OT: Newest 5* addition to Texas A&M’s 2022 class makes it the best class of all time. (Since sites started scoring)
https://247sports.com/Season/2022-Football/CompositeTeamRankings/
Now that they have got a commitment for 5* LB, Harold Perkins, TAMU now has (6) 5 stars and a total score of 328.82 which is 1 point better than the previous high by Alabama of 327 in 2021.
That oil money sure seems to be doing wonders for an 8-4 team.
January 3rd, 2022 at 12:41 PM ^
1. Every major university has a money cannon. Michigan does, OSU does…heck, even MSU has one.
2. Just because TAMU and Texas have one now, it doesn’t mean that they will win a thing. Let’s see if they can put it all together.
3. That being said, schools in the south have a distinct advantage anyways. They have a built in recruiting crop.
B1G schools will all be hard pressed to recruit with the money cannon…they are better served by recruiting kids that fit with each other.
January 3rd, 2022 at 12:47 PM ^
They got NIL down pat.
January 3rd, 2022 at 12:49 PM ^
Poor Jimbo can’t seem to coach unless the table is stacked heavily in his favor. How many jobs can you make $8M per year and then load the deck in your favor for your “business.” And still have an automatic excuse when you lose.
January 3rd, 2022 at 12:53 PM ^
It helps to have an abudance of high school talent to draw from in your home state. You're only going to convince so many 17 year olds to leave the south for Northern winters.
January 3rd, 2022 at 1:08 PM ^
To everyone asking if its legal. What is legal anyway? Who's going to to enforce it? The NCAA? Yeah, right. There aren't really rules that seem to be enforceable in any segment of our society anymore. Moral high grounds are great and all but when it comes to "sports" it'd probably be best to check those feelings at the door.
Do I wish UofM and the associated boosters with money would open up their wallets in a meaningful way? Hell yes. Do I think they will? Nope. College Football and Basketball have become some sort of unregulated and free for all industry. Dark money. Total cowboy capitalism. Organized professional sports have more parity due to their installed systems of checks and balances (salary caps, unions...).
Enjoy it for what it is I guess. Entertainment.
January 3rd, 2022 at 1:31 PM ^
College football for 96% of all the fans is a game to watch week 1 through 15 then basically turn it off for the rest of the year. There is no parity or balance at all. I am still kicking myself for not taking a Bama Georgia parlay. We all knew what was going to happen. Notre Dame, Penn state, Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Msu, Oregon, Washington, Oklahoma, are all just potential playoff fodder for Bama Georgia and soon to be Texas a and m. A and M will be a power going forward.
The best case scenario is SEC teams start doubling up each others losses.
January 3rd, 2022 at 1:54 PM ^
After week 15, what college football is there to watch?
January 3rd, 2022 at 3:18 PM ^
Im not sure if this is a serious question?
January 3rd, 2022 at 3:49 PM ^
There’s 12 weeks in the regular season, plus the conference title game, plus two rounds of playoffs. That’s 15 games max. What else is out there? The East-West Shrine Classic?
January 3rd, 2022 at 5:10 PM ^
There have been 34 games since week 15 even with cancelations. Did I say after 15 games or after week 15?
Regular season concludes in week 15.
January 3rd, 2022 at 1:24 PM ^
This isn't all that nefarious. Jimbo is a great recruiter, he was at FSU and has been at A&M. This year, all the schools that normally recruit Texas had bad years/coaches leave in Texas losing six straight, Oklahoma losing Riley, and LSU firing Orgeron. As a result, the top kids in Texas instead of going to four schools are going to one school. 4 of the 6 five stars and over half the class overall are from Texas. This isn't something nefarious and its not something Michigan can copy because there isn't that much talent in Michigan.
January 3rd, 2022 at 1:36 PM ^
That doesn't fully explain the best all-time recruiting class in history. Those kids do have other options besides 8-4 Texas A&M.
There is more to the story than Jimbo is a pretty good coach and A&M got lucky with UT and LSU down years.
EDIT: THIS explains it:
https://twitter.com/Bapperton063/status/1477864948327927808?s=20
January 3rd, 2022 at 3:40 PM ^
Well A&M has been a top five recruiting team since Jimbo showed up. In his full years as coach at A&M their classes finished in order 17, 4, 6, and 8th. So the jump this year is really from top 10 to 1st and that jump is in fact pretty easily explained by getting the texas guys that normally split to LSU and Oklahoma. Walter Nolen was an NIL win for A&M.
