CFP Thread

[utee94]

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

Eh.  If Indiana or other Indiana-like teams start winning NCs regularly, then this might be a valid point.

For now, it's a sample size of 1.

And other teams are already de-emphasizing high school recruiting and doing more work in the portal.  Ultimately there are only gonna be so many portal players that are both a desirable upgrade, and willing to leave their current team.  Much of the enticement to leave, will  be financial, so there's every reason to believe that the schools with the most resources, are going to fare the best in the NIL/portal free agency era.

[MarqHusker]

There will always be a New York Mets of College football.

[FearlessF]

Eh.  If Indiana or other Indiana-like teams start winning NCs regularly, then this might be a valid point.

For now, it's a sample size of 1.

And other teams are already de-emphasizing high school recruiting and doing more work in the portal.  Ultimately there are only gonna be so many portal players that are both a desirable upgrade, and willing to leave their current team.  Much of the enticement to leave, will  be financial, so there's every reason to believe that the schools with the most resources, are going to fare the best in the NIL/portal free agency era.

yes, I believe the schools with the most Mark Cubans are going to fare well

I've ALWAYS believed the schools with the best coaches are going to fare the best in any era.

[ELA]

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.

I think there is something to do that.  Because it wasn't just Indiana going from doormat to NC, a lot of people thought Miami didn't deserve to get in, and then they had the ball with a chance to win the whole thing.

I don't think you see the #10 team making that run in the past.  Even when MSU or TCU or whoever got into the 4 team tournament, they got blasted, because the top 2-3 teams were at a whole other level.  I don't think that's the case anymore.  That talent is more distributed.

[betarhoalphadelta]

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

In logic, there is the concept of "necessary and sufficient conditions". 

One might say that great coaching is necessary to win a national championship, but what I think we've seen over time is that it's not sufficient. Talent matters. In the pre-NIL era, recruiting determined talent. In the NIL era, IMHO payroll determines talent. 

Cignetti was never going to win an NC at JMU. He wouldn't stand a chance pre-NIL at IU either. He probably wouldn't have at IU without a $20M+ payroll to work with. It's remarkable that he did it with smaller payrolls than the blue bloods. 

• Coaching: necessary but not sufficient, because if you don't have the payroll you don't have the talent
• Payroll: necessary but not sufficient, because a poorly coached talented team won't beat a well-coached talented team (of which there are many)
• Coaching + payroll: necessary and sufficient (plus luck obv)

That's my opinion, anyway. 

[utee94]

In logic, there is the concept of "necessary and sufficient conditions".

One might say that great coaching is necessary to win a national championship, but what I think we've seen over time is that it's not sufficient. Talent matters. In the pre-NIL era, recruiting determined talent. In the NIL era, IMHO payroll determines talent.

Cignetti was never going to win an NC at JMU. He wouldn't stand a chance pre-NIL at IU either. He probably wouldn't have at IU without a $20M+ payroll to work with. It's remarkable that he did it with smaller payrolls than the blue bloods.

• Coaching: necessary but not sufficient, because if you don't have the payroll you don't have the talent
• Payroll: necessary but not sufficient, because a poorly coached talented team won't beat a well-coached talented team (of which there are many)
• Coaching + payroll: necessary and sufficient (plus luck obv)

That's my opinion, anyway.

Yup, that's about the size of it.

[bayareabadger]

Eh.  If Indiana or other Indiana-like teams start winning NCs regularly, then this might be a valid point.

For now, it's a sample size of 1.

And other teams are already de-emphasizing high school recruiting and doing more work in the portal.  Ultimately there are only gonna be so many portal players that are both a desirable upgrade, and willing to leave their current team.  Much of the enticement to leave, will  be financial, so there's every reason to believe that the schools with the most resources, are going to fare the best in the NIL/portal free agency era.

All you have to do is take other team’s OK players and turn them into studs, and go in the portal and pick only the guys who transition up excellently, and you can do this too!


Easy as pie!

[FearlessF]

Yup, that's about the size of it.

he said it with a whole lot more typing and bigger words than I

[medinabuckeye1]

In logic, there is the concept of "necessary and sufficient conditions".

