One Step Back Two Steps Forward for G5

lockherup

Hopefully, Temple gets a P5 commit or two aboard the flip train in a week.

If Melania Trump really wanted to make an impact with her anti-bullying policies, she would start not at the elementary school level but all the way into the colleges at the top of the bullying food chain.

Tell the Power 5 to stop bullying the G5.

From effectively banning G5 forever from the national Final Four to stealing G5 recruits with impunity on National Signing Day, the Power 5 has set the standard for bullying.

The latest result of the bullying was Michigan State swooping in and taking away Temple commit Raheem Blackshear today.

We doubt Mrs. Trump had anything to do with it, but the G5 scored the smallest possible and maybe its only victory against the P5 when the NCAA’s Division I Football Committee expressed support for moving the signing date backward to December from February.

How does this help the G5?

Well, considering that the middle of December is the time when the P5 schools are ostensibly pre-occupied with preparing for bowl games and the G5 schools are playing in lesser bowls, the G5 staffs can pound the pavements harder to keep their recruits. Usually, the P5 schools do not start poaching G5 commits until AFTER their bowl games, when they have more time to review the film.

Would Temple have lost Blackshear if the signing day was in mid-December, not at the start of February? Possibly, but the indisputable fact is that Michigan State did not get involved with Blackshear until late December, not mid-December.

This has hurt schools like Temple in particular because former coach Matt Rhule had such a good eye for grading film he developed a reputation for finding diamonds in the rough. The P5 would let coaches like Rhule do their grunt work for them, then sweep down to take one of his recruits they might like after their bowl games were completed.

Cutting the time down to mid-December only helps the G5 coaches hold onto their discoveries.

Now if Mrs. Trump can do something about getting the AAC champ an automatic bid in an eight-team playoff, then she can have something tangible to show for her anti-bullying initiative.

Friday: Five Ways to Say No To Bullies

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12 thoughts on “One Step Back Two Steps Forward for G5

  1. Flip train haha.

    – Fatukasi would be a start.

  2. Ouch. Sad news indeed.

  3. I’m slowly coming to the conclusion that those school not part of the P-5 should just downsize to division 3 because it’s becoming more and more difficult and expensive to compete. Michigan is taking its football team to Rome, Italy for gosh sakes. How does a school like TU compete when players are being paid essentially with cost of residence stipends. Watch how quickly they escalate over the next several years. TU won’t be able to keep up in their current position. Time just to ride off into the sunset because the big boys have made and continue to make it clear that they want all the money.

  4. Bullying has become the norm in America – Melania needs to start her program with her husband whose a great example for the grade school kids, huh?!
    Whatever changes occur in recruiting, I’m sure the P5 programs will adjust how and when they do things. They also have the money to hire extra staff to simultaneously cover recruiting while getting ready for their bowl games if necessary. It’s a losing battle for the G5 guys. Maybe Temple will end up at the next level but if not we all need to be satisfied with where we are right now, going to lower level bowl games. Hell, it’s better than where we were before as a program! Another recent act is this competition between the best players in football – each P5 conference now gets a designated team but only one team designated for all the G5 conferences combined. Just another way for the power grab. So, it’s also a good bet to not waste money on a stadium because it probably won’t help to get Temple into the P5 anyway. The cards are simply stacked against that happening.

    • The ironic thing about Temple is that it has the stadium in place for a P5 invitation. It just does not have the fans. If the Owls were able to put 70K in that stadium for every home game, not just ND and PSU, they would have their pick of the Big 10 or ACC because of the additional carrot of media market. They just don’t have the fan base for that.

  5. Melania need to start with her make belief spouse anti bullying. Pillering other recruits at all levels is unfortunately common.

  6. Maybe this recruit saw very little in the way of immediate playing time with an excellent group of receivers in front of him. Bryant, Jennings, Wright, etc..

    Best wishes to him on the banks of the Red Cedar. Let’s find another Ventell Bryant!

  7. If Melania Trump wanted to stop bullying she should start with her husband. As far as recruiting…if you put the kids first then having a late signing date, or at least one after the coaching-poaching season is over is fair.

    These kids commit to schools largely based on the coaches. If the coach leaves for millions after the kid commits it’s clearly the kid who gets screwed. Until the NCAA levels the field on allowing transfers the late signing season seems appropriate. I say all this realizing we got burned this time around but also realizing Blacksheer is a kid with his life in front of him which is more important than my desire for a good Owls football program.

  8. Fair or not, the TV contracts revolve around who they think the nationwide fans want to watch – the big programs in the big conferences. Of course they push the schools who have the big reputations historically and that’s where the lions share of the money ends up. But, y’know, the AAC and Temple have been on TV a lot. If those appearances start getting reduced then we know the money people are manipulating and squeezing out the G5. Welcome to American capitalism mentality folks.

  9. Heck George, if Temple could put just 40K or more in the stands at the Linc they’d be much more enticing to a P5 conference – Vanderbilt only has a 40K stadium in the SEC and some of the other AAC schools that are on the maybe list for P5 acceptance don’t have 70K stadiums either. It’s not just the fan base. Maybe their sorry football history has something to do with it. Rutgers wasn’t great until Schiano’s era and went to the Big10 – do they really own the NYC market? And look at them now! It’s hard to figure Temple’s difficulty with this.

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