have a coach for nine months and still be
able to recruit a class that was pretty solid by

(01:13:59):
you know, ACC standards. It's not the Stanford classes they
had in our David Shaw buta that's a different era
with nil and the transfer portal and Stanford being slow
to adapt. For them to finish with the top ten
class in a conference on the other side of the country,
I think it's pretty intriguing to see what Andrew luck
was able to do at Stanford rono Vera to some extent,
but that's going to be ramped up. We're going to

(01:14:19):
be talking about Cal next year in the ACC rankings
because Toshapoi will go back. We talked about defense earlier.
Tos Lapoi is going to build a fence around northern
California that I think could really benefit Cal and Jaron
some of Hotelli staying is going to be a big
help for them. Moving forward to final.

Speaker 1 (01:14:35):
Question, I promise I am looking right now at the
now group of six because the PAC twelve has been
reconstituted in some form, whether we like that or not. Obviously,
this round of the College Football Playoff we have two
group of five teams, so there is an emphasis for
sure on I don't want to say that level of

(01:14:56):
college football, but a level other than the powerful the
teams that right now are atop their respective conferences Temple
in the American Western Kentucky UNLV, Boise State, app State,
and I believe Bowling Green in the MAC. So clearly
these are schools that are prioritizing where they're at with

(01:15:18):
respect to high school recruiting, maybe because they can't be
or aren't as active in the transfer portal for a
whole multitude of reasons. Are there any schools on the
G six level that, to you rise above the rest
and should be on our radar as college football fans
given this new world where there will be at least

(01:15:38):
one annual rep in the College Football Playoff from that
G five G six level.

Speaker 3 (01:15:44):
Yeah, I'm looking forward to what Billy Naper is going
to do with his portal class at JMU and if
he can continue to do that, and I think that
they're going to recruit at a high level, you know,
with him there for a couple of years. But I
think if you look at the most consistent G five
G six program over the last years, it's been Boise State,
and there was a reason that they were the first
G five team that went to the playoff last year.

(01:16:05):
You know where a nine to four season in a
Mountain West championship is drawing criticism because of the uneven
play that the Boise State did, But if you look back,
they're still going to have the best class going into
the Pac twelve. They've got the best reputation, the best
history in the last twenty years of any of the
new Pack twelve schools or any of the current Pack
twelve schools that are still sticking around. They recruit at
a kind of a national brand level better than any

(01:16:26):
G five school And there's a reason they have the
highest rated G five class or G six class in
the country because Boise State has always done well. They've
always punched above their weight on the field, but they've
also punched above their weight in recruiting. They have traditionally
beaten a number of Power for and Power five schools
or the BCS schools in recruiting battles going back to
when Chris Peterson was there, and I don't think that's

(01:16:46):
changed at all because I think Spencer Daniel sim is
showing what a good recruiter he can be and that
the Boise State brand can get you drafted. I mean,
Cage Case is potential second round draft pick. I watched
him play in high school. Now he's going to be
a secondround draft pick. And you know, a mid three
star guy from the Pacific Northwest, a dashing genty is
a four star. He goes there, he thrives at the
top five pick. Boise State continues to show the development.

(01:17:07):
And if there's any school in the G five level
that does a better job of retaining their talent, there's
better than Boise State, I'd like to see it. And
that's where I think the difference is. And that's why
they are so consistently good, is that they do a
really good job of holding onto their players. Now can
they do that long term? I don't know because the
revenue sharing is such a big difference at the Power

(01:17:28):
five level to the G five level.

Speaker 4 (01:17:29):
But if one G five.

Speaker 3 (01:17:30):
School is getting in the playoffs, I think Boise State's
the one that you're gonna have to, you know, kind
of earmark in every year as being one of the
contenders out of the New Pac twelve and one of
the three or four contenders nationally.

Speaker 2 (01:17:41):
What an Andre Williams performance from Brandon Howkson. I'm believe
forty two carries two hundred and thirty three yards just
muscling through the defensive line of content.

Speaker 1 (01:17:51):
He's a machine man. You are a machine, Brandon.

Speaker 3 (01:17:54):
I'm about to knock out a PD lie here, how about.

Speaker 2 (01:17:57):
This on It's great love to hear it, Brandon Hoffman
two four seven Sports. Thank you so much for all
of your time, your insight. As always, be sure to
follow Brandon check out all of his work. I'm sure
you'll be seeing him in videos across this great land
these next few weeks talking about recruiting. Aside from the
beautiful one he's doing right now, anything else we should

(01:18:19):
know about that's on your radar work wise, football wise,
Like you're in the sunshine now in the winter time.

