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Verbal to other '25 AL OT Carde Smith
- Thread starter WasianCU
- Start date
FIFY
GRM
Go Buffs/93' Grad
As you know, I'm guilty of long posts.
If had a brief description of the 2024 off-season coming off 9-4: we got cocky; we felt that we had the "formula" figured out building a great "culture," however we basically rested on our loins. Using Prime's words, we thought the "blessing" to play at CU was enough, way out-stripping the "bag" and just expecting results, rather than demanding results via hard work. Overall, we took guys with the ****'s and hype without really doing enough of our own due diligence, such as: figuring out whether the players really wanted to be here; if they wanted to actually play; and confirm that they could play in whatever system we were selling. In 2024, I just don't think that we did the back-office grunt work for the guys we recruited and portaled.
Looking back, Prime + SS/Hunter really sort of recruited guys in 2022-23 for them to play with them and it paid off. Those guys were hungry to play football and get to the NFL. In 2024, we fell into guys via hype, looking for the bag and lacking hunger. Only a few were truly valuable contributors.
I'm more optimistic this year since I believe Prime & CO learned valuable lessons. This portal period has a completely different feel, even with the defections/massive turnover. We turned over AC's bringin in Marion with a new system and are recruiting to it. It seems like we have mostly upgraded from the Jackson State coaches. Also, we brought in new back-office guys, so the approach feels much different. On D, I hope Livingston and his staff (new and old) have learned from this lesson. I liked Bartolone, but as a TE and senior asst. coach he never delivered a P-4 TE. Thankfully, with the wild-west we were not stuck with some of the departing players.
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Fair. And probably some accuracy.
Simple analysis:
1. A Heisman CB/WR and a Unitas QB cover a lot of holes and problems, especially when they are the team culture while also playing for much less than market value & giving some of their own bags to support teammates.
2. It's damn hard to fill that leadership and culture gap. It's doubly so when your HC is not around the entire spring and summer because he's fighting to survive and recover from cancer.
3. Given the above, the scouting & vetting of players we were bringing, the coaches we had developing players & the best schemes to suit the talent, and the staffers we had in the football office had to be on point for 2025 to a much higher level than ever before. The organization failed at that.
4. Coach Prime did seem to recognize the failures in #3 and has made significant changes. He cleaned house on players. He removed or reassigned many of the coaches and staff. He changed his roster construction strategy to value college production & football character over NFL athletic potential & big program interest/history. He also took the Cignetti approach of personally evaluating and vetting anyone who was going to be invited to join the CU program.
I think that Prime has done the right things conceptually to right the ship. My questions now are more in the area of how well he and his organization can execute the new strategic vision.
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I simply can't take your 4th point at face value, when I hear he's rarely in the house and doesn't travel to recruit.
It looks more to me that Marion is running the recruiting program.
It looks more to me that Marion is running the recruiting program.
He himself said he has been working day and night in the office, personally evaluating every single targets, along with doing other stuffs.
Are you saying he is lying publicly?
I'm electing to judge over the long term, not the 2 week window.
Despite us signing a bunch of good players and likely using a lot of cash to do it, I still see all the things that were broken. It's so easy to say "hey, we continue to need to sign 40 guys per year, because we made a lot of mistakes"...
But when do we start to say, whoa, maybe this guy doesn't know how to run the ship? I'm old school. I see how a program should be run and this is NOT the model. So forgive me if I'm just not willing to say "great, CP saw all the things that were wrong with 2025 and has identified how to fix them". I say show me the actual progress. Show me how we can improve year over year and the process that will get us to signing 10-15 players in the portal rather than 35.
Until then, all I hear are words.
Edit: I will add that signing Marion is a good first step, but he also gave the keys to the clown act that was Shurmur. So we will see.
Everyone is in this mode right now, but if you don't want to check every baby step until September, you might as well just hibernate until first game next season. Seriously, what can they do right now to convince you that they have changed the way they work, without any game on the schedule?
Unfortunately it's not going to happen anymore. There are more teams than not signing 15+ players from portal every year, including good teams. 35 is probably too much but I expect 20+ to be the norm moving forward.
As much as we love HS signing, one common complaints you can see from fans of other team this year is "what's the point of HS recruiting". Schools like OSU, Oregon and Texas are losing majority of their HS signings, that's why they are so active in the portal.
The day of developing HS players to be your depth is gone.
When over 10,000 NCAA players entered the football transfer portal, I would suggest it means you need to revise your expectations on the number of transfers that CU will lose and gain every year. This year was exceptionally high since Prime decided to clean house after 3-9 with a broken locker room, but it's never going to be only 10 players signed unless the CFB rules drastically change.
Numbers don't support your argument. The fact that Coach Prime is pulling in probably 40 transfers this cycle states it's broken. And, what you're trying to pedal me is that "now we've learned and we are cleaning house and starting over". I'm not buying that without seeing it in action. Words are cheap. Broken locker rooms are for leaderless programs.
And below are real numbers of real programs I'd consider well run systems and they are much, much less active and the REALLY good ones are going single digits. So I don't see the support for the argument. If we want to be really good, we will get it down to 10-15.
Texas 14
Indiana 17
Ole Miss 16
aTm 18
Ohio State 12
Texas Tech 18
Notre Dame 6
Michigan 14
Tennessee 11
Oklahoma 13
Georgia Tech 13
USC 7
Oregon 7
Georgia 7
Alabama 10
Vanderbilt 15
Utah 12 (despite 5 guys heading to Michigan with KW)
BYU 7
Houston 15
Miami 4
And below are real numbers of real programs I'd consider well run systems and they are much, much less active and the REALLY good ones are going single digits. So I don't see the support for the argument. If we want to be really good, we will get it down to 10-15.
Texas 14
Indiana 17
Ole Miss 16
aTm 18
Ohio State 12
Texas Tech 18
Notre Dame 6
Michigan 14
Tennessee 11
Oklahoma 13
Georgia Tech 13
USC 7
Oregon 7
Georgia 7
Alabama 10
Vanderbilt 15
Utah 12 (despite 5 guys heading to Michigan with KW)
BYU 7
Houston 15
Miami 4
Let's mark this and update it with the final numbers when they're in.
Let's look at last year.
2025 transfers:
USC 16
Alabama 12
Georgia 10
Texas 11
Ohio State 11
Indiana 23
Michigan 17
Penn State 8
LSU 18
Miami 19
Oregon 11
aTm 14
Colorado 34
I agree that 34 (or probably 40+ this year) is too high. I just don't see us ever being around 10. The programs doing that are signing Top 10 prep recruiting classes and have deep enough pockets to keep a high enough percentage around that they aren't needing to replace as many players through the portal.
I'd like to see us get to being around 20 portal & 20 prep every year.
Such a huge change. Wasn't long ago that we would talk about how it's rare that there is enough room under the 85 to sign a full class of 25.
We all want B1G or SEC money. Until that happens, you have to revise your peer group.
I listed the top perennial programs but plenty of programs in all conferences are taking much less than CU.
GRM
Go Buffs/93' Grad
how that part to: "we basically sat on our ass."
o_robbie
I don't think before I post
Would like to see that list compared to the rest of the Big 12 and then the bottom half of the Big 10 (Nebraska, Iowa St, Minnesota, Iowa, Mich St, etc) and probably the ACC as well. The expectation should be around 20-25 portal swaps with a school of CU's budget. Also alot of teams were after Carde. There are always going to be misses on 4 star recruits. That's why Bama and Georgia sign 25 plus of them a year. They miss alot too. It's just hidden by the fact they also hit on Studs who can start as RS Freshman to cover it up.
Speak for yourself.