Jules to South Carolina
- Thread starter pittmeister
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The Rams were 5-12 last year. I think that should keep Aaron Donald out of the HOF.
I've already petitioned to remove Anthony Munoz on account of some of those Bungle records.
He was clearly their best DT.
They came into the offseason needing to add at least one quality DT via the portal to join him.
Now, they need that just to break even.
There's a lot of poorly written content that passes for journalism online--this article is about as bad as it gets from a writing standpoint.
That speaks more to how poor our interior dl was than how good he was but I generally agree with you none the less
They really need to hit the portal hard for DL.
The problem with the portal and DL is what just happened to Jules. Obviously he got a bigger bag than Pitt was willing to give.
I don't think it's a position where they're going to bring in any difference makers from the portal. DL are always in high demand. Note Morgan and Jules getting SEC bags.
Almost gotta hope to get lucky with a younger guy out of the portal or on roster.
I don't think it's a position where they're going to bring in any difference makers from the portal. DL are always in high demand. Note Morgan and Jules getting SEC bags.
Almost gotta hope to get lucky with a younger guy out of the portal or on roster.
A human probably didn't write that. SI uses AI to churn out content like this. Been happening for about ten years now. A lot of articles about minor league baseball games and FCS games are just churned by an algorithm reading a box score of the game.
Yup or a guy from a lower level At least with partridge Pitt has development and playing time to offer in addition to some $
It’s possible to get an even replacement but they won’t get much better than Jules
He was a good rotational player. He showed flashes but disappeared for large stretches of the season. This isn’t losing a Kancey or even a Twyman. I’ll take our chances with a healthy FitzSimmons and Isaiah Neal, but need to add to that group. The freshman from Ohio looks like a beast but it would be great to add some experience.
AI would have yielded far better grammar, syntax and usage.
This guy basically tried to sound smart by stuffing as many big adjectives into this thing as possible.
Posters need to get over this misguided hope/belief that Pitt will replace starters that it loses to the portal with better starters it obtains from the portal.
Agree Jules had an alright season but he did not do as well against better competition. Having Coach Partridge develop you another year could help his draft stock. Jules playing against SEC offensive lineman each week may not be a good move by him.
Well on one hand, I think that's kind of what makes this even more demoralizing. If DeAndre Jules is getting pilfered off your roster for 300K, who are you going to be able to retain? DL has been our lifeblood, but as we saw this past season, you can't plug just anybody in there.
And that's not to say he isn't a quality player - he's just not in the same ballpark as Kancey and Twyman. But he was by far our best option. He had 7.5 TFL which was more than double what any other DT had. And Narduzzi did mention him as a breakout player this past offseason.
Okunlola stings even worse, because he's going to be a damn good player and all we got was a redshirt year and a developmental year. I wouldn't be shocked at all if he breaks out this season/next and is a midround draft pick.
What's the reward for recruiting/developing a guy like Okunlola? Say he's a 7.5/10 type of player and the guy behind him is a 5.5/10. Now, Syracuse has a better DE than you because no one wanted their 6.5/10 guy. So you actually get punished for doing things better than them. It's just maddening.
Worked out for Jarvis Jones. Jules will just need to go up against a weak interior lineman from Florida and accumulate an entire season's worth of stats in one game like Jones did.
The problem with the DL can be traced back to the 2020 recruiting class. Donald, Ford and Johnson were all highly rated local players that have contributed little to nothing. They should be in the rotation seeing lots of minutes. Think about that the next time we lose a local player.
When you throw in Nico Brown, and the entire DL class has been a wash out.
When you throw in Nico Brown, and the entire DL class has been a wash out.
These are a few of the many reasons why this current NIL/transfer situation is unsustainable. College football is cannibalizing itself--the fat are getting fatter while starving the middle class and the poor into extinction.
It's a hot mess to be PC and kind about it.
I think the problem lies within the fact that it actually will be sustainable. Once these conferences shuffle again in 2030ish, it truly will be the haves and have-nots. We're going to be competing against a bunch of have-nots that will be in the same boat as us. It already is that way to some extent: Most of the ACC teams deal with the same issues we do.
So we'll be competitive with BC, WVU, Stanford, Houston, etc., etc., etc., and the Michigans and Ohio States of the world will be competitive with each other, Alabama, Tennessee, etc. It's just that the product will be watered down for the have-nots, while the haves will be that much more robust.
It's why I'd rather just perform at an entirely different level of competition, rather than being in a conference with other have-nots while fictitiously vying for playoff spots along with the haves.
College football is over. I won't even know who most of the Pitt players are from year to year. We should seriously just hire the biggest splash name as possible to be the figurehead and recruit the best from the portal, and then pay for a good OC and DC who actually run the team. Coach Snoop?
