If you are spreading your NIL money among 40+ players, you will not have big gobs to give to 1 or 2 extremely talented players. MC needs bodies this year.
'25 (in-season) - '26 CFB Portal Thread
- Thread starter Tom McAndrew
- Start date
Thank you--I don't know why some people are struggling with this concept
Every team has to spread NIL money amongst their entire roster. This is not a problem specific to PSU. If good players are leaving, that should increase the NIL available to incoming players.
I’m impressed. We didn’t even give Campbell until the Blue-White Game. Speaking of, imagine what a SH|T. SHOW. 
the Blue-White Game is going to be with all the no-talent that we have.
the Blue-White Game is going to be with all the no-talent that we have.
If you do the math for a roster and look at what the top players are being paid you would realize this isn't as simple as it seems. J. Smith would be 17% of PSU's budget if PSU had paid him 4.5 million. Top QB's are going for 3-5 million. Now do an entire roster and make it have decent depth.....this idea it's just as simple as cutting checks requires zero thought.
When you fire a head coach mid season and you are in charge of the athletic department it’s your responsibility to make sure someone on the coaching staff is in charge of trying to salvage the 2026 recruiting class. I mean why bother trying to recruit high school kids in the first place when the portal is the panacea for everything.
And not just the "coaching staff", but the entire staff within Lasch Building. That is where the ball was dropped and the building was allowed to be run by Franklin Loyalists (for lack of a better term)
Every team has the same size roster (more or less), so the only differentiator is how much $X you have to pay for that roster. PSU fans were told, by PSU ICA chief - repeatedly - about how much $ they had (that PSU's "X" was HUGE). Remember the stories about how the Adidas $ was a game changer? et al.
I don't know if anyone believed all that hype - but I am guessing (and certainly judging by the general reaction of folks on this board) that a lot of folks believed it.
"Adidas is making an unprecedented commitment to Penn State: delivering record investment in our department, groundbreaking NIL and marketing opportunities". Numbers were floated around of upwards of $20-30 million per year just from that revenue stream - much of it for "NIL" In addition to the $21 million of media rights revenue share $, not to mention the robust collective money, if all that were true, PSU had oodles of $ to spend - much, much more than just about every other program.
Read more at: https://www.centredaily.com/sports/...-football/article311970545.html#storylink=cpy
Was/is that true? If the talk was "true", PSU was in "elite" position to pay for a top notch roster.
If not?
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I gather you never played any meaningful organized sports anywhere?
If you actually read the press release...i know you are capable of that...
the key sentence if you are reading comprehension challenged
"bringing some needed versatility to offensive line coach Ryan Clanton’s room.
You do know there are like 100 guys on the team? {per question above} pray tell what does versatility mean? Its called depth its called being a teammate, its called being the guy to challenge the guy in front of you to work harder...its called culture fit. The coaches like something they see and feel can work with in their room
Hey swami how many OL guys on roster actually had any non meaningful snaps last year?? here I did it for ya 5 guys out of 15 that's 1/3 of OL rostered that's the 3 deep squad...so unless you know for sure this guy is gonna start, maybe apply some common sense on roster construction
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Do the math by position and include the depth chart including the costs and show me where 20-30 million allows you to recruit and pay that roster. Just do a 2 deep and see where you end up at. Top QB’s are now 3 million dollars plus. A Colorado OL just went to the portal and is asking 2.8 million. Please think about recruiting while doing this and the cost of 5 star prospects. Show me where the math is mathing?Every team has the same size roster (more or less), so the only differentiator is how much $X you have to pay for that roster. PSU fans were told, by PSU ICA chief - repeatedly - about how much $ they had (that PSU's "X" was HUGE). Remember the stories about how the Adidas $ was a game changer? et al.
I don't know if anyone believed all that hype - but I am guessing (and certainly judging by the general reaction of folks on this board) that a lot of folks believed it.
"Adidas is making an unprecedented commitment to Penn State: delivering record investment in our department, groundbreaking NIL and marketing opportunities". Numbers were floated around of upwards of $20-30 million per year just from that revenue stream - much of it for "NIL" In addition to the $21 million of media rights revenue share $, not to mention the robust collective money, if all that were true, PSU had oodles of $ to spend - much, much more than just about every other program.