You are also vastly underselling Jimbo the recruiter. When he was at FSU his recruiting classes went 8, 2, 4, 11, 4, 3, 3, 6. Outside of his first year at a new school the guy has had one recruiting class finish outside the top 10 in rankings in a decade across two schools. I don't know why its so hard to believe that the best football program in texas right now is recruiting extremely well with one of the top recruiting coaches in college football. This thread has so many tired takes on what holds Michigan back. Its geography and coaching hires that haven't worked out, that's the list. And for all the good things Harbaugh is, elite recruiter is not seemingly one of them, which likely is going to prevent us from making the leap to Tressel era OSU recruiting to Meyer era OSU recruiting which would allow us to compete with the Bama's of the world consistently. Its the same boat ND was in under Kelly. For now the goal has to be to continue to build depth and be damn good and hit one the elite QB that changes the math like Deshaun Watson did for Clemson when it comes to winning it all.
January 3rd, 2022 at 1:28 PM ^
Good for them...they should take advantage while they can. It's a copy cat sport and soon the larger and more tradition rich SEC schools, OSU, Texas, etc will be doing whatever worked for A&M.
Even if Michigan decides to enter the bidding war, it's unlikely we ever embrace full on football factory from an academic standpoint. The University president and Board (for better or worse) will have a minimal expectation from our student athletes. And even if it is ridiculously "minimal" compared to what regular students schedules are academically, the discrepancy between how UM operates and say (Bama, Clemson, OSU, SEC) will remain. This will inevitably keep UM from being chosen by respective 5 stars.
When the dust settles with NIL, and everything reaches equilibrium, the schools that prioritize football factory and NFL prep will remain on top. Any time taken away from the football facility and spent on academics or campus activities takes away from time on task for career prep and for an NFL career. It's unfortunate but that's where modern CFB has gone.
Having a huge endowment or rich alumni relative to other schools changes nothing. Every major university community has enough $ to cobble together to buy elite recruits.
The best D-lineman are still grown in the south and ultimately whoever the SEC or southern powerhouse is at the time will remain the most consistently dominant program/s in CFB because of this most important position on the field besides the QB.
January 3rd, 2022 at 1:40 PM ^
Ole Miss 2.0, except now they have the NIL to fall back on.
January 3rd, 2022 at 1:40 PM ^
I realize the whole NIL picture is fluid, and clarity on specifics is sparse. That said ...
... I wonder three things:
- Does the money flow in annual segments, or upfront?; and
- Do the contracts attempt to control players leaving for the transfer portal?; and
- Do the contracts have performance bonuses?
I have to imagine those that are laying the money out are interested in more than the player simply coming to a given school: they want to them to stay. Further, they want them to do well.
What I'm entirely unclear on is how these NIL deals are structured, and whether they overlap with the field of employment contract law.
January 3rd, 2022 at 3:15 PM ^
Yeah, me too.
I am interested to see how they are taxed too. Now that they are above board, the taxman is going to want a share of some of these rumored six figure (even seven figures?) windfalls.
January 3rd, 2022 at 3:31 PM ^
I can't see how the amounts are anything other than taxable income. I certainly hope someone is advising these young men to set aside funds to cover the taxable amounts. Or, better still, those paying the funds withhold and remit those withholdings under the player's tax ID.
January 3rd, 2022 at 6:07 PM ^
This is what I know:
1. The deals are all structured differently. Remember most of them are simply between a sponsor and the player. Like Nike and Lebron for instance. They negotiate their deal. What I don't know is who is helping the kids negotiate these deals (are they allowed to use an agent, is the school allowed to provide guidance, I don't know).
Some are one time deals. Like, a brand (chop house for instance) will say here's $5,000 post this to your Instagram. Those are pretty standard in the influencer marketing world.
Some deals are monthly/recurring. I believe Matt Ishbia pays each MSU player $500 a month.
2. It's possible the recurring deals are written to be dependent on still being on the team, like the above deal Ishbia has with MSU players. But not sure that goes beyond just NIL, I would imagine it's not allowed so a year long contract is probably the longest you'd want to do as a sponsor. I think you'd be on the hook for the term of the deal even if the player transfers.
3. To the point above, I don't think there can be performance based bonuses because doing so compensates the player for playing football. By definition, NIL is simply compensating the player for their name, image and likeness, NOT for any labor they provide.
