Portal 2021

[guest44]

Anti-Food Poisoning we will wake you up when Loeffler is fired.

[Schadenfreude]

Why should we think the current staff will find those upgrades when they whiffed on the original recruits?

Who says they whiffed? I can't wait to see what our frosh OL look like when they're juniors and seniors. You can't judge a player by what they do as a freshman. As for those who've left, please show me the coaching staff that has hit on 100% of their signees. Heck, Nick Saban has a few ex-Alabama signees in the portal.

Well said. Every coach misses on some recruits.

I'm old enough to remember when Gary Blackney landed Fostoria HS QB Derek Kidwell. He was Ohio's Mr. Football in 1991. He was a stud. He seemed like a sure thing.

He wasn't. Kidwell only completed 11 passes his entire career here.

(I see Kidwell is the head coach at Fostoria HS now. Good for him.)

[Flipper]

The coaches themselves have been critical of those players...and the "but they're just freshmen" bit doesn't really carry much weight...it's the current staff's fault that they only had freshmen.

Not to knock Kidwell...while he may have been Mr Football...IIRC..he didn't have much interest from larger programs...he was not viewed a s sure thing by any stretch

[footballguy51]

Why should we think the current staff will find those upgrades when they whiffed on the original recruits?

Who says they whiffed? I can't wait to see what our frosh OL look like when they're juniors and seniors. You can't judge a player by what they do as a freshman. As for those who've left, please show me the coaching staff that has hit on 100% of their signees. Heck, Nick Saban has a few ex-Alabama signees in the portal.

Well said. Every coach misses on some recruits.

I'm old enough to remember when Gary Blackney landed Fostoria HS QB Derek Kidwell. He was Ohio's Mr. Football in 1991. He was a stud. He seemed like a sure thing.

He wasn't. Kidwell only completed 11 passes his entire career here.

(I see Kidwell is the head coach at Fostoria HS now. Good for him.)

To the original post in this chain, wouldn't it be easier to pick up a transfer and be successful on their playing ability? I mean, they've been in a college program for at least a year. If they played at all, you have film of them playing in a college game. If they haven't played, then you still have HS tape to reflect upon and then you can compare measurables (are they lifting more? running faster? jumping higher?). To me, if a player is in the portal, they haven't played a college snap, and they don't show any measurables that reflect improvement, then I'm avoiding them because they didn't try to get bigger/faster/stronger. You may miss on a transfer when it comes to attitude, but I would have to think you may have more success hitting on their playing ability.

[Flipper]

Over the decades I've been following this program...transfers tend to not live up to the hype. There's exceptions...but they don't have an impact in more cases than they do.

[BGSU33]

It’s too early to tell if they “whiffed” on these guys. Hell, some of them haven’t even played yet, and a few have hardly played much at all. Further, most of the guys who did play for us this year wouldn’t have on a lot of teams in the country.

The entire OL situation was mismanaged beginning with last offseason. We lost 4 of 5 starters last summer and didn’t replace a single one of them. The other starter was then ruled out, so our entire OL was gone. We rolled out 4 frosh and slid a conversed DL over to the OL. We got the results most would have expected. Could it have gone better? Yes. Could it have gone worse? Sure could have.

I see an OL that did the best it could given the situation. They all shouldn’t have been hung out there like that this season IMO. I know the staff was strapped as to what they could add via the transfer portal, but just one guy could have helped not only in one of the spots on the line, but he could have been a huge asset off the field during practice, in the locker room, etc., as a mentor.

The staff is to blame for the situation at hand with the OL. This isn’t the kids’ fault. What other coach in their right mind would have the OL turnover we had and do nothing about it? That said, I did see some flashes and improvement from these guys .I think a few of them have a very high ceiling. The question is, how many of them will stay. I’d love to see all of them stay, grow and develop, but no way do I expect that. My feeling is if anyone else is going to leave, then just announce it now so we can move forward. Because this is a critical offseason, and we cannot repeat how we mishandled this issue again. I’m still baffled at how poorly we handled it last summer and there’s so way in hell we’re going to do the same thing again. SL has all but announced that’s not going to be the case.

