Welcome back to another edition of Five Wide Fullbacks where we are answering the interesting questions of the day. In this space today we’ll tackle defining the eras of college football, who is next in the playoffs, recruiting scandals, 5-star quarterbacks, and viewing practices from the sideline.
1) With the new NIL “rules” blurring the lines between what is legal and what is not, will we ever see a major recruiting scandal again?
We’ll still see scandals to some degree but the larger question is if we’ll ever see a Reggie Bush-type scandal in the sport again. More specifically, are we ever going to see individual players embroiled in violations like in the past? That seems a lot less likely, too.
For example, LSU had violations for football where a man paid out $500,000 to LSU players by embezzling funds from Our Lady of the Lake hospital in Baton Rouge.
Ten to 15 years ago, that is a bombshell story. In recent years, it’s met with a yawn. Maybe you hadn’t even heard of that violation, and if you did, you probably weren’t aware of which LSU players were involved.
The NCAA is half-heartedly scrambling to try and come up with some sort of stricter framework for sketchy NIL deals but I question if the majority of fans really care to that degree anymore. If a player can get $5 million from a “legit” source under NLI, it is what it is. If you are defrauding hospitals in order to do so, well that’s awful. But, most of the scorn will fall on the people paying the players and not the players themselves–unless you’re a direct rival of course!
2) Notre Dame is trending nicely for 5-star quarterback Dante Moore but the hard chase could risk the Irish losing out on Chris Vizzina. How much should we worry about being left at the altar?
Zero worry.
Here’s the deal for me. If Marcus Freeman is going to succeed on the field it could take a while. Especially if we’re hoping for him to break into the Big Boys club and winning big post-season games. What shouldn’t take long–and what should become apparent much quicker–is how he’s going to be recruiting on the trail to achieve that goal of success on the field.
The time is right to take some big swings in recruiting.
ND is hot on the trail for Moore.
Think about it, Notre Dame fans are a solid 30 years (it’s sad to type this out) away from consistently competing for recruiting titles. There have been a couple brief spikes and tantalizing cycles of hope but absolutely nothing sustained at an elite level. When that happens, a couple things can arise:
One, you want to play it safe. For fear of getting a C-level quarterback, you’ll skip the A-level QB and push hard to lock up the B-level quarterback. You’ll pretend the roadblocks to the A-level guy were just too difficult to overcome and it’s actually smart recruiting to let him go.
Two, you’ll negotiate with yourself and start believing the B-level quarterback just may be better than the A-level quarterback anyway. You’ll find ways to convince yourself the lower rated guy is a better fit and the higher rated guy would’ve struggled with the culture or academics.
I find it pretty refreshing that Notre Dame may have told Vizzina (no slouch himself and probably a slight to call him a B-level quarterback to be fair) to take a back seat as we push hard for Moore.
3) You’ve been critical about the lack of media availability at Notre Dame practices. If you were in charge, how would you change the process?
I always think back to how open so many of the Lou Holtz practices were back in the day, and those teams were pretty good! Granted, the internet and social media has changed so much that I get there are potential greater risks to state secrets being broadcast across the country if you let loads of media in these days. Also, those Pete Carroll teams at USC famously held wide open practices for media, but again even that was right before social media took off.
During the spring, I’d hold 5 completely open practices and maybe 5 more partially open for 45 minutes or so. I understand making things a little more strict during August camp. I’m always complaining about how short the college football season is and we’re now in this era where spring football is an even smaller footnote to the overall picture of the sport, at least at Notre Dame.
I want to watch more of the football team playing football!
Here’s the thing, though. On a recent Irish Illustrated podcast a question was posed about whether an additional open practice is better or would they rather have greater players/staff interview availability. All 3 guys were unanimous in preferring the latter.
I don’t think most of the media wants to cover that many practices and trudge over to campus a dozen times during spring practice. The Irish Illustrated crew even mentioned that interviews held across one or two days right after a workout can provide tons of content to get them through the summer. With practice reports, it’s a lot more physical work in-person that has an expiration date until the next workout.
In this way, I think the schools are using that leverage to keep things buttoned up during practices. It’s the new norm now and there really aren’t people in prominent positions pushing for greater practice access.
4) What do you consider the start of the modern era of college football? When do you consider the start of this current era of college football?
After thinking this over I’ve come up with 4 major changing points:
1964 – The end of one-platoon football and strict substitution rules. Everyone is wearing similar standard helmets with facemasks. Passing is becoming more prevalent. The sport looks not too dissimilar to today’s game. I think this is as far back as you can go and call it the modern era.
1992 – The 85-scholarship limit is enacted. Major independent programs start joining conferences. The TV wars in the sport begin to heat up. The Bowl Coalition is formed.
1998 – The Bowl Championship Series begins for the post-season. The spread offense and heavier passing is making its way into major programs and changing the way the game is played and how defenses react. Media rights deals begin to pump vast amounts of money to programs as conferences grow stronger.
