OT: Clemson might sign the best recruiting class ever this year
Huge recruiting news: #Clemson gets DJ Uiagalelei, the nation’s No. 1 QB prospect. Tigers have gone national & now have 14 commits and 4 of em are rated as five-star recruits with more coming. Clemson’s the big favorite to land DL Myles Murphy, the top player in GA, soon too.
— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) May 5, 2019
#Clemson just toying with the CFB world right now. @PaulStrelowTI
— Mike Farrell (@rivalsmike) May 5, 2019
Since the beginning of April, #Clemson #ALLIN has landed commitments from the Nos. 1, 6, 16, 23 and 42 players in the country. Four are five-stars and one is one step away from five-star status. Complete domination on the recruiting trail.
— Adam Gorney (@adamgorney) May 5, 2019
#Clemson has the potential to have 3 “generational” quarterbacks in a row.... unreal.
— Eric Mac Lain (@EricMacLain) May 5, 2019
With 5-star QB DJ Uiagalelei's commitment, #Clemson now has the following players in its top-ranked 2020 class (per @247Sports Composite):
— Brad Crawford (@BCrawford247) May 5, 2019
No. 1 QB
No. 1 DT
No. 1 S
No. 2 RB
No. 2 DT
No. 3 DT
No. 3 CB
Four consecutive 5-star pickups for Clemson, which is now nearly 17 points ahead of its competition in the overall team rankings: https://t.co/QVr0Ou0lk8
— Anna Hickey (@AnnaH247) May 5, 2019
#Clemson could land two more five-stars to this class in Jordan Burch and Myles Murphy: https://t.co/qCzI1H5PvS https://t.co/PHTn4erQcp
— Steve Wiltfong (@SWiltfong247) May 5, 2019
Clemson’s current class average per the @247Sports Composite Rankings sits at 95.72
— Tiger Commenter (@TigerCommenter) May 5, 2019
The top recruiting class ever by average player rating belongs to the 2017 Ohio State group at 94.59
I wonder if Dabo is using some of that new $10M/year directly to sign players, Sean Miller-style?
A legitimate question. But at what point do Clemson and Bama no longer need to pay players? They can guarantee that if you go there you will compete for national titles and be a regular on national TV. They have also put a huge number into the draft in the first round. It’s no coincidence they have the top 3 DTs in recruiting and also just sent a number of DTs to the NFL in first round. At some point, the program sells itself.
Also, they pay players.
The truthful answer is that they can stop only when other elite teams stop paying.
If Bama is paying and Clemson is not, it could swing a few players Clemson really wants.
At the Bama / Clemson level, they are going after only the absolute best in-demand players. Everybody wants them.
No, Clemson does not have to pay for a generic 3-star but that's not who they are going after.
Schools (and us fans) get a little full of ourselves about how special we are. But the truth is that there are more than a dozen schools that would be very attractive to an elite in-demand 5-star player. If one of those schools is not paying and others are, it could be enough to swing a decision.
At no point. See the FBI basketball trial for proof it doesn't matter how much your program sells itself the next group of recruits will always want to get paid and the top programs do it because they can operate in the NCAA with impunity.
The wiretaps also implicated the Clemson football team. This is after 3 players tested positive for Ostarine. Not a peep from the NCAA. At this point the entire facade of amateurism is a joke. You couldn’t be more on point with your use of the word impunity. At this point, if your not SMU, you can just hand them the game checks in an envelope on the sidelines. I’m not hating on Clemson for an all time recruiting class. I’m hating on the NCAA for making no attempt to reign it in even when you have wiretaps.
But with all programs, if you give an inch then your competition will swoop in. If Clemson or Alabama stopped paying guys, then OSU, Georgia, Texas/A&M, etc. would start grabbing some of those guys and then they'd fall off at the top and all of those positive program-selling benefits would disappear. So it's once you're on the treadmill, you are sorta stuck at that pace.
Again, I think Michigan does some shady shit too. And yes, Clemson absolutely has been very successful on and off the field. But it's inevitable that in 5-10 years we'll get some disgruntled former players complaining about not getting paid enough at these schools and we'll all tsk them for a minute or two and then move on. It's why I've been an advocate for letting the schools with a ton of money just pay guys above-board and see what happens. Clemson has an endowment of around $630MM; Michigan has an endowment of $12B. I know most of that could never be touched by athletics, but why in the hell should programs with the werewithal not be allowed to unleash the money cannon?
