There was some odd news that Freeman was not even on campus for the start of the portal season. Yes, it would be nice to see them implode!
'25 (in-season) - '26 CFB Portal Thread
- Thread starter Tom McAndrew
- Start date
A contact is a contract. Should be enforced. That said, you can't really keep someone who doesn't want to be there. They can just "quiet quit".
You may not be able to see this article regarding Cignetti, as I pay for Apple News premium. But it’s a fantastic glimpse into the mindset of the guy from a former player. It kind of dovetails with this message thread of all our new portals being injected into the existing team. Cignetti does not care about a player’s stars or seniority status on the team. He will just play the best player, regardless of anything, and he brings a fire out in each player that they, just like him, are never satisfied and will always push themselves to get to the next level.
I played for Curt Cignetti. Yes, he’s never happy. Here’s why that’s a good thing:
apple.news
I played for Curt Cignetti. Yes, he’s never happy. Here’s why that’s a good thing:
I played for Curt Cignetti. Yes, he’s never happy. Here’s why that’s a good thing — The Athletic
Percy Agyei-Obese played for coach Curt Cignetti for four seasons at James Madison. He played in the CFL and is now a middle school football coach in Maryland. Cignetti is now the head coach at Indiana, which plays in the College Football Playoff semifinals against Oregon on Friday. This is...
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Have you seen his recruiting class? 4th in the country, four 5* and twenty 4*. I wouldn't worry about ND.
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We need to stop thinking of the guys who committed as Iowa St (or other school) players. Once they commit, they are Penn State players. Otherwise it’s the equivalent of still trying to claim the guys who left as Penn State players. They may have been at one time, but they chose to leave. Think of Chop, AK and Trace. Even though they transferred in, they were Penn State players once they did.
Pfft......99% this board is never happy.You may not be able to see this article regarding Cignetti, as I pay for Apple News premium. But it’s a fantastic glimpse into the mindset of the guy from a former player. It kind of dovetails with this message thread of all our new portals being injected into the existing team. Cignetti does not care about a player’s stars or seniority status on the team. He will just play the best player, regardless of anything, and he brings a fire out in each player that they, just like him, are never satisfied and will always push themselves to get to the next level.
I played for Curt Cignetti. Yes, he’s never happy. Here’s why that’s a good thing:
I played for Curt Cignetti. Yes, he’s never happy. Here’s why that’s a good thing — The Athletic
Percy Agyei-Obese played for coach Curt Cignetti for four seasons at James Madison. He played in the CFL and is now a middle school football coach in Maryland. Cignetti is now the head coach at Indiana, which plays in the College Football Playoff semifinals against Oregon on Friday. This is...
Shouldn't this be the way all coaches operate? Play the best players? Play the player who is going to do their job. If you want to play then work for it. Are some college coaches brainwashed from the everyone gets a medal from their youth? Cignetti is in his 60s so he was not exposed to that mindset.You may not be able to see this article regarding Cignetti, as I pay for Apple News premium. But it’s a fantastic glimpse into the mindset of the guy from a former player. It kind of dovetails with this message thread of all our new portals being injected into the existing team. Cignetti does not care about a player’s stars or seniority status on the team. He will just play the best player, regardless of anything, and he brings a fire out in each player that they, just like him, are never satisfied and will always push themselves to get to the next level.
I played for Curt Cignetti. Yes, he’s never happy. Here’s why that’s a good thing:
I played for Curt Cignetti. Yes, he’s never happy. Here’s why that’s a good thing — The Athletic
Percy Agyei-Obese played for coach Curt Cignetti for four seasons at James Madison. He played in the CFL and is now a middle school football coach in Maryland. Cignetti is now the head coach at Indiana, which plays in the College Football Playoff semifinals against Oregon on Friday. This is...
Pro National Football Minor-League (with University names on the jersies) is headed for Federal Government intervention.... the Federal Government Legislates, Regulates and makes all Governing Laws for Interstate Commerce (as Per the US Constitution) - since collegiate football is no longer an Amateur League and is clearly a Professional League, it is now quite clearly subject to Federal Regulation under Interstate Commerce Laws.
This is a very naive take in the current climate of college football. Its one thing to embrace the "roster retention" narrative quite another to realize it by providing these players with what THEY believe they deserve. You cannot allow employees to set the terms of employment. Leadership sets the terms and employees either get on board or move on. I would like to have seen Lane stay, but if his agent had continued to shop him around and came back with a bigger number and asked PSU to match it, why would PSU allow itself to be leveraged for a safety? Again, not sure this is how it went down but it is a very common scenario. Are you under the impression that OSU did not want to retain Quincy Porter who was the heir apparent to Tate? Of course they did. But what they wanted and what Quincy wanted were not commensurate. That is the way of the world.
