MeanGreenZen

Nope, the kids who need a year to develop can go to Juco, D2, D3, Louisiana-Monroe (lol). Then we can recruit them when they are ready to play for us.

Redshirts are foolish for colleges these days, especially us. We should not redshirt a single player. Why should we invest a year of tuition, housing, facilities, nutrition and coaching into a kid who is just going to use that extra year to put himself up for auction at a price we can’t afford?

If these athletes want to make it a business, fine, let’s make it a business. The athletes can sign contracts with schools that also include buyout clauses (like their coaches have) if they want to transfer. Contracts can be of varying length and the amount of the buyouts can also vary. If the athlete outperforms the contract and wants to sign with another school, great, the athlete or their next school has to pay North Texas X amount that North Texas can then use to sign their replacement. There are a lot of details to iron out. But something like this could work. Also, I don’t have a problem with players being fairly compensated, but let’s not pretend that the players aren’t benefiting from the institution in non-educational ways. Rogers, Adeyi, and Maclin produced a 3,000/1,000/1,000 season. They also ate the food provided by our nutrition staff, worked out in our facilities under the tutelage of our strength/conditioning coaches and executed a scheme designed by our coaches. Then those players can just peace out and auction themselves off to the highest bidder? No, the school that invested so heavily into them deserves compensation.

Heck yes it is taxed.

I haven’t lost hope. Last year at this time Kai Huntsberry was very slow to take off and once conference started he turned into a monster. Hoping the same thing can happen with CJ Noland. He looks overweight and out of shape to me. The guy can barely make a layup right now. If this team has any kind of chance in conference, we need him to step up and be the player he is supposed to be.

CJ Noland has been extremely underwhelming.

Case by case situation, I am sure.

Something that doesn’t get mentioned enough about the transfer portal: In this ME ME ME era, look at how much attention these kids get when they announce they are hitting the portal. Suddenly their names appear in articles, they get retweets and likes. Their friends and ex-teammates reach out to them with positive validations. And a whole flood of coaches are messaging them telling them how great they are and how much better they will be at this or that school. Meanwhile, no one talks about the kid who just stays where he is, busts his rear in the weight room and makes good grades. Just another screwed up incentive of entering the transfer portal.

His exit message says he’s been at North Texas for three years. If he could play any, we would have known it by now.

Didn’t say it was a nightmare situation. But being the starting quarterback at North Texas and having the kind of season Chandler Rogers just had is a lifetime experience that cannot be quantified by any amount of money. I’ve never been the starting quarterback at North Texas. Can you imagine what that must have been like? It had to have been an amazing experience. Chandler Rogers is selling the opportunity to run that back. Maybe he freaking levels up and turns himself into an NFL draft pick. Maybe he finds himself on a roster with 2-3 QBs better than him and never sees the field again. I don’t know what will happen. But being the starting quarterback at North Texas is still a hell of a gig.

Well, since he’s gone… I have never seen a quarterback fumble as much or as easily as Chandler Rogers did. He also never won a big game for us. If he had been just a little bit better, or could have beat out Stone Earle this summer, we would be in a bowl game. Enjoy your $1M, Chandler. Remember, after taxes and agent fees that $$$ is cut in half.

The SEC and the Big 12 might pick off some of our players, but we don’t have to play in the SEC or the Big 12. We play against schools like UTSA, UAB and Rice. We just have to beat these schools, who are also getting their roster picked apart by the P4, to have a successful season. And we can steal players from the Sun Belt, CUSA and Lone Star Conference, etc. The game has changed, but it is still a game. We just have to win it. And one other thing, the transfer portal is getting all the attention, but we need to be playing Moneyball. Where are the undervalued assets? If everyone else is zigging into the transfer portal, it might be smarter to zag into JUCO or high school recruits to find immediate impact players. At some point, the transfer portal has to become too picked over. This is Eric Morris’ job to figure out. He went 5-7 this year, which is unacceptable to me. I expect this team to make a bowl game every year, compete for the conference championship most seasons and sometimes peak as a conference champion that cracks the Top 25. I still believe that Eric Morris can accomplish this.

Ya’ll realize that all of our best players this season were guys we got from the transfer portal. The portal shall taketh away, but it will certainly also giveth.