Does Bama pay players? Probably. But not even Bama, which is the closet thing we have to a football dynasty at the moment is recruiting at the level of Clemson. Something else is clearly going on
That something is called winning
And juicing - Dabo literally admitted to giving his players PEDs less than 4 months ago.
Ok, yes, but Bama has won the National Championship 5 times in the last 10 years and made it to National Championship the last 4 years winning 2 of them. That's a dynasty, and even then, Bama hasn't and isn't recruiting at the absurd level Clemson is
If one cared to, they could easily reference Clemson's depth chart and talent and historical trend (likelihood that it continues in the future) and one could see that these top guys are often choosing a school where they won't start their first year and may be surplanted by an equally high rated player the following year(s), where they would be guaranteed a starting position from day one at one of the other 8-10 teams in the championship conversation.
If you don't play you won't get drafted, and top ranked players are not any less likely to be drafted if they go to any one of these other schools. When people add a lot of unnecessary risk, they've done so often for short term gain.
Alabama had the #1 class in the country something like 5 or 6 years straight. And they probably has a year where they had a ton of top-2 guys at various positions.
Sure, Clemson is doing well on the field, but David isn't some magician and I'd be hard pressed for people to distinguish him as a person from a number of other top coaches.
It's a combination of winning and breaking the rules. I reject the idea there is some secret sauce because history has shown that is how every team maintains consistent success at such a high level.
We should ask coach K at Duke. How did he get Zion, I wonder?
Take this for what it's worth which is about nothing in my opinion. Have an uncle who is apparently some how pretty plugged into the recruiting scene down in Florida. Some guys hes worked with have had kids recruited and gone D1. But people tell him Bama doesn't pay for players anymore. They don't need to.
Now yes I understand how this looks Uncle who knows things...
My point is right or wrong it makes since. You can go to Bama and now Clemson and if you don't get to the NFL at least you'll have a natty or two when you leave.
I don't believe for a second that Bama is completely out of that game. I would be willing to believe that they maybe aren't involved in any of the big bidding wars over recruits because they don't really need any one player that badly at this point, but they still take care of their players and the families.
I have always been of the belief that every school is involved in the dirt to some degree as that is just the way it works. However, things like this are why I also believe Michigan is nowhere near as dirty as other schools. With the amount of money UM has, and more specifically the amount of money the huge alumni/fan base has, there are literally only a few programs in the country that could even compete in bidding wars.
Just supplies of PEDs
I am at the point where I am pretty sure that Maizen is Brian. How else could he continue to create new accounts and start board posts with zero points?
I think Brian is sick of having the board on his website and instead of just deleting it he is slowly driving everyone away one maizen recruiting rankings post at a time.
Except the board provides like 90% of the traffic for the site. No board = no site.
The idea that people come to MGoBlog for the message boards is absolutely mind boggling to me. If the staff ever stops producing content, I'd never click it again, but if the boards disappeared it would have no bearing on my current mgoblog consumption.
"I use the site a specific way, I can't FATHOM other people using it a different way from me, which is clearly an inferior way"
-gte896u
For the last 5 or so years I've used this site exclusively for the board lol
My account has never worked. Almost 3 years old and no points. Pretty pathetic......
Brian must hate Rockford.
Isn’t his wife a psych professor at UofM? I always figured these bizarro accounts that drive traffic on the site were part of a class project to study the behavior of blog posters. Think of the synergy.
If Maizen were Brian, he'd at least be entertaining.
I think we can safely rule that out.
Huh... whether that accurate or not it’s a fact that posting on the mod stickies won’t even get a whiff of a response for accounts unable to get points but this “new guy” 1201 magically has the power. Not a coincidence.
https://i.imgur.com/nU50t7r.jpg.= my opinion of Mgo enabling Maizen to post while all other newer accounts are unable. At this point allowing him to post to generally rile up the board is clearly sanctioned, probably in an effort to drive traffic/responses that have dropped off.
You can really open up the coffers when you win a couple of national championships.
Plus those victories give you ncaa immunity so you can temp fate with no real fear of punishment from the toothless governing body.
I think I'm finally at the point where I'm ready to say f-it and just start openly paying $$$ to recruits and daring the ncaa to do anything about it.
They've already proven with Alabama, UNC, Miami, USC, OSU etc. that you can openly cheat and all that happens is maybe lose a heisman trophy and at most get a 1 year self-imposed bowl ban.
Edit - What would the Heisman committee or the ncaa have done if Reggie Bush said "f-you, come try to get my trophy."? With hindsight regarding minimal punishment that's exactly what he should've done.
