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Transfer Cycle 2024-2025 - A Panoply of Dipshits, Running Amok

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SarkAfterDark

SarkAfterDark 1761

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1 hour ago, Funk Doctor Spock said:

What does tOSU do differently than we do with Wingo? I'm genuinely curious. Is it scheme? I just don't understand how a guy like him doesn't get more passes his way, whereas Smith eats. Yes, I know they have Egbuka, too, but surely Wingo should be getting more looks/passes his way. Same with Ryan Williams. 
 

Bobby keeps saying all three are in the same category, yet Wingo has either been under used or something? I don't get it. 2 frosh are dominating their competition (one is 17), but something is weird. Ohio State has more than just Smith, and he's feasting, but Bobby and all that...

The next contested catch I see Wingo make will be the first. I don’t think he is in the same class as Smith/Williams but he has the potential to be really good regardless. And I think he’ll look a lot better next year.

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Teryor
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Need their depth chart at WR but also HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

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Spence is in  

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Hermanator

Hermanator 7716

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22 hours ago, TXpride said:

A lot of people wrote Dubose off because he had knee surgery in HS and didn't look the same after. Don't know where he's at now. The narrative on Livingston is he's a white guy so he must suck. Butler is a mystery.

Bobby has mentioned multiple times over the last couple of weeks that Livingston is looking great in practice and it appears the staff is expecting him to produce some next season. That would be a random player to be pumping if he wasn't hearing something about it

 

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victory88

victory88 5785

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9 hours ago, Funk Doctor Spock said:

What does tOSU do differently than we do with Wingo? I'm genuinely curious. Is it scheme? I just don't understand how a guy like him doesn't get more passes his way, whereas Smith eats. Yes, I know they have Egbuka, too, but surely Wingo should be getting more looks/passes his way. Same with Ryan Williams. 
 

Bobby keeps saying all three are in the same category, yet Wingo has either been under used or something? I don't get it. 2 frosh are dominating their competition (one is 17), but something is weird. Ohio State has more than just Smith, and he's feasting, but Bobby and all that...

Wingo is what I would consider a 5 star talent that still needs development like every other 5 star WR.  Jeremiah Smith and Ryan Williams are Julio Jones/AJ Green level talent in the sense that those guys are generational talents that are better than everyone else at the college level day 1.  Bobby keeps saying Wingo is Roy Williams and he has said multiple times that he wouldn’t trade Wingo for Smith lmao.  Those comments did not age well through the season with regards to comparing him to Smith.  Wingo is a badass that will be a high round pick and fits our scheme very well.  I would not compare him to Smith and Williams, those guys guys aren’t human.  Gerry says DK Moore is in that category but we will see.  

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Hermanator

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8 hours ago, SarkAfterDark said:

The next contested catch I see Wingo make will be the first. I don’t think he is in the same class as Smith/Williams but he has the potential to be really good regardless. And I think he’ll look a lot better next year.

Do you rubes even watch the games? He's had several, including one keeping a drive alive in the 4th on a slant in the SEC title game. Where he was being interfered with.

He drew 2 PIs and made a contested catch in the Clemson game. The PIs he had his man beaten by 2 steps minimum but the terrible Ewers under throws made him pull up and get run into by the DB. A QB who can throw a proper deep ball and those are TDs. That's part of the problem. Ewers doesn't hit him on routes where his speed is a factor. 

He's also just been behind Bond all season at that WR spot. But he's definitely the better receiver right now, and has been since Bond for hurt in the OU game. He should have been getting those snaps, but Bond is a big dollar portal addition and Sark was going to let him fight through injury. I get it. His blocking on the outside alone was a big factor in the running game vs Clemson over what Bond gives. Blue's 77 yd TD doesn't happen without Wingo keeping the outside corner pinned and creating the wide lane giving Blue the sideline.