2014 – The College Football Playoffs is created. A 40-year balance of power settles in the SEC as conference realignment has redrawn the sport. Television money has washed over all aspects of the sport. The power and influence of the NCAA begins to crumble.
Maybe the ’96 Fun ‘n Gun Gators deserve a shout?
There are probably a couple other years that could make the list that were true beginnings of major changes:
1983 – Miami wins its first National Championship. At the time it was more like, “Oh wow, good job by Howard Schnellenberger taking this non-traditional power to the title.” When in reality this was the beginning of the current southern power era with a focus on the sport in the southeast of the United States and especially in Florida. Since 1983, teams from the southeastern United States have won 25 out of the last 35 outright National Championships, including the last 7 straight and 15 out of the last 16 seasons.
2010 – Perhaps the biggest conference realignment bonanza in the history of college football happened in this year thus affecting every conference in the sport, even having massive implications for non-football sports.
5) Last year, Michigan and Cincinnati became the 12th and 13th teams respectively to make the College Football Playoffs. Which program will be next to make it for the first time?
Setting aside non-Power 5 programs I have broken the odds up into several tiers:
Longshots: Nebraska, Arizona State, Georgia Tech, West Virginia, Stanford, UCLA, Pittsburgh, Colorado
These are teams with relatively decent all-time winning percentages but haven’t shown in recent years that they’re capable of making the playoffs. That’s harsh on Stanford but they can deal with it.
Better Longshots: Iowa, Oklahoma State, Louisville, Baylor
These are the teams with relatively poor all-time winning percentages but have shown in recent years that they can do some damage and come close to knocking on the playoff door.
Decent Odds: Penn State, Tennessee, Miami, Texas A&M, Virginia Tech, Utah, Wisconsin
These are the programs with some recent success or the ingredients to make a jump for a great season or a clearer (easier) path to the playoffs than most other teams.
Betting Favorites: Texas, USC, Florida, Auburn
These teams should be ashamed that they haven’t made the playoffs yet. Well, maybe not so much Auburn since they are in the SEC West, but everyone else for sure.
With the way things look in the SEC it’s tough to pick Florida so most sane people would pick either USC or Texas. I’d like to see what Oklahoma looks like under Brent Venables before choosing the Trojans over the Horns. Plus, USC making it means they likely beat Notre Dame and I don’t like that.
I’ll throw one more team onto the potential CFP list: BYU. They’re going to have to go undefeated, which obviously makes this a challenge. But they finished 2021 in the top 15-20 of most major rankings, and will probably start 2022 in the top 25. They get Oregon and ND with first year coaches. They get Arkansas at home, who will start the year ranked and a “dark horse” of their own (even though their best wins of 2021 all went on to end the year as somewhat unimpressive). And they play Baylor at home, a potential top 10 team who they already beat in 2021. Outside of those marquee matchups, I don’t see anybody else who can beat them, other than a trip to Boise State. It won’t be easy, but in 2022 I would bet them over Texas, Florida, or Auburn.
(Also who knows what their full 2023 schedule is going to look like, but they currently have games against Tennessee, Arkansas, UCF, and USC lined up. That’s the perfect amount of name recognition, but all teams that likely won’t be in that elite tier of programs, depending on how Riley does building an O Line and defense)
Answer 2 is like the BK era of recruiting in a nutshell. Throw in some “getting guys to forego the NFL draft is like a 6 star recruit”. I know I also talked myself into a few “well so and so for his 4th and 5th year is almost better than a 3 and out guy”
Though I think with Kelly and company this maybe was the better plan because – for whatever reason – they really didn’t have a shot with the A-level guy (whether it was because they weren’t going to put in the work, or weren’t likeable enough, or whatever it was). Though of course they were pretending it was out of there hands where it was likely that they just weren’t good enough to get the job done.
You’re right if you’re talking about getting in the conversation for like Trevor Lawrence level, #1 player in the class. But I don’t really have too much of a problem with the Kelly (2.0 at least) QB recruiting. They were getting A-level recruits almost every other year (Wimbush, Jurkovec, Buchner), which used to be a good enough philosophy/idea. They weren’t A+ level players (like Moore is) but I don’t really see the Kelly problem as not seeking high-end talent at QB.
Maybe more development issues, or just that a lot of highly rated QBs every don’t always pan out. And now you basically have to try to take the best QB you can every single year, which obviously Freeman is better setup to accomplish than Kelly at ND.
See I think I would call those guys B-level vs. A-level. Wimbush was the highest rated of those guys, at #5 in his class, while Jurko was #10 and Buchner #11. At the B-level, there are a lot more guys who don’t pan out. For example, the top 4 in Wimbush’s class (Rosen, Blake Barnett, Kyler Murray, Stidham) I would call the A-level recruits, and they panned out more or less at a 75% success rate. The next 4 (Wimbush, Deondre Francois, Brady White, Jake Browning) could be argued to have been fairly unsuccessful (depending on how much weight you give to Browning’s insane outlier sophomore year).