LOL hate to burst your bubble big guy but what ever goes on at those other places also goes on here
You're not bursting any bubbles.
I'm just ready to openly start paying recruits. No need to skirt rules by getting relatives jobs or cars or paying their utility bills. F all of that. Just open the check book and dare the ncaa to do anything. They've already shown no ability/desire to police blue blood schools so let's blow up the party by upping the ante.
I don't believe that for a second. Are there occasional hundred-dollar handshakes that occur in Ann Arbor? I'm sure that happens. But it isn't institutionalized like it is at most SEC schools and a few southern ACC schools (i.e. Clemson, where the assistant basketball coach is on an FBI wiretap saying that's how Clemson recruits so well in football).
You think Jim Harbaugh recruits the same as Dabo or (before the hookers) Hugh Freeze?
^^^ This. ^^^
It's a question of degrees. I heard about players getting paid many years ago when I was at Michigan and I believe it happened, but not to this extent:
https://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2014/4/10/5594348/college-football-bag-man-interview
Aside: Someone get Maizen some tissue. His keyboard / phone / tablet is a mess right now.
Agreed.
Michigan let the much-coveted Jai Eugene walk because we were not going to pay him and LSU was, with the blessing of their coaches.
Our own coaches told him, "Yeah, for that kind of money you probably have to go there."
What they did not do is match the offer, which is what the SEC schools do.
There are hundreds of people creeping around looking for ways to put some cash in players' pockets, for various reasons. Including at Michigan. It's impossible to police.
But it is not being coordinated by the Michigan coaches with a wink and a nod.
Clemson funnels money to recruits through churches which can conceal it via their private, non-profit status. Dabo is fully aware of this.
Jai Eugene was almost 15 years ago. The landscape has changed significantly. I can tell you every single power 5 school's coaches are absolutely complicit and knowledgable about paying players.
Then Michigan is complicit in the game.
If you know its happening and know its hurting your chances to field the best team but keep quiet about it then you are a part of the problem and you are cheating everyone in the program (shit if you are on the team and have to go up against one of those dirty, PED infested, cash-paying, super programs then you are at a serious disadvantage and at risk of getting physically and emotionally destroyed...kind of like UM did against Bama in Jerrys World).
UM should either get in the game with the full force of its resources or blow the lid off, lead the rebellion and push for radical changes to the system.
Dabo recruits so much better, because he's a better coach than Jim Harbaugh, and a better recruiter. He's closer to top notch talent. Michigan is pretty blatant about paying dudes, and it goes well beyond "hundred dollar handshakes". No one gives a shit though, because it happens literally everywhere.
Yeah, I'm ready for Michigan to graduate from $100 handshakes to shoeboxes filled with stacks of $100s.
I mean, this shit ain't hard. There's plenty of wealthy alumni, get a bunch of middle men that only know a little, let everyone take a cut along the way, don't leave a paper or electronic trail, and just hand over the cash.
I mean shit, get one of those robots from our commercials to do it. Good luck questioning a robot, NCAA. The Bagman XL 2000 is programed to self-destruct.
Pail = Troll.
Do not feed.
He's not a troll, he's accurate.
Check posting history and join date. Troll.
What, trolls are never accurate?
Kidding aside, we get it, you believe every program cheats in college athletics and a large percentage of your recent posting history suggests this.
Questions: Are there not different degrees of cheating? If yes, then why is money rich Michigan cheating in such a half-assed way, dammit?
Exactly. There is no way UM is cheating to the level the SEC/Clemson/OSU are. I'm all on board with matching those schools. The facade has long been exposed. Time to compete.
No he's not. Anyone that thinks any football power is squeeky clean has blinders on. Well, I take that back, Ped State is totally clean - just ask them. And Joe Crap-Pants didn't know
I get that no one will like this, but is it possible that a bunch of good recruits want to go to Clemson because they win a lot and their young, charismatic coach is good at pumping players to the NFL and will likely be around for a while? Is it possible that's the reason and not paying players? As many of us know, lots of schools pay players and very few recruit at this level.
They have a cool facility and hot girls. I hear 18 year olds like that.
I do think they have some serious positive vibes going on right now but let's not forget they tried to pay Gary to go there...so they DO cheat. Just like in basketball, the teams that consistently land top 20 five stars every year, cheat to some extent. Dabo puts that aww shucks Christian fluff out there and it makes me want to vomit.