Ghost of Colby

Rosters still need to be filled. Instead of signing a bunch of mid and lower tier 4 stars that look good in the recruiting rankings, but most will never contribute before they hit the portal, allocate more of those spots to 3 star types.

They are cheaper, don’t expect to play immediately, don’t have name recognition or the benefit of a “former four star recruit” label, and will hang around for a minimum of 2-3 years to help stabilize a roster from year to year.

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spears was probably lighter at this point of his high school career.

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my first though as well, then I thought I recalled hearing a story about Spears ballooning up to over 300 lbs. by the time he reported to campus later that summer at the start of fall camp leading into the season.

So I began to think Spears had to drop weight early in his career, while Lamar will gain pounds over the next 18 months.

I went searching for confirmation, and found recruiting data from 2001 signing day listing him at 285 lbs. and also his official LSU freshman basketball bio released in October of 2001 also listed him at 285 lbs.

I don’t know if he was a consistent 285 over that span or if different sources were using the same weight source, but he was listed at 285 his senior year of high school and his freshman year at LSU.

So I concluded he was not only another extremely talented two-way player from Southern Lab, but he was almost the identical height and weight.

Does anyone know what Doug Hendrickson earned from the original $4M deal, or what the Wasserman agency charges?

There’s a reason the upper-tier portal guys are flying all over and scheduling this school, visiting that school, while rumors are circulating about other schools.

Their agents will earn as much as 20% off the top of the player’s deal. If an agent can generate a little extra leverage to increase a player’s value by just $250K for example, then he could add another $50K to his final tally. Some agents are working hard for every penny because of that huge commission percentage.

Others are processing as many deals as possible because even the smaller simple deals will each generate a commission of several thousand dollars.

Why would Demond need a huge agency with existing ties to his school to secure a reasonable deal (that quickly fell way below market value)?
Then have that agency’s lawyers rubber stamp a template contract, including agreeing to a few terms that were optional.

Does his agent deserve somewhere between $500K-800K for undervaluing their client in order to get a quick and easy deal done in-house?

No wonder Demond cut them off once outsiders got in his ear.

There were rumblings of a Lamar/Harbaugh rift throughout the season, and those rumors gained steam the last few weeks.

After the Pittsburgh game, reporters asked Lamar direct questions about his expectations going forward. He dodged any questions about his future with the team, and didn’t offer any support or praise when asked about Harbaugh.

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This could be an interesting case. Is it truly a contract? And is there a notice period in the contract such as one year, and are there any terms that the player agreed to which commits him to be enrolled at WU and on the team for a certain period. Is pay to play involved in the language?

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It is my understanding it is a contract.

The “contract” Xavier Lucas signed at Wisconsin last year before transferring to Miami was technically a two-year MOU agreement.

When Lucas signed his agreement the NIL landscape was in even more flux than now. Everyone was guessing on the specifics of the NIL House Settlement. The legal use of a Memorandum of Understanding instead of a contract gave the Big Ten and Wisconsin some wiggle room to make adjustments to the NIL agreements if needed depending on the specifics of the House Settlement.

Every report I’ve seen states that the MOUs used last year are almost identical to the contracts currently in use. Both specifically state the agreement is NOT pay-for-play.

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So UW is crying tampering and then going tamper themselves by trying to get Fifita?

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Fifita also publicly announced he was returning to Arizona just four days ago. The hypocrisy is comical in its absurdity.

He was on Andy Reid’s staff in Philadelphia for a decade. He was in Baltimore for 18 years.

How many modern college or NFL coaches experience that level of job stability? He only had to move once over the course of nearly 30 years.

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They kept Marvin Lewis around forever too. What a shitty franchise.

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Zac Taylor has made the playoffs twice in 7 seasons

Marvin Lewis made the playoffs twice in his first 8 seasons. Then he went on a run of 10+ win seasons, and five consecutive playoff appearances.

Even when it was obvious he could never get over the hump and have even the slightest playoff success, it took three consecutive losing seasons before he was fired.

Bengals recent coaching changes:
Forrest Gregg
1981: made the Super Bowl
1982: 7-2 (*strike year) lost Wild Card
1983: 7-9 and was fired by Paul Brown.

Sam Wyche
1988: made the Super Bowl
1989: missed playoffs (8-8 record)
1990: won the division and a playoff game
1991: 3-13 and fired
(Mike Brown’s first big move as team owner/Gm)


David Shula (4+ seasons)
1992-1995: 4 consecutive losing seasons
1996: Fired in year five after a 1-6 start

Bruce Coslett (3+ seasons)
1996: 7-2 as interim HC after Shula fired
1997-1999: three consecutive losing seasons.
2000: fired after an 0-3 start

Dick Lebeau (2+ seasons)
2000: Interim
2001: 6-10
2002: 2-14 (fired)

It appeared Mike Brown was gradually losing patience with his head coaches, then Marv Lewis came along. He didn’t do bad enough to get fired at first, then was his first coach to have a little success.

Between 1992-2008 (17 seasons and 4 different coaches), the Bengals had One winning season, before Marv Lewis went on a nice little five year run.

Paul Brown died in 1991.
Mike Brown has been in charge for 34 years. The Bengals have 3 playoff wins during his reign. Zac Taylor won all three games. Unless the Bengals completely implode in 2026, he might survive into the 2027 season even if they miss the playoffs next season.

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That play was not going to work unless the Ravens edge containment had a complete derp.

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My problem with the playcall was that Rodgers also gave a couple of hard counts like he was trying to draw them offsides, then he reset, then ran a play expecting the outside containment to bite inside.

If the play is attempting to exploit an aggressive defense, don’t try to get them to jump offsides with a hard count. All that does is cause the Ravens defense to dig in and hold their assignments.

There was quite a bit of love for Harris when he committed on Saturday, but this board has moved fast since then, so those posts are probably several pages back.