In Jurko’s class, the top 4 were Lawrence, Fields, JT Daniels, and Dorian Thompson-Robinson. The next 4 were Justin Rogers, Tanner McKee, Matt Corral, and Jarren Williams. Jurko and Emory Jones at #10 and #11 certainly have a chance to still elevate that B group, but there is simply a tier of recruit above what Kelly got that hits at a much much higher rate.
Jurkovec was the #4 dual threat QB, 83rd overall in the country, .9593. Just seems a little harsh to call that a “B level” type, though admittedly he’s still a world away from a #1, #2 overall like Lawrence and Fields.
I think if you recruited at a consistent .9593 QB level, that would take care of itself and eventually you would hit. My issues with Kelly’s QB recruiting is a lot more quantity than quality, I guess is a different way to sum it up.
Yeah that’s fair, I did feel weird calling a player that highly rated a “B” but didn’t know how else to state it.
On the quantity vs. quality idea, I wonder if there is a world in which Vizzina and Moore would both be willing to commit. OSU got Ewers and McCord in the same class. Even if one of Vizzina or Moore were to transfer like Ewers, that QB competition would likely be good for the program.
Gotcha, and I see what you mean. It would definitely be better to be in the Lawrence/Fields world then dropping down a level.
I don’t think it’s possible or really even worth it for the work required to recruit two top-100’s in the same year, that isn’t going to last like you said. But if ND does seal the deal on Moore, they need to try and recruit next year’s Vizzina in 2024 and not take a year off major QB recruiting. But I may be a little old school like that, perhaps teams will try to get 2 elite QB in the same year if possible, I just kinda think there’s probably a better usage of limited staff time of key recruiting figures (Freeman, Rees, Bowden, etc) that 2 QB would be overkill
I also think the OSU two top QB’s was a unique situation with one signing early and then another one coming in later after re-classifying and seemingly doing it for the money. He probably had intentions of transferring after a year anyway since he was doing it for the money.
Oh I don’t think it’s necessarily worth it to go after Vizzina if they get Moore. But if Vizzina wants to commit right now, I would be very tempted to take him while letting him know you’re still also pursuing Moore.
Gotcha. Yeah, as long as the delicate dance with Moore (on the eve of his visit this weekend, right?) doesn’t signal to him that there’s a lessening of interest in him due to taking another high QB, I’m fine with accepting a Vizzina take right away.
But I also have no problem in what Eric laid out, all recruiting efforts and energy should go to pursuing and doing whatever gives the best shot and getting the best player. So honestly I don’t mind if they’re tabling Vizzina to put the best possible foot forward with Moore too.
Where do we go from “A” level to “B” level. Is it Top 50, Top 100, 5 star, 4 star?
I have seen some suggestions that Chris Vizzina was ready to commit to the Irish, however the staff told him to wait as they pursue Moore. It sounds like Vizzina may have the bigger arm, but that Moore has the intangibles, and better accuracy. I was willing to accept a commitment from Vizzina, I think there is plenty there for a program to work with as a high 4 star that would be a top 5 QB recruit in other years (.9773 in the composite) and be the highest rated QB in the room. Obviously the staff is thinking different than me. I hope the recruiting process pans out the way they are thinking. If it doesn’t, what are the chances that Vizzina is a fall back option?
In related news, Texas A&M’s QB commit (Holstein) recently decommitted after taking a visit to Bama, and A&M offered Moore today.
I wonder what his beef was. I’m sure A&M fans are having a cow over this.
He’s outstanding in his field.
How long can we milk this one?
I know I started it, but I’m going to steer clear from now on.
Until everyone feels like they’ve herd all these before. Or until it’s pasture bedtime. The steaks are high to think of something amoosing.
Guys, I think this thread is starting to curdle.
You can butter me up by not churning it any longer.
This is udder nonsense.
I stand proud.
I will not be cowed.
Until someone takes the bull by the horns
1998 – I am thinking this is the start of the “Modern Era” of college football, the first effort to put #1 vs #2 to determine a national champion instead of polls. The question is, do we enter into a new modern era with NIL and the unrestricted one time transfer?
I must admit this is a time where I’m glad Jack Swarbrick is the A.D. at ND. The Irish have always been able to position themselves as a major player in the FBS, despite remaining fiercely independent in football. However, how NIL changes the landscape is still being figured out. Do the alumni that put together collectives continue to fund them at a sustainable rate, can A&M pull the top class every year with NIL deals, or do they shoot for every other year or every third year? Do other programs try to do the same? Does it become an “arms race” to put together the biggest and best NIL deals for top athletes? All questions I trust Savvy Jack to sort through and find the best path forward for ND.
The added benefit in football is the honesty and passion the coaches share with the recruits and players. No one should be enrolling at ND with unrealistic expectations. Hopefully that helps limits the transfers out of the program, retaining depth across all positions.