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Hornmatic

Hornmatic 304

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42 minutes ago, victory88 said:

Wingo is what I would consider a 5 star talent that still needs development like every other 5 star WR.  Jeremiah Smith and Ryan Williams are Julio Jones/AJ Green level talent in the sense that those guys are generational talents that are better than everyone else at the college level day 1.  Bobby keeps saying Wingo is Roy Williams and he has said multiple times that he wouldn’t trade Wingo for Smith lmao.  Those comments did not age well through the season with regards to comparing him to Smith.  Wingo is a badass that will be a high round pick and fits our scheme very well.  I would not compare him to Smith and Williams, those guys guys aren’t human.  Gerry says DK Moore is in that category but we will see.  

Correct. Wingo will be great but Bobby slandered Smith in the midst of his Wingo love affair. 

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Atticus

Atticus 4233

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24 minutes ago, Davis Lane said:

Read slower.

I'm aware of the possibility of playing Ohio State in the 3rd round of the playoffs this season. It also has nothing to do with this cycle's transfers.

If he didn't say week 2, I wouldn't have even responded, but the post is a dumb one.

No biggie though, Merry Christmas everyone!

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Pato del Muerto

Pato del Muerto 53620

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28 minutes ago, Atticus said:

I'm aware of the possibility of playing Ohio State in the 3rd round of the playoffs this season. It also has nothing to do with this cycle's transfers.

If he didn't say week 2, I wouldn't have even responded, but the post is a dumb one.

No biggie though, Merry Christmas everyone!

It would be the second week of 2025. 

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Not a cat

Not a cat 5821

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How does tOSU have the NIL to pull this off? 

I get that they're a large passionate fan base of a huge school but 1) the ones I saw in Columbus (granted it was 20 years ago) looked lucky to make much above minimum wage, 2) I've worked in a professional capacity in 3 states, including one in the Midwest, and I honestly can't recall running across a buckeye, and 3) I've never heard of them having a Phil Knight or T. Boone.

Is it just a shitload of $200 donors or am I missing something?

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texifornia

texifornia 59090

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2 minutes ago, Not a cat said:

How does tOSU have the NIL to pull this off? 

I get that they're a large passionate fan base of a huge school but 1) the ones I saw in Columbus (granted it was 20 years ago) looked lucky to make much above minimum wage, 2) I've worked in a professional capacity in 3 states, including one in the Midwest, and I honestly can't recall running across a buckeye, and 3) I've never heard of them having a Phil Knight or T. Boone.

Is it just a shitload of $200 donors or am I missing something?

Their alums are everywhere in the Northeast and Sun Belt, it's a massive school with solid research credentials, and they're the biggest game in town in a city and a state with multiple F500 corporations.

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Js1

Js1 87326

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37 minutes ago, texifornia said:

Their alums are everywhere in the Northeast and Sun Belt, it's a massive school with solid research credentials, and they're the biggest game in town in a city and a state with multiple F500 corporations.

They also have a fuckton of active NFL players. 60ish last I saw. Stroud donates to Ohio State’s NIL

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Tex Long

Tex Long 4685

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3 hours ago, Not a cat said:

How does tOSU have the NIL to pull this off? 

Is it just a shitload of $200 donors or am I missing something?

Isn't Les Wexner a big tOSU donor? 

You know, Les, right? Victoria's Secret, Jeffrey Epstein, Model Agencies? 

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billfromlaketravis

billfromlaketravis 11884

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5 hours ago, Not a cat said:

How does tOSU have the NIL to pull this off? 

I get that they're a large passionate fan base of a huge school but 1) the ones I saw in Columbus (granted it was 20 years ago) looked lucky to make much above minimum wage, 2) I've worked in a professional capacity in 3 states, including one in the Midwest, and I honestly can't recall running across a buckeye, and 3) I've never heard of them having a Phil Knight or T. Boone.

Is it just a shitload of $200 donors or am I missing something?

Did you forget Quinn Ewer’s high school recruitment? fOSU has been at the forefront of NIL since the beginning. They also had a admin and state legislature that was completely on board with paying players. 
 

No single mega booster comes to mind. I believe they’re similar to us in that they’re well organized and there’s a lot of them. That said, watching fOSU sweat Ellison’s sudden interest in Michigan Football has been great to watch from afar. 

