CFP Thread

[Honestbuckeye]

we agree because this is not what I'm saying
I'm saying it took the combination of Cignetti and Cuban to pull this off.
Cignetti gets most of the credit, but this doesn't happen w/o Cuban

The part that a lot of people are ignoring is the ”HOW” of spending this money.  

Indiana was very unique and their approach of how to spend their money. What we are also learning is that there are enormous strategic differences in how even the Blue Bloods are approaching NIL money spending.  


And it is evolving rapidly.   It is becoming increasingly difficult for teams to compensate younger players who have great potential, but have not produced yet. Some schools figure that out earlier than others   

[FearlessF]

as we all know, a little luck also helps..........

finding a hypesman winner at Cal that doesn't brake the bank is good scouting but also a wee bit lucky

[medinabuckeye1]

The part that a lot of people are ignoring is the ”HOW” of spending this money. 

Indiana was very unique and their approach of how to spend their money. What we are also learning is that there are enormous strategic differences in how even the Blue Bloods are approaching NIL money spending. 


And it is evolving rapidly.  It is becoming increasingly difficult for teams to compensate younger players who have great potential, but have not produced yet. Some schools figure that out earlier than others 

Good points.  

No matter how much NIL you have it is still a finite amount and spending on potential just doesn't make much sense when there isn't anything to prevent that high potential youngster from just leaving once he hits his potential.  

I think this is a disservice to the athletes because as this evolves I think that nobody is going to want to develop players.  In the NFL you can pay for potential because you can lock a guy down to say a 5-year contract and while you might be overpaying based on potential in years 1-3 you might get an absolute steal in years 4-5.  In CFB we are now effectively dealing with mercenaries so the most effective strategy is probably to be brutally ruthless, ignore stars and potential and just sign a massive crop of free agents each year.  Some of those guys are going to be former 5* guys but if you steal a former 2* OLine who is now a very good Senior from a school like what Wisconsin used to be that works too.  You pay them for their one year of greatness and let the Wisconsins of the world spend their time developing them.  Do the same thing with QBs.  Why not?  The last two NC QBs were transfers where some other school dealt with the growing pains before the eventual NC school grabbed them when they were good enough to win an NC.  

[medinabuckeye1]

as we all know, a little luck also helps..........

finding a hypesman winner at Cal that doesn't brake the bank is good scouting but also a wee bit lucky

I was going to make exactly this point.  

Luck has always been a factor and it is here too.  Some guys are better at spotting diamonds in the rough than others but nobody is perfect.  There simply is going to be a high degree of variation because sometimes you are going to miss.  When it is a position like QB where you are only playing one of them it is going to be glaringly obvious when it happens but it will happen elsewhere too:

You might decide you need say six OLine that you think are starter quality with the theory being that you can miss on one and still have 5 but . . .  There will be some years where you miss on two or miss on two then one gets injured.  Other years you might hit on all six but that doesn't really help you all that much because you are only playing five.  Having the right mix of hits and misses and injuries is huge and that is almost entirely luck.  

[FearlessF]

it's noteworthy that the Hoosiers had an older roster than average

[betarhoalphadelta]

Remember how many of us, especially me, decried the NIL because it benefitted the status quo more so than ever, and we believed that now, more than ever, the blue bloods would prevail? Well, it's not so.

No, I think it's still true. 

The more I think about this, it's similar to the two posts above from @Honestbuckeye and @medinabuckeye1 -- it's not that money doesn't factor, it's that strategies are completely new and developing. 

I suspect this will be seen similarly to the "Moneyball" era of the Oakland A's. In that, the team identified an inefficiency in the way things were done. They exploited that inefficiency, and they were successful... For about a year. And then everyone else recognized the inefficiency and adjusted, and suddenly the bigger market teams with more money started beating the A's again. 

Everyone's trying to figure out how to win in the NIL era. Indiana basically found an inefficiency--when everyone else was chasing crootin' STARZ and potential with their NIL dollars, they were chasing proven on the field production. 

Once the blue bloods study what Indiana did and then apply their much larger war chests and resources to doing the same, they'll start doing it better than Indiana did. They probably can't replicate finding a Cignetti, of course, but IMHO neither can Indiana. He's not going to be there forever. 

[medinabuckeye1]

No, I think it's still true.

The more I think about this, it's similar to the two posts above from @Honestbuckeye and @medinabuckeye1 -- it's not that money doesn't factor, it's that strategies are completely new and developing.

I suspect this will be seen similarly to the "Moneyball" era of the Oakland A's. In that, the team identified an inefficiency in the way things were done. They exploited that inefficiency, and they were successful... For about a year. And then everyone else recognized the inefficiency and adjusted, and suddenly the bigger market teams with more money started beating the A's again.