Well you're omitting the part where I mentioned the disparity would be more seismic, as the have-nots would be more watered down and the haves would be better. We beat the national champions in 2016 because about 1/3 of our starters could have probably started for them. Doubt that will happen again.
... Or I could go with the "two can play this game" response:
So NIL and the new transfer policies change absolutely nothing and things are going to be exactly as they have been for the last 40 years?!?!
I think it's going to appear as if it hasn't widened on a national level, because it will create new tiers.
For example, Jules isn't going to Alabama; he's going to South Carolina. So South Carolina (a team on the tail end of the "haves" category) might actually close the gap between themselves and Alabama, because only so many guys can start, blah blah blah. So there may be more respectable teams and more competitive games in the big two conferences, and more teams might have a legitimate chance to win it all.
But I still think the difference between Pitt (and similar schools) and the haves will widen. In the last ten years, we'd have probably beat a school like South Carolina 5, 6, maybe 7 times. I don't think that will be the case anymore. They'll be a player (toward the low end of that category, I mean), and we'll be more of a feeder school.
I mean, we had three d-lineman worth their weight in salt last season. Two of them got bought. Of course this model is going to negatively affect us and the teams on our level.
Colleges being able to pay the players directly will help. A school like Pitt will have to go all-in on football and cut costs elsewhere to pay as much as a South Carolina, Kentucky, Rutgers, etc.
Yeah, I'm not even sure how that would work. Cause it's not like it can come from the endowment or something; it would have to come from the very things we're lagging well behind in (TV revenue, ticket sales revenue, tuition enrollment money, etc.). So in theory, we would have to pay considerably more (to match what other schools are paying plus close the NIL gap) from a pool of funds that is considerably less.
I mean, I've not read up on it much at all. But just thinking it over in my heard certainly isn't spawning much optimism.
We would have to pay as much as the mid to bottom P2 schools. Where would the money come from? Pitt can figure it out. Pay coaches less, have less staffers, cut programs if its necessary, surcharge regular students, have the general university fund underwrite these salaries like they are doing for the volleyball arena. There are ways. Basically, find out what Rutgers and Maryland are paying and pay that. We arent competing with PSU and OSU.
Yeah, but there are schools starving to be relevant in football a hell of a lot more than Pitt is. Anything we could do, so could they. And that's in addition to bringing in $50M more per year in conference revenue. I just don't see how the math checks out. Even if we were Central Florida, I could at least point to the sheer volume of our enrollment as an advantage.
If SC is paying him 150-200 k he made the right choice. He did not come close to living up to the expectation this season. Maybe a change of scenery will do him good. We will also hit the portal for DL.
You are forgetting that there will be artificial limits to what these guys will make. There wont be a salary cap but an average DL like Jules cant be making 500K-750K. When we can pay directly, we should be able to pay 100K-200K. Does South Carolina offer 300K? 400K? For a slightly better than average DL? Will South Carolina have a payroll of $50 million? Will Alabama have a payroll of $100 million? I just think there's a limit in how high these programs can go.
And eventually these players will be employees and there will be a salary cap and that will be very good for Pitt. That's 10+ years away though.
NIL still exists on top of whatever the school pays. So if Alabama has a "payroll" of 30k per player (the bare minimum), what would Pitt's have to be to equal that + close the gap in NIL? It's not feasible.
Pitt has never and will never compete with Alabama, pre or post NIL. We need to find money to compete with South Carolina, Rutgers, Purdue, Maryland, Kentucky, Arkansas, Indiana, Illinois, etc. Paying players directly will help. I dont think Indiana is going to outbid us. I dont care how much money they have. There's also the thing that those programs are STILL going to go 2-6 in their leagues and not be looked upon favorably. If Pitt is competing for playoff berths in whatever league they are in, that will help
Indiana just paid the second largest head coach buyout of all time (unless someone has already passed it). Their NIL collective is at $3M for this offseason (not great, but not awful).
Yes they will outspend us. They're bringing in considerably more TV revenue and they have one of the largest alumni bases in the country. All those teams know that if they don't start taking football seriously they might not make the cut the next times these conferences shake themselves up.
We finished 51ist in recruiting last year. We're 40th now, in the same ballpark as Illinois, Vanderbilt, etc. and behind Minnesota, Rutgers, Purdue, UCF, and plenty more. This stuff is clearly having an affect. I know we weren't killing it in recruiting before (I won't count 2022 because it was a small class), but it's pretty obvious it's gotten worse. And, again, the big money hasn't even started yet. Wait until it does.
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Pitt will make up the difference to be able to pay players as much as Indiana when they can pay directly. Not worried about that. The conversation should be about coaching because we are going to have a cheaper, leaner coaching staff/support staff.
