Greetings I returned last night from an unfruitful trip to Ohio for the Rivals Camp Series event there. It was 30 degrees at times with 19-22 mph wind and it started snowing and sleeting at one point. I actually just left early during the skill part because I was over freezing my ass off. Only one of the several GT targets showed up because of the weather.
Do you guys ever watch other teams' spring games? If so, any standouts/musings coming from that?
KQ- I watched USF because I own that site and help cover them. I might watch Bama's for the same reason, but I have ZERO interest in watching a glorified scrimmage. People don't realize these things are not really football. GT's was actually a little closer to really playing than most I've seen in the last few years. They are awful to watch and you learn almost nothing other than maybe who some really obvious personnel are for other teams. It is interesting if you follow a specific team to see it, but league-wide or opponents, hell no.
Now that it's been a few years, can we hear the entire JaQuari Wiggles story? That was a strange one and I don't ever think I heard the whole thing.
KQ- paging @Russell Johnson
What's a good mailbag question?
KQ- What is the threshold for getting quality players in the NCAA portal for hoops?
- Early on it sounded like GT was the favorite to land John Hugley. Did this boil down strictly to NIL or was the legal/reputation stuff a factor from GT’s side?
KQ- Why do you think GT was the favorite? I think people assumed because he scheduled a visit that ended up not happening GT was a favorite. People get excited about new hires and new coaches but they don't walk on water and you still have to recruit. Hugley knew what he wanted and was going to focus on schools that could offer that. I think going to OU makes a lot of sense since their coach has a great rep with big men development and they have NIL money to pay him a princely sum.
- When you say the big donors want return on investment from their NIL donation what exactly does that mean? Does winning basketball games and finally being competitive again not meet their definition of ROI?
KQ- Winning, a quality product and quality players. Spending money on Jeff Sims playing five games to play six and a half games wasn't a great investment for example. He got the bulk of the football NIL money when Geoff Collins was still around. The big money people want to know there money isn't being wasted. I think there is some confidence that Key will use it well or Bruce in golf. We shall see on other coaches.
- Assuming the Collins contract and Paul Hewitt contract were both 10 on a 1-10 scale of financial albatrosses, where on that scale would you put Key’s and Stoudamire’s contracts/buyouts ( 🙏 we never have to see either play out) based on what contract info is public and what you know?
KQ- They are both extremely GT friendly and below market value. Key's is probably a 2 and Damon's is seriously a 1. They both are betting on themselves. That is the one directive that Cabrera gave J Batt and the one thing he was also very specific about, he wasn't going to tie GT to another financially Titanic-style contract.
- Is it an oversimplification to assume that most of these current GTAA financial issues wouldn’t exist if Bud had accepted the B1G offer? You would have 10 years with fuller pockets to pay off the stadium debt and dead money contracts like Hewitt… Or on the other hand do you think GT would have just swapped one deep pond for an even deeper pond and still be near the bottom of spending and NIL against those teams?
KQ- It is so hard to say, first off how real was it? I think GT's situation there was contingent on others coming like UVA or UNC. So there is that. How would GT have fared? I know CPJ thought it was a terrible idea because the style of play didn't mesh at all. Most of the Big Ten teams were big/physical lines of scrimmage and that really has never been a strength of GT in the modern era even going back to GOL. GT had good linemen on both sides of the ball but they weren't monsters like the farm boys you see up there. I just got back from a camp in Ohio this weekend and you see a big difference in the frames and size of guys at the time. My guess is GT would have more money but the NIL situation would be exactly the same because the school trends to produce people who value their money. There are not a lot of guys who give disproportional amounts of their income. I know basically one guy who is a friend of the site that probably gives way more of his income than most of the other boosters. At a place like UGA there are 100s of him. That is the difference IMO.
I’ve been told by a few people now that CBK and staff are pushing kids to move on, more so than under previous regimes this off-season. (1) do you have insight into if that’s true (2) if so, is it more a matter of the changing times with NIL or just CBK demands more and is less beholden to “once a part of us you won’t be apart from us”?
KQ- It is literally no different than what Geoff Collins did when he got here. It is not different than what Alex Golesh is doing at USF or Damon Stouadamire is doing right now with hoops. Key is handling a little better than Damon because he understands how it works better. In the first year a coach gets hired since Jan. 2019 they can push guys off the 85 cap and they can go into school or go in the portal. It was the NCAA's way of dealing with the massive turnover in coaching changes. As Dave Clawson from Wake Forest famously said to me and CPJ said many times as well, at a place like this (GT or Wake) you have to live with your recruiting mistakes because those kids value the degree so much. Key has a chance to hit the reset button so he is doing it.
Collins processed 11 kids when he took the job. Brent Key is at six as of today, he will finish at around nine per my sources. That is less than Collins. Alex Golesh at USF has processed nine kids so far and counting.
Also given the recent news that CDS has taken a similarly aggressive tack to clear the roster, does GT have a route to provide support to the kids who want to stay and finish their degree? I feel like I have read previously that we do, and sometimes use it, but am fuzzy on the details or how it works..
KQ- They do, Damon may not have known about it or how it works based on the situation that I referenced recently. He is aware now. That as I said was a rule change in 2018. Basically, the player stay on scholarship and can finish school. They are no longer on the team though and are not with the team.