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Bevo

Bevo 13939

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1 hour ago, Tex Long said:

Isn't Les Wexner a big tOSU donor? 

You know, Les, right? Victoria's Secret, Jeffrey Epstein, Model Agencies? 

I had a cousin who owned a hundred and somethin' Wendy's who was a pretty big donor before he passed.

not a great article, but it is better than reading about chicken fried steak:

Billionaire Boosters: Who Are CFP Teams’ Biggest Money Backers?
Brendan Coffey
December 20, 2024 5:55am

  

Terry Pegula, Mark Cuban and Phil Knight
Billionaires such as Terry Pegula, Mark Cuban and Phil Knight are playing a role in the College Football Playoff.
Illustration by Lorenzo Gordon. Photos by Getty Images

The 2024-25 College Football Playoff field features pairings with some numerical disparities, like the 14,000 student enrollment of Notre Dame versus the 48,000 of Indiana, the 32,000 stadium capacity of visiting SMU compared to the 107,000 arena of host Penn State, and the endowment of the University of Texas ($20 billion) compared to Clemson ($1 billion).

But there’s some commonality among all dozen playoff teams: They all have at least one very wealthy backer. And in the NIL and transfer portal era—where programs like the Hoosiers can go from cellar-dwellers to title-hunters in one smart-spending offseason—those backers are arguably more important than ever.

Sportico took a look at some of the wealthiest, highest-profile boosters of the athletic departments of the schools playing for the football national title over the next four weeks, using publicly available news and school reports. Is it scientific? Not at all. But when has college sports been rational?

Southern Methodist Univ. – Gerald J. Ford ($2.7 billion net worth. All wealth estimates are from  Forbes)

The financial services magnate (not the ex-president) made his name turning around distressed banks, making a mint reviving Golden State Bancorp with Ronald Perelman (the investor, not the actor). The pair sold the bank to Citigroup for $6 billion in stock in 2002. Before and since, Ford’s been a consistent supporter of the Mustangs, who named their Dallas stadium after the billionaire. He now runs Hilltop Holdings, a conglomerate of financial services businesses with a market cap of $1.9 billion.

Ohio State Univ. – Les Wexner ($7.9 billion)

The Dayton, Ohio-born retailer is best known for bringing Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works to malls near you. A long-time supporter of OSU and trustee of the medical school, his wife made a donation to name the Buckeyes’ football complex after Les in 2007 as a surprise gift. It is one of a few facilities at Ohio State with the Wexner name on it, though his long friendship with deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein has colored the honor for some in the Columbus community.

Indiana University at Bloomington – Mark Cuban ($5.9 billion)

A sports fanatic, Cuban made his fortune founding Broadcast.com with fellow IU alum Todd Wagner in the 1990s, offering the then-novel idea of streaming sports games over the internet. After selling it to Yahoo at the peak of the dotcom bubble, Cuban used some of his billions to buy the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks. He’s given the Hoosiers’ athletic department various forms of support, including millions to build a student-run broadcast facility in 2015 and, more recently, NIL deals through Campus Ink, an apparel startup he invested in.

University of Texas at Austin – Robert Rowling ($10.9 billion)

Rowling made his fortune first with his father as an oil wildcatter, then extended into hospitality—his TRT Holdings has long owned luxury chain Omni Hotels, at which the family man forbade adult pay-per-view offerings. COVID led him to shake up his holdings a bit—selling pandemic loser Gold’s Gym while investing $500 million into pandemic-boosted golf courses. A frequent donor to the Austin school and athletics, Rowling got some notice two years ago lending his support to other sports donors wishing to maintain The Eyes of Texas as the school fight song when students wanted it dropped given past usage of the song in blackface performances. The CFP holds a potential rooting conflict for Rowling: While he got his bachelor’s degree at Texas, his law degree is from SMU.

