Thomas Gore portal

[NorthEastCane]

Especially when we've been "just patching" 3 years straight.

Given the roster that Mario inherited, serious patching was required.

side note: Even though Dabo's not a fan of the portal, Saban and Smart have been patching for three years. If they saw someone that could improve their roster, they weren't ashamed to bring them in.

 

[Udynasty]

Are we just making bad transfer evals?

More of a desperate take at a time when bodies were a necessity.

This is not the prototypical "Mario Body type" guy. Seems like they reached.

NIL is better now + they are being more aggresive with the DL as you saw last cycle, last portal window and how we are trying to do now by hoping to seal the deal with Barrow.

 

[cway313]

Given the roster that Mario inherited, serious patching was required.

View attachment 288408

side note: Even though Dabo's not a fan of the portal, Saban and Smart have been patching for three years. If they saw someone that could improve their roster, they weren't ashamed to bring them in.

It's not patching if you do it every year and the kicker is.




















That is ok.

 

[Headhunter]

Especially when we've been "just patching" 3 years straight.

 

[cway313]

K

 

[Udynasty]

Ttyl= talk to you later

Miami is not building through the portal.

They are building through BOTH Portal+ Elite high school recruiting.

Sadly until the fall cycle their portal strategy was one that was focused mainly on depth pieces.

Now they are recruiting both high school and Portal at elite clip bringing in star level players and starter level players.

But the 23 and 24 class will see plenty of snaps this year.

Francis
Fletcher
Damari
Bain

thlse four started last year and are on pace to start outside of fletcher who got hurt but will continue to see significant snaps.

Malik Bryant who is now a DE will see snaps this year and he was one of the reasons Wayne moved on.

Samson if he does stay will get a ton of snaps at guard as he adjusts to the strength and speed of the college game and like Damari it's possible he can get starter level snaps toward the end of the year

Ray Ray , Aguirre Lofton, Carr and Trader all will get to see the field and be contributors.

Miami will have a mix of elite portal talent and elite freshmen and sophomores that will play a lot of snaps.

I expect for next year if we have. great year, that we might still persue elite DT/QB in the portal because our tackles are just freshmen ( that's a big boy position) and the only guy I see being a difference maker at QB Nickel will be a true freshman.

 

[cway313]

Miami is not building through the portal.

They are building through BOTH Portal+ Elite high school recruiting.

Sadly until the fall cycle their portal strategy was one that was focused mainly on depth pieces.

Now they are recruiting both high school and Portal at elite clip bringing in star level players and starter level players.

But the 23 and 24 class will see plenty of snaps this year.

Francis
Fletcher
Damari
Bain

thlse four started last year and are on pace to start outside of fletcher who got hurt but will continue to see significant snaps.

Malik Bryant who is now a DE will see snaps this year and he was one of the reasons Wayne moved on.

Samson if he does stay will get a ton of snaps at guard as he adjusts to the strength and speed of the college game and like Damari it's possible he can get starter level snaps toward the end of the year

Ray Ray , Aguirre Lofton, Carr and Trader all will get to see the field and be contributors.

Miami will have a mix of elite portal talent and elite freshmen and sophomores that will play a lot of snaps.

I expect for next year if we have. great year, that we might still persue elite DT/QB in the portal because our tackles are just freshmen ( that's a big boy position) and the only guy I see being a difference maker at QB Nickel will be a true freshman.

The need to justify either or is the issue. Idc how they upgrade the players on the field. Nice list though. The actual fact is it doesn't matter where players come from when you win.

 

[Udynasty]

i remember all the talk of doing it the right way and clowning norvell and whomever else.

Now are chiming for us to bring in just a....QB, WR, RB, 2 DT'S, DE, cb, 2 safeties, trainer, security guard, accounts payable, etc


when we were telling em

And norvell is about to take a major step back because after he went on a huge run he has nothing to show for it.

There is no depth and they will most likely be back to an 8 win team this year.

In today's world you need BOTH and process your recruiting misses with ELITE/ starter level portal kids.

 

[Calinative]

By all accounts was the #1 player on our board and the staff had him as a future top overall pick in the NFL and we're about to portal over him for a LG

Alarming indicator of the staff's ability to evaluate. He has time left to get there but that gap seems insurmountable at this point in time.

Cooper was a good find and he had some 3 stars at Oregon that turned out to be NFL players. Mostly on the OL but a few DL and guys in the secondary. Colbie was a good under the radar find. Lots of missed 4 stars at Oregon and trend continuing here. 2022 class is very alarming - luckily we can fall back on it being a "transition class". 2023 class is fading quickly minus a few guys.