Everyone's trying to figure out how to win in the NIL era. Indiana basically found an inefficiency--when everyone else was chasing crootin' STARZ and potential with their NIL dollars, they were chasing proven on the field production.

Once the blue bloods study what Indiana did and then apply their much larger war chests and resources to doing the same, they'll start doing it better than Indiana did. They probably can't replicate finding a Cignetti, of course, but IMHO neither can Indiana. He's not going to be there forever.

I don't want this to sound like I'm raining on IU's parade but even if the other schools never did adjust and, as you put it "study what Indiana did and then apply their much larger war chests and resources to doing the same" could Indiana replicate this anyway?  I'm not saying they'd immediately fall back to being a doormat but I am saying that I don't think they'd do this 10 years straight.  Even without the blue bloods doing it as well, I think that in 10 years IU would have something like 1-2 NC's, 2-3 NC Contenders, 2-3 seasons like last year where they were good but not really on the level of the top teams, 2-3 decent but non CFP teams, and 2-3 off years.  

That is just the luck factor.  Some years your transfer QB just isn't going to be all that good.  Some years instead of having randomized injuries here and there you will have a run of injuries at one position that will leave you VERY weak at that position.  Some years you'll have a bunch of guys that just don't quite fit together, etc.  

[betarhoalphadelta]

I don't want this to sound like I'm raining on IU's parade but even if the other schools never did adjust and, as you put it "study what Indiana did and then apply their much larger war chests and resources to doing the same" could Indiana replicate this anyway?  I'm not saying they'd immediately fall back to being a doormat but I am saying that I don't think they'd do this 10 years straight.  Even without the blue bloods doing it as well, I think that in 10 years IU would have something like 1-2 NC's, 2-3 NC Contenders, 2-3 seasons like last year where they were good but not really on the level of the top teams, 2-3 decent but non CFP teams, and 2-3 off years. 

That is just the luck factor.  Some years your transfer QB just isn't going to be all that good.  Some years instead of having randomized injuries here and there you will have a run of injuries at one position that will leave you VERY weak at that position.  Some years you'll have a bunch of guys that just don't quite fit together, etc. 

Oh, I'm not saying that Indiana can just win NCs every year. Out of their 16 games, 4 were one-score differences. A few unlucky bounces occur and we're not talking about IU's historic NC at all this morning. 

What we saw previously in CFB was that traditional "doormat" programs could raise themselves for a time with the right coaching hires and running a good program. Think Purdue under Tiller (and possibly under Brohm), MSU under Dantonio, TTU under Leach, etc. 

But they were always limited by recruiting. They simply could NOT compete in living rooms like Notre Dame, Michigan, or Texas. With NIL, they can. But it seems Indiana competed by doing something different than the helmets (how they identified/attracted portal guys), not that they simply outspent them. 

The helmets can adjust and start doing what IU did. They're going to learn from this. And then they can do it with more money. And that means instead of ignoring the sorts of guys Indiana was trying to pull in, they can outbid Indiana. Unless Indiana can leverage this into a bigger war chest, I think ultimately they're going to fall behind. I don't think they found some magic sword that ONLY Indiana is capable of wielding. 

[MrNubbz]

On the Buckeye Board one poster said:

So the Big Ten has won 3 straight National Titles.Kids down south are like - "Paw,what's going on up North?"

[FearlessF]

[FearlessF]

No, I think it's still true.

The more I think about this, it's similar to the two posts above from @Honestbuckeye and @medinabuckeye1 -- it's not that money doesn't factor, it's that strategies are completely new and developing.

I suspect this will be seen similarly to the "Moneyball" era of the Oakland A's. In that, the team identified an inefficiency in the way things were done. They exploited that inefficiency, and they were successful... For about a year. And then everyone else recognized the inefficiency and adjusted, and suddenly the bigger market teams with more money started beating the A's again.

Everyone's trying to figure out how to win in the NIL era. Indiana basically found an inefficiency--when everyone else was chasing crootin' STARZ and potential with their NIL dollars, they were chasing proven on the field production.

Once the blue bloods study what Indiana did and then apply their much larger war chests and resources to doing the same, they'll start doing it better than Indiana did. They probably can't replicate finding a Cignetti, of course, but IMHO neither can Indiana. He's not going to be there forever.

finding a Cignetti is the far biggest factor in all of this

it's the coach - always has been

any team can find one - the Blue Bloods spend more time and money to find one and keep one

interesting to me if Cignetti will stay at Indiana for some time

[Gigem]

https://twitter.com/Justin_Albers/status/2013482441273442747?s=20

[Gigem]

https://twitter.com/dennisdoddcbs/status/2013633268768297320?s=20

[FearlessF]

https://twitter.com/Justin_Albers/status/2013482441273442747?s=20

yup, my brother thought a wasted timeout
I said, "a timeout is not wasted if the play following the timeout is a good one"