NashvilleHoosier

I know. My father-in-law went to Slippery Rock U. So I got a chuckle when I read that.

The Knecht situation seems funny to me. He's supposedly shut down his recruitment, deciding between UT and Oregon. Also supposedly a heavy Oregon lean. Yet he's almost a week past his UT visit, a team that has since filled their last scholarship (or at least will have to wait a while to know if any draft explorers are returning), but yet he hasn't committed to Oregon yet? Is he waiting on the UT scholly situation? If he is, he's not that high on Oregon. If he's high on Oregon, and has truly shut down his recruitment, why hasn't he committed there? This is me just attempting to 1.) spin something positive - or - 2.) just jinx this thing into being fully over with

Pennsylvania is a long way from Arkansas.

Might be right. Could actually scare some away that just want to hoop.

So safe to assume that the biggest and best weekend to have recruits on campus we will have zero recruits on campus?

You're correct that it makes very little sense if you believe they were going after the Rutgers fanbase/viewers. My point is they were not going after the Rutgers viewership. They were going after the media market that included a very large number of collective alumni from Big Ten universities. Rutgers was the avenue to that. I don't know why, but for some reason I thought this was in the Ledlum thread so I didn't care about derailing. Being in the portal thread, I'm happy to drop it and agree to disagree.

Rutgers wasn't pursued b/c the B1G was after some audience that would tune in to watch Rutgers. Nor were they pursued b/c at the time they might have looked like a rising program. They were pursued b/c the 2 biggest media markets with the largest collective number of B1G alumni outside the then current B1G footprint were NYC and DC. I agree that we should most definitely not be exploring a move to a different conference though. I don't agree that we should feel lucky to be here and wouldn't be appealing if we weren't currently in the B1G.

I'm ignorant of how things go on behind the scenes here. If I'm not mistaken, the coaches cannot be the ones brokering the NIL deals, right? I know the HH guys have one of the collectives, and my impression there was they were sort of managing the incoming donations plus going out and finding partnerships for players? But please tell me these two weirdos are NOT the ones talking to and negotiating directly with the players/prospects?

Yes, which is why realignment has favored such historically dominant and relevant football programs like Rutgers. C'mon, I know we're down b/c we missed out on a portal recruit from the Ivy League that may or may not have been a big impact, but now we're going to level of IU hanging on by a thread? Expansion and realignment has always been about money, TV markets, overall reach, etc. Indiana has plenty to offer there. Plus if we were in a lesser conference our football history might look totally different. Now, if you want to talk about our prospects if things narrow down into 2 super conferences? Yeah, we're in trouble.

Problem is we won’t know what are scraps or not until the season gets underway. Plenty of examples of high level players the last couple seasons that didn’t look like impressive pick up’s coming out of the portal (boum, Nowell, council to name a few). Ware has as much of a chance to be a bust as some other guy we aren’t excited about has to be our leading scorer.

Unfortunately, he will be playing in the originals (or at least ones that originated before ours did)

So he will play In Assembly Hall next season after all.

Times had changed on this long before NIL came around. Kids that are dying to play at IU b/c they love IU will still come but were also likely fewer and farther between. We should love NIL because we still have the fanbase to support it and build a consistent program that competes at the level we expect from the days when it was normal for kids to come to IU just b/c they loved IU.

Dangit Old Fart....they're debating Instagram NOT Twitter so good luck getting them to stop now!

It is? I've honestly never heard even one UT alum talk about UT and Knoxville like IU grads talk about IU and Bloomington, so I've never been compelled to go. I wouldn't blame any kid for wanting to soak up as much of the recruiting experience as possible but it's completely impossible for him to have a weekend anything like TJD and Race experienced. Plus he might have to put the ridiculous knock off candy striped pants on.

Kell?

It ain't no lie, if Timberlake doesn't get on campus, it's bye, bye bye. I will, once again, see myself out.

Terrible week here. This song makes me smile though.

He absolutely trashed Bloomington and the people in it on a podcast episode (where TJD was also a guest) last offseason. I know NIL money talks but I'd be shocked if either side was interested.

Oh the jokes my immature mind is mining through right now....

Gotta think Maryland will have a lot less Skinn in the game for that recruitment.

I always thought this was a dumb tweet anyway. He would likely be interested in potentially transferring IF offered. Insert every single name in the portal to this sentence and it's still true and says absolutely nothing.

Bloomington, IN is closer to home than Lawrence, KS is.

Well, yeah, my use of the phrase “that level of money” was poor b/c it assumes he actually asked for TJD level money. I know that was suggested, but I find that very hard to believe. I can see him asking for more money than he was making, maybe a lot more, in the context I gave. And again, it’s fair for the staff to say that isn’t happening here but best of luck.

On the surface, sure. Seems crazy. But I laid out a scenario that would be entirely different than him simply just asking for that level of money. A scenario that wouldn’t at all be out of the realm of possibility for Bates’ situation. He’s got a lot more on his plate that a kid his age should have.