University of Tennessee – Jimmy Haslam ($8.5 billion)

Owner of the NFL’s Cleveland Browns and the Columbus Crew of MLS, Haslam has a long association with the Volunteers. His father was captain of the 1952 team that went to the Cotton Bowl and has the practice football field named after him in Knoxville. He and his wife Dee have given over $120 million to the university, with millions directed to athletics as well as the music school and the business school, which now bears their name.

University of Notre Dame – Jay Jordan (net worth not estimated)

Though his wealth isn’t estimated by Forbes, Jordan is a member of the Giving Pledge, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates’ club of billionaires who pledge to give away at least half their wealth in life or at death. He founded and still owns the majority of TJC, a private equity firm with $30 billion in assets under management, including a stake in Bruin Capital. He’s Notre Dame’s biggest donor ever, with more than $150 million in lifetime donations, including to athletics. One son played on the Irish football team at the turn of this century.

Penn State – Terry Pegula ($7.6 billion)

The 1973 PSU grad made his fortune fracking natural gas in Pennsylvania. When he sold the business for $4.7 billion in 2010, he bought the Buffalo Bills and Sabres. While Pegula and wife Kim are best known in Happy Valley for a gift of $88 million to push the Nittany Lions’ ice hockey program to the top tier of collegiate competition, one Penn State blog termed Pegula “the man who saved Penn State football” for writing a check in 2012 to boost the pay of then-coach Bill O’Brien to keep him from accepting an NFL coaching offer. O’Brien is credited with preserving the viability of Nittany Lions football in the aftermath of the Sandusky scandal, though he left a year later to be head coach for the NFL’s Texans.

University of Oregon – Phil Knight ($35.1 billion)

If there’s an athletics department booster ADs dream of, it’s the founder of Nike. Knight started the business at Oregon, where he ran track, and has given hundreds of millions of dollars to the school, helping turn the Ducks into a football powerhouse. “Uncle Phil,” as he’s known to the players, reportedly pledged “unlimited” NIL money this year to help the Ducks try to win the program’s first national championship. Undefeated and seeded No. 1 with a bye from this weekend’s tilts, Knight’s football title dreams are the closest to coming true they ever have been.

Arizona State University – Ira Fulton (net worth not estimated)

He’s the founder and owner of Fulton Homes, a residential housing developer that builds a about 1,000 homes a year. Not reported as a billionaire, his giving suggests he’s one: by 2005 he had given away about $265 million to charity already and was worth $425 million at the time, according to press reports reprinted on the homebuilder’s website. ASU has received more than $160 million in donations from Fulton, who has the engineering school in Tempe named after him. His disclosed support has been directed only to academics, not athletics, but without the school there’d be no Sun Devils football, right? Fulton has also given more than $70 million to BYU.

Clemson University – Dan Cathy ($10.8 billion)

A scion of the Chick-fil-A empire, Cathy didn’t attend Clemson, but at least one child did (the elder Cathy got his degree from Georgia Southern). Still, the chairman of the fast-food chain is one of 27 “Athletic Cornerstone Partners” who have contributed at least $2.5 million to the Clemson athletic department. Jim Brown, who owns tax consulting firm Synergi in South Carolina, appears to be the largest athletics booster for the Tigers, but it’s Cathy who students will know best: Chick-fil-A has three locations in Clemson, including inside the student center.

University of Georgia – Don Leebern Jr. (net worth not estimated)

Long cited as one of the nation’s most powerful college athletics boosters, Leeburn died this spring. Still, the late owner of a large liquor, wine and beer distributor left his mark on the Bulldogs. First, he was a starting lineman on the 1959 squad that won the SEC and that post-season’s Orange Bowl; he then was a long-time member of the university system’s board of regents. Leebern gave millions of dollars to athletics, including money for football facilities and endowing scholarships in gymnastics and football.

Boise State University – Allen & Billie Dee Noble (net worth not estimated)

The Broncos’ biggest boosters do so from beyond the grave. The estate of Allen and Billie Dee Noble gifted the school $25 million in October, which said it will use the money to support the athletics department. In true Idaho fashion, Allen Noble, who died in 2021, made his wealth in potatoes, mainly selling farm equipment but also founding two still-operating potato farms. Noble supported Boise State football long before the installation of blue turf, back to when school coaching legend Lyle Smith established the then-Boise Junior College as a football powerhouse in the 1950s and ’60s.

