echowaker said:

I'm not sure Army could beat any SEC team.

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Maybe Mississippi State.

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echowaker said:

I'm not sure Army could beat any SEC team.

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Take any non SEC P4 team and put them in the SEC and its a guarantee 2-3 more losses on their record (even an above average BIG10 team). The SEC is in a league of its own. The 85 man rosters are stacked with the best talent in the country and so are the coaching staffs.

THUNDERSTRUCK111 said:

I took a look at army’s roster. Do they get more scholarship players or something. I saw they had like 20 + running backs on the roster I was looking at.

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They have unlimited scholarships. They also don’t redshirt players.

Holycrossover3 said:

The frustration is mutual. I do understand your viewpoint. That players have value at all different levels, and there are players which values that far exceed a $12M cap. True.

Where we differ is college football is very different than any other sport. It is a 3-4 year max contract, different than any sport you’ve mentioned. Also, my hesitation on paying someone like underwood now, is not that players aren’t worth the money, it’s if these players can necessarily be identified as early as Underwood was. Possibly the most valuable college player in the last 10-12 years was Johnny Manziel, he’s someone who would never have been valued high until after recruiting.

To your last point, when someone like Ellison comes in, true market value no longer matters. They can just overspend with no issue. $10M to someone with $230B is not the same as $10M to any institution.

I don’t think we need to keep arguing our points, simply two different views on when players values are known.

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Wealthy alums have been supporting their favorite school's endeavors going back to the start of time. Isn't this essentially what endowments are? Some wealthy donor wants to see his school do well so is willing to burn millions of dollars of his own money so that the school prospers? I don't see the problem. It sounds like a win win to me. I don't understand why once the players start getting a well deserved piece of the pie, everybody wants to start clutching their pearls.

Also, a lot of prospects flameout (don't ever produce for the schools they join) but a lot of them do produce as well.

Is football talent less predictable than baseball talent that has to graduate like 4 levels of pro baseball before ever taking a major league at bat? I doubt it. The best HS baseball talent in the june draft get paid 7-8 figures and most of those guys don't ever make it to the major leagues. The average major league baseball team isn't making much more money than a college football blue blood in 2024.

Coaching staffs are being paid $20M at major P4 schools .. and now those same schools have added another $20-$30M in NIL to retain the players on their roster as well. This is the cost of doing business.

Football is dangerous. CTE is a real thing. Players are risking long term injury to make schools extremely wealthy at a chance to earn millions of dollars in the NFL someday with a very small window to earn. Its good that they are starting to get paid for the value that they produce (even if that value is purely potential value) much sooner.

sjb75 said:

Army would be 6-6 in the SEC, and isn’t beating Notre Dame.

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I'm not sure Army could beat any SEC team.

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burmafrd1943 said:

fan is short for fanatic in some cases so those unable to uncouple that from their emotions will tend to look really stupid.
I would hate it to happen from a ND fan standpoint; but if it did I would cheer damn hard for them to make it into the playoffs and do well.

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Army would be 6-6 in the SEC, and isn’t beating Notre Dame.

FightingIrish44 said:

Me stating that is purely a hypothetical. I stated nothing about wanting to see them win against ND. “If Army goes 12-0” is what I said. It doesn’t matter if I’m an ND fan or not.

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fan is short for fanatic in some cases so those unable to uncouple that from their emotions will tend to look really stupid.
I would hate it to happen from a ND fan standpoint; but if it did I would cheer damn hard for them to make it into the playoffs and do well.

THUNDERSTRUCK111 said:

I took a look at army’s roster. Do they get more scholarship players or something. I saw they had like 20 + running backs on the roster I was looking at.

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you have a fair number of non scholarship players at the service academies. Lots of very fit young men there, you know.

nptb said:

ACC is just as tough as the SEC. ESPN will never argue that though. I should have said unless Alabama or Georgia are conference champs they won't jump an 11-1 ND.

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Again, I have never read anywhere from anyone that the ACC is as strong as the SEC.

At least you are consistent.

nptb said:

The ACC games have been great. SMU, Miami, Clemson, Louisville, Duke and Syracuse have played some good ball. Pitt has had it's moments but they were escaping some games early in the season and their good early record was fools gold. The SEC schools are no better than the ACC schools and that will be realized next week with the SEC ACC matchup's outside of FSU vs UF.
FSU is dog water this season.

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I have never read anywhere from anyone that the ACC is as strong as the SEC.

chaseball said:

Nobody has any clue how these athletic departments are spending their money in any specific line-by-line sense all we can do is speculate based on the limited information that is available

All we know is that these colleges are making huge sums of money in a multi-billion dollar industry and are able to skirt any type of labor laws in the name of amateurism and academics 😂

As these major college football teams make their institutions prodigiously wealthy beyond their wildest wet dreams I have a hard time finding any sort of sympathy for them or their plight. It's the players who are blowing out their bodies with a really small window to earn and cash in on their skills that I sympathize with

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This is how dumb you are with your assumptions. You've claimed on many occasions how LSU and other teams in the SEC are paying crazy amounts of money to bring in top tier 5 star talent. Get ready for some more egg on your face. LSU's NIL offer to Bryce Underwood was just $1.5 million for one year. 😂

I suggest before you spout off on ND and the SEC , you get your facts straight because you don't know sh1t and you're being exposed as the fool you are.

