I’ve never been too intensely focused on collegiate recruiting, mainly because there’s such a weak correlation between recruiting strength and NIT titles that it’s hard to take the rankings seriously (especially the football rankings—really weak correlation between those and NIT titles). That said, today has been fun.
Travis Hunter and the Power of Money
You may have heard by now that Travis Hunter, one of the best high school football players in the nation, is going to FCS Jackson State. It’s a wild twist—Hunter decommitted from Florida State; it’s a dramatic twist—a million-dollar Name-Image-Likeness deal is reportedly involved; and it might even be a humanitarian twist—Jackson State’s an HBCU. Joe has thoughts on the deal itself, Hunter, Jackson State, Deion Sanders (Jackson State’s head coach), and Barstool (Deion Sanders’s other employer, and an evident major player in the NIL deal) in his notes, so we aren’t going to spend much more time on it except to say that Florida State fans are understandably furious and they’re taking it out on Mike Norvell, which is probably not fair (I don’t know that Nick Saban would have held off seven-figure forces) but is being done in a hilarious-enough manner (they have a Twitter space going with thousands of people involved in which the hosts will only let people speak if they begin by saying, “Fire Mike Norvell”) that we support it. Beautiful nonsense.
What we are going to spend time on is what money could do for college sports, and while that sounds like a stupid question, since there’s so much money already in college sports, NIL and one other 2021-specific trend have us wondering: Could an athletic program get really, really good through no action of its own?
Jackson State made some good choices, if the goal was to improve its football recruiting. Specifically, it made one good choice, which was to hire Deion Sanders. Deion Sanders might not be a great coach (he also might be—Jackson State won the SWAC this year), but he’s demonstrating that he’s a great recruiter, bringing previously unheard-of talent to HBCU football. At the same time, though, a lot of the heft behind this specific signing came from elsewhere. Barstool and its corporate partner are rumored to have agreed to a deal with Hunter for more than a million dollars. Jackson State might have foreseen this when they hired Sanders, but it’s fair to speculate that they didn’t, and that this just happened to them, which is 1) inspiring for those of us who hope for million-dollar things to just happen to us and 2) a reminder of the power of a large group of people uniting around one specific, somewhat arbitrary kind of entertainment. This “large group of people” could refer to college football boosters. It could refer to the consumer base that makes Barstool its money. It could also refer to, I don’t know, a Reddit forum like, I don’t know, WallStreetBets.
The WallStreetBets (WSB) forum, if you’re struggling to remember, rose to prominence earlier this year by proving itself capable of driving specific stock prices “to the moon” by basically choosing to do so. Remember the GameStop stock craze? That was WSB. Heard about AMC’s stock market salvation? That was WSB, or something similar. Hertz’s survival? WSB, or a WSB-adjacent entity. It’s been called the “meme stock” movement, and the general idea is that people, for entertainment, are banding together and choosing stocks to buy not based on what they think the stocks will do on their own, but based on what they think the stocks can do, with their market-moving help. The mechanism is to buy and not sell, thereby raising demand and limiting supply, thereby driving up the stock price. It’s a form of investment, sure, but it’s also a form of entertainment. At least some of these traders are buying stocks recognizing they may not get their money back. They’re paying for entertainment, the same way one pays for a Netflix subscription or to play in a rec volleyball league. This costs money. As do NIL deals. And so I wonder: If someone really wanted, say, Central Connecticut State to become a dominant athletic force, could that someone rally enough people together in the common cause to start offering massive NIL deals to recruits, even with no coordination with the school in question? You’d still need someone to effectively coach the team. But talent helps.
UTSA: The Future University of Texas?
On an extremely related note, Bevo’s Fake Nuts asked today if UTSA could ever overtake UT-Austin as the one called “Texas,” and if so, how.
The Other Early Signing Day Story
Besides Hunter, and a few other things (Dabo Swinney is not about the free market, as we knew), the main story of the day is that within the Big Ten right now, the top seven recruiting classes are from the East Division and the bottom seven are from the West. We’ve talked for a long time about formal promotion and relegation in college sports, and the Big Ten might be doing it. Talk about coordinated market-moving action!
Memphis: Good Win or Bad Win?
Memphis won last night against Alabama, and NIT fans, myself included, are confused. On the one hand, the win is good for their chances of a repeat title, since they were in free fall before the win and free fall often ends with a team missing the NIT. On the other, though, they beat a very good team, and beating a very good team often ends with the team that beat them missing the NIT. I don’t know what to think. My best read is that it was an encouraging sign for those pulling for history.
Burnley Got Canceled
Ok, not cancel-culture canceled. But their game got canceled today because Watford has too many Covid cases, and I was looking forward to it. Was going to be a big opportunity to climb out of the cellar. On the bright side, Maxwel Cornet may now be healthier by the time the lads play Watford, which is important because Maxwel Cornet is the only man on the Clarets clearly capable of scoring and Burnley needs to score to win and Burnley might need to win against Watford to not get relegated. So, we’ll see. Next match Saturday against Aston Villa.
The Senators Killed Florida
The whole state, gone.
The Senators, massive underdogs against the Florida Panthers, won 8-2 last night in yet another hilarious prank on the NHL. They’ve now won five of six, including back-to-back games over the defending Stanley Cup champions and the team which previously had the best record in the league. Great trolling, and if you were wondering, Nick Holden got to wear the bike helmet, which has become the centerpiece of postgame celebrations.
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Plenty of basketball pleasing to NIT fans on the television tonight, with UCF visiting Temple at 7:00 EST on ESPN2 and our old friends Lipscomb going to current NIT contender Florida State at 9:00 EST on ACC Network. For the ESPN+ crowd, it’s even better: Missouri State hosts South Dakota State at 7:00, and there’s a huge game in Utah at 9:00 EST, when Weber State welcomes Utah State to Ogden. Probably time to buy the subscription, guys. At least ask for it for Christmas. They’re showing the games we care about.