Not sure how anyone argues this right now.

2023 HS class has what like 6+ Starter/ quality rotation players on a team we're expecting to hopefully win the conference and make a playoff push? And this is with them literally having only 1 full year on campus to this point - if they EE'd lol. Can we chill a bit on the doom and gloom there. If the 2023 class was only 15 guys, sure, it'd be a problem that some have already left. But the new CFB is 25 in HS yearly and another 10 in portal. At minimum You're going to be bringing in like 30 guys basically yearly from now on with 85 schollys still. It's going to lead to more leaving earlier no matter what. And you can't just say everyone that left is a bad eval. Some may be - which is also obviously expected. There is a reason you only have 22 starters, yet bring in 20-25 classes yearly, even before portal was a thing. But others just want PT. Others just develop later, and aren't fitting what we need now. Others it's just a financial value issue...

Like how many starters do you expect the staff to land yearly out of our recruiting classes? If we land 6 starters (by the time they're in their 2nd year like how your judging the 23 class right now, in every recruiting class we'd run out of starting spots by year 4 lol. Then you factor in portal. Then you factor in not everyone is a heavy contributor as underclassman.

Like there are some NFL teams whose entire draft strategy is to just have 10+ draft picks, let them compete, all with the goal of having 3 starters yearly... while other teams want to walk away with the same 3 starters, but on just 6 picks... The smaller our recruiting classes, the higher we need the hit rate to be. If we're going to be constantly having 25+ HS and 10 from portal, we have to expect lower hit rate - at least how they impact us. They could be hits for others later.

 

[Udynasty]

The need to justify either or is the issue. Idc how they upgrade the players on the field. Nice list though. The actual fact is it doesn't matter where players come from when you win.

Agreed.. But that's why you focus on both. Why focus on one talent pool when you can have two talent pools?

 

[Brains]

"Miami's current DT situation is the worst in the country." - Andrew iRvins

 

[cway313]

Agreed.. But that's why you focus on both. Why focus on one talent pool when you can have two talent pools?

You make a very compelling argument. The welcome wasn't as warm 2 years ago when I said it.

 

[Udynasty]

By all accounts was the #1 player on our board and the staff had him as a future top overall pick in the NFL and we're about to portal over him for a LG

Alarming indicator of the staff's ability to evaluate. He has time left to get there but that gap seems insurmountable at this point in time.

Cooper was a good find and he had some 3 stars at Oregon that turned out to be NFL players. Mostly on the OL but a few DL and guys in the secondary. Colbie was a good under the radar find. Lots of missed 4 stars at Oregon and trend continuing here. 2022 class is very alarming - luckily we can fall back on it being a "transition class". 2023 class is fading quickly minus a few guys.

Not sure how anyone argues this right now.

I think you are being a bit rough on the staff.

From that class we had four starters as true freshmen. We also have a couple guys making big strides this year.


As for Samson EVERYONE wanted him. It was not a bad eval by the staff every coach in America saw that this guy had prototypical measurables and body type for the position.

but a couple things

1. Level of competition in Mass was TRASH. He struggled early on with strength and adjusting to speed and power of P5 ball. Its not like he went to IMG or Central whose level of competition is almost college level and have great programs that prepare kids for college.

2. He got hurt and lost a lot of time as he recovered. I'm hoping with a year under his belt, recovering, and adjusting that he can possibly be starting in the latter half of this season.

lets see

 

[NorthEastCane]

It's not patching if you do it every year and the kicker is.




















That is ok.

It's not a question of doing it every year. It's how many are being pursued in a single cycle. It's what Colorado and FSU have been doing. They were constructing an entire roster through the portal, that's not patching.

Until this year, we've been building primarily though HS recruiting; the portal was supplemental. This year we've clearly picked up the portal pace. This appears to be driven more by having Ward for only a year than anything else.

The portal, as most are using it, seems to be chancy. You don't know who will be available. You don't have time to do proper evaluations. As soon as someone desirable hits the portal, all the wannabe's start throwing the money around. You have to enter the picture quickly. The misses are more likely than the hits.

At some point, we need to get to a stable roster, replenished by balanced recruiting classes, so that we can "cheery pick" (aka back channeling) difference makers that really help us. We're not there yet.

 

[WeBallinBoyz]

The season hasn't started yet. I fully expect to land at least one DT by first game. I'd say we are worse due to Taylor loss without an adequate replacement to fill the NT role. But the rest is better.

Also, Aren't you one of the ones that has been constantly saying Leonard Taylor was bad last year? lol. Those people want to say he was bad, but then also claim he is a major loss. Cause the reality is, the rest of the unit has improved for sure as of TODAY.

