@tammany all year we’ve heard how “Uncle Mark” gave us a blank check and that’s why we are winning…be careful what you put into the air. We were spending good money, but now we are going to be true heavy hitters!
I knew @unclemark was secretly wealthy.
Biggest bank account in the trailer park.
@boogie -Billy is no spring chicken at 29 y/o, but he can kick a football ( 46.2 y/p)
@red-hornet - haha Nothing like getting a punter who is literally in his prime years.
https://twitter.com/transferportal/status/2008997637182365917?s=61&t=xkRfLUMvPwUi0k01vtU1-w
Just a note that there is a crystal ball prediction for Baxter to go to UK, so I don't know what's up
Gowers has a really cool story and he was graded with the highest PFF score for a punter and was a Freshman All-American. It appears IU has the punter position taken care of for the next few years.
In addition, multiple outlets are reporting (I saw it from 247Sports'/peegs.com Matt Weaver first) that Joe Brunner (OG - Wisconsin) and CJ Baxter (RB - Texas) are visiting IU this weekend. There's a rumor of a third visitor being Shazz Preston (WR from Tulane...43 catches for 723 yards, 16.81 yards per catch with games of 95 yards against Duke, 85 against Memphis, 96 against Temple and 5 catches for 125 yards against Ole Miss in the CFP) but that has not been confirmed.
https://twitter.com/SickosCommittee/status/1987419176873414716
Look at this beauty from Gowers. Obviously, most guys can look great with just one chosen clip but still, that's a nice punt.
@mrhighlife I think Congress needs to step in and vote to give college football an anti-trust exemption and then get out of the way and let college football figure out how its going to govern itself using best practices from professional sports.
At this point, college football (especially at the P4 level) is trying to mix old college ways with the inevitable push toward professional sports. For instance, no professional sports league has unlimited free-agency, unlimited salary cap, and the ability to poach coaching staffs in the middle of the season - but this is the wild wild west world of college football right now. Heck, just a few days ago, the Washington QB signed a deal with Washington and THEN a couple days later wants out because LSU offered more.
Like it would be unheard of if the Giants fired Daboll and began recruiting Ben Johnson before season end - yet I am sure it wasn't a coincidence IU extended Cignetti with a huge raise within days of Penn State firing Franklin and then LSU brought Kiffin to Baton Rouge from Ole Miss prior to the playoffs. And imagine if, right after Daniel Jones signs his (assumed likely coming) deal with the Colts and then 3 days later announces he's actually going to Arizona now because they offered him more.
Add in a committee / human poll based set of criteria to determine the playoffs, and you're just asking for chaos that will gradually undermine the credibility and popularity of the sport we all love. For instance, could you imagine this past Monday, if the NFL playoff committee was sequestered in some hotel ball room trying to decide if Tampa or Carolina should be in the playoffs based on some "eye test" -OR- if Tampa or Carolina should even be in the playoffs because maybe we should give another playoff berth to the NFC North since they parrot "it just means more" better than any other division.
This coming season will be the first under rules established in the House settlement allegedly capping things at $20.5MM for 2026 (with most schools allocating approx $15MM of it toward football) and a Clearinghouse to review and decide on legit NIL deals vs raw pay-to-play. But several schools have already indicated they aren't completely onboard with the current rules, and the Texas AG came out publicly to recommend NO Texas schools sign the current agreement to abide by the Clearinghouse. Just Texas, A&M, SMU and Texas Tech alone have been CFP participants since the expansion to 12 teams. If just those 4 refuse to abide by the Clearinghouse rulings, should the other P4 schools refuse to play them?
Lastly, the first handful of times this year's top offered portal athletes submit their NIL deals for review and get rejected, the lawsuits will begin.
We certainly don't need (or want) Congress getting into the weeds of how a sports enterprise should manage itself, but some kind of anti-trust exemption is the place we need to start in order to bring some order back into the system.
@red-hornet - haha Nothing like getting a punter who is literally in his prime years.
First thing I thought of was this
Hope is not optimism, which expects things to turn out well, but something rooted in the conviction that there is good worth working for. - Seamus Heaney, Irish poet and likely Hoosier basketball fan.
POTFB
@dht Someone needs to be in charge. Right now nobody is in charge, A lot of folks think they may be in charge, but nobody is at the wheel. We'll have a lot of discussions with various people about this in the "off" season, but CFB has headed down a path that may be of no return
@gros-louis If I had to guess, Raleek Brown
https://twitter.com/PeteNakos/status/2008990843236176181