I want the players whose wants,, needs, and desires align with the values of the current staff, regardless of where they come from. In January 2026 I do not see Penn State or Iowa State players. I see a group of players who will be competing to belong to the new incarnation of PSU football. And I, for one, excited to see the final product.
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It should be the way all coaches operate but it’s not. Our previous coaches, including both Franklin and Paterno, have shown favoritism to certain players whether it was seniority or “their guys” or just because of promises made.
According to Chase Sowell’s dad, Campbell is more like Cignetti in that he doesn’t care about any of that other stuff and just plays the best guy.
Show me a coach who bases his program on "stars" and I'll show you a coach soon to be out of a job. It's called Film Review. Hell, that goofball Mel Keiper had the Clemson QB as the Number one QB before the start of the year!
It is possible that they could just pursue damages for breach of contract rather than force him to play when he obviously doesn't want to be there. However, unless there is a liquidated damages clause which sets the amount of damages when there is a breach, there may be no actual monetary damages because the payments made under NIL contracts are really a cover for paying players off to play for a school rather than payments for actual expectation of profits from a player's NIL rights. That is the real sham of NIL.
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I think it’s a naive take to assume all players are leaving over money. There is no proof out there of that. If Lane asked for more money than the staff thought he was worth, then so be it, but we don’t know that. You know what they say about assuming.
Campbell and PSU scoff at schools like Alabama, Oregon, ND, Texas, OSU. Georgia, etc whose average recruit is rated over 90.
I do not believe you are being sincere in wishing Campbell success as every single one of your posts laments what they are doing. It appears you are fixated on trying to retain players that bought into a previous regime, simply because they were here before the coaching change.
Campbell did NOT ask many of the players to leave. Just like Sumrall did at UF with Lagway, he likely outlined expectations and Hodjer provided them with the compensation structure and they said, "nope, I am out." Good for both parties.
Lets also not wax nostalgic on the success of the 2025 PSU team. They looked like a*s most of the year.
Unlike a lot of previous years, a fade pass to the back of the end zone might actually work with these guys.
Sure I do and why said I was not sure. But you missed the point. The point is leverage. Whether it was money, playing time, other prospects coming in, players do not set the conditions of employment. If I ever allowed my employees to set the conditions of their employment I would not have a business left. They buy in or move on.
If he's healthy. And that's a huge IF. Practically same thing happened with Tamere Robinson last year - a whopping 11 tackles in '25.
If anything, I think USC just pays a higher baseline number than anyone else in the country.
Haha!
Even if those fade routes start working, it will still take some time to get over my automatic reaction to those passes being thrown.
Losing 50 players to the Portal when you are at Penn State, getting a good degree, and have a good coach coming in is rediculous. Many of them were high end recruits I'd think Campbell would want to keep.
What you do or not care about is of little interest to me. I am simply pointing out what your actions (your posts) document about you.
Luke knows the deal with all the Miami talent . The schools not disclosing why kids leave creates fan backlash . A fair number are cut or are just buried on the depth chart . NFL style notices would definitely help , but could create legal challenges for the school . Profanity on the video , but the summary above gives you the gist .
I couldn't agree more. There was a collective rot with this team that needed to be removed. Terry Smith was able to take some of the stink off of the rot, however, moving forward with the remnants of this failed team as a core may have presented its own problems. The overhaul may not look great on paper but I think a fresh start with the new coaching staff is going to be beneficial.
My point is simply they are not going to recruiting sites to look at how many stars a players was classified as by some alleged "recruiting guru." They do the film work and decide. Yes, they "get" the higher recruits but my point is they are not subscribing to recruiting sites to make a decision on a player. If they are, good luck with that.
Yep, and the rot was to such degree that we gave up the most yards and points to Rutgers ever in the history of PSU during the “good” half of the 2025 season, winning by sheer luck. This is after Terry (God bless him!) simplified the defense and such. There were some very good players on this team but overall the team was riddled with entitlement and dysfunction.
With absolutely no evidence to back this up, but my suspicion is that JF had/has a "you're the best ever" attitude with his players. Minimizing their mistakes and trying to build up their self-confidence by putting his blind trust in certain players. And it worked when they had superior talent, but almost always fails when they play teams of equal or greater talent. So they come into the season ranked #2 and their egos are sky high, only to crash down to earth after losing to Oregon. That is the rot that had to be cleansed with the firing of JF. I will cheer for anyone who comes to Penn State with a commitment to be the best football player they can be.
