Everybody said same about dook.
UNC Football Catch-all | Bill Belichick Era underway
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The best way to rank classes would be a weighted scale that uses both the quality and quantity of each school's class, so to speak.
But if one is doing it well, there should be a penalty for taking recruits below a certain level because it is likely they aren't worth the scholarship they're taking up. Sure, some of those players across all of college football would likely turn into contributors down the road, but the majority likely aren't much more than practice fodder and the team would be better off with experienced practice fodder than straight-from-HS practice fodder.
A team is not inherently made worse by adding sleepers if there is space, but it is made worse by having the space and using it on sleepers.
Those “scholarships they are taking up” slots simply aren’t that significant in 2026 as compared to 2016. Now that the limit has been increased from 85 to 105 (and players can transfer without penalty) those last 20 slots are essentially the old walk on slots.
Under the old system, you’d have a class of 25 and 10 invited walkons. Now you may have a class of 35. It is basically the same thing. There should not be a penalty for using all 105 slots if you can afford it.
And Duke covered or pushed depending upon when/where you made the bet.
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The debate over relative strength of a recruiting class is navel gazing at this point, unfortunately. A class of 30 4* next season wouldn’t to turn this into a winning football team. We’re looking at a 2 or 3 win season and will be right back at the start of a rebuild — possibly (likely?) with a new coach.
I'd like to start the 2027 coach with a good base. A lot easier to retain than to poach.
I think this is sound in theory but there are tons of top teams who are starting 2025 transfers at many of their spots.
Ole Miss has 11 xfer starters, and on their second string another 11 are xfers. So that's half their 2-deep.
Generally speaking the healthiest programs that are consistently good year over year are the ones that build the foundation of their rosters by stacking good HS recruiting classes and then use the portal to supplement the positions where they missed on HS players.
Obviously if a coach is new and/or looking at a rebuild then they’ll lean heavily on the portal out of necessity, but the goal should be to build up HS recruiting as the main talent pipeline. I really think the talent that enters the portal is not nearly as strong and deep as it was a few years ago. With the rev share money coming in it’s a lot easier for teams to pay up to keep their best players.
Obviously if a coach is new and/or looking at a rebuild then they’ll lean heavily on the portal out of necessity, but the goal should be to build up HS recruiting as the main talent pipeline. I really think the talent that enters the portal is not nearly as strong and deep as it was a few years ago. With the rev share money coming in it’s a lot easier for teams to pay up to keep their best players.
That is certainly the conventional wisdom after the past portal season.
I think we need to see a few more years of data points of the current system before we draw any hard and fast conclusions. The agents are getting more entrenched every year and the data suggests that players can make more money by transferring than staying.
That additional money some schools are using for retention is being used by other schools for poaching. It is an arms race and I'm not willing to draw any conclusions about the role of the portal going forward.
As long as players remain on de facto one-year contracts, I am inclined to believe that all three forms of recruiting (high school, portal and retention) will be important to successful programs.
Both portal and HS recruiting are important for sure. I just think that leaning too heavy on the portal makes it harder to achieve continuity.
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The only revisionist history here is yours.
Read this article and you'll see that the timeline I'm describing is accurate. And here's the money quote: "(It) had leaked to so many people that they were like, 'F—, we'll look like a bunch of idiots if we don't do this," a second source familiar with the search told CBS Sports.
Yes, Roberts could have refused to move forward with Belichick, but he would have had to expend a great deal of political capital to do so and would have put a target on his back among his Republican backers over the football program. Without an obvious reason to do so, that's a losing fight.
And Cunningham could have certainly poisoned the well, but he would have almost certainly been the one to take the biggest drink of the tainted water. Preyer was already after his job at that juncture over Mack Brown and doing so would have likely been nothing more than a futile hill to die on for Bubba had he gone in that direction. To his credit, he's a good company man and tried to keep the internal dysfunction from growing any worse than it did.
There is a lot of blame to go around for the Belichick hire, from both the terrible process used to make it and now to the bad results on the field. But putting the blame where it largely doesn't belong doesn't serve anyone well.
I think you are describing just a handful though, like OSU, Uga, Notre and bama.
Oregon gets great classes every yr and is starting 3 OL transfers. 5 total on O, 4 on D.
Oklahoma is starting 5 xfer on offense including 3 OL.
Indiana has 6 xfers starting on O (including 2 OL), 3 xfers start on D.
Texas tech is starting 10 xfers.
I could see us adding 3 starting OL, a TE, WR and QB. Then adding a starting LB, Corner and SSDE thru the portal. That would match IU. Then add some non-starters too like another linebacker, more WR speed. And I'm including juco guys on this xfer bucket
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I've read every single article on the coaching search, including that one. By far the best one is from Greg Barnes, which I am linking below.