Jamori Maclin has played four seasons of college football. He’s had one great season, one MEH season and two unproductive seasons. The great season was in Eric Morris’ offense. My money is on Eric Morris having another 1,000 receiver next season and Maclin reverting back to having a MEH or unproductive season.

Rogers wasn’t even honorable mention all-conference!!! Lol, Lol. I say that in jest. Seriously though, Patrick Mahomes was still a part-time baseball player until Morris took over the offense at Tech and had his breakout college season in Morris’ first year. Then at Incarnate Word, Morris took a high school option quarterback that NOBODY else wanted and developed him into a guy who is currently getting $2M offers in the transfer portal from SEC and Big 10 schools. Rogers has played at four schools in five years during his college career and his only GREAT season has been his lone season in the Morris offense. Our quarterback will be good next season. Whoever he is.

Eric Morris ALWAYS has a good quarterback. Rogers or not, we will have a good quarterback next season. That defense though…

Oh, the football teams for the 30-40 biggest schools make $$$ and those football teams will be what gets carved out from the athletic departments and will become some new entity that shares revenue with players. And if you think athletic departments don’t make money now, wait until the big time football programs spin off into something else. It will mean the end of college sports as we know it and the non-revenue sports will take the biggest hit.

Well, this is a North Texas message board and I can guarantee that North Texas hasn’t been playing players for the last 40 years. I wish we had been.

Lol, Yes, SMU guy, but some teams followed the rules then and didn’t pay players and didn’t receive the death penalty.

Correct. And the facilities arms race was funded by school-issued bonds, taxes, student fees and booster $$$. The combination of those funds is way more replenishable than NIL money from donors, who derive minimal ROI on that donation and a comparatively fleeting value compared to investing in facilities. If a donor gives $1M for a new athletic center then that building might stand for 30 years. If a donor gives $1M NIL for a new quarterback, that QB might get injured and lost for the season in the second game then transfer to another school that Spring. I, personally, am donating to the Mean Green Collective, because this is the game right now and I want to win. But I believe NIL will be replaced by some collectively bargained revenue sharing agreement between schools and players soon.

This NIL model is not going to be sustainable except for maybe the 30-40 richest schools. NFL players get paid but they are working in a business and are paid by the teams: who charge for tickets, media rights, concessions, merchandise, etc. Getting boosters to donate $$$ over and over for NIL without any financial return on investment can’t last forever. And getting these kids to sign autographs at your business or star in a local radio ad is certainly never going to be worth the kind of money being paid. This is pay-for-play, which is supposed to be against the rules. Eventually, the big schools will have to split off, the players are going to unionize and will get some kind of 50/50 revenue split with the schools. That is the only way this type of money is sustainable, in my opinion. And after that, why would the Texas Longhorns let Quinn Ewers get drafted by the Dallas Cowboys? The Longhorns will want to keep him and offer a 10-year contract and suddenly we aren’t even pretending these are student athletes anymore and college football is dead.

There is a hierarchy of college football teams in the portal and every team has their place. North Texas just has to execute expertly from our unique position. And we do have advantages including our location and a high-powered offense. Teams like Ohio State, Alabama and Texas are still losing kids in the portal to each other and must also contend with losing players early to the NFL draft. North Texas is going to lose good players to the portal who transfer “Up”. But we can also find guys who are transferring “Down” like Maclin did (LOL) from Missouri and we can also pick up guys like Chandler Rogers transferring “Up”. The hard part for these coaches is that they are going to have to do it EVERY YEAR until something changes and it eventually will and we will all probably hate those changes too. The portal and NIL have created chaos but there is also opportunity and the winning teams will be the ones who navigate change the best. Why not North Texas?

With Eric Morris’ system, I’m not crying about losing any offensive player. When has this roster NOT had a star receiver? Heck, even the really bad Dodge teams had Casey Fitzgerald. Wide receivers grow on trees and their were dozens of guys sitting on the bench for P5 programs who could have the type of season that Maclin just had if you insert them in that role here. It is now Morris’ job to find them.

That is what I believe this program can attain on the high-end. I think it can be done. I DON’T think we can win a national championship in football for many reasons, but best case we can have a James Madison-type run and break the Top 25. And on the low-end, I expect to play in some bowl game every season. This season did not meet that criteria and was thus unacceptable.

Playing in a bowl game is my minimum expectation. Breaking into the Top 25 is my realistic hope for this program.