Harpo Marxist said:

LSU fans are losing their minds over the flip. The 60 mil owed to Kelly is getting smaller by the day. TAMU owed Jimbo 77 mil and was glad to pay it. Kelly will have to gut his coaching staff after this season.....and that means starting over. I don't think LSU has the appetite for a do over after year 3. I think he's gone after this season.

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“LSU Fans are losing their minds…”

So were Notre Dame fans in 2016 who wanted Brian Kelly fired after a 4-8 season.

And that went nowhere.

savvyandsassier said:

Right, that's the new word. Larry Ellison. Well, lucky for Michigan. They have their sugar daddy, who could easily manage an NFL payroll annually with no problem. And BU is the first big splash. That little geek was just the frontman.

But barstool probably wanted to get their beak wet as it were. With a nominal contribution, so they can bask in it. In any case, revenue sharing is basically here, so it's going to totally blow up everything. At least that's my very slight understanding. And NIL's reign of bidding war terror will have been short-lived. Whether or not Ellison is going to spend heavily on the program overall, I guess we'll find out.

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Agreed with everything you put here, and we don’t agree terribly often so this is a nice change of pace!

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FightingIrish44 said:

Me stating that is purely a hypothetical. I stated nothing about wanting to see them win against ND. “If Army goes 12-0” is what I said. It doesn’t matter if I’m an ND fan or not.

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You're right, I get it. If Army goes 12-0 and beats us in the process, just saying. And they're pretty good, it's entirely possible. Then you think they should get in over Boise St. Even though in Boise's defense, they're undefeated too other than a last second loss to the #1 team in the country, undefeated Oregon. So they have a pretty strong argument as well, almost as strong as you could get including a loss into their profile. But of course, in this scenario Army will have actually beaten ND which would top it.

So I'm with you, Army should get in, if they go undefeated and beat a highly-ranked ND in the process, which would of course knock us out of the playoff as part of the aftermath.

tbonesays said:

Better than Ole Miss? that could be open soon. Florida, Bama, Michigan, USC, Oklahoma.

The SEC has the best 1-loss team and the two best 2-loss teams, see both polls and computers. All of those won good out of conference matchups early in the year. That is why the #5 seed is valuable and why it sucks that it is probably going to the loser of the BUGCG . The 5th seed will likely play Boise at home and then the Big12 champion (fringe top 20 Arizona St?) in the next round; dodging the strong SEC teams.

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The ACC games have been great. SMU, Miami, Clemson, Louisville, Duke and Syracuse have played some good ball. Pitt has had it's moments but they were escaping some games early in the season and their good early record was fools gold. The SEC schools are no better than the ACC schools and that will be realized next week with the SEC ACC matchup's outside of FSU vs UF.
FSU is dog water this season.

tbonesays said:

UT and anOSU are close but I think Texas is a little better.

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How so? What is Texas' best win?

Ohio state has a better win and a more competitive loss.

Honestly we should be ranked ahead of them. They've done nothing. Probably the 4th best team in the sec

chaseball said:

I'm not trying to patronize you but you may be sensing a little bit of frustration in my tone because I feel like I'm repeating myself over and over and the point I'm trying to convey is not landing and it might not even be anybody's fault but my own. I apologize if that's the case. I also appreciate the discussion.

In soccer and baseball and many other sports that make the kinds of money that college football in America makes high school talent of the highest caliber is being guaranteed 7 and 8 digits

This is straight out of high school without ever taking a professional at bat without ever riding a factory bike without ever hitting a jump shot with a NBA caliber player in their face etc etc

So there is precedent for investing multi-millions in very green/raw prospective talent. The fact that most of these prospects don't fully reach their potential or ever return a single dollar on their investment doesn't change the fact that their fair market value is still worth millions of dollars as a top prospect.

It's up to the institutions to figure out what the fair market value is for prospective talent based on the revenues and profits in the sport and to invest accordingly. The risk that the prospect completely flames out is built into their cost

Unfortunately I don't even think any of this is on Notre Dame's radar. the operation feels like it's being ran out of a neighborhood high school back in the 1960s sometimes and the results on the field over the last 30 years is a testament to that

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The frustration is mutual. I do understand your viewpoint. That players have value at all different levels, and there are players which values that far exceed a $12M cap. True.

Where we differ is college football is very different than any other sport. It is a 3-4 year max contract, different than any sport you’ve mentioned. Also, my hesitation on paying someone like underwood now, is not that players aren’t worth the money, it’s if these players can necessarily be identified as early as Underwood was. Possibly the most valuable college player in the last 10-12 years was Johnny Manziel, he’s someone who would never have been valued high until after recruiting.

To your last point, when someone like Ellison comes in, true market value no longer matters. They can just overspend with no issue. $10M to someone with $230B is not the same as $10M to any institution.

I don’t think we need to keep arguing our points, simply two different views on when players values are known.

Harpo Marxist said:

I don't think the portal is the foundation that Cignetti is planning. To build a winning program, it starts with the culture. And the culture starts with a pattern of success. Cignetti is establishing the pattern...which he has a history of doing. Building will take time. Next year at IU will be interesting, regardless of how this year finishes up.

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I would hope not. Can he generate real sustained interest to top tier recruits ? A strong showing tomorrow would be a good start. If they get raced their season will be viewed as an anomaly in my opinion. Hopefully they play very well.