A thought came to mind over the weekend that I want to type out and see if it can stand up outside of my own mind. We've spent a lot of time on this forum discussing, and often worrying, about recruiting transfers and how we can compete. I think that a lot of attention has been on what the big spenders are doing and that it's intimidating from our perspective.
Talk of promising starting positions to transfers is what really raised my eyebrows this weekend. We're seeing college programs trying to pull off a long-term plan of developing underclassmen and recruiting free agents using tactics that include such promises. I'm curious to see what problems arise in some programs along the lines of culture and camaraderie. If you're consistently bringing in large numbers of one- or two-year free agents, I think you're setting yourself up to eventually have a situation where a season crumbles against pressure that guys aren't willing to face together.
Maybe I'm being too romantic about the game and importance of locker room togetherness, but I don't think we should take it as a given that we should be worried about teams bringing in massive numbers of transfers.
I trust some coaching staffs more than others to effectively integrate the right transfers into their program and keep the core of the team intact: Utah, Washington, Oregon State, and USC — mostly because the roster will always be so talented that guys band together out of mutual respect and ambitious goals.
I'm not sure I need to worry yet about how much transfer recruiting is going to help everyone else. Until they prove otherwise, I expect Oregon and UCLA to shoot themselves in the foot and maybe a kneecap every year. It just seems to be what they do more often than not. We beat No. 3 Oregon in 2021 ... .
Stanford could have been one of the programs that was set up really well to combat transfer armies with a group of talented players who had trained and played together for two to four years. If the program hadn't been allowed to rot, I think that's exactly what we'd have right now — a roster of mostly good/some great HS recruits we developed. But we did fall apart, and now we have to build that type of program and move up in the Pac-12 against teams that from time to time will get it right with which transfers they bring in and will suddenly be a lot better.
I guess all of this is to say: I'm not going to assume that more transfers is a good thing or that all of our opponents are getting this right and we're being left far behind as a result. I have to think that it's going to be challenging for some staffs to maintain the culture they want if they're making promises to free agents and bringing in 15 upperclassmen a year. Or I'm hilariously wrong. We'll all find out eventually.
Talk of promising starting positions to transfers is what really raised my eyebrows this weekend. We're seeing college programs trying to pull off a long-term plan of developing underclassmen and recruiting free agents using tactics that include such promises. I'm curious to see what problems arise in some programs along the lines of culture and camaraderie. If you're consistently bringing in large numbers of one- or two-year free agents, I think you're setting yourself up to eventually have a situation where a season crumbles against pressure that guys aren't willing to face together.
Maybe I'm being too romantic about the game and importance of locker room togetherness, but I don't think we should take it as a given that we should be worried about teams bringing in massive numbers of transfers.
I trust some coaching staffs more than others to effectively integrate the right transfers into their program and keep the core of the team intact: Utah, Washington, Oregon State, and USC — mostly because the roster will always be so talented that guys band together out of mutual respect and ambitious goals.
I'm not sure I need to worry yet about how much transfer recruiting is going to help everyone else. Until they prove otherwise, I expect Oregon and UCLA to shoot themselves in the foot and maybe a kneecap every year. It just seems to be what they do more often than not. We beat No. 3 Oregon in 2021 ... .
Stanford could have been one of the programs that was set up really well to combat transfer armies with a group of talented players who had trained and played together for two to four years. If the program hadn't been allowed to rot, I think that's exactly what we'd have right now — a roster of mostly good/some great HS recruits we developed. But we did fall apart, and now we have to build that type of program and move up in the Pac-12 against teams that from time to time will get it right with which transfers they bring in and will suddenly be a lot better.
I guess all of this is to say: I'm not going to assume that more transfers is a good thing or that all of our opponents are getting this right and we're being left far behind as a result. I have to think that it's going to be challenging for some staffs to maintain the culture they want if they're making promises to free agents and bringing in 15 upperclassmen a year. Or I'm hilariously wrong. We'll all find out eventually.
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