Speaker 4 (01:18:25):
That's nice, I am.

Speaker 3 (01:18:26):
It's like, what's seventy five today is what it's expected
to be. No great skys for me, No, I mean,
believe it or not. We still have All American games,
we have the All American Bawl, the Under Armmer Game,
and a paul Anesian Bowl in January, but that's all
going to be massively overshadowed because January second, after those
New Year's Day bowls, the portal opens and you think
these last couple of weeks have been crazy, ho baby,

(01:18:48):
I think January second to the sixteenth with all these
coaching changes. Yeah, all these new coaches and new places.
It's going to be a wild fourteen days. And shit
serves a nice little distraction as we get ready for
the semi finals in the National Championship.

Speaker 1 (01:19:02):
GEP, have you heard any just like I'm not asking
for specifics here, but are you sitting on any just
like bonkers rumors, whether it be in respect to a
transfer coaching movement, and I like people tell you things
they don't tell us, So are you sitting on any
of that stuff right now that you are just crazy
curious to see if it comes to fruition, very much so.

Speaker 4 (01:19:25):
And it's going to be at the quarterback position.

Speaker 3 (01:19:27):
It's going to be a lot that has to do
with who lands where and who prioritizes who that I
think could really, you know, change kind of the game
moving forward with which schools are competitive quickly in twenty
twenty six.

Speaker 1 (01:19:39):
Incredible, can't wait. Brandon Hoffman again twenty four to seven sports.
We very much appreciate your time. We very much appreciate you,
appreciate you leaving it all out in the field. I
can hear the voice, so go hit that pedia light.
You are one of truly the unique characters that we
have on this show. We love it every time we
get a chance to talk to you make us smarter.
So thank you again as always for your time, and

(01:20:01):
enjoy the holidays.

Speaker 3 (01:20:03):
Appreciate it happening all of you guys too, and we'll
see you here in a couple of weeks on the
portal circuit, Yes, sir.

Speaker 1 (01:20:09):
All right, Dan, there you go. Brandon Hoffman, twenty four
to seven Sports National Recruiting Editor. He is a fricking
machine man, he is.

Speaker 2 (01:20:17):
And it's especially impressive because I'm sure in like previous
eras of recruiting he can you know, he knows like
the sophomores and juniors and seniors, and then we go
through like the home stretch of the season and visits
and signing day and then they're just sort of off
to college and he goes back to the high school ranks, right,

(01:20:39):
and he follows college football because he's a college football fan,
and like you need to sort of have that context
for high school recruiting. But now with the portal, he
kind of has to keep track of everything all of
the time on both sides.

Speaker 1 (01:20:52):
I wanted to ask him about that, but we ran
out of time. I could keep it longer.

Speaker 2 (01:20:56):
What we do, Like I don't watch the NFL. You
watch the Giants, but you're not like an all day
red zone like fantasy gambler, Like that's not.

Speaker 5 (01:21:03):
Who you is.

Speaker 1 (01:21:04):
The g five at this point.

Speaker 2 (01:21:06):
Continue, But like I look at the NFL and I'm
always just like pleasantly surprised that a player that I
spoke about for a few years is doing well in
the NFL, Like just all good for him, Like Jonathan
Taylor is good for the cults, what a pleasure to see.
I loved watching him in college. But you could tell
me that Jonathan Taylor didn't work out or just had
like unlucky injury luck or history or whatever, and be like,

(01:21:28):
damn that stinks. Oh well, you know, wish him the
best and so that he has to continue on from
high school to college, and that people continue on from
college to the NFL. Like I'll just like look at
stats every once in a while NFL leaders and be
like pleasantly surprised that somebody's good. And then I just
continue on with my day. What these guys have to

(01:21:53):
do with with the portal world now because it's all
it's all one and the same, especially contractually and nil
stuff that Brandon doing this nationally. It's just it's an undertaking,
very impressive.

Speaker 1 (01:22:06):
I wanted to ask him how the word recruiting has
changed for him now as a national quote unquote recruiting editor.
Recruiting is so different, you know, because schools are building
out NFL style scouting operations. They're no longer just in
the game for high school prospects. They're basically recruiting everyone

(01:22:26):
all the time. So how has his job changed now
that this is a more holistic thing. I mean, he
sort of spoke to it a little bit, and I
think schools are are definitely answering that question. Everyone's got
a little bit of a different approach. But it's a
hard job. And his ability just at a moment's notice.
We didn't give him any of that stuff beforehand. No,
so his ability to kind of just go from recall,

(01:22:49):
I had half a notion to just throw out a
random two star guy and say, tell me. I didn't
want to put him in a bad spot because he's
already like right, of course, deal with the cold and
given us so much of his time. I don't want
to make him look bad. It's a lot, but man,
he's incredible. Go and follow him, go and check him out.
At twenty four to seven, brandhom is like a national treasure.

