re: Fong tweet about the transfer portal

If we pull big smooth. I’ll be speechless

Abor

I would think guys like Perkins who are developing national recognition would be less susceptible to the local NIL money. Surely his agent gets him deals with folks other than local car dealerships and plaintiff lawyers, no? If that’s the case the allure of heading somewhere else would be blunted.

quote:

---

those freshman WRs from Alabama are having second thoughts there. Their WR corps is horribly ineffective, and they're still sitting behind a bunch of sophomores and fellow freshmen. Not necessarily saying we should pursue any of them

---

I agree with your last point; we have great WRs - much better than Bama's. The ones who picked them over us need to stew in it.

Next year we have Nabors, Brian Thomas, Bech, Hilton and probably Lacey. That's a great WR position, with top end talent, experience and depth. We also have Ibieta plus an incredible freshman haul.

Bama tried to get Josh Downs at UNC last year and UNC made sure he was taken care of. He’s had a huge year too.

quote:

---

wouldn’t be surprised if Drake Maye was Alabama’s QB1 next year.

---

I've considered this too, but it's hard to see a Maye leaving UNC.

quote:

---

We will need a premier Edge rusher if Ojulari goes pro

---

I think EDGE is definitely a place we'll want to bolster our roster through the portal, but I actually don't think the loss of Ojulari+Gaye will hurt to the full extent of the pure talent lost.


It seems that Matt House's desired scheme is an odd-front with 3 down linemen and the 4th passrusher coming from different spots all over the field from down to down. This year, however, because Ojulari is such a great passrusher, we've almost been a hybrid even/odd front, with Ojulari playing standing up a lot but also largely playing the role of "designated passrusher" and thus turning what is technically an odd-front into what is effectively an even-front. Obviously we've seen Ojulari drop into coverage a little, but based on the number of simulated pressures House likes to bring, I strongly suspect that his preference would be for the guy in that spot to drop more often than he has this year.


The gist of what I'm saying is that House wants to play an odd front with the fourth pass-rusher coming from all over, but our personnel this year was better suited for an even-front, with the fourth pass-rusher generally just being Ojulari.



But next year, I think our personnel is going to be just about as well-suited to playing an odd-front as possible. We'll hopefully have Roy back at NT, with Wingo and Maason Smith on either side of him, and we'll probably see the "Ojulari spot" shift a little bit further towards doing more traditional LB things--which will allow us to get into our sim pressures and dial up pass-rush from all over the formation the way we like to do. I think the guy to step into the Ojulari spot is likely to be Sav'ion Jones, with the two ILB spots going to Perkins and Tolan/Penn. In this scenario, Jones will be the most frequent 4th passrusher, but the gap between 4th and 5th (Perkins) will likely be pretty small--much smaller than this year. I'm projecting a little bit on Jones, but if he progresses the same way he has from HS to now, then it'll be a true you-never-know-where-we're-coming-from-defense.



TL;DR - Although losing Ojulari/Gaye will likely mean that our defensive front has less "total talent" than last year, I think we should be able to make up for it by virtue of the fact that our personnel will be a better fit for House's desired playstyle. (Worth noting that even the net loss in raw talent is debatable, given that we'll get maason smith back and hopefully see progression from Perkins and Sav'ion jones).



ETA: I may be too optimistic on the odds of Roy coming back, but frick it just let me dream guys

It's an absolute mess. It'll impact all schools and the net is that there will be no loyalty and it'll suck. Imagine if every NFL player was a free agent every year. You'd never care about any players bc none would be around long enough!

The challenge is that these are kids so I'd hate to prevent them from transferring if they're truly unhappy, want to be closer to home, etc. The real problem is the tampering imo. Without that, you probably wouldn't see guys risk the portal unless they were really unhappy or vastly underpaid. Still would suck a little, but would be a lot better.

Unfortunately, the NCAA clearly has zero ability to enforce tampering. Not sure why since the NFL/NBA/MLB do it.

quote:

---

We will need a premier Edge rusher if Ojulari goes pro.


So like Perkins? Who is already better than Ojulari

---

He is better in certain situations and perkins isn't hokding up against the run.

I'm sure perkins will add some weight in the off season but the line is losing a bunch.

You need at least 2 "players" from the portal on d line.