quote:
Then he shouldn’t have said anything at all. No one forced him to say that. He should know that saying something like that is going to grab people’s attention. I don’t understand why some of y’all can’t just admit that it was a dumb thing to say.

Oh, shut the frick up. Are you like all the other sheep who just read that one sentence, but have zero context for it because you didn't listen to the complete answer? Or the entire interview? He made some really good points about locker room chemistry and what would it say to his bookend OTs who have been in the program developing, doing all the right things, will be going into their 3rd seasons of starting and being the pillars of the offensive line if not the entire offense. What does he tell Will Campbell, who a publication has as the #1 prospect for next year's draft if they brought in an above average DT from a much lesser conference and paid him twice as much as Will?

And BK clearly wasn't meaning we are not using NIL, that we're not paying guys at all. They're just not going to be stupid with it, and that will just be a piece of what they use to try to sell recruits to come to LSU. Do you want to come to LSU, get coached by the best coaches in America with incredible track records of developing guys into NFL players and high draft picks, have access to world-class facilities, strength and conditioning and nutrition programs, be part of a winning culture that puts on onus on developing players into leaders and good men who will make better husbands, fathers, and professionals in whatever field they want to pursue after football, do you want to compete for SEC and National Championships AND have a nice guaranteed NIL deal with an opportunity for more? No? Money is the deciding, if not ONLY factor? Then good luck to you.

LSU is using NIL--Moscona said they offered Barrow the exact amount Campbell is getting, and he's getting more than anybody on the team right now, something in the healthy 6 figures--it's just using it as a piece of a bigger selling point package. When he said "We're not buying players," he meant he wasn't interested in guys that didn't care about that other stuff, where money was the ONLY thing they were interested in. He doesn't think that's a good way to build a championship team or a championship program.

Those are not the guys he thinks he needs to build and sustain a championship program. And that was his goal when he came here. Not to sell his soul to try to win a NC in any one particular year for any 1 particular player at the sacrifice of team chemistry and the culture he's built and wants to maintain. He's about the process. If he builds the program of his vision, we'll be consistently in the playoff hunt, and if you're in the hunt every year, the stars will eventually align and you'll win an NC or 2 or 3.

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Posted by Hot Carl

Prayers up for 3

Member since Dec 2005

59504 posts

Posted on 5/9/24 at 12:39 pm to Hot Carl

Paying $1.5 million to a pretty good DT for 1 year, where he's making twice as much as the best player on the team who committed to the program out of high school and has done everything right and big a huge part of helping build the championship culture BK has worked so hard to foster, paying him more than almost every coach on the staff, for just 1 year, is extremely short-sighted and not in the long-term best interest of the LSU football program.

If he was Suh in his prime that would be 1 thing. Or Dorsey or Sapp. Or an All-American QB projected to be a top 5 NFL Draft pick. But paying a pretty good DT who nobody had ever heard of until a month ago, who is only so highly sought after because of the timing of his entrance into the portal and the low supply and high demand of players at that position shooting his leverage up based much more on the spring market than his actual talent and the likely production he will provide will, in BK's opinion, be a net negative for not just the '24 team, but the future teams as well. That is not the precedent he thinks will be healthy to set to continue to build and maintain the culture he wants. He thinks it will turn into a bunch of "What about me"s?

He may be wrong, but his opinion is based on his expert and unique knowledge--he's the only one that is in the position with the perspective to asses this--of how he thinks such a move would affect his current group of players and coaches and the quality of players he's currently and will continue to recruit. But again, he absolutely did not say we would not pay players. We absolutely will. And we will pay consistent to what the market bears.

But only to a point. At some point, if we're offering a guy say $500K but he's not interested in all the other things playing at LSU brings--if he wants to to Miami with a terrible fanbase, with inferior facilities, inferior coaching, a HUGELY inferior home game experience, not playing against the best players and teams in the country--if he ONLY cares about money and there's a school or 2 so desperate to offer him significantly more than his talent and production warrant--then he's not the kind of player we want at LSU.

At some point, the juice isn't worth the squeeze. I mean, I understand our DT position right now. It ain't great. But does anybody actually believe Barrow or any of the other available DTs are, by themselves, the difference between us winning the NC in '24 and not making the playoffs? I don't. I may be wrong. BK doesn't. He may be wrong too. But he's got to think of both the short and long term health of the program. Great "teams" are better than the sum of their parts.

Adding Barrow would make our parts a little better no doubt. But having to give him $1.5 million to BUY him, may make the sum of those parts worse than they'd be without him due to what that could do to the chemistry of the team. Or maybe not. He may an amazing guy that everybody in the locker room embraces and nobody is envious and it doesn't cause a chain reaction of "What about me"s. But what are the chances 80+ 18-21-year-olds are all mature and selfless enough to think like that? Apparently that's not a chance BK is willing to take for the 2024 LSU team. And it's not a chance that he's willing to take for future LSU teams, thinking that setting this precedent could potentially negatively affect them as well.

Could Kelly be wrong? Sure. But he saw what happened with Harris and Chestnut last year and is erring on the side of caution. And I'd much rather have this decision being made by an experienced, wise, long-term thinking, non-impulsive, non-desperate man with a long-term vision rather than a guy like Kiffin or whoever's making the decisions at Miami. And nothing against either one of them. Their schools are in a much different place currently and historically (recent history) than LSU and are in a position where they have to take more chances.

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