Take it for what it’s worth & don’t shoot the messenger.

[87&91ALUM]

Football season can’t come to soon. The board is full of opinion and hearsay. Just keep that in mind. I prefer contracts and authentic signatures, performance and wins. We need balance in this team. Anything that keeps offense scoring while building a shut down defense gets my support.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

Thanks Bulls Gap, but I only rely on information from Bucksnort.

Pulled into Bucksnort once on the way home from Arizona. Had to, needed gas. Had heard about the place, but never been there.

Within 5 minutes of pulling up to the gas pump: we found out the station lost the right to accept Visa cards because of fraud suspicion ... the gas station owner offered to "manually load" my Visa card number anyway (I declined and paid cash, heh) ... my wife was offered to buy some weed ... and my teen daughters were cat-called.

This wasn't a Friday or Saturday night. This was a weekday around 10 or 11 am.

Heh, I don't stop at Bucksnort any more. Never been to Bulls Gap.

Go Vols!

 

[lawgator1]

Saw Niko at 31 Flavors yesterday?

He passed out there. So it must be pretty serious.

--- Simone

 

[StarRaider]

 

[Volanta]

I don’t care how we get them just get them.

 

[patrick]

Tate is announcing within a couple of days and most likely for us. Next month per AP will be several commitments for UT. This offense is not a fluke, it’s already proven before it was brought to UT. It’s time to be optimistic about recruiting because UT has been trending

Unfortunately no on Tate.

 

[BreatheUT]

Had the opportunity to sit down with a friend today that I had not seen or spoken to in several months. He is an avid Tennessee fan, alumnus & donates significant dollars. He was telling me about a meet and greet he attended with some of the Spyre Sports Group folks. He was told that Tennessee would sign between 4 and 6 Five Star players in this year’s signing class. There may be some truth to this based on reports of some 5* guys trending to the VOLS. I will be curious to see how this prediction plays out.

Thoughts?????

How many have fallen for this?

 

[ClearwaterVol]

Pulled into Bucksnort once on the way home from Arizona. Had to, needed gas. Had heard about the place, but never been there.

Within 5 minutes of pulling up to the gas pump: we found out the station lost the right to accept Visa cards because of fraud suspicion ... the gas station owner offered to "manually load" my Visa card number anyway (I declined and paid cash, heh) ... my wife was offered to buy some weed ... and my teen daughters were cat-called.

This wasn't a Friday or Saturday night. This was a weekday around 10 or 11 am.

Heh, I don't stop at Bucksnort any more. Never been to Bulls Gap.

Go Vols!

I went to Bucksnort once. Hot girl got me there. She took me to a local bar. Half the place had a dirt floor. There was a box of kittens in one corner. The bartender, while very hospitable, was very sweet. The customers were a friendly bunch engaged in a contest of who knew the most racist joke. Entertaining afternoons to say the least.

 

[b_gann]

I still think there is a

Great news if that's even a good possibility. Some of our fans bristle over mentions of Spyre but UT is playing within the rules as they now stand. That's exactly what we should do. Cheating has been tolerated for generations and now people suddenly get uncomfortable with open business arrangements?

I didn't like NIL to start with. I still have some worries. But given a choice between a guy being able to sell his own NIL OR paying players directly for playing a "amateur" sport for scholarship... I'll take the first every time.

The main thing I like about NIL is the potential you mentioned. For the longest time, a handful of teams got the best recruits each year and the same or a slightly different group were the only ones with a legit shot at winning the BCS. Whereas that group may have been 5 or so before... now it will be any program with supporters willing to buy cookies from a particular bakery or have their car serviced at a particular dealership because they support certain athletes.

Play within the rules and take every advantage you can. For years, the "winners" have played outside the rules and taken every advantage they could with the NCAA looking the other way unless it had no choice.

I still think there are some major hurdles to come when it comes to NIL and college footballs future in the next 3-5 years but I totally agree with you. I’m a pretty avid college football fan but between Tennessee being bad and the same 2-3 teams being the only ones winning each year, my interest has dropped a lot. The sport badly needs the Texas, USC, UT, Miami, etc to be relevant again. The sport has gotten stale.

 

[BoroVolFan]

Had the opportunity to sit down with a friend today that I had not seen or spoken to in several months. He is an avid Tennessee fan, alumnus & donates significant dollars. He was telling me about a meet and greet he attended with some of the Spyre Sports Group folks. He was told that Tennessee would sign between 4 and 6 Five Star players in this year’s signing class. There may be some truth to this based on reports of some 5* guys trending to the VOLS. I will be curious to see how this prediction plays out.

Thoughts?????

I am attending a meeting with a Spyre representative tomorrow night - Wednesday - here in Murfreesboro. It is not a fund raiser, but is an informational get together. The individual (I will not share his name) is a former Tennessee Fund Rep, and is currently a Spyre Rep. The meeting is an opportunity to discuss NIL deals with very candid conversation. If anyone has a specific question they would like asked, let me know.

