The Furious Five: Leveling up or leveling off?

Tequilla said:

Dennis_DeYoung said:

Just think about how fucked we are...

Our coach was a god in Idaho for 10 years.
We were recruiting a (half) Poly kid with a Poly dude that has known him for years.
We currently have one of the best DLs in the country.
We are the best team close to Tommy.
We have a kid on our roster from Highland.

And Bruce Wayne comes by and all we hear is rhythmic slapping sounds in the club bathroom.

If this recruitment was on the level I would tend to agree ... we know it likely wasn’t ...

I don’t see us playing that game ...

So the question is can we recruit at a high enough level without that to be able to compete?

Winning a national title will always be a stretch goal ... it’s not impossible but we will likely never be the favorite to do so

No.

You can hit on Sidney Jones. You can develop Greg Gaines. You also settle for Bryce Sterk. You sign Kyler Manu, expecting a token Poly will land you a bigger fish.

It’s foolhardy. It doesn’t work. You can reel in Marlon with Tufele. Offing inferior players, expecting their relationship with an elite prospect to seal the deal RARELY works.

Win and close recruits? Kyler Manu gets a preferred walk-on invitation early on and possible scholarship if “other things don’t work out” Congratulate Bryce Sterk for signing somewhere else.

The high-level prospects Washington attracts come from stable, middle to upper class homes. They buy built for life. Everyone needs money. When you have money and two stable parents, far away programs have less appeal. Academis matters. Development matters.

When your mom struggles to pay the power bill, you don’t give a shit about life after football when a bagman will hand your family 5 figures in cash and a geezle or two a month for some walk around money and enough that mom can keep the lights on until you become the latest in a long line of Trojans/Irish/ Buckeyes to leave after their third year for millions in the NFL.

Follow the money. Power programs have alumni bagman in the shadows reeling in the kids the coaches want. Washington used to pay until SC decided to get serious about football, dropped a dime that led to the demise of the Husky Hunters.

Shaq Thompson? Outlier. $1,500 in coffeee cups gets you JAGs.

Dennis_DeYoung said:

So, right now we are in an odd state as a program. We are doing 'pretty well' this recruiting class, but we are clearly a tier down from teams that get consistently good players like Bama, etc.

However, I've never thought we would need to compete with Bama, tOSU, USC, etc. in recruiting to be an elite program. We just have to get in that next tier. We can afford to take Mosiah Liu -IF- we get a guy like Togiai too. If we do that we ensure high levels of competition over multiple classes and—at that point—if Liu ultimately starts for us, it won't be because he's the tallest midget, it will be because he beat out dudes that are super talented.

If we can get to where half of our classes are 4-star guys, we will be in incredible shape. Why is that important? It's not necessarily because I believe 4-star guys are always more talented than 3-star guys. It's about the averages overall. So, if you are averaging getting 4-star guys, it means that generally the three star guys you are getting are probably guys who are in the same basic talent tier as your 4-star guys.

Maybe even put more simply, I want a class of HALF DDY2s and DDY3s. Is it possible? Actually, yes.

So right now we have:

QB: Sirm DDY3, Yankoff DDY2
RB: Lowe DDY3, Newton DDY2 (Lowe is playing 'Chico' which basically means Salvon, which basically means RB)
WR: Auzzy DDY3, Spiker DDY3
TE: Dev DDY2 (very close to a 3)
OL: Ale DDY2, Curne DDY2, Mele DDY3 (Curne is also close to being a 3).
DL: Bynum DDY2, Liu DDY2, Taimani DDY2, ZTP DDY2
LB: Sirm2 DDY2, Tafisi DDY2
DB: Hampton DDY3 (counting him for expediency)

So, in the next 8 days we will find out about 5 guys who are basically all DDY3s (in order of importance). The key is, we are in the TOP TWO for each of them.

1. Togiai (DDY3)
2. Gordon (DDY3)
3. Kaho (DDY3)
4. Irvin (DDY3)
5. Tremblay (DDY2)

If, we somehow manage to land all these guys, we will be in rarified air. This will be a class that we put a spike in the ground on and say 'that's when our program changed'. But to do that, we are going to have to turn into a team that fucks.

As it stands, the only guy I think we have a DECENT chance with is Kaho. Everyone else I would put our chances at 20% or less for. This is why our branding as a university and program matters. How we get talked about on TV. I mean, fucking tOSU got destroyed last year 31-0 in the playoff. The narrative was we got killed and didn't belong and USC was ultimately better. This is when that shit matters.

Right now, we are like a dude who gets attention in the bar, because we are funny and interesting, but the reality is - when Bruce Wayne circles back on our chick at 1:30ish, we are fucked. The only way to avoid that is make sure your chick goes home early, is in the bathroom when he comes by or she is already pregnant. Because if those conditions aren't meant, the hot, rich dude will be banging your bitch.

When people make these snap, late-game decisions, that 'HE'S HOT' matters. It's more visceral.

Right now for each of these guys we are up against a hot, rich dude.

Togiai is tOSU
Gordon is Notre Dame
Kaho is Bama
Irvin is Notre Dame and/or USC
Tremblay is USC

I expect us to go 0/5 on these guys because of the Bruce Wayne rule. We've never closed well (except after 1990) and I don't expect that to change. At the end of the night, hormones rage and emotions run high. Bitches want sexy at the last minute when they have to make a snap decision. We aren't sexy.

At some point, we can be - and we need to be to close. Until then we are going to get fucked over at the last minute and feel disappointed every year.

So, be prepared to pull out some porn on D20 because we are most likely going home alone. It's nice to get let into the same club as Bruce Wayne, but we are about to get a lesson in what being in the big pond looks like. It's the same lesson we always learn and try to forget: we are a 7 with a good personality... but our branding as a program is a mess and we need that shit to fuck.

So, enjoy our class for what it is. We will regroup and try on Jeremiah Martin and some other DBs during the second period and that should be fun and interesting.

If we, somehow, manage to pull 3 of these guys... you will know shit is REALLY changing.

3 for 5 = we fucking, bitches!

#Furious

Swaye said:

And If we miracle Tuli and Martin, that's pretty much a wash with Togiai and Tremblay, so we are super duper sex machine fucking then.

For where we?re at now, sum of Tuli & Martin >> Togiai + Tremblay