I’m extremely interested in seeing who all stays and who new we bring in. Because 2022 in a make or break season. And it very well be made or broken with the OL that we field next season.

[BGSU33]

Over the decades I've been following this program...transfers tend to not live up to the hype. There's exceptions...but they don't have an impact in more cases than they do.

In past years I would tend to agree with that statement. But last year we knocked it out of the park with the transfers we added. We added a ton of playmaking abilities and leadership with the transfer haul that we had last year. Some of that has to do with the structure of the transfer portal now compared to the way transfers used to be. As critical as I am about our coaches in some areas, they nailed it with the transfers this past season. We improved ourselves with the transfers we added over the ones that we lost. I was very impressed what they did through the portal.

[BillyLP]

Cole Lakatos in the portal. RS Freshman WR who I believe was a PWO and never had much of a chance of playing here.

[gspointer]

It’s too early to tell if they “whiffed” on these guys. Hell, some of them haven’t even played yet, and a few have hardly played much at all. Further, most of the guys who did play for us this year wouldn’t have on a lot of teams in the country.

The entire OL situation was mismanaged beginning with last offseason. We lost 4 of 5 starters last summer and didn’t replace a single one of them. The other starter was then ruled out, so our entire OL was gone. We rolled out 4 frosh and slid a conversed DL over to the OL. We got the results most would have expected. Could it have gone better? Yes. Could it have gone worse? Sure could have.

I see an OL that did the best it could given the situation. They all shouldn’t have been hung out there like that this season IMO. I know the staff was strapped as to what they could add via the transfer portal, but just one guy could have helped not only in one of the spots on the line, but he could have been a huge asset off the field during practice, in the locker room, etc., as a mentor.

The staff is to blame for the situation at hand with the OL. This isn’t the kids’ fault. What other coach in their right mind would have the OL turnover we had and do nothing about it? That said, I did see some flashes and improvement from these guys .I think a few of them have a very high ceiling. The question is, how many of them will stay. I’d love to see all of them stay, grow and develop, but no way do I expect that. My feeling is if anyone else is going to leave, then just announce it now so we can move forward. Because this is a critical offseason, and we cannot repeat how we mishandled this issue again. I’m still baffled at how poorly we handled it last summer and there’s so way in hell we’re going to do the same thing again. SL has all but announced that’s not going to be the case.

I’m extremely interested in seeing who all stays and who new we bring in. Because 2022 in a make or break season. And it very well be made or broken with the OL that we field next season.

You act like offensive lineman just fall off a tree just before a season starts . Not.

[Flipper]

The coaches seem to think they whiffed on these guys...they don't play them and don't seem to care if they leave. The guys who stayed are "weak".

They'll just hit the transfer portal and hope to find replacements for the 10 or so OL who have left... that sounds like an insane expectation...but...I guess we'll see

[Beaker]

Cole Lakatos in the portal. RS Freshman WR who I believe was a PWO and never had much of a chance of playing here.

Apparently, he felt our program was Lakatos intolerant.

Yeah, I'm sure he's heard that one before, but I had to snatch the low hanging fruit, anyway.

[jpfalcon09]

Here's the latest transfer count for FBS programs:

FIU - 13
Syracuse - 12
Indiana, UConn, UCF - 10
Wisconsin, Minnesota, Maryland, West Virginia, Buffalo, Arkansas State - 9
Bowling Green, Hawaii, ULM - 8

There are programs going through much worse with longer tenured coaches than Loeffler. Dino has his hands full in western New York.

[MarkL]

I wonder how we do looking at percentage of players transferring of all those returning. If z = x / y where z is percentage, x is players transfering out, and y is total possible players returning, I wonder if z is on par with most programs because our y is so high.

[roguewarrior]

I would imagine everyone’s Y is high, because of Covid?

We were reportedly still upside down roster wise going into covid, so our Y may be on the lower number end?

Someone get on this. Ha

[Flipper]

While it's true that Clawson did not have to deal with the xfer portal...one of the key to his building the program was keeping recruits in the program...not sure we can follow that template here