CORRECTION: This story has been corrected to clarify that Jimmy Haslam’s father captained the 1952 Tennessee team and to remove reference to Haslam being heavily involved in the hiring of Greg Schiano in 2017. Haslam says his only involvement was being contacted by Schiano’s agent with a request to have the president of the Tennessee board make a phone call to Ohio State on Schiano’s behalf.

 

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Beau Vine

Beau Vine 55901

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29 minutes ago, Bevo said:

A long-time supporter of OSU and trustee of the medical school, his wife made a donation to name the Buckeyes’ football complex after Les in 2007 as a surprise gift.

Holy fuck, my wife just buys me a new Lexus every Christmas...

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BurntOrange&White

BurntOrange&White 42025

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1 hour ago, billfromlaketravis said:

Did you forget Quinn Ewer’s high school recruitment? fOSU has been at the forefront of NIL since the beginning. They also had a admin and state legislature that was completely on board with paying players. 
 

No single mega booster comes to mind. I believe they’re similar to us in that they’re well organized and there’s a lot of them. That said, watching fOSU sweat Ellison’s sudden interest in Michigan Football has been great to watch from afar. 

Why is it a surprise Ohio State has strong NIL? They rank 41 academically while we’re at 30, have a huge alumni base, have always been good, were running bags during bag game era(probably still do at times). Like idk why people are surprised?

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billfromlaketravis

billfromlaketravis 11884

Posted
Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Bevo said:

I had a cousin who owned a hundred and somethin' Wendy's who was a pretty big donor before he passed.

not a great article, but it is better than reading about chicken fried steak:

Billionaire Boosters: Who Are CFP Teams’ Biggest Money Backers?
Brendan Coffey
December 20, 2024 5:55am

  

Terry Pegula, Mark Cuban and Phil Knight
Billionaires such as Terry Pegula, Mark Cuban and Phil Knight are playing a role in the College Football Playoff.
Illustration by Lorenzo Gordon. Photos by Getty Images

The 2024-25 College Football Playoff field features pairings with some numerical disparities, like the 14,000 student enrollment of Notre Dame versus the 48,000 of Indiana, the 32,000 stadium capacity of visiting SMU compared to the 107,000 arena of host Penn State, and the endowment of the University of Texas ($20 billion) compared to Clemson ($1 billion).

But there’s some commonality among all dozen playoff teams: They all have at least one very wealthy backer. And in the NIL and transfer portal era—where programs like the Hoosiers can go from cellar-dwellers to title-hunters in one smart-spending offseason—those backers are arguably more important than ever.

Sportico took a look at some of the wealthiest, highest-profile boosters of the athletic departments of the schools playing for the football national title over the next four weeks, using publicly available news and school reports. Is it scientific? Not at all. But when has college sports been rational?

Southern Methodist Univ. – Gerald J. Ford ($2.7 billion net worth. All wealth estimates are from  Forbes)

The financial services magnate (not the ex-president) made his name turning around distressed banks, making a mint reviving Golden State Bancorp with Ronald Perelman (the investor, not the actor). The pair sold the bank to Citigroup for $6 billion in stock in 2002. Before and since, Ford’s been a consistent supporter of the Mustangs, who named their Dallas stadium after the billionaire. He now runs Hilltop Holdings, a conglomerate of financial services businesses with a market cap of $1.9 billion.

Ohio State Univ. – Les Wexner ($7.9 billion)

The Dayton, Ohio-born retailer is best known for bringing Victoria’s Secret and Bath & Body Works to malls near you. A long-time supporter of OSU and trustee of the medical school, his wife made a donation to name the Buckeyes’ football complex after Les in 2007 as a surprise gift. It is one of a few facilities at Ohio State with the Wexner name on it, though his long friendship with deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein has colored the honor for some in the Columbus community.