Speaker 2 (01:23:07):
I'm sure if you were like this two star kid
from Artesia, like somewhere in southern California, he could be like,
all right, well, yeah, his dad was in the minor
league system for the Padres that I think he could
handle pretty well. When you say NFL, by the way,
when you're like, it's almost like a for veteran for
worse situation, because as we get into portal season, I

(01:23:29):
think a lot of these schools, if not all of
these schools like they're just it's not a limitless bank
that they're dealing with. And so I don't think when
we're seeing a lot of these guys enter the portal
it's necessarily like I don't like being at Kansas State,
I don't like being at USC. I think a lot
of it is, hey, we want to renegotiate your deal.
We think you're a three hundred and fifty k guy,

(01:23:50):
not necessarily an eight twenty five K guy, right, And
so that's at that point then there's the math of like,
do I think I can get five to ten somewhere?
And I think that's what we're into right now, which
does feel like the NFL.

Speaker 1 (01:24:06):
Does it take anything away from you like hearing about
this out in the open, because I think a lot
of this already went on behind the scenes. We just
didn't know about it. It hits different, though it really
does feel different to me. I think for a long
time many of the people listening, and you guys can
call me out if I'm off base with this, but

(01:24:29):
there was such pageantry and romanticism associated with college football,
if only because we didn't talk about this stuff. And
there is part of me that thinks maybe it was
all better off and we just had it going on
in the shadows where it wasn't so front stage center.
We didn't have to deal with this whenever we logged
onto our message board of choice. But now here we

(01:24:52):
are and it's out in the open, and I think
the players are better for it. I've always believed you
and I have both been like binded in that week.
The players should be compensated, they should be able to
earn off their likeness. But it has definitely reframed the
conversation in a way that I think a lot of
people are still uncomfortable with.

Speaker 2 (01:25:08):
Sure, it's it's definitely different, it's definitely again. It's hard
for us specifically because we're most concerned with schools that
are like of the gilded few in Sure Dame, in
Oregon for better, I don't Yeah, I don't think we
can speak to it feeling different or like having a

(01:25:31):
yuck factor because Notre Dame's not gonna lose players they want,
and Oregon's not gonna lose players they want by and large.
If they're playing and people are getting along reasonably well
behind the scenes, it's it. That's just how it seems
from the outside. So from that perspective, not a lot
has changed for me personally, But looking at the sport

(01:25:54):
as a whole, I'm always fascinated no matter the sport
of Like you know, you look at the NBA and
the max deals and the aprons and the mid level exceptions,
like I think there is something super interesting about the
construction of rosters and teams and how you value players
or draft picks or salary caps are going over the

(01:26:17):
cap or there being no cap, or you're deferring payment
for ten years. That's worth eight hundred million dollars. Like
the business of it all is interesting to me, but
at the same time, I can't help but feel for
the guys who feel like they're being squeezed out. And
we're watching players who were like pretty good and contributing

(01:26:39):
but now have to go to a considerably smaller school
and smaller stage because there's a new hot freshman coming
in and the books need to be balanced like that.
That's not my thing, but by and large, you know,
the only certainty in life has change, and so the
teams who are rolling with at best and the best

(01:27:00):
financial way are the ones who are going to succeed.
But yeah, it takes a little bit away from me.
But like, we're also in a universe in which we
have to pay attention to TV ratings and networks sort
of putting their thumbs on the scale of realignment and
stuff like that. So if we have to be exposed
to more of like the underbelly of players making hundreds

(01:27:23):
of thousands of dollars, that's kind of okay by me. Like,
I don't know all things, consider the like the bummers
of this sport, players making more money and finding out
about the money that they're all making. That's fine by me.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:27:36):
I would welcome feedback from the verballerhood soliverbl at gmail
dot com. And I know this is well tread territory.
This conversation has been going on for a couple of
years now. This isn't a new thing, and I think
I have a pretty good sense for where our community
is at with respect to how the conversation has changed.
They talk about it all the time over in our discord,

(01:27:57):
but it's just a really really fascinating conversation because we've
been doing this so long and we have seen how
the sport has evolved, and this injection of money into
every conversation has, I think, from any cheapened the value
of college football. And I don't know, I solid rebel
Agama that como, we know your thoughts on the matter.