Read more at: https://www.centredaily.com/sports/...-football/article311970545.html#storylink=cpy
Was/is that true? If the talk was "true", PSU was in "elite" position to pay for a top notch roster.
If not?
Great pickup. He played down the street from me in Newberry, Fl. Kid is uber=talented. Never understood the attraction to OSU. Miami, UF are the best spots for him.
No, thank you. But knock yourself out.
Completely irrelevant to the issue of "competitive position" of PSU vs her peers/competitors ($ available vs competitors $) - which was the issue at hand, and the determinative item.
(FWIW: Would be nice to either stick to strawmen or goalpost-moving - but I suppose one can multi-task )
Either PSU was/is in great "national championship" level positioning to acquire roster, or PSU fans have been regularly misled/gullible. Pick your pony (or just ride a strawman, IDC)
Completely irrelevant to the issue of "competitive position" of PSU vs her peers/competitors ($ available vs competitors $) - which was the issue at hand, and the determinative item.
(FWIW: Would be nice to either stick to strawmen or goalpost-moving - but I suppose one can multi-task
)Either PSU was/is in great "national championship" level positioning to acquire roster, or PSU fans have been regularly misled/gullible. Pick your pony (or just ride a strawman, IDC)
Exactly right. What the whiner crowd misses is: 1. Campbell wants a quick install and he has his WR 1 in Chase Sowell, so he will prioritize kids with the capacity to play right away but also have a lot of upside left. For example, the kid from Grambling is 6'4' , can get down the field in a hurry, and has excellent hands. He needs to work on more precise route running and more economical movement but that is why you have Pauley on the staff. 2. Campbell will avoid any divas coming in, especially when he is setting the ground floor of his culture. And 3. He was very, very clear from the jump that just "because he has 30m does not obligate him to spend it." He recruits a certain player for his system.
He was not recruited by both pro and college programs for year because he does not know what he wants and how to operate. That is also why GM is operating the way he is, He is in lockstep with Campbell. Kraft has zero to do with this. If he interferes he risks losing Campbell and there will be suitors lining up around the block for him.
So, I think there is a solid middle ground between we are doing great in the portal vs doom & gloom. It looks like we have constructed a plausible competitive roster between the retained talent and what has been brought in (mostly from Iowa St). We were already losing a bunch of talent/starting minutes to graduation so to some extent 2026 was going to be a rebuild even under the best circumstances (i.e. even if the 2025 team was actually good)
What we've lost to the portal has tended to be more depth and potential than sure fire starting stars. I would have liked to have seen some more players return rather than leave - and I suppose there are some pending still out there that may opt to return - just for the purposes of depth if nothing else and having more to choose from in an open competition in the spring/summer. Especially when I see guys leaving to go to non-P4 programs, I wonder if they were asked to leave or if the playing time was the main factor because they probably aren't cashing in a big payday. Yes, the flipside is if they are leaving for a non-P4 program, are they all that good.
I'm dismayed that we haven't pulled in a few bigger names from the portal with the alleged amount of money we have to offer. Some of the ISU guys are definitely in that range and great additions. But I thought we'd get at least a few of the top names in the portal from other P4 programs by dangling some cash. Not following close enough to see who is out there but hopefully we'll still draw some this week.
My other concern is a lack of bodies. Between the small recruiting class and the exodus to graduation and the portal, the roster still needs to be filled. I hope that we can still get some depth players this week too (not necessarily high end guys) because aren't we only around 80-85 players right now? We don't necessarily need 105 but you need 95-100 at least so that seems like a good bit to go.
What we've lost to the portal has tended to be more depth and potential than sure fire starting stars. I would have liked to have seen some more players return rather than leave - and I suppose there are some pending still out there that may opt to return - just for the purposes of depth if nothing else and having more to choose from in an open competition in the spring/summer. Especially when I see guys leaving to go to non-P4 programs, I wonder if they were asked to leave or if the playing time was the main factor because they probably aren't cashing in a big payday. Yes, the flipside is if they are leaving for a non-P4 program, are they all that good.
I'm dismayed that we haven't pulled in a few bigger names from the portal with the alleged amount of money we have to offer. Some of the ISU guys are definitely in that range and great additions. But I thought we'd get at least a few of the top names in the portal from other P4 programs by dangling some cash. Not following close enough to see who is out there but hopefully we'll still draw some this week.