Every time they throw one I feel the same sliver of hope as someone launching a half court buzzer beater. As hard as a well executed fade is to defend, it is even harder to execute well.
Yesterday, Ethan was the man. Today, not so much.
Campbell probably got everybody he could/wanted from ISU at this point. Those guys were relatively easy pickups. The guys from other schools are going to take their visits and evaluate offers before committing.
If you look at the position 'rooms' and what has happened so far just based on the portal ins and out, not overall talent lost from graduation:
QB - Manske is the key here. He appears better than the back ups we had behind Grunk so call it a wash
RB - very unproven group though Martin did well in the bowl game and got the ISU starter and OSU kid - Wash at minimum, potential upgrade
WR - Howard stayed and the rest of a bad group left. All the ISU kids are bigger and another potential guy joining today. Probable big upgrade.
TE - 2 in, 3 out, does Olesh develop is the only thing that may sway this and change the grade but generally a plus for next year but minus long term potentially
OL - They kept a couple of the main guys, got a couple young OT and two huge OG. Still need a starter level OT couple more OL for depth but very few of our 4/5 star OL recuits have panned out recently. Another wash with a TBD to see how the new OL coach develops.
Overall I'd give the offense an upgrade just due to the WR group. Securing a legit starting LOT would make it a big +
DT - UCLA kid cancels out Gilliam, OSU kid cancels out Wafle, ISU kid cancels out Artis, at least 1 more soon to be added. Wasn't any studs in teh group to begin with so this is an upgrade.
DE - Colorado kid and Harvey cancel out but still need to pick up 2-3 more in this position. Kept some good ones of the roster but portal wise a loss so far.
LB - Losing Campbell hurts but Bacon is rated higher. Picked up two other LB who are bigger than Speca/Wylie. Probably need one more, but the trade bacon for Campbell is a win.
CB - Big minus so far. Hunter Sowell may be a CB but hes listed as safety. He's on the small side but either way he's the only one we've picked up. Definitely need a couple more.
S - the 2 ISU kids are at least as good as Lane and Mack, if not better. A little bigger and know the system. Slight upgrade.
Defense is a downgrade so far as DE/CB are a lot worse but LB/DT/S are better. Getting the right couple guys to fill out the DE/CB rooms would change the grade here.
QB - Manske is the key here. He appears better than the back ups we had behind Grunk so call it a wash
RB - very unproven group though Martin did well in the bowl game and got the ISU starter and OSU kid - Wash at minimum, potential upgrade
WR - Howard stayed and the rest of a bad group left. All the ISU kids are bigger and another potential guy joining today. Probable big upgrade.
TE - 2 in, 3 out, does Olesh develop is the only thing that may sway this and change the grade but generally a plus for next year but minus long term potentially
OL - They kept a couple of the main guys, got a couple young OT and two huge OG. Still need a starter level OT couple more OL for depth but very few of our 4/5 star OL recuits have panned out recently. Another wash with a TBD to see how the new OL coach develops.
Overall I'd give the offense an upgrade just due to the WR group. Securing a legit starting LOT would make it a big +
DT - UCLA kid cancels out Gilliam, OSU kid cancels out Wafle, ISU kid cancels out Artis, at least 1 more soon to be added. Wasn't any studs in teh group to begin with so this is an upgrade.
DE - Colorado kid and Harvey cancel out but still need to pick up 2-3 more in this position. Kept some good ones of the roster but portal wise a loss so far.
LB - Losing Campbell hurts but Bacon is rated higher. Picked up two other LB who are bigger than Speca/Wylie. Probably need one more, but the trade bacon for Campbell is a win.
CB - Big minus so far. Hunter Sowell may be a CB but hes listed as safety. He's on the small side but either way he's the only one we've picked up. Definitely need a couple more.
S - the 2 ISU kids are at least as good as Lane and Mack, if not better. A little bigger and know the system. Slight upgrade.
Defense is a downgrade so far as DE/CB are a lot worse but LB/DT/S are better. Getting the right couple guys to fill out the DE/CB rooms would change the grade here.
I believe we got bigger at DT. That always seemed to be a deficiency. Hopefully those guys can clog up the middle and occupy the OL.
With Lynn coming in as DC, im not sure anybody knows the system.
Coaching and Culture. Thank goodness that is all about to change.