BobSaccamanno

Since it’s odd that only a week is left in the portal, I bet somebody like Bama, OSU or Georgia tampered with him. Now he just waits a couple of days to make it look good.

LT Smith LG Stephens C ? RG Kidwell RT Wettig

Production over potential. That’s how he sees it.

Dusty May = the next Brad Stevens. Hopefully he doesn’t get fully away the same way. Ideally he moves to a stepping stone job where we can still get him. Although it’s scary, somebody like Michigan could jump on him.

I hate using point differential. It’s fake news.

I will add that MM is really coming on and showing some consistency. Really like his mentality in a number of respects. First, he can go get buckets different ways and he thinks that way. A very versatile scorer. Second, there is an edginess to his play that I like. I always want edgy guys on my team. Third, let’s be honest, he was lost at the start of the year. For Woody to get this amount of improvement in a couple of month is great to see. It’s a credit to Woody but you have to give MM credit for his stick-to-it-ness and not packing up and going home. He’s probably heard every chalupa joke in the book but he’s escalating his game.

Great offense. To me it was about the volume of threes. It reflected good ball movement and then willingness to launch. Man, I hope we play like that the rest of the way. There may be times, e.g, down the stretch, after a timeout, start of a half, where the ball is coming down low. That’s fine. But as an offense I loved the ball movement. This was a bigger picture thing that was independent of who they played. While I’m talking about effectiveness of the offense, my confident spot is TG with the ball coming downhill and creating. In sections of games where this gets on a roll, we thrive. You guys are probably tired of hearing me say it, but let him run that and then let X go off the ball and he can get some spot up looks from 3 or else where. Love Gabe Cupps but he’s in a developmental cycle and not ready to take that on. On the negative side, Banks and Dunn are drifting into enigma status. In the portal era they can’t take anything for granted about their future. See Bates and Geronimo. Both have potential but listen to CCC about production versus potential. I thought they were turning the corner in earlier games, including at Michigan. If these guys hold their end of the bargain, you may be sitting on a win against #2 Kansas. Woody isn’t stupid. There are bench guys out there that can help you win those games. I don’t think Woody and staff make the same mistakes they made last year in spring portal action. Between high school and portal, I’m expecting 5 plus from the cavalry and I suspect Woody will make room for as many guys as he seems to think he needs the way he runs his rotations. You lose because a couple of spots in your rotation aren’t working, then he knows the solution. Having said all that, they have potential and we aren’t even in January yet. I’m pulling for them to get consistent and turn it on.

Last post of my barrage. I’m most interested to learn where we are going with our interior offensive line. Love our tackles with Smith and Wettig with Barrett developing. But we lost our 3 interior guys (LG, C, RG). Some names that come to mind are Bolticoff who we got last year from TCU; Max Longman who we got from UMass last year and had some injuries; and Bray Lynch who has been a developmental player who needs to get stronger. We’ve got some other guys like Fiacable who has been here for awhile. Something tells me Bostad is not panicking. We might start seeing more of “his guys.” And he recruited four guys this year, although you have to figure they are a year or two away at a minimum.

Our defensive recruiting is going to take time IMO. We need to get to a steady state where we have young guys fill out and then we let the next generation develop. There’s no way that wouldn’t take 2-3 years. CCC says it’s all driven up front. He’s ok playing zone on the back end. He wants twitchy guys up front and he wants the front to rush the passer, stop the run and get TFL’s. That will define the defense. Might take some patience. As these guys show recruits what can be done, I think we can land guys over time hopefully starting in 2025. But I suspect the defensive front will be a huge investment of our time going forward. Can’t happen overnight.

Regardless of rankings, we landed qb’s— the most important position in sports—that were the best we could have expected. Rourke, Cherry, Mendoza. As CCC says, Rourke understands the position and has been productive. If we keep him healthy, he can be huge for us, no matter what our rankings say.

I don’t know the answer but I’ve seen the name some other times in football, both pro and college. In any event, I didn’t get a chance to post it yet, but when I looked at JMU’s roster this guy jumped off the page as my favorite, along with a sophomore linebacker who was a tackling machine. Carpenter at DT was incredibly productive too, albeit only at 282 lbs. Bit light in the pants for a B1G down lineman but maybe he’s quick and relentless. I think CCC loves him and he will know Haines’ system.

I read somewhere that we ranked fourth in the conference in the portal and 21st nationally. Cignetti inherited the recruits from the prior staff and his JMU connections. Yes, he pulled a high recruit in Cherry but that was a special circumstance. Credit for pulling it off, though. He said in one of his availabilities that it takes two years to build relationships with a high school recruit. Wasn't realistic to change our score much from what the prior staff had committed.

I come to football first in general.

Bummer, we lost Joly, the TE from UConn, to NC State. Time for Sam West and Brody Foley to step up. Allen loved West. Called him a pleasant surprise in training camp.

I like where we are at OT with Smith, Wettig and the young Austin Barrett. But we lost our entire interior O line, Katic (NFL), Carpenter (the U) and Bedford (Oregon). Seems like we we’ve got a lot of work to do there. Maybe spring portal? There’s a second portal window in like early May. Not sure of the exact time frame but isn’t it after spring games? DT and LB are the other spots where I feel like we need guys.

Man, the staff landed a ton of edge guys in the span of two weeks! Excited to see what they can do with a full offseason of recruiting for ‘25.

I like the combination. Stress the defense by putting different players out there. Some with size, some with extra speed and some with extra quickness. A couple of years ago we had some size with Malachi and Swinton and those guys but they just were not dynamic enough and we upgraded. But if they are all tiny, that can hurt too.

I could get used to his view and office.

How is he feeling about IU and the staff if you don’t mind sharing?

Horrible story. Just diagnosed in March. Brutal disease. RIP

I wonder if that’s in reference to Jah Jah Boyd who may be a DB here.

Good for Tom. That’s a very nice job.

Very pleasant surprise!

I feel like more often than not our four stars fizzled yet guys like McFadden, who was a high 2 star/low 3 star, excelled. We could go through our list of four and five stars (Jeremy Finch from way back for those who remember) even before Allen and they have fizzled more often than not. IMO a kids’ makeup is huge especially in footballl. There are too many tough kids who will work that will blow by the kid who isn’t all in. I think the new staff will prioritize the kids’ makeup and player development. That’s part of what he’s saying when he emphasizes he doesn’t care how many stars a kid has. Sweet spot is player evaluation, getting good players, but also kids who love football, get it, and are fully committed. Looks to me off initial impressions that our assistants will be a huge upgrade. Huge.

I had heard a rumor he had left the team even before the season ended but I didn’t research it to confirm. So not sure. Just sharing the rumor.