8bucks

It is not on my radar which is why I asked. Went to AI and got the scoop. The class is ranked around 6th and has a lot of key positions covered. It looks like Gigi could be an impact player right away, but we probably still some veteran portal players to be in the top third of the BigTen next year.

I don’t mind getting a prospect but am not opposed to some stud lineman

What. Michigan City is home of Scott Dolson and that Delray Brooks fella.

I was critical early because we did not seem to have toughness and grit, let alone enough talent to win much. Team has that toughness now. Wasn’t excited about how we executed down the stretch in regulation but they beat Purdue, smashed Rutgers on the road and beat a good UCLA team even though we had kids fouling out left and right. Not sure if it will last all season but we have the toughness now to overcome some of our shortcomings and that can be the fuel to make this a good season and show hope for what can be.

Regarding the excellent best ever class we have coming in, how many are in the class? What is it ranked vs others nationally and vs BigTen? Are these freshman expected to have an immediate impact such that we compete for a top quartile BigTen finish?

We kind of lucked into moving there in ‘98 when we moved back from the Chicago area. Kind of wanted a few other places before we started looking but we just kept finding Plainfield had what we wanted. The town really grew up well and is a great place, top 10 schools, great trails, close to the airport and Indy. Our sports teams haven’t done as well as our neighbor schools but the admins, coaches and parents help make things top notch. Pretty classic, kind of Plain Indiana town

We lived in Plainfield until recently and our kids went to PHS as well. Still follow oe keep track of the Quakers

Thought Noah was going to DePaul

I think the biggest potential loss is going from the chip on our shoulder, let me show you edge we ave had to being the team everyone is circling on their calendar. Urban mentioned something like this and after he won his first championship this change was huge. Cig is great and can probably still get them to play with an edge but it is easier when all of college football doubts you for most of 2 years.

I had thought Mendoza was sacked a ton too nut the chart suggests Hoover gets sacked more if I am reading correctly

He did not get at least one of his presumed initial targets. I also wonder if he wanted to bring the former Illini coach with him but he went elsewhere. I think the one assistant may have been at at TTech? Not getting these two also may have been why he missed on some guys. My thinking here is that if these 2 assistants came and brought people then the planned staff and roster may have been much different than what we got.

This is correct. A friends son was manager who could have come back, wanted to, but is not back. He was recognized as an all American manager even but they cleaned house up and down. It did seem a couple players explored getting an extra year from the ncaa and I guess they may have come back but both were unsuccessful in that.

Any idea if we have any upcoming visits from portal or even HS kids? I mean the staff hasn’t had anything to do for a few days now come on lol

So much for all that stuff about studying who people are or he would have called you Miss Pope40. Disappointing

Plus Cig brought not only staff but several JMU guys over to establish his culture from day 1. If the team is not buying in to DD's plan that missing culture piece is big.

Any idea when the 2026 schedule gets released? Hoping to find a weekend where we can come back for a game.

I agree that they underestimated the amount of NIL needed to compete in the portal for basketball (I even wonder if we are set up as well as we think in football given Cigs comment about our NIL in one of the postgame interviews). Back to basketball, if they missed on the roster build for this year because they underestimated the portal NIL needs it would not explain why we missed on the HS effort we put in this summer. From all accounts (Brian Snow/Rabby) we had more coaches out recruiting during the summer than many other programs. Their takeaway was that other schools had largely passed on the 26/27 class because it was not as good and they were going to focus on the portal, which would leave us to clean up in the HS class. We did OK, but we did not clean up by any means and it seems we either failed to convince a kid this was the place to be or the money still lags behind. Granted, summer is not long after the spring portal season but to me it seemed like we may have realized we were not competitive in the portal so let's go grab some "cheap" HS kids and build that way. Then we miss there too. I have no idea if DD is a strong coach or a weak coach. I do think kids get steered places by agents, HS and AAU coaches and if we don't have the money and don't have the on court success I am not sure we are going to land difference makers. So, I fully expect Dolson to see that a buyout now may not be practical and will do his best fundraising job to try and get $ for both football and basketball. Hopefully that $ is out there.

Are you thinking we would not let him bring those assistants? I thought the assistants made the decision not to come.

We may not make a change and I predict Dolson will see that Bball needs a big cash infusion to help out but I remember something Cig said early that should apply too "No self-imposed limitations"

Well to be fair we have won a lot of championships recently. Big Ten, Heisman, Rose Bowl, Peach Bowl and the national championship. Probably hard for those shirt guys to keep up.

Haines “we will be bigger next year”Anyone come to mind that fits this?

If he was at $925k here and they are paying $1.2 and it seems Cig liked him, it seems like $$$ was not a factor. I cannot imagine we would have let him walk because we could not find $275k.

I vote USF since I live nearby

Cig made several comments in the post game crediting the strength coach which is interesting given he is leaving. No doubt he knew about it and it seemed we could bump up to keep him but he may have just wanted to be in TN.