ArizonaLonghorn

Unless it's a photo from a recruiting trip, right? I searched 'arch manning georgia gear' and this is the first of many images to surface. No big deal ...

My recollection is we wanted Klare as our top TE choice but he preferred to stay in the Big 10 since he's from Ohio and played at Purdue. He wasn't highly rated out of high school but shined at Purdue so OSU became an option for him. OSU (allegedly) made him a very solid NIL offer since they were light at TE. Probably a no-brainer for him, we didn't really pass on him so much as he wanted to go to OSU and he passed on us. I can't recall him even making a visit to Austin. Endries was our consolation prize.

The past few years I've been tracking the accuracy of the Mock Composite draft site, which aggregates mock draft data from 180 big boards and over 1,300 first round mock drafts. Typically the first round has been pretty accurate - the past two drafts they hit on 27 of the 32 first rounders for example, with most of the misses getting drafted in the 2nd round, with the major exceptions of Shedeur Sanders last year and Jermond McCoy this year. Below is this year's data in table form (I had to wait until McCoy was picked - he was mocked at 17 but ended up 101 or fourth round). A yellow background in the 'Mock' column means those five players were drafted in round one but mocked lower (Banks mocked 44 or round 3 but drafted 18 for example). A blue background in the 'NFL draft' column is for the five guys mocked round 1 but drafted later. Three were picked early in round 2, a fourth late in round 2 and McCoy (coming back from injury) slipped into round 4, similar to what happened with Sanders last year (minus the injury excuse). So most of the mock's misses were still reasonably close. 'Delta' column shows the difference between mock and actual slot, with red indicating the mock was too optimistic. The red 59 at the bottom is the sum of these. Minus 59 means the average error for 37 players was less than 2 spots, which is impressive. 'abs delta' column adds the absolute errors, so plus seven and minus 7 would be zero in the 'Delta' column, but 14 here. If you divide the number (345) by the number of players (37) the average error was 9.3 or less than 1/3 a round. Scanning that column there is only one number higher than 32, meaning 36 or the 37 players were mocked within one round of where they were taken. I also added the 247 Composite ranking for the 32 first rounders (average 447) and the star rankings 3.72 or 3++ in the Hamilton Metric. Basically this idea of doing a composite seems to give pretty accurate results for round one. I also am tracking where the Texas players are taken ... will have more on that later once the draft is done.

He never returned Texas' calls and texts once Tech made him an offer he couldn't refuse (minus the horse head). Bailey kept ignoring calls from Tech until these two texts: "I have the deal of a lifetime for you. Give me a call, bro." and "David, give me 120 seconds to have a convo with you. If you're not interested after that, I'll leave you alone." He was intrigued and called. The offer was supposedly for over $3 million for one year. Texas wasn't going to offer him double what Simmons was likely making. Article here in ESPN

Actually they were 11-0 with a win over Notre Dame at one point, before falling on their face against Texas and Miami to finish 11-2

Yep, Kenny was in charge when these guys came in from JUCO and from Colorado. BC is doing great, promoted to Assistant Head Coach and still a key recruiter.

Some nerdy data on the first round - 7 picks were 5* recruits, 13 were 4*, 10 were 3*, Fernando was the only 2* and Iheanachor was unranked in high school (no football team). These are from the 247 Composite. Pretty common to see roughly a third-third-third break out of 5-4-3 stars going in the first round (of course there are usually 30 or so 5* compared to thousands of 4 and 3 star guys in each class). Seven 5* and also seven ranked 920 and lower. Mendoza was the lowest ranked recruit (ranked 2,535) and Jordon Tyson, the # 8 pick, ranked # 920 out of high school.

I guess the tackle (Max Iheanachor) went to a nerd high school (the King/Drew Magnet High School of Medicine and Science) that didn't even have a football team, which explains the zero star ranking. His family emigrated from Nigeria when he was 13, he played soccer (goalie) and AAU basketball and the BB coach suggested he try football at a JUCO. So far under the radar you'd need sonar to find this one.

Tyson was rated the # 131 WR coming out of high school in Texas by 247 Composite, # 215 WR on 247 - a 3* ranked 920 overall (Composite). Texas would rarely even look at a guy like that and many on this board would be disgusted with our recruiting if we went after him. Our WR class that year consisted of Brenen Thompson and Savion Red (after missing on Evan Stewart lol). The tackle was a zero star in high school who had just started playing football, went to JUCO and was a middling recruit when ASU grabbed him, as they usually recruit poorly and are desperate for big bodies. They lucked out on him for sure. Basically the blue blood programs rarely even look hard at kids like these.

There are several reasons the Arizona Cardinals have never won a Super Bowl ... puzzling draft picks are high on the list

Pretty sure conference standings won't affect DC, need to do well in the NCAAs to gain points. I think the DC guy mentioned this recently (I could be wrong).

Basketball NIL also taking off. Article in today's Athletic titled "Want your men’s college basketball team to contend next year? It might take $10 million" (paywall). Top guy in this year's portal, Flory Bidunga (C), supposedly was asking for $5 million. Four years ago Nijel Pack, an All-Big 12 player at K-State but not considered a really big fish, signed with Miami for $800K over 2 years. In the current cycle a potential all-conference player could expect $3 million and above yearly (see screen grab below). Interesting article with a discussion about how the money is available but it's tricky to get it past the NIL Go clearinghouse auditors. Also, no evidence yet that the Big East will dominate given they don't need to spend most of the $20 million cap on football. Another tidbit - "Last July, when The Athletic polled 35 coaches, the average estimate to build a roster in the SEC was $9.7 million, and the other four high-major leagues were in the $8 million range." The part about how opaque the system is was interesting too, with too many poorly prepared 'agents' asking for outlandish numbers. Article mentions a blog by Evan Miya which "has data from 30 teams that input player salaries in his front office tool." He says NIL is up 65% for basketball this year over last year. This site is not behind a paywall, here's the link for those interested (I'm interested but haven't read it carefully yet, just skimmed it). Here's a screen grab from Athletic.

Trevor Goosby - wasn't he pretty good at basketball in high school?

All he needs is a Heisman and a Natty - ideally with a 16-0 record - and I'd put him on my list too 🙂

Same for me except I took Tommy Nobis instead of Ricky (I am an old guy) ... Ricky was my 4th and goal guy though 🤘 Wouldn't argue with anyone who had him top 4 behind Earl and Vince. Not sure why Street doesn't get more love ... 20-0 as a starter, beating Arky in the 15-14 classic and winning the Natty in 1969.