I think you are ignoring some of the timeline here.
On December 1, 2024, Roberts and Cunningham (and others) held a five-hour zoom call with Bill. That is when the 400-page power point manifesto rumor started. Prior to that zoom call, Bill was not a serious candidate. After that zoom call, he was the leading candidate.
And this is where Roberts has to take the heat. This zoom call was BEFORE the leaks referenced in your article. Roberts could have said after the zoom meeting that Bill was not the guy. Instead, he let the wildfire spread, which then led to Roberts and Cunningham meeting with Bill in New York on Dec. 5th, the same day Preyer sent Bill a term sheet. Which then led to Roberts and UNC legal flying to Massachusetts on Dec. 8th to walk-back the term sheet and attempt to seal the deal.
Throughout this process, Bubba wanted to keep the options open in case Belichick fell through. For example, on December 7th, Roberts and Bubba met with Sumrall in New Orleans.
It hardly took Preyer leaking Bill to sabotage the Sumrall meeting. By Dec. 7th, the Tar Pit had already been discussing Bill for over a week and it was well-known that UNC was zeroing on Belichick by that time.
The key point is that Roberts decided on Dec. 1 that he liked Belichick. That was not some power play forced on him. It was a five-hour interview in which Roberts truly thought this grand experiment would work.
Greg: The Belichick Hire Backstory
Departing BOT chair John Preyer’s term exemplified his motto of disruptive change, none more so than with UNC's hiring of Super Bowl champion Bill Belichick.
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I assume "business man" Roberts was highly impressed with BB's big planI've read every single article on the coaching search, including that one. By far the best one is from Greg Barnes, which I am linking below.
I think you are ignoring some of the timeline here.
On December 1, 2024, Roberts and Cunningham (and others) held a five-hour zoom call with Bill. That is when the 400-page power point manifesto rumor started. Prior to that zoom call, Bill was not a serious candidate. After that zoom call, he was the leading candidate.
And this is where Roberts has to take the heat. This zoom call was BEFORE the leaks referenced in your article. Roberts could have said after the zoom meeting that Bill was not the guy. Instead, he let the wildfire spread, which then led to Preyer giving Bill a term sheet in New York on Dec. 5th. Which then led to Roberts and UNC legal flying to Massachusetts on Dec. 8th to walk-back the term sheet and attempt to seal the deal.
Throughout this process, Bubba wanted to keep the options open in case Belichick fell through. For example, on December 7th, Roberts and Bubba met with Sumrall in New Orleans.
It hardly took Preyer leaking Bill to sabotage the Sumrall meeting. By Dec. 7th, the Tar Pit had already been discussing Bill for over a week and it was well-known that UNC was zeroing on Belichick by that time.
The key point is that Roberts decided on Dec. 1 that he liked Belichick. That was not some power play forced on him. It was a five-hour interview in which Roberts truly thought this grand experiment would work.
Greg: The Belichick Hire Backstory
Departing BOT chair John Preyer’s term exemplified his motto of disruptive change, none more so than with UNC's hiring of Super Bowl champion Bill Belichick.www.on3.com
It was a fantasy, but man I get it
I really think SnoopRob is letting Roberts off the hook here, and overstating the power/role of Preyer/BoT.
I think Preyer certainly deserves to eat a ton of shit for this (as does Jen Lloyd) but Roberts bought this hook, line and sinker.
The 70 year-old person building the dream house is getting the 30-year mortgage because he’s a great credit “risk.”
He’s a great credit “risk” because his credit rating is superb and he has more than sufficient income to pay the monthly note. Also, the land/property is likely properly valued. It’s not 2007.
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$135-$150K as a DII head coach actually COACHING and teaching and leading a team sounds like a DREAM.
Do that for 30-40 years and you aren’t well-off. You’re WEALTHY.
Plus, you had fun and stayed true to your principles.
John Shoop’s wife would say he was in coaching to mentor young men……I’d ask her why he wasn’t coaching middle school.
Unfortunately, Joe Ovies might have been a better GM for UNC than Lombardi or a better HC than ancient Bill Belichick.
But, Big Beautiful Large-Boobed Bill Belichick could spoon with his young girlfriend.
If Gio looked the entire yr like the Gio we saw vs dook would you feel differently regarding Lombardi?
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I probably would not feel vastly different because I think the entire roster is poorly constructed. Gio was also just serviceable against Duke. He wasn't incredible. There were still many instances to me that demonstrate an inability to process the game at major college football speeds.