JabbaNoBargain

Hometown hero changes mind after two years of terrible football, not seeing smoke or fire personally. My observation of programs that aspire for the pop tarts bowl is their fans generally trash exiting players to feel better.

Be interesting to see the unintended consequences. At first blush, I think this lessens the importance of the portal a smidge. You can now legitimately use first year frosh as depth, which should make it tougher for relative second tier portal players to find a landing spot…which might reduce the number of players entering the portal. We shall see

Also good to remember Dylan is coming off of a serious injury and may well not be ready for fall camp let alone spring. He has 3 seasons to play 2, so this might make more and more sense as things unfold.

I’ve pretty much checked out on hoops sadly enough. I actually forgot to watch the MSU game, but I’m in Hawaii on vacation so whatever. I’ve watched most of our games though. This seems like a poorly constructed team with a key injury in what is a really tough conference this year. Keep waiting for the Dana turnaround but I don’t think it’s happening.

Very cool! We have a very good 2 deep. Advance warning, don’t be attached to HS names that weren’t good enough to play their frosh year.

The ending sucked, but this season was an unqualified success. A final four appearance by a team with a new QB. OBD Exceeded all expectations ranging from Vegas odds to our preseason ranking. There are apparently a few out there that consider not winning it all sub-standard, but by every other measurement we did better than the experts thought. We hit a buzz saw that slapped Alabama around the week before they slapped us around, and I’ll be shocked if they don’t continue the slapping on Monday.

Fundamentals for me to mentally deal with portal world 2026: 25% roster churn is normal Don’t get attached to any HS recruit not good enough to start from day 1 I don’t even learn most HS kids names until fall training camp Our players that leave typically leave because they will never start, and by never, I mean next season My memory of Bo Nix being announced was fans mostly being perplexed and skeptical - I trust this staff with recruiting

Here’s a nice quote today from a Beavis site that illustrates how confused they are with reality:

I think part of the flawed thinking that drew in BSU, SDSU and Fresno was the premise that the ACC would fall apart and those teams would automatically all want to join the PAC…as if the PAC name means anything without its original members. I’m 💯 sure if the real programs on the west coast ever want to form a new league it’s not going to be Beavis dictating the terms. They’ll simply start a new conference and it won’t include OSU or WSU.

It’s so prevalent it is actually an annual stage in the college football video game.

Sam L. Signed with LSU

Boise, SDSU, and Fresno in shock. Not the bill of goods they were sold and now they have enormous exit and lawyer fees to continue to deal with. Well played you 3.

My version of mourning is being in Kauai for the week and not wearing my Duck hat for at least a few more days, we’ll see if it wears off. For now I have ukulele lesson in a couple hours, so I’m coping.

25% churn is the new norm for a healthy program.

I’m more surprised anyone would be surprised by this…pretty sure there weren’t any shenanigans or Duck fans getting outfoxed for tickets. Is there an example of a game east of the Mississippi where we ever had even 25% in the stands? For an old PAC school, I’d say we travel decently overall, but nothing compared to what most B1G do.

While true they have no high school 5 stars, this isn’t homegrown, farm boy talent they magically developed. They’re loaded with highly desired transfers that were developed by other schools, with a lot of experience…and a QB that wildly exceeded expectations. Hats off to them for putting the pieces together, but these are not scrubs or anything. Check out their 2025 list, a lot of .85+ rated dudes from big programs. https://247sports.com/college/indiana/season/2025-football/transferportal/?institutionkey=24040

And Indiana has “zero 5 stars”. With the Wild West of the portal, the high school ratings start to become less and less impactful I think. How many of USCs mega 2026 class will still be there in a year or two if they go 9-3 next year? Means nearly nothing to get em if you don’t keep em…very few true frosh really move the needle.

Indiana just completely punked Alabama and Oregon, I’d expect more of the same.

I saw us lose to Pacific at home, so I qualify I think. That being said, seeing Indiana waltz in and achieve in 2 years what we’ve failed at for so long is testing me.

I’m off to Kauai and seriously rethinking how much time I’m dedicating to this sport in the future. A program like Indiana can achieve our decades long goal in 2 years, I’m might be done.

Indeed. I thought we’d be 10-2 with a home playoff win, so this is all gravy to me. That being said, we’re a very talented team being told we can’t win. Shades of Colorado “playing for clicks” type of focus? I can hope.

Exactly. Love the narrative out there that Indiana has “zero 5 stars on the roster” that seems to imply they’re purely some kind of “built not bought” roster. The Indiana story is relatively cool, but let’s not pretend it’s a bunch of farm boys that have been toiling away in the culture of Indiana football the last 5 years. IMO HS recruiting is still foundational, but won’t deliver on its own…I’m looking at you 2026 USC.

Seems unlikely it would be in-conference to me.

Top college QBs might be getting over $5m this year…not sure the $$’s supersede all other considerations at this point. I get that it’s a lot less than a top 10 pick gets (Cam Ward 4 year, $12m/year I believe), but it’s really not a no brainer any more to jump at the money.

“It just means more (when we win)” only applies when they win turkey shoots. Those are now meaningless bowl games against their JV teams.