Used to be is the key phrase. It used to be guys didn't have a choice. Now they do. The rules have changed so the expectations have changed. Looks like Clark was willing to wait until his junior (3rd) year but Morgan getting a free year changed the plans.
They think they have a choice, but if you aren’t a blue chipper you need to bide your time at the FBS level. Clark also got a free year, but oh well. I’m fine with them leaving. You must not be it seems?
I'll say it again, the game has changed and it will continue to evolve. I'm perfectly fine with all the transfers. You, on the other hand seem to be the one contradicting yourself. You're fine if they leave but only if they are blue chippers. You state players need to bide their time but is staying for 3 and 4 years not biding enough time in your book?
I think he is just noting the reality that a lot of the players seem to be making their situations worse.
I’m fine with the transfers too. I just don’t agree that they have a choice now to improve their situation. What they have is a choice to take a huge gamble that possibly improves their situation.
Wouldn't it depend on how they (the players and their families) perceive their situation on whether it improves or not? Have you ever made big decisions in your life that didn't come with risks?
Sure, we are in agreement on all that. The new transfer rules do give the players more options, I'm just saying that it's not easy for players to improve their situation simply by entering the portal. They only get to choose from the options that end up presenting themselves after the fact. Unfortunately for most of the players that leave the gophers, those options are typically going to be fewer than what they had coming out of high school. Sometimes their won't be any options as seen by all the players that don't sign elsewhere, which is like 2/3rds of the portal entries if I remember the numbers correctly. I'm not for or against the portal and the free transfer year. I'm just pointing out the risk, and it's kind of scary when you see guys enter and you can predict at a pretty good rate which ones will get offers and which ones won't.
I have a feeling the next few years are going to be like this and then it will recede to a norm. I think the extra covid year is having a big impact on the number of transfers we are seeing not just at Minnesota, but all around the country.
I think the volume of current transfers for the Gophers (and many other teams) relates to how many extended eligibility super seniors we went with in 2021, and how many super juniors, sophomores etc (with extended eligibility) we still have and may want to keep for the extra year. Extended eligibility serves the team’s purposes but kind of blows up plans for the depth players who are being told to wait longer than normal (or possibly being subtly nudged to move on as the 85 player limit is now back in force). There will be a couple more years of COVID super seniors affecting the ranks behind them, but classes entering in 2021 and later won’t get a free COVID year extension of eligibility, so the transfer portal should settle down some in a few years. But the next couple of years could be wild. Enjoy the ride.
This is a very good point--we need to lose an extra 15 net scholarships compared to a normal year, right?
Yeah, was going to say something similar. Roster last year was artificially inflated in a lot of places. We needed guys to transfer out in order to bring in the players we did and to have 85 on scholarship.
I don’t know how many scholarships we were over the 85 number in 2021. Don’t think it was as high as 15. But could easily have been 7 or 8 because of the number of guys we had that were playing a sixth year. We purposely went “more experienced” than some teams in 2021, because our demographics happened to put us in that position. So, in order to get a decent-sized 2022 recruiting class and bring in some quality transfers (and we have gotten some), the math requires that some of the under-utilized depth had to move on. And some players like Ky and Brady Boyd left for opportunistic reasons—there was no nudging, I am sure. So, the numbers transferring out this year are high, but a decent amount of the activity was actually needed to let the coaches keep re-sculpting our roster while sizing down to 85 scholarships.
Yeah, some of those difficult conversations were probably more like a brunch this year.
Bingo.
I would agree if it was just us but it isnt. Plus I think a lot (not all obviously) of the transfers for a lot of these schools are the players who are buried anyways. Half the players we talk about I have never heard of and I follow the team.
Yes, I believe it is a natural consequence of our happening to be a very senior, experienced team in 2021. Some other teams were in our position, but we had a lot of guys playing an extra year. Many other teams weren’t in this position. Kind of just happened to be where you were in the recruiting “success” cycle. We still have some guys from our 2017 class playing a sixth year in 2022. Which might be why ZA, Clark, Boyd and Ky pulled the rip cord. It will all sort out in a few years.
Well said.
Pretty much agree, except that I suspect Dunlap would have seen a lot of playing time—more valuable than depth—with both starting tackles and guards moving in. But in Dunlap’s case I think there were emotional factors as well as just playing time.
If you're stating unknowns at the DE position, you almost certainly have to admit the RB position is full of unknowns as well. We return 1 healthy back, that to me qualifies for unknown.
The fact that we aren't hearing about RB offers going out in the portal makes me think they feel pretty good about the depth we are going to have at the RB position next year.
Nice Break down and I would agree, although I would say the loss of MJ Anderson is neutralized with the addition of Surgers. Why I say this was shared in this post by Bob_Loblaw: https://gopherhole.com/boards/threa...t-lorenza-surgers-commits.104991/post-2390313
Surgers softens the blow a little but depth at DE is still very unproven so would have been even better to have both of them in the mix. DL is a position where some of the younger players will have a chance to emerge next year. We have brought in some pretty highly touted D-Line players in recent years and some of them are already built like college players. Now we just have to find out if they can play.
That's fine if that is how you (or the coaches) look at it. You might be right, and we might be just fine next season at RB. But at this point in time it is hard to judge what level of production we will get from 3 of our top 5 backs.
