They can sustain, but NIL will remove any sort of competitive advantage they might have long term. Once all your big programs figure out their strategy, players will be well compensated across a majority of P5 schools and that’s no longer a variable they can over drive to steer players their way. Perhaps that’s why they have been so generous this cycle. They know the window is closing.
But the portal allows players to take those risks with limited consequences. He can bounce to a P5 school if Deion leaves or he's not happy with his NIL opportunities. Guessing he was compensated pretty well for today's decision. I assume the same will be true in 1-2 years when he hits the open market again.
Ketch is a miserable piece of shit, but I have no idea how anyone can expect him to sit on news related to QE. From what I gather, our own players and commits have been doing the same. Are they also pieces of shit? It’s going to be the most high profile portal decision from this year, so the idea that you could keep things a secret in the era of social media seems like a major reach. The better question is why anyone in the world would pay that fucker a single cent for his “services”.
I haven’t followed his recruitment closely, but looks like he’s an Athlete that can project to either side of the ball. Rivals actually lists him as a WR: https://247sports.com/player/xavion-brice-46098247/ Pulling in the visit because they have something planned for Thursday is also possible. That said, it would be pretty unprecedented to have any sort of press conference or event related to a player transferring in.
I think we are meant to infer that they pulled in their visit because they have closure on a major selling point that a WR would care about. You know, something like “we have a kid with generational arm talent and a bitching hair cut joining the program”. You wouldn’t meet sooner with him if that selling point were still hanging in the balance. Or that’s what I think we’re supposed to piece together.
I don't think it's as nefarious as folks are suggesting. Think of this as Tech looking around corners here. The possibility, if not probability, that Ewers might portal has always been on the table. If they came together and said "if this kid does decide to bolt, we should go all in for him and here's what I think it should look like", then that's totally fine. All they are doing there is trying to plan for success.
I'd expect Sark and UT to do the same, but would not be surprised in the least to learn that they did not.
Really feels like we could spend some time brainstorming alternative wagering stakes around here. You know, maybe come up with something that doesn’t end with a fist in the ass? Just a thought.
Well of course it's the students. The sort of ravenous crowd you were looking for doesn't appear 6 games in under a new coach. Most traditions tend to start small and gather momentum as they get passed from one generation to the next. The sort of fandom you crave is a learned behavior that is passed down over the years by either parents or by upperclassmen to underclassmen. Really you need a combo of both to reach the level of Duke/UNC fandom. We have a minuscule number of true "dyed in the wool" Texas basketball fans on the planet, and it's going to take a decades long run of sustained high level play to increase those numbers to the point where they live up to what you're looking for. If Beard sticks with this as an annual tradition, I can definitely see it turning into something special. It just needs to get incrementally bigger and better each year.
I know you know this, but it's been 13 years since we've even been to a Sweet Sixteen. The current freshman class was 5 years old then. They have only ever known a Texas basketball program that has vacillated between below average to slightly above average with a mean value of meh. I think Beard is absolutely up to the task of changing the culture, but he's going to have to work this hard for years to realize the full potential of what's possible.