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First post...better make it good.

"Notre Dame, buoyed by transfers, knocks Georgia out of CFP"

TL;DR: First off, this headline triggered me. It oozes with sore-loser jealousy. Anyone who has followed ND all season would know that this wasn’t just a showing of transfer stars; these stars have also had their struggles all season. Getting to where we are right now has been a massive team effort, buoyed by so many players that were recruited by and/or developed by ND.

But my full take is this:

As NIL and the transfer portal started really getting going prior to this season, we all shouted that this was the end of college football as we know it. We were right. But, lucky us, we seem to be playing the first round of this new era better than a lot of teams.

This isn’t just the players – we have a coach who is using so many strategic tactics that I’ve never seen that, when they happen, we fans can see what he’s trying to lure the opposition into…and it works. So many times this season, I’ve been watching the game and will say out loud, “wait, he’s trying to …” and then it works. Case in point, drawing GA offsides on 4 & 1 with a special teams switcheroo and a delayed snap.

Long-term, I think the current NIL/portal setup will be bad for smaller programs – they will likely have to work incredibly hard to keep stars they’ve developed from transferring out. I’m very curious to see what these teams will do to incentivize players to stick around in the future. Perhaps there is plenty of room for these programs to grow and eventually become larger programs themselves, but we’ll have to wait to see that. I, like many ND fans, am a non-alumnus fan who would love to see my random state school alma mater eventually have a successful football team, but for now I don’t see that happening.

In the current season and state of NIL/portal, I 100% thought that UGA, Bama, OSU, um, etc. would just be able to snowball their programs by dumping money into their roster and keep their crazy depth. Depth I’ve dreamed about for YEARS.

Instead, it’s leveling the playing field. For once, all the depth in the NCAA isn’t warming some big-program bench. Talent is being distributed to teams, and coaches can coach and build teams. A player isn’t going to just wait his turn behind two others in Nowhere, USA so that he has a chance to shine one day. Some school that doesn’t have $20mm but has $2mm is going to say, “come play for us NOW and SHINE”.

Last night was a good night. I absolutely lost my mind. I’m not saying we will win out. But we have a chance. We just got respect. Today, the SEC fanboys/girls will be claiming injuries took away real UGA (look at our injuries!!). But we all know Carson Beck was not going to take GA all the way. Gunner Stockton is going to be good. He doesn’t have the reps yet, but he’ll be a force next year. Still, we beat the SEC school that analysts (esp. Paul Whine-baum) were saying was going to win it all.

If you’re an SEC team that watched last night’s game and thought anything other than ‘Damn. Maybe Notre