Moten and Horton didn't do anything last year. They'll be a year more developed now, and could be ready to really contribute. Hopefully Moten is at the least. I find it tough to say that those two compared to last year won't be at minimum the same or improved.

Clark + Cook is better than Deen + Gore + Campbell imo. Again yall are all saying Gore was bad, and Campbell was clearly worse. Maybe you argue Deen was slightly better than either Clark+Cook, but both of them combined are clearly going to contribute more than those 3 did last year combined.

Barrow will be better than JHH if we land him. I seriously think everyone has been overhyping JHH, and the meaningfulness of his loss tbh. And him going to SMU kinda proves that imo. Barrow would be a pretty big improvement I think. And I think there are other DTs who would be as good or better as well in case we don't land JHH.

And we have also gained two 5 star DT, and Artavius Jones who could all contribute some snaps asap. They may not be fully developed or studs as true freshman, but they can contribute some snaps, which we genuinely majorly needed last year due to health problems throughout our DLine. Also it's not like 5 star DTs never make an impact. You just don't wnat to have to rely on them. If they compete and win snaps, that is ideal for us

So, Depth is CLEARLY better than last season. Imo it's not even debatable. And not just back of the depth chart guys, guys that I expect to be high rotational players have improved imo. The big question is NT for me. Last year we had to rely on Taylor there. Will Clark hold up at NT? Will Moten step up for enough snaps at NT?

Yes and no on Taylor. I definitely mentioned him not playing up to his potential plenty of times, and thought him being considered a first round DT by season’s end was ludicrous. I remember saying in the summer that I thought he’d finally take over DT1 responsibilities, and Deen + JHH would be good complimentary pieces to form a very strong starting DT tandem. Clearly was off on that.

But he was our best option at DT last season. Either him or JHH honestly, with Deen third and then a lot of JAG after that.

So in comes CJ Clark and Marley Cook. Both appear to be good in a sense, but are they starting caliber? Would you take that tandem over LT and JHH right now (hypothetically speaking)? I don’t think I would.

And yes this topic of discussion is mute until the rosters are finalized, because I still expect to land Barrow + one other. Then I’d say it’s better than last year (how much better, not sure).

But if the staff wants two STARTING-CALIBER DT’s, and they already took two in the winter + three freshmen in the 2024 class…what does that tell you about the room? That in itself is literally all you need to know - they see Clark, Cook, Campbell, Horton, Moten, Scott, Jones, Blount and go…

“****, we need two more starting DTs”….

 

[JHallCanes]

I lean more toward primobolan and tren than supplements at this point. @JHallCanes @AlphaMarshan

It’s all about the “branched chain amino acids” brother

At least that’s what we write on the label

 

[Brains]

By all accounts was the #1 player on our board and the staff had him as a future top overall pick in the NFL and we're about to portal over him for a LG

Alarming indicator of the staff's ability to evaluate. He has time left to get there but that gap seems insurmountable at this point in time.

Cooper was a good find and he had some 3 stars at Oregon that turned out to be NFL players. Mostly on the OL but a few DL and guys in the secondary. Colbie was a good under the radar find. Lots of missed 4 stars at Oregon and trend continuing here. 2022 class is very alarming - luckily we can fall back on it being a "transition class". 2023 class is fading quickly minus a few guys.

Not sure how anyone argues this right now.

Is Pancake Honcho just another fat ****?

 

[JHallCanes]

Is Pancake Honcho just another fat ****?

We could fix that kids problems in 8-12 weeks out of the trunk of my car

 

[cway313]

It's not a question of doing it every year. It's how many are being pursued in a single cycle. It's what Colorado and FSU have been doing. They were constructing an entire roster through the portal, that's not patching.

Until this year, we've been building primarily though HS recruiting; the portal was supplemental. This year we've clearly picked up the portal pace. This appears to be driven more by having Ward for only a year than anything else.

The portal, as most are using it, seems to be chancy. You don't know who will be available. You don't have time to do proper evaluations. As soon as someone desirable hits the portal, all the wannabe's start throwing the money around. You have to enter the picture quickly. The misses are more likely than the hits.

At some point, we need to get to a stable roster, replenished by balanced recruiting classes, so that we can "cheery pick" (aka back channeling) difference makers that really help us. We're not there yet.

The only thing we are doing differently is signing proven players with talent. If you want to pretend the other 30 transfers from '22 and '23 don't count so be it.

 

[TheOriginalCane]

You make a very compelling argument. The welcome wasn't as warm 2 years ago when I said it.

So cry about it. The warm welcome you never got.