Indiana University at Bloomington – Mark Cuban ($5.9 billion)

A sports fanatic, Cuban made his fortune founding Broadcast.com with fellow IU alum Todd Wagner in the 1990s, offering the then-novel idea of streaming sports games over the internet. After selling it to Yahoo at the peak of the dotcom bubble, Cuban used some of his billions to buy the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks. He’s given the Hoosiers’ athletic department various forms of support, including millions to build a student-run broadcast facility in 2015 and, more recently, NIL deals through Campus Ink, an apparel startup he invested in.

University of Texas at Austin – Robert Rowling ($10.9 billion)

Rowling made his fortune first with his father as an oil wildcatter, then extended into hospitality—his TRT Holdings has long owned luxury chain Omni Hotels, at which the family man forbade adult pay-per-view offerings. COVID led him to shake up his holdings a bit—selling pandemic loser Gold’s Gym while investing $500 million into pandemic-boosted golf courses. A frequent donor to the Austin school and athletics, Rowling got some notice two years ago lending his support to other sports donors wishing to maintain The Eyes of Texas as the school fight song when students wanted it dropped given past usage of the song in blackface performances. The CFP holds a potential rooting conflict for Rowling: While he got his bachelor’s degree at Texas, his law degree is from SMU.

University of Tennessee – Jimmy Haslam ($8.5 billion)

Owner of the NFL’s Cleveland Browns and the Columbus Crew of MLS, Haslam has a long association with the Volunteers. His father was captain of the 1952 team that went to the Cotton Bowl and has the practice football field named after him in Knoxville. He and his wife Dee have given over $120 million to the university, with millions directed to athletics as well as the music school and the business school, which now bears their name.

University of Notre Dame – Jay Jordan (net worth not estimated)

Though his wealth isn’t estimated by Forbes, Jordan is a member of the Giving Pledge, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates’ club of billionaires who pledge to give away at least half their wealth in life or at death. He founded and still owns the majority of TJC, a private equity firm with $30 billion in assets under management, including a stake in Bruin Capital. He’s Notre Dame’s biggest donor ever, with more than $150 million in lifetime donations, including to athletics. One son played on the Irish football team at the turn of this century.

Penn State – Terry Pegula ($7.6 billion)

The 1973 PSU grad made his fortune fracking natural gas in Pennsylvania. When he sold the business for $4.7 billion in 2010, he bought the Buffalo Bills and Sabres. While Pegula and wife Kim are best known in Happy Valley for a gift of $88 million to push the Nittany Lions’ ice hockey program to the top tier of collegiate competition, one Penn State blog termed Pegula “the man who saved Penn State football” for writing a check in 2012 to boost the pay of then-coach Bill O’Brien to keep him from accepting an NFL coaching offer. O’Brien is credited with preserving the viability of Nittany Lions football in the aftermath of the Sandusky scandal, though he left a year later to be head coach for the NFL’s Texans.

University of Oregon – Phil Knight ($35.1 billion)

If there’s an athletics department booster ADs dream of, it’s the founder of Nike. Knight started the business at Oregon, where he ran track, and has given hundreds of millions of dollars to the school, helping turn the Ducks into a football powerhouse. “Uncle Phil,” as he’s known to the players, reportedly pledged “unlimited” NIL money this year to help the Ducks try to win the program’s first national championship. Undefeated and seeded No. 1 with a bye from this weekend’s tilts, Knight’s football title dreams are the closest to coming true they ever have been.

Arizona State University – Ira Fulton (net worth not estimated)

He’s the founder and owner of Fulton Homes, a residential housing developer that builds a about 1,000 homes a year. Not reported as a billionaire, his giving suggests he’s one: by 2005 he had given away about $265 million to charity already and was worth $425 million at the time, according to press reports reprinted on the homebuilder’s website. ASU has received more than $160 million in donations from Fulton, who has the engineering school in Tempe named after him. His disclosed support has been directed only to academics, not athletics, but without the school there’d be no Sun Devils football, right? Fulton has also given more than $70 million to BYU.

