HS recruits vs portal recruits

The big issue here is the magnitude of our rebuild. We need players who are ready immediately to step on the field. Many HS prospects, especially linemen, need time to condition or learn the college game. This is why we need a lot of portal players this year.

I do like the idea of gathering portal transfers with at least 2 years left.

The linemen are the hardest to evaluate coming out of high school. Very hard to evaluate the motivations of big guys in the trenches, (especially oline) at a high school level vs other positions.

Plus Lots of kids will hit growth spurts, put on good weight, needed more time to develop, etc... and overplay their star rating. Its a positive those guys can move up to better competition levels and so on...

Look @ all the very highly rated Interior Dlinemen that LSU has recruited over the years who didn't pan out. Legends like Trevonte Valentine ring a bell!

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HS recruits can be hit and miss, many projects never pan out, whereas portal guys have already stepped up and been evaluated at the next level. The bitching about “lesser university recruits” is pathetic when there are so many holes to fill. I’m sure there are pros and cons on each side, but pulling guys that will contribute is far better than a complete miss on a high school recruit.

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Maybe for short-term fixes like we need for next season, but this is an incredibly over-simplified view. When you bring in this many players from other programs, the struggle is going to be to build a program culture and integrate them into it. Again, it’s necessary for next season with our numbers, but you act like there’s no downside.

The argument FOR HS kids is that you can bring them in and train them in your system from day one. Teach them your program’s habits and culture. Get them into the system, and if you have one that works, use it to develop them from the ground up. That’s typically going to be a little more difficult for guys coming from other programs.

If you only take a few guys from the portal who fill key roles for you each year, then this isn’t a big deal. When a program has an established culture that everyone has bought into, then it’s likely that any veteran newcomers will do the same. That’s a bigger challenge if you have more guys who have spent 1-3 years in other programs doing things differently. I wouldn’t be surprised if schools that start leaning heavily on the portal (half of a class or more) eventually struggle with this and occasionally end up with some locker room chaos because of it.

As in all things, finding the right balance is key.

Portal players won't leave at the drop of a hat since they've used their free transfer. That's a big pro.

You can't build a roster out of portal transfers. You can plug holes, but you need freshmen to build a roster.

Some of these transfers we're getting are 3rd and 4th year players. We'll have to plug the same holes again next year.

If you can pull 15-20 freshmen every year and portal the rest, that could be sustainable.

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I think there’s a feeling that we build the program culture by picking up guys who have the good traits and not the bad ones.

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I get that and it’s a good point. I guess my point is that it will be more difficult for programs to build consistency depending on a majority of portal players, especially one year guys. It’s easier to keep things consistent bringing in more young players and molding them into what you want.

I think a big key is that, once a staff has a strong positive culture established, that mix of players can fluctuate and it will be less likely to cause disruptions. Players will be more likely to assimilate if everyone else is bought in.