It’s always nice to have a civilized dialog with folks. We don’t have to agree, but it never hurts to be civil.
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The last part you would think is disrespect till you find out he may have been third on the list. No call to Billy D or Ricky P. They offered Nate Oats first (which is weird) and then Hurley. Pope was third. At least from what I’m told and this is the weird area where I know people as I worked for the UK Network back in the Ricky P and Tubby years.
I think this ends up being a good hire. UK will get players and they will invest in NIL.
This is an interesting predicament for Madsen. At Cal there is more room to grow on the upside and he demonstrated he can recruit pretty well. The biggest issue is being in the ACC and horrific levels of travel.
At BYU I think he’d do pretty well, but like everything else in sports, being an also-ran in the Big-12 will eventually be a problem. The fanbase will love him… until they don’t.
The job security at Cal is more solid, but when the Calimony payments from UCLA run out, things could get sweaty. Can he outlast the ACC era at Cal?
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Dave McMinamin had the best take I’ve heard so far.
First, that these teams should be considered professional teams going forward. They may be licensed and sanctioned by their representative universities, but really they are a professional farm system for the NFL, NBA and WNBA. Though Hockey and baseball have farm systems, the truth is many college players in those sports are there to get development to become pros. Such an opinion opens a ton of doors to questions, but it is what it is.
The money is now out in the open. In the past all of these payments outside of the NCAA sanctioned items were happening under the table. Now, though distasteful to some fans, at least they now know how the kids are making money to make ends meet.
The days of “One and Done” in Basketball and the sophomore exits in football will likely slow down because of the money. McMinamin made a great point here say that why leave college where your NIL is paying better than what you would get from getting drafted? I believe Rising tends to be our poster child for such an idea around here. Dave might be onto something there.
Finally, the days of the Ivy League type schools participating in the top levels is likely to be on the way out. Stanford, Vanderbilt, Rutgers, etc. given their enrollment standards and academic cultures are likely to jump ship from this more intense direction of college sports. Maybe they come up with a way to stay in, but it is more likely they choose to step back to a G5 or 1AA status. The truth is it will not be surprising if a lot of State Universities do this too. At some point the costs for the glory is simply too high.
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Not sure it’s the best time to ask Smith to cut a big check as he’s trying to purchase the NHL Coyotes, which will then lead to coming up with cash to build a new arena in South Jordan to house both the Jazz and Coyotes.
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Madsen put out a statement this morning which makes it seem pretty solid that he’s staying at Cal. His buyout would be too much. Burgess is probably their ‘best’ choice. After that are BYU, UNLV assistants and the Lone Tree HS coach. Ouch.
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Where would byu be without Ryan Smith’s checkbook? Their best recruit under Pope was due to a Ryan Smith NIL deal & Burgess. Conversely, it seems like Utah’s best recruits under Smith are due to Burgess.
It will be interesting to see what happens. My guess is they will hire Burgess, which would affect Utah’s recruiting for sure.
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I smell a Colin Chandler joining Utah scenario. Who knows he might follow Pope to Kentucky, but I think he might be free in his recruiting again.
That arena is going downtown.
The legislature, county and city have all signed off on a tax break plan for the arena and Smith has said he’s not taking the Jazz out of downtown
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I read that Madsen’s buyout is $6 mil, but double for Stanford and BYU. Smith writing a $12 mil check would probably be the equivalent of me and I would suspect most of us writing a $1200 check.
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Looks like they think Burgess will go to BYU now.
This guy hit the portal. He’s a solid player. Originally, he had offers to USU and OSU too. The offer from USU was when Smith was coach. He’d be a good replacement for Worster. Don’t know if he liked USU because of Smith or because of the basketball atmosphere – which is really good.
Just saw that Exacte has entered portal.
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Maybe Exacte has really developed and we’re missing out, but I wasn’t exactly blown away by his abilities his freshman year.
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Add Luca Tarlac to the portal list.
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Tarlac not really a loss at all With Exacte, I don’t remember anything spectacular about him last season.
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Exacte is a foreign student so he can’t get NIL. So it must be he feels he won’t get playing time or he was told he wasn’t wanted.
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Or he doesn’t like Smith, or thinks we’ll be terrible.
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I learned something I did not know about foreign students attending school on a student Visa. The cannot earn money in the U.S. Theoretically, they could receive NIL money for appearances/work outside the US.
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