2025/26 Transfer Portal Thread

#5,101
#5,101
You can say they need to be better in the portal and also acknowledge they dont need to be stupid. Both sides can be right in some ways.


CFP teams are proving it as are some of the borderline teams like Vandy.

Just be smart but also be more aggressive. Both sides of the table do have points. Look forward to watching it.
 
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#5,105
#5,105
Garren04 said:
I will reserve my full judgement until after this portal cycle is completely over. I do gets bits of info from time to time. One thing I have heard is that we really just don’t do the pay for play thing. If a kid primarily has just money on his mind we aren’t in most cases gonna be the top bidder. Which is the DUMBEST thing ever. HELLO, the era we are in is PAY FOR PLAY. Don’t want to adapt? Then you get passed up. Here is what I will tell you. I would keep your eye on the recruitments of Chaz Coleman, Gilliam, and the kid from WF. If we don’t land 1-2 then that tells you all you need to know about where the program stands. But ole DW got up there and said we were at the top in terms of spending I think it was after Tony left when he had that presser. I can read right through that lol does he really think we are that dumb? But we are gonna bring Leavitt in for a visit… makes me so mad man. Again I will reserve my full judgement for after the cycle tho
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Yes where did the talent fee go that’s added to tickets? Seems like we’re being scammed.
 
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#5,107
#5,107
Garren04 said:
I will reserve my full judgement until after this portal cycle is completely over. I do gets bits of info from time to time. One thing I have heard is that we really just don’t do the pay for play thing. If a kid primarily has just money on his mind we aren’t in most cases gonna be the top bidder. Which is the DUMBEST thing ever. HELLO, the era we are in is PAY FOR PLAY. Don’t want to adapt? Then you get passed up. Here is what I will tell you. I would keep your eye on the recruitments of Chaz Coleman, Gilliam, and the kid from WF. If we don’t land 1-2 then that tells you all you need to know about where the program stands. But ole DW got up there and said we were at the top in terms of spending I think it was after Tony left when he had that presser. I can read right through that lol does he really think we are that dumb? But we are gonna bring Leavitt in for a visit… makes me so mad man. Again I will reserve my full judgement for after the cycle tho
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I dont know **** from shinola. But id say after the Boo incident, us going to first shiny thing es no mas.
 
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#5,108
#5,108
CamVol8 said:
Yeah not really… lol. Considering the portal class we just had and not addressing our needs at CB and DL, I couldn’t disagree more.
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CamVol8 said:
Judge the portal class after we sign it. We now have one of the most proven defensive staffs in the country, a top incoming class, and a lot of very good young talent on the roster. We were one of the youngest rosters in the SEC last year. Heupel made the dramatic changes our fanbase asked for. Now we’re two days into the portal, and you yahoos have already decided how good the class is. Take a nap.
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#5,109
#5,109
Really disappointing we seem to be headed down the same path as we did the last big portal season--- bargain shopping, while other teams serious about winning and taking the next step are spending the money and filling rosters... How did that work out for us? We went from making the playoffs to losing some games we could have won with a few more studs and getting our ass handed to us at home by Vandy to cap off the season... (In before- but, but, we didn't have McCoy or Gibson)

I said at the end of last season that if we want to actually compete for championships like Heup is always blabbing about, then put your money where your mouth is and make the adjustments to do so... Ole Miss, TAMU, and TTU all spent a ton of money in the portal last year... didn't they make the playoffs?

One positive is they are actually upgrading the staff on defense, which should help us instantly... Really happy to see that and hopefully it continues at some point on the other side of the ball.

I am hoping that Knowles and his staff can pull some really good kids to TN with their prior relationships, but at the end of the day unfortunately money talks, so we will see what happens in the next few weeks.

Crazy how some on here said a week or two ago "oh, we have the funds in place now to make moves in the portal when it opens" and now the narrative seems to be shifting to "oh, well we aren't going to get into a bidding war" like last season... We either have the money and don't want to spend it (but your costs as a fan are going to continue to go up), or all these folks saying how our University and NIL are so strong financially are full of 'ish... OR, they surprise us and in the next week or so, pay up and we get upgrades...

This portal season will be very telling on what Danny and the Admin decide is going to be the trajectory of this football program now moving forward in the NIL era... Are they fine to have us just tread water and be a 8-9 win program with a bowl, or will they finally move the money around to get us to the next level? We continue to tread water, then that is the talent we will attract, if we are serious about the CFP, then we spend the money and that will be the talent we attract.

 
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#5,119
#5,119
Stoerner Fumbles said:
Just adding a couple of filters here from a conversation this morning:

Heupel (like Barnes) almost always insists on an in person conversation to understand alignment and fit before making an offer.

