8bucks

The World Cup has been great all around. The US team played good except for Belgium. A B for them and hopefully they can build off it. The game experience A’s all around. I think having games in cities like Indy where you could enjoy a walk to several pubs/bars after could have made it an A+. The international fans experience has been awesome. Many expressed great enthusiasm for outreach country and it was great to see how people are great when you get politics out of things and just enjoy different cultures and their people. And the best part, it provided a fun distraction while we wait for our version of football. What a great summer. Let’s land a local 5* receiver, start summer camp (we have that right?) and get this 3.0 version of Cignetti ball started.

Had not thought about the ‘22 class missing both of these. Have to agree on the lawsuit coming.

I did not read the final version but thought it was not open to kids who eligibility expired already in 26

The Tartan Army was great though and even being outnumbered 70/30 they were loud and fun. We got lucky with a cool night in Miami too with temps around 87 when the game started.

Is it weird to reply to your own post? Nah.. Apparently, it seems a 4 year D2, NAIA or D3 athlete can move up to D1 for a year 5. Talked with a couple coaches and while the player has to be able to offer something, if they can, it could work.

It has been so cool to see all the these venues packed. We always enjoy watching the World Cup games but having them here and having so muc enthusiasm has been awesome. We are headed down to Miami this week to watch Brazil vs Scotland. I will be wearing yellow behind the goal, should be easy to spot right?

Any idea if a kid who has played 4 years at the NAIA level would be able to benefit from this at the D1 level? Granted that would be a step up but there are some NAIA/D2 programs in soccer at least that can compete with lower level D1 programs. Just curious as my daughter has been a 4 year starter at the lower level but wants to go on to grad school and we wondered if this might be a path for her.

How did his index for this year play out? Was he on to something and can we have some reason for a better season

49ers would be nice

Do other schools know the portal is open?

Was just an attempt at humor

I heard it was Kenny who is out of town. The staff is full on secrecy mode and Kenny was down in Louisville walking around telling people he was a recruit from Alabama.

Would be nice to see Sherrell commit too. I know some, many, think this helps but just hoping that is the case. They seem to be different players so he does not on the surface look like a replacement. I guess if Sherrell isn’t sold on us he will schedule a visit somewhere

Did Carr get a staff to help research all the potential players out there? Recently He seemed to lead the evaluators vs doing the evaluations and I wonder if has a crew helping.

Well doggonit now we don’t have class balance anymore. Too many kids with 2 years left lol.

Sherrel seems like the guy that makes the class really good. Without him, Burton is a big need but a lot of holes otherwise. Landing Sherrell and Burton takes this class way up a few notches. Seems like we have been to the 11th hour a few times in the past and ended up short. Hopefully Sherrell commits and we keep adding first choice (from the staff) guys

Is this center supposed to play right away. Does Sherrell want to be a 4 vs a 5? Both would have an impact here

Hoosier Dentists for Good need to step up is what I have heard.

It was an estimate.

I think the difference is that if a school that has had success recently (with that coach) offers $2 million and we offer $2 million we lose out to their reputation. We have to offer more. Playing time can help but several schools can offer that. Until we can catch up to other schools by winning our NIL bucket say of $14 million may only land us players valued at $10 million.

I think that when hired DD felt he was going to land 2 of the better assistants (Alabama and TT?). That was likely conveyed to Dolson too which is reasonable. We locked in DD early and before a lot of other coaches who were hired and had his staffing plan worked out we would likely have had a much better season. It did not though and led to the difficulty i putting his staff together. Can we blame DD for swinging for the fences on those 2 assistants even though when he missed it hurt us? Probably but it will be forgotten if we have a very good season next year. I tend to think like @WayneFleekHoosier and unfortunately fall on the pessimistic side too often. I hope though to be wrong and come to these threads often looking for some evidence that I was wrong. It just feels like we get an audience and may even be able to land people (whether top assistants or players) but we are not willing or able to meet their price.

Del was from Plainfield, my old town, unless he started in Smithville. He went to HS though as a fighting Quaker lol

This was me last year. And he was right then and I started to see it once you think through it and take off the IU bias. This year could be different, we hope, but it is a wait and see. I think even if we spend $14 million we are having to pay more for some kids than a competitor school who has had more success. So while we may spend top 15-20 overall, because we have to overpay we are probably getting $10 million level roster Even with a $10 million roster we apparently have enough money for coaches/staff/facilities that they should be able to grind it out and produce results above than $10 million level. Last year I don’t think we did

Heard Rabby explain this pretty well. When you have to go deep into the portal for a lot of players you will have to over pay vs if you were just increasing a current kids pay. He shared an example from a coach who said they estimated that a couple of current kids could command a 50% increase if they hit the portal. The coach offered them 15% (willing to go to 20%) and both accepted the 15%. Secondly, Woody turned off a lot of agents who would not send kids to IU. This is turning around now so that is good but combine this with having a less successful program than most top 25-30 schools we have to pay more than schools we want to compete with to land a player. Lastly, he was asked what he thought IU needed to spend based on where IU is now in order to field a team that could make a run and he said $18 million. He was then asked what he thought they would spend and that was around $14 million. The $14 million, combined with how much we spend on coaches and the overall program, should be enough to build a team that makes it into the tournament safely but probably is not enough to make any noise. His point, which I share, is that in order to make up lost ground we have to spend more than other programs for a year or 2. It seems that IU may not have the $18 million but hopefully they do or get kids to outperform their ranking.