re: Per recruits.LSU, Josh Thompson (IOL. Northwestern) is currently visiting LSU

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You build the best roster possible and let the chips lie where they die. Roster development is now secondary to roster management.

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But this is exactly the point: Good roster management ISNT just taking any upgrade you can get, regardless of who you already have. If you've got a kid you really really like who's a rising sophomore at a premium position, you don't want to take a portal player who blocks him unless its a major major upgrade and you have a pretty complete roster - because a) it's not a one-for-one trade; you're pushing out a guy who'd give you multiple years of high-end play in exchange for a minor upgrade in the first of those years only and then a gaping hole the second year; and b) you're operating under the constraint of scarcity: Given limited resources, you don't want to spend major resources on a minor upgrade when you have other spots of greater need, where even spending a portion of that money might produce a bigger improvement to your overall team.


Hell, it's even more complicated than that: For instance, if you happen to have a stacked group of incoming freshmen at the position in question, you can more safely afford to push a potentially elite 2nd year guy out in favor of a one-year rental, because you can afford to count on that elite freshmen group to produce the necessary year-2 starter(s) you'll need once your rental is gone. On the flip side, if you're dealing with a position where your incoming class is weak, then you probably DONT feel good counting on those guys to be ready to contribute in year 2 - in which case it makes a lot less sense to prioritize the one-year rental over the rising sophomore who can hold down the fort for multiple years, even if the first of those years falls slightly short of the performance you'd have expected from the rental.




It all boils down to one guiding principle: The more desperate you are at a given position, the more likely you are to overpay for a transfer at that spot. This means that if you want to maximize your bang for your buck, you need to be deliberate in avoiding any major holes in your roster, which in turn means that sometimes you need to prioritize the long-term health of a position group over maximizing it for any one given year. You absolutely cannot afford to simply bring in all the best players who you can convince to come - you have to be strategic about it, and you have to plan for the long term. You'll have far more chances to max out your roster if you pick your spots and keep your roster balanced year-over-year than you will if you try each year to "build the best possible roster and let the chips lie where they lie". That's how you back yourself into corners.