Clemson University – Dan Cathy ($10.8 billion)

A scion of the Chick-fil-A empire, Cathy didn’t attend Clemson, but at least one child did (the elder Cathy got his degree from Georgia Southern). Still, the chairman of the fast-food chain is one of 27 “Athletic Cornerstone Partners” who have contributed at least $2.5 million to the Clemson athletic department. Jim Brown, who owns tax consulting firm Synergi in South Carolina, appears to be the largest athletics booster for the Tigers, but it’s Cathy who students will know best: Chick-fil-A has three locations in Clemson, including inside the student center.

University of Georgia – Don Leebern Jr. (net worth not estimated)

Long cited as one of the nation’s most powerful college athletics boosters, Leeburn died this spring. Still, the late owner of a large liquor, wine and beer distributor left his mark on the Bulldogs. First, he was a starting lineman on the 1959 squad that won the SEC and that post-season’s Orange Bowl; he then was a long-time member of the university system’s board of regents. Leebern gave millions of dollars to athletics, including money for football facilities and endowing scholarships in gymnastics and football.

Boise State University – Allen & Billie Dee Noble (net worth not estimated)

The Broncos’ biggest boosters do so from beyond the grave. The estate of Allen and Billie Dee Noble gifted the school $25 million in October, which said it will use the money to support the athletics department. In true Idaho fashion, Allen Noble, who died in 2021, made his wealth in potatoes, mainly selling farm equipment but also founding two still-operating potato farms. Noble supported Boise State football long before the installation of blue turf, back to when school coaching legend Lyle Smith established the then-Boise Junior College as a football powerhouse in the 1950s and ’60s.

CORRECTION: This story has been corrected to clarify that Jimmy Haslam’s father captained the 1952 Tennessee team and to remove reference to Haslam being heavily involved in the hiring of Greg Schiano in 2017. Haslam says his only involvement was being contacted by Schiano’s agent with a request to have the president of the Tennessee board make a phone call to Ohio State on Schiano’s behalf.

 

Who’s a blank check guy on this list? Knight and… maybe Haslam? Haslam has torched hundreds of millions of dollars on the Browns’ roster. 
 

Curious there’s not more SMU guys on the list. The Hunts are pouring money into SMU. 

Edited by billfromlaketravis
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Not a cat

Not a cat 5821

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Posted
29 minutes ago, BurntOrange&White said:

Why is it a surprise Ohio State has strong NIL? They rank 41 academically while we’re at 30, have a huge alumni base, have always been good, were running bags during bag game era(probably still do at times). Like idk why people are surprised?

I'm honestly stunned by that ranking, as I've always thought of them as the Arizona State of the Midwest academically. Like I said, a big part of it is probably colored by my visit there in 2005, when it was filled with straight up belligerent trailer park trash.  The people I saw would have struggled at ACC.  Throw in the fact I just never ran into them in my career and I just never thought of them as being all that bright.  Hell, all the bright Ohioans I met went to Miami of Ohio.

Anyway, thanks everyone for the clarification.  Learned something new.

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Tex Pete

Tex Pete 21529

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42 minutes ago, Not a cat said:

Like I said, a big part of it is probably colored by my visit there in 2005, when it was filled with straight up belligerent trailer park trash.  The people I saw would have struggled at ACC.  Throw in the fact I just never ran into them in my career and I just never thought of them as being all that bright.  Hell, all the bright Ohioans I met went to Miami of Ohio.

Their school has a huge tshirt fanbase because it’s the major school of Ohio. Yes, they’re complete garbage fans, but the school is pretty good. 

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dcar00

dcar00 15005

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2 hours ago, billfromlaketravis said:

Did you forget Quinn Ewer’s high school recruitment? fOSU has been at the forefront of NIL since the beginning. They also had a admin and state legislature that was completely on board with paying players. 
 

No single mega booster comes to mind. I believe they’re similar to us in that they’re well organized and there’s a lot of them. That said, watching fOSU sweat Ellison’s sudden interest in Michigan Football has been great to watch from afar. 

tOSU is basically an entire state version of Westlake or Allen.  One school town...zero comp for dollars to support the state school.

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