7.415. Waiver Wednesday

What are they waiting for? That’s the question I had when I first started looking into the saga of the College Transfer Portal for Football players. I became interested in the portal because of how Prime used it to develop a team when he first moved to become the coach of power (4) Colorado. He continues to use it to refine that team and to gather talent that has already been vetted as opposed to trusting the high school recruitment process as the main pipeline for talent. This has caused a ton of pushback from traditionalists who believe his approach is both foolish and short-sighted. I’m not here to argue that approach yet (that’s an entirely different blog post). Instead I grew more and more interested because I have a son starting D1 FCS play in the fall and has interest in eventually mocing to a power 4. I want to understand how it works.

Prime argues you shouldn’t hop in the portal until you already have a landing spot. That is why I am wondering why so many players are still in the portal. They haven’t decided on where to land? They haven’t found the right or better offer? There are six to seven days left to decide, depending on whether or not you are a graduate transfer. I still see players jumping in every day.

A later post will cover the ins and outs of this process and whether Prime is ultimately on to something (call it the Red Shirt revolution). For now I am just excited to see where all these players land, and how Prime himself salvages the lost of his starting RB (no need to discuss the CB. we know what happened there) and half the RB room.

Some Sporting Thoughts:

  1. Draft tomorrow. I’ll blog about it, but I do need to explain one thing: The pundits are generally wrong. They do get some solid tips, but with how much they themselves invest in the idea of these often terrible QBs being first rounders IN SPITE of questionable talent, they cannot be trusted.
  2. That being said, the G-Men better not draft Drake Maye. Don’t make the same mistake twice!

7.414.

Tomorrow I’ll talk football again, ahead of the draft. That talk may linger over the next few days, because there is much to talk about as of late in regards to that sport in particular. Tonight is really more about me just reflecting on the semester and how much time I have spent over the past year trying to figure out what I need to do in order to rekindle that flame for teaching. I love what I do, don’t get me wrong, but it felt like this was a low semester for me. I don’t want to blame the students, because I come into this with the expectation that nobody wants to be there. This time however, I felt like I wasn’t able to meet enough people where they were at or, honestly, provide content above and beyond expectations.

I taught enough to do the job and to get them through. I didn’t change minds or shape lives or turn lights on. I wasn’t that guy because I wasn’t feeling that guy within. I am the best when I am on top of my game and super excited about what is happening in the space, be it virtual or face to face. I didn’t feel that this year and I know it showed.

I know I need to get better and show it moving forward, or I will start to accept being ‘just ok’ as okay.