To the question of taxes, it's likely (I'm not a tax expert but I am an employer) that these are 1099-MISC compensation. So any deal paying more the $600 would trigger a 1099 to be issued and the player would have to report all income. Not that complicated. BUT to the point above, requires the players to set some aside because 1099 income usually doesn't have any withholdings.
January 3rd, 2022 at 6:22 PM ^
Is there any "market value" requirement?
What is to keep a bagman from paying $100,000 for a player to post something to Instagram? And then let future recruits know that XYZ school has these great NIL deals that its players get.
January 3rd, 2022 at 6:40 PM ^
Based on TrueBlue2003's response, this then becomes a key question. I'm going to guess there is no "market value" requirement, which means there's *nothing* stopping a local car dealership, or a consortium of boosters, to pay whatever it takes to get players to come to their school.
I mentioned before that I'm acquainted with an older man who was athletic director at some big schools (PAC-12 and SEC), and he's still connected to many current athletic directors. He says what he hears is the NIL process is "out of control" ... that it's a bidding war ... and the top recruits are playing school off against school to get the highest amounts.
January 3rd, 2022 at 1:48 PM ^
I do wonder if at some point accumulating too many of these players hurts you overall just in terms of player retention. While top-ranked guys tend to believe they'll always start, at some point you're going to run out of viable positions for all these guys and transfers will flare up and you'll lose recruits to other schools who have clearer paths to playing time. I assume, for example, that there are going to be highly-regarded guys already on the A&M roster who are going to look elsewhere because they see some of these new recruits likely poaching their spots, which could lead to a lack of cohesiveness and depth issues. And that doesn't even contend with the fact that if you do wind up going, say, 8-4 then guys are going to also start looking around.
A&M is going all-in with the Jimbo and that may work out, but most of these new recruits are going to take a year or two at least to blossom into studs and other than the weird 2020 season A&M has finished with at least 4 losses every year under Fisher and hasn't looked all that good despite, again, pulling in top talent most years anyway.
January 3rd, 2022 at 1:55 PM ^
Georgia was 8-5 in Kirby's first year. Great recruiting seems to have worked pretty good for them.
January 3rd, 2022 at 4:20 PM ^
Georgia then went 13-2, 11-3, 12-2, 8-2, and 13-1 (and counting). A&M has gone...9-4, 8-5, 9-1, 8-4. Maybe it works out for him but it's not like he hasn't been recruiting pretty well already (A&M had the #4, #6, #8, and #1 classes now in his 4 years).
January 3rd, 2022 at 2:28 PM ^
(dozes off, starts awake)
"what? what's happening!"
"texas a&m just signed the greatest recruiting class since christ was a corporal!"
"oh. is kevin sumlin still the head coach?"
(checks notes) "nope, it's jimbo fisher."
(dozes off again)
January 3rd, 2022 at 3:06 PM ^
There is a learning opportunity here for a school like Michigan.
January 3rd, 2022 at 3:19 PM ^
Unfortunately we think of everything as a teaching opportunity.
It's the Michigan way.
January 3rd, 2022 at 3:23 PM ^
Everyone knows deals went on behind the scenes before NIL. Was it as prevalent for the guys outside of the top 100 for example? Probably not. But it existed for sure.
I think Sam indicated that Gary had an offer of 300K on the table that he walked away from. Ron English mentioned a DB recruit (Jai Eugene) that verballed to Michigan only to change his mind when LSU sweetened their offer.
With NIL, you don't have to do anything nefarious - any athlete, like anyone on youtube - can make money off their name, image and likeness.... There is zero reason to skirt the rules as there really isn't any rules to skirt.
Michigan and other schools have an opportunity to compete if they want too. Whether they will go full A&M is another question.
the NCAA didn't do anything when illicit payments were program LOIC violations. Zero chance they do anything now with NIL legal.
January 3rd, 2022 at 6:26 PM ^
So an interesting thought exercise . . . would we have been able to get those guys in an NIL world?
It seems like we would have been able to have someone offer up some pending NIL compensation of some sort.
January 3rd, 2022 at 4:10 PM ^
Glad they aren't going to OSU, Clemson or Bama like years past. Let those programs come back to earth a bit.
January 4th, 2022 at 2:50 AM ^
You didnt lose A Bama you gained an A and M. Clemson won without the number one class for a decade like Bama did.
January 4th, 2022 at 11:23 AM ^
They have 15 of the top 100 players in the country.