re: Alabama started 18 of 22 players that were in the program for more than one year

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What the rantards fail to understand is cignetti had a bunch of transfers into Indiana from JMU, so he was able to bring his established team, identity, and culture. Ole Miss paid out the arse to make sure Lane was unable to do the same.

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The culture and identity part is underrated. I looked this up a few weeks ago, but Cignetti only brought like 13 JMU guys with him. However, they were all old, leaders, and big contributors to both the ‘24 and ‘25 teams. And he kept a bunch of the key upperclassmen and leaders from the ‘23 Indiana team. So he was able to get immediate buy-in and establish a winning culture more quickly.

They obviously sprinkled in some very good portal talent, but the foundation of that ‘24 team was older players who had been a part of Cig’s championship culture at JSU and upperclassmen Indiana players who loved the university and bought in. And when the leaders of a team buy in, the rest follow suit.

I’m not saying this LSU team isn’t bought in, but Kiffin is still establishing the culture the players are asked to buy in to. And he was really set back by Ole Miss making a run in the playoffs. Particularly with their win over Georgia. So many things would have gone differently had they lost that game. But they didn’t, and Lane had to not only share some of his coaches, but the portal timing made it really hard for him to bring a lot of Ole Miss guys to LSU that were familiar with his system and had already bought into the culture. People can say Ole Miss overpaid for them to screw Lane, and maybe that was part of it, but I think it was mainly timing and the optics and uncertainty of leaving a team that lost a close game in the semifinals.

So we only got 4(?) Ole Miss guys. Dottery, Princewill, Watkins, and Harper. Had to try to establish a culture with a roster fill of guys from all over the country. Indiana’s core was JSU and Indiana upperclassmen. Our offensive starters include guys from Arizona State, Wisconsin. Colorado, Maryland, Kentucky, Hawaii, Florida, Ole Miss, and LSU. Most 1st year coaches bring a lot more of their guys with them. Look at how many Iowa State guys went Penn State. That wasn’t an option for Lane, and since he believes in building a program through mostly in-house development with some great portal players sprinkled in, they decided to focus on guys with multiple years of eligibility.

You could hear Lane in pressers leading up to the season trying to temper expectations. He knew depth was going to be an issue. I think he thought with the top end guys we had/have, we could make a playoff run if everything went right and we got good injury luck. And with Green and Whit going down so early, you could tell he was dejected because he knew those were hurdles we probably weren’t going to be able to get over this year.

***the timing of the Green and Weeks injuries were devastating, but we’ve actually had really good injury luck all season besides those 2.

Indiana’s starters last year on their championship team averaged over 23-years-old. Second oldest NC winning team behind Michigan the year before, a place where guys stick around to get developed. What’s the average age of our starters this year? You can disagree with his philosophy, but he hedged his bets by building cheap, young depth and adding just enough studs to be able to compete. Which we have. He could have gone all in on 1-year guys and maybe we’d be 8-1 right now. But he’d have to do the same thing again next year. He’s trying to build something more sustainable. Let’s all hope it works out.

“But muh, we have to rebuild the entire team every year”

Catastrophe syndrome is related to retardation

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I can almost guarantee Harlem Berry is gone

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Oh no. Whatever will we do?

Splitta is a retard who reacts to facts like a vampire to holy water.

It’s well documented