Nonsense. The portal (by winning teams)has been used to put the finishing touches on a solid core. The portal pieces that were part of that core were long term portal pieces. Not one year rentals. If you're going into the portal yearly for QBs,for left tackles etc you lost before the season even started.
Maybe we just have a very different opinion of what it means to build a team based on portal players yearly(since that's what we were discussing). Not 2 or 3 year dudes. Only successful QBs I can think of who were portal players on playoff or championship teams or anything similar was penix. Since it's literally every team I guess let's say the regular playoff or championship teams for a while now have been bama(no portal built teams I can think of)uga(same)OSU(same)Clemson(same) Michigan (same)so what championship teams have had A CORE built out of yearly portal players? Oregon had nix(2 years & had 1 good year) Washington(penix) maybe to prove your point you'll say lsu has been one of those teams so you can grasp for Jayden Daniels. This is the first year I can think of where there's been heavy turnover out of core players across the board at a lot of top tier schools.
2021 Bama:
- Jameson Williams (transferred from OH ST, was their leading WR)
- Jahmyr Gibbs (transferred from GTech, was their leading RB)
- Henry To'o To'o (transferred from Tenn, was their leading LB)
2022 TCU:
- Josh Newton (transferred from ULM, was their best CB)
- Ezra Dotson- Oyetade (transferred from AZ ST, was their starting Center)
- Alan Ali (transferred from SMU, backup Center)
- Caleb Fox (transferred from SFA, starting DT)
- Emani Bailey (transferred from ULM, RB2)
- Tymon Mitchell (transferred from UGA, starting DT)
- Johnny Hodges (transferred from Navy, leading LB)
- Mark Perry (transferred from Colorado, leading Safety)
- Jared Wiley (transferred from Texas, starting TE)
2023 Michigan:
- Ernest Hausmann (transferred from Nebraska, starting LB)
- Josh Wallace (transferred from UMASS, starting CB)
- LaDarius Henderson (transferred from AZ ST, starting LT)
- Myles Hinton (transferred from Stanford, starting RT)
- Drake Nugent (transferred from Stanford, starting C)
- Josaiah Stewart (transferred from Coastal Carolina, starting EDGE)
- AJ Barner (transferred from Indiana, TE2)
2023 Texas:
- Quinn Ewers (transferred from OH ST, starting QB
- Adonai Mitchell (transferred from UGA, starting WR)
- Ryan Watts (transferred from OH ST, starting CB)
For UW, not only Michael Penix JR
- Dillon Johnson (transferred from Miss ST, starting RB)
- Will Nixon (transferred from Nebraska, RB2)
- Ja'Lynn Polk (transferred from TTech, starting WR)
- Germie Bernard (transferred from Mich ST, WR4)
- Jabbar Muhammad (transferred from OK ST, starting CB)
- Ralen Goforth (trash from USC, starting LB)
For UGA, they took Derion Kendrick from Clemson as their starting CB for the 22 title run. Dominic Lovett their fastest & top Slot WR they got from Mizzou.
And if you look at their current Portal class for this season they got
- Benjamin Yurosek from Stanford to be their starting TE
- Jake Pope from Bama, likely to be in their rotation at Safety
- Michael Jackson III from USC, starting WR
- Trevor Etienne from UF, starting RB
- Colbie Young from Miami, starting WR
- London Humphreys from Vandy, another WR in their rotation
- Xzavier McLeod from South Carolina, who will be in their rotation at DT.
Bama & OH ST loaded up their classes this year with Portal starters & now with expanded playoffs, you're going to see at least 6 out of the 12 teams that get in be Portal heavy teams as well.
The Portal has only been open with free transfers since 2020/21. The only team that doesn't use the Portal is Clemson & they are fading away because the talent gap is widening every year due to teams stacking Portal talent.
My point is, if a premier All-conference caliber player hits the Portal & we don't pursue out of fear of turning away some HS kid, that's pretty dumb on our part.
Not using the Portal would mean we would have to hit on at least 85-90% of the HS recruit evals & that's simply not possible. No team does, not even the vaunted UGA & Michigan that everyone loves on here hits on that high of a rate on their HS evals.
Not using the Portal in this era of CFB, is akin to not having a car & choosing to walk 30 miles to work, instead of just using an Uber. It's doing something the hard way for principles sake, when there's a much easier & smarter way to accomplish the same goal.