(01:28:17):
I still will never get used to looking on social
media and seeing Jada Mayava has re signed his deal.

Speaker 2 (01:28:24):
That was definitely a different experience for me.

Speaker 1 (01:28:27):
Like maybe that's where the hat ceremony goes next, you know,
like the hat ceremonies with the high school recruits, And
I haven't seen it much on the transfer market so far,
transfer market, transfer portal. Thus we have seen.

Speaker 2 (01:28:40):
Okay, so we saw a little bit with Chris Henry Junior,
who appears to be like a transformationally good, great whatever
talent at receiver.

Speaker 1 (01:28:49):
Speaking of feeling old, by the way, continue, Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:28:51):
The son of the late Chris Henry NFL receiving excellence.
The I think his process was he's I think he's
from Ohio, moved to southern California, was incredible for a
high school power there, committed to Ohio State. The next
step was he announced that he was shutting down his commitments,

(01:29:13):
which is a thing now right that like I no
longer want to be recruited, I am solid to you know,
ex school. And then Brian Hartline left, but he still
said that he was signing with Ohio State at his
high school commitment ceremony, didn't sign and then went on
Pat McAfee's show to confirm once again that he was signing.

(01:29:35):
So he committed to Ohio State like four or five
times in the process, and that's just a new thing.
And can't wait to watch him play for the Buckeyes.
I think was considering like USC and Oregon and Texas
or something down the stretch. But it is wild that
you're like, I'm committed, I'm done being recruited. I'm still signing.

(01:29:56):
I have decided that, yes, once again, I am going
to sign and I have some like it's it's a lot,
but it's it's what we deal with.

Speaker 1 (01:30:03):
Also, I'm sorry I told you to shut up during
that interview.

Speaker 2 (01:30:06):
You should never apologize for I always need to be told. No,
you all my loved ones.

Speaker 1 (01:30:11):
You had me in my feels after telling me I
asked the mean question, which is kind of a mean question.
I knew when I wrote it, but I was okay
with the question. Ty, I know it's okay. You know
I love you.

Speaker 3 (01:30:21):
You know this.

Speaker 2 (01:30:21):
No, I know I should be I'm everybody listening to
this show is not in an agreement. I guess every
so often Dan should be told to shut up. That
seems normal.

Speaker 1 (01:30:29):
I do care about Lehigh. We can talk about Lehi
had a different episode. But I apologize, Okay, I do,
But I don't like to outburst like that towards you.

Speaker 2 (01:30:35):
You're my friend, okay, Ty, You're only a human, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:30:38):
Thank you to one and all for hanging with us
here a longer show than usual, but hopefully a lot
of great information from our friend Brandon Hoffman again. Check
him out twenty four to seven National Recruiting Editor. You
can find him across social media talking about his wisdom here.
He's got a lot to share and well, as he said,
it's going to get interesting here over there. I cannot
wait to hear me. Maybe we'll get it on background

(01:31:01):
what these rumors were and what he was looking for,
But it will get interesting as we dive a little
bit deeper into the transfer portal. Of course, as many
people are listening to this, we have playoff games this weekend,
Dan and I will be doing our normal thing where
we recap the action on the live stream afterwards TBD
and whether or not we're going to do a watch
long or anything crazy. So stay tuned to our social

(01:31:23):
media channels. Will keep you posted if anything pops up
on that front.

Speaker 2 (01:31:27):
But any final thoughts on Carlos alcaz and one Carlos Ferrero,
his longtime coach splitting. I mean, what does it mean
for his future? That was a legendary partnership.

Speaker 1 (01:31:37):
TI I mean I heard rumblings of the coach maybe
taking on an assistant role at USC But who's the sign?

Speaker 2 (01:31:43):
Oh, I thought you were going to do the like.
I had heard this but didn't want to say anything
like the classic. You have to tweet out the eyes
or something, right, right, Yeah, okay, I have no infu.
I'm just going to tweet the eyes.

Speaker 1 (01:31:56):
Yeah, of course the eyes. The eyes always get me
big move in the tennis world.

Speaker 4 (01:32:00):
All right.

Speaker 1 (01:32:01):
Thank you again to Brandon. Thank you again to the
verballer hood. You knew how to reach out. Saliverbotgmail dot com.
Hope to see you all this weekend after the first
round of college football playoff action. In the meantime, for
that guy Dan, for myself, Tie, you know the drill,
Stay solid, Peace,

All Episodes

Early Signing Day Recap with Brandon Huffman | College Football

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

Betrayal: Weekly

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Early Signing Day Recap with Brandon Huffman | College Football