One might say that great coaching is necessary to win a national championship, but what I think we've seen over time is that it's not sufficient. Talent matters. In the pre-NIL era, recruiting determined talent. In the NIL era, IMHO payroll determines talent.

Cignetti was never going to win an NC at JMU. He wouldn't stand a chance pre-NIL at IU either. He probably wouldn't have at IU without a $20M+ payroll to work with. It's remarkable that he did it with smaller payrolls than the blue bloods.

• Coaching: necessary but not sufficient, because if you don't have the payroll you don't have the talent
• Payroll: necessary but not sufficient, because a poorly coached talented team won't beat a well-coached talented team (of which there are many)
• Coaching + payroll: necessary and sufficient (plus luck obv)

That's my opinion, anyway.

I used to race small sailboats.  We had a guy who was very good at it who came and taught us things that helped us.  Someone asked him about the importance of a fast boat (it is like golf, there is a never-ending opportunity to buy additional gear to make your boat faster).  His answer was that you didn't need the fastest boat on the lake to win but you weren't going to win with the slowest.  

That is how I've thought of CFB for a long time.  Talent = Boat.  Skipper and crew = coaching.  A fast boat with a skipper and crew who are clueless isn't going to win but neither is a slow boat with the best skipper and crew on the lake.  The winner isn't always the fastest boat nor the best skipper/crew but it IS always at least a reasonably fast boat with at least a reasonably good skipper and crew.  

I think we are all fairly confident that Indiana didn't have the highest NIL payroll so they didn't have the "fastest boat" but they were in the ballpark.  

[MrNubbz]

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

Might have something to do with their luck.Solid players across the board that were coached up,fundamentally sound, eliminated mistakes and penalties. In short opponents had to play mistake free in order to win and Miami has NEVER been a disciplined program

[FearlessF]

most interesting to me is the talent/recruiting star ranking mold that Cignetti broke

all of the past MNC teams for what the last 10-15 seasons all had an average star ranking that included many 5 stars, a bunch of 4 stars and some 3 stars sprinkled in over a 4 or 5 year span.

IMO, that's what the portal changed.  The 3 stars that rise to the top and the 5 stars that sink over a 1 to 3 season period mess up the high school recruiting importance

[medinabuckeye1]

This seems about right.  I will say that it feels like 2-6 you could make a reasonable argument for any of them in any of those slots.  I think that TxTech, BYU, and Utah are a tad overrated given how bad the B12 looked in the CFP but it probably isn't wise to lean too much on that singular result.  

I would have dropped ND about 10 spots for their tantrum but that is just me.  

[medinabuckeye1]

most interesting to me is the talent/recruiting star ranking mold that Cignetti broke

all of the past MNC teams for what the last 10-15 seasons all had an average star ranking that included many 5 stars, a bunch of 4 stars and some 3 stars sprinkled in over a 4 or 5 year span.

IMO, that's what the portal changed.  The 3 stars that rise to the top and the 5 stars that sink over a 1 to 3 season period mess up the high school recruiting importance

Yep.  

Stars matter a lot when you are recruiting 17-18 year old HS Seniors who are going to play for you for 4-5 years.  There were always 5* busts and 3* All Americans but on average a team with more 5* was better than a team with less 5*.  

Now that you can cherry pick AFTER 2-3 years in college the original stars are irrelevant.  You need to pick based on who actually produced.  

[Gigem]

Serious thought....now that a lot of college players will be moving through 2-3 programs in their college career, and position coaches are also rotating through different programs constantly I wonder if they aren't better coached simply from being with 2-5 different position coaches through their journey?  We already are seeing that not only do good DC and OC only stay 1-3 years Max, but QB coaches, O-Line coaches, secondary coaches etc rotate in/out constantly.  A&M is almost completely turning over our staff this past season (new OC, new DC, new DLine, and I have no idea what else).  So even if a players stays at the same school 3 years, the chances of him having the same position coach, same O or D coach, and same head coach are somewhat low.