Knowles has full authority to offer players he knows prior to a visit. Many of these PSU/OSU players who are coming into the portal either have an offer from Knowles or don’t. That info is not getting to our beat reporters.

As I mentioned earlier, players will enter the portal with a perception of their value (right or wrong) informed by analytics. Deals will close quickly for the very top players who get offers above their perceived value.

I’d bet against us closing in many situations where dollars are the sole deciding factor. LSU and others are throwing absurd numbers. Arkansas overpaid by double on two players already. Our defensive staff is making the credible case that they are going to increase draft value dramatically and have the record to prove it. Right now we trail in NIL with Williams and probably won’t close that gap. If he comes, it’s on the development case and his relationship with Knowles.

Our early conversations with defensive players is going very well.

If early OL conversations prove to yield fruit, we could have a great class.

We’ve been letting some top players go at skill positions to avoid bidding wars, opting for better values after the first flurry.

There are approaching 5k players in the portal and many are not getting attention.

We have not pushed in any chips on a QB. Supposedly there is some behind the scenes discussion with Simpson. That’s riding on how finished his draft stock is. That’s speculative and very early, but certain boosters believe it’s real.
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This just screams that our staff is cheap and not willing to do what it takes to build a championship caliber team
 
#5,120
#5,120
volinbama256 said:
Really disappointing we seem to be headed down the same path as we did the last big portal season--- bargain shopping, while other teams serious about winning and taking the next step are spending the money and filling rosters... How did that work out for us? We went from making the playoffs to losing some games we could have won with a few more studs and getting our ass handed to us at home by Vandy to cap off the season... (In before- but, but, we didn't have McCoy or Gibson)

I said at the end of last season that if we want to actually compete for championships like Heup is always blabbing about, then put your money where your mouth is and make the adjustments to do so... Ole Miss, TAMU, and TTU all spent a ton of money in the portal last year... didn't they make the playoffs?

One positive is they are actually upgrading the staff on defense, which should help us instantly... Really happy to see that and hopefully it continues at some point on the other side of the ball.

I am hoping that Knowles and his staff can pull some really good kids to TN with their prior relationships, but at the end of the day unfortunately money talks, so we will see what happens in the next few weeks.

Crazy how some on here said a week or two ago "oh, we have the funds in place now to make moves in the portal when it opens" and now the narrative seems to be shifting to "oh, well we aren't going to get into a bidding war" like last season... We either have the money and don't want to spend it (but your costs as a fan are going to continue to go up), or all these folks saying how our University and NIL are so strong financially are full of 'ish... OR, they surprise us and in the next week or so, pay up and we get upgrades...

This portal season will be very telling on what Danny and the Admin decide is going to be the trajectory of this football program now moving forward in the NIL era... Are they fine to have us just tread water and be a 8-9 win program with a bowl, or will they finally move the money around to get us to the next level? We continue to tread water, then that is the talent we will attract, if we are serious about the CFP, then we spend the money and that will be the talent we attract.
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You’re exhibiting something called “binary thinking”. The following three things are true and not in conflict with one another.

1- We significantly increased our portal budget. We remain in the top ten AND we have boosters who are on standby for special situations if we need more money.

BUT

2– The best portal teams from the last three years use analytics and are not in the top ten. We plan to be smarter with our spending AND bid high when it pays to do so. That doesn’t mean we plan to be cheap.

3– We have a talented but young team with very specific needs. The quality of visits we’re getting against those needs suggest we’ll do very well.

We did well in the portal last year, but did not cover our needs for safety and experienced DL. We now have one of the best defensive staffs in the country. They won’t make that mistake. In fairness, last year Garner requested more experience from the portal on DL, and Banks bungled that and Safety needs. It got him fired. Our biggest problem last year was age of roster. We weren’t experienced or strong enough to hold up against the best competition.

If you don’t like the roster in three weeks say so. It isn’t done yet.
 
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#5,124
#5,124
I think it's clear some teams push all in on some cycles. Auburn did and has now backed down. Some schools truly just have more money because of one or 2 big boosters. OR, Miami, and Texas Tech are those. Some schools just have larger donor bases - Texas and OSU are those. We are spending in the realm of the Bama's and Georgias, I think at a point we spent more.

We've steadily spent near the top and do so in all major sports. You don't have to like the UT model, but it makes a lot of sense to me given our general budget. Unless one of you wants to win that billion dollar lottery and give the school an extra 20 million a year we will need to be more like Indiana and less likeTexas Tech. That means you don't pay 6 million for a Sorsby, but we did spend huge on Sanders.
 
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