 

[VolForLife83]

I am attending a meeting with a Spyre representative tomorrow night - Wednesday - here in Murfreesboro. It is not a fund raiser, but is an informational get together. The individual (I will not share his name) is a former Tennessee Fund Rep, and is currently a Spyre Rep. The meeting is an opportunity to discuss NIL deals with very candid conversation. If anyone has a specific question they would like asked, let me know.

Be sure to ask him how we let CT and FM get away. Also could we still see those other 2 5*?

 

[rocketskates]

Did he say anything about Lovie Smith or Jon Gruden?

 

[SockeyeVol]

I am attending a meeting with a Spyre representative tomorrow night - Wednesday - here in Murfreesboro. It is not a fund raiser, but is an informational get together. The individual (I will not share his name) is a former Tennessee Fund Rep, and is currently a Spyre Rep. The meeting is an opportunity to discuss NIL deals with very candid conversation. If anyone has a specific question they would like asked, let me know.

Ask him whether he minds meetings like this being leaked to fan message boards in advance.

 

[BoroVolFan]

Ask him whether he minds meetings like this being leaked to fan message boards in advance.

I definitely plan to!!!!

 

[Voltopia]

Yeah, answer me this: when you're in spa mode, how come the water level drops in the spa?

 

[wrharvey21]

Where's the other 5*s? I thought we were getting 5 this cycle?

Do the current coaches pass them a recruiting wish list in a McDonald's bag?

Are we buying more big uglies that like to hit?

 

[Brave Volunteer]

He passed out there. So it must be pretty serious.

--- Simone

Kristy Swanson was such a babe!

 

[Rememberthelate90s]

Why would you even bring that stuff to the board? Leave Spyre out of it. If we sign them, we sign them.

Prolly a spyre worker trying to stir up another round of donations.

 

[Brave Volunteer]

Where's the other 5*s? I thought we were getting 5 this cycle?

Do the current coaches pass them a recruiting wish list in a McDonald's bag?

Are we buying more big uglies that like to hit?

I would imagine that Tate and Mauigoa were supposed to be part of that 5. It happens. Time to move on.

 

[The Ron Mexico]

Guys! Please listen! My coworker donated a BILLION dollars to UTK and he said Tennessee is going to pull 25 five stars and he personally witnessed Nick Saban crying over this. Saban has decided to retire and apologize for being a giant d***head for decades.

#sources

 

[VolunteerCeltic]

We are 33% closer to (6) 5 stars being signed, that is per Sports247 rankings, but only 16.6% closer per Rivals........

 

[BoroVolFan]

Be sure to ask him how we let CT and FM get away. Also could we still see those other 2 5*?

You were the only poster with a legitimate question. The answer I got last night was FM will get $4M over his time at Miami and TN did not want to match. CT actually took less money in going to the OSU. So far, Spyre has paid out around $4M dollars to 135 UT athletes. Several other pieces of information was shared that the Spyre Rep asked not to be posted on chat boards.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

You were the only poster with a legitimate question. The answer I got last night was FM will get $4M over his time at Miami and TN did not want to match. CT actually took less money in going to the OSU. So far, Spyre has paid out around $4M dollars to 135 UT athletes. Several other pieces of information was shared that the Spyre Rep asked not to be posted on chat boards.

Good info, Boro, thanks. For going and representing VFL83's question, too.

A couple of thoughts about the numbers you brought back:

-- $4M divided by 135 players is an average payout (thus far) of $29,630 per contracted athlete. That's pretty darn good. Of course, a handful of big-money contracts (like Nico) are going to skew that, but even taking them out of the mix and assuming there's about $2M left to go to about 125 lower-profile athletes, that is still $16,000 in less than six months for the bulk of the crew. Not bad at all for a college student.

-- 135 athletes is intriguing. Clearly not even close to all football. But what would your guess at the mix be? I might guess something like 60 football players, 10 male basketball, 10 female basketball, and 25 baseball ... with the remaining 30 sprinkled among the other sports (tennis, track and field, etc.).

 

[BoroVolFan]

Good info, Boro, thanks. For going and representing VFL83's question, too.

A couple of thoughts about the numbers you brought back:

-- $4M divided by 135 players is an average payout (thus far) of $29,630 per contracted athlete. That's pretty darn good. Of course, a handful of big-money contracts (like Nico) are going to skew that, but even taking them out of the mix and assuming there's about $2M left to go to about 125 lower-profile athletes, that is still $16,000 in less than six months for the bulk of the crew. Not bad at all for a college student.

-- 135 athletes is intriguing. Clearly not even close to all football. But what would your guess at the mix be? I might guess something like 60 football players, 10 male basketball, 10 female basketball, and 25 baseball ... with the remaining 30 sprinkled among the other sports (tennis, track and field, etc.).

He did not specify a mix. Did say there was another group (can’t remember their name) that has small dollars and they are focusing on baseball.

 

[OrangeTsar]

Why would you even bring that stuff to the board? Leave Spyre out of it. If we sign them, we sign them.

I love hearing news like this, even if it likely is fuel for even more disappointment and depression when it doesn’t come though. Life as a Vol fan
(Heup doing fine with this class though)