My other concern is a lack of bodies. Between the small recruiting class and the exodus to graduation and the portal, the roster still needs to be filled. I hope that we can still get some depth players this week too (not necessarily high end guys) because aren't we only around 80-85 players right now? We don't necessarily need 105 but you need 95-100 at least so that seems like a good bit to go.
$30 million NIL divided by 105 scholarship players is an average of $285,714 per player. If you blow 5 million apiece on a handful of players, what's left to go around?
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The portion of this board that doesn't understand NIL and the use of GM are making some of these threads unreadable.
Please go educate yourself. Just ask ChatGPT to explain it.
Please go educate yourself. Just ask ChatGPT to explain it.
Don’t all the players also get a certain amount directly from the school? Or have I misunderstood that? I honestly do a pretty bad job of keeping track of all this stuff.
Well for all we know this kid will run through walls just to put on the blue and white. DII guys are like that, getting the shot they didn't get a few years back ---he's older more mature than a Highschooler so under that assumption alone I would take some guys like that on my team in a heartbeat
I mean BGJ had some success from the Lackawanna group [and they were JUCO].. guess the OP forgot we did that or maybe didnt even know we did that .. 2 are starters in the pros... who woulda thunk from a lowly JUCO program??
so I wouldn't put it past MC and company to already have a list of D2 targets they are watching
I know why you won’t as that math doesn’t add up.No, thank you. But knock yourself out.
Completely irrelevant to the issue of "competitive position" of PSU vs her peers/competitors ($ available vs competitors $) - which was the issue at hand, and the determinative item.
(FWIW: Would be nice to either stick to strawmen or goalpost-moving - but I suppose one can multi-task
Either PSU was/is in great "national championship" level positioning to acquire roster, or PSU fans have been regularly misled/gullible. Pick your pony (or just ride a strawman, IDC)
You need depth, funny how guys on here cry about not having stars, but get 50 5 stars and then they all cant play and then the locker room becomes a disaster like last year.
Precisely. They had to know that Franklin would try to persuade verbal commits to switch to VaTech which was clearly within his rights after being fired.
I agree with your comment about there being a middle ground and waiting to see how it pans out but Coleman, Grunk and Reynolds for example are hardly mere depth pieces
The House settlement provides that athletic departments can distribute as much as $20.5 million (for the 2025-26 academic year, to increase in subsequent years) to players in the form of "revenue sharing." IIRC, Power 4 teams are required to distribute the maximum. This is separate and apart from NIL. The monies are to be provided to all athletes, not just football players. Is it taking place, in what form, when? Beats me.
It is SOOOO unfair that PSU is the only program that has to deal with this situation.
Something needs to be done about that. Maybe call the US Congress?
There is a difference between Franklin trying to flip recruits and (non-coaching) recruiting staff still on the Penn State payroll not only directing them to VPI, but counseling them to decommit from PSU outright. How does a coaching staff control that? Guess they could have been fired, though not sure that helps.
No Terry failed...Campbell salvaged the class as a whole not Franklin's kids
Started this most recent year.
Most schools, with P4 level football programs, are allocating around 80% of the total $ to football. (Many of whom have made that information public. PSU, of course, does not make the info public. I would assume that when the EADA federal reports are issued for 2025-26 fiscal year.... in January-ish of 2027, one will be able to back out those figures, even for PSU)
Generally, of those that have made the info public - which includes a lot of the blue-bloods - it is 80% or so to football, 10% or so to men's basketball, and the rest in drips and drabs to the minor sports (almost always including women's basketball -Why? God only knows.... that is rhetorical, we do know) as they see fit.
Well, obviously, there are many steps the coaching staff could take to mitigate that..... though at PSU, for many reasons, that may not have effectively happened. But in broad terms that is more of an issue that would fall under the purview/responsibilities of the AD.
For example, on the issue you cited of clearing out (firing) those loyalist staffers: That would obviously require the AD to intervene.
In the middle of the season? Maybe Kraft could have done something (a contingency plan, who knows?), Smith and company less. Was anyone to anticipate that level of outright sabotage, if that's what happened?
Cona
Considering every kid we’ve brought outside of Iowa State players seems like this. Again where’s all the money? If you heard Pat Krafts locker room speech schools like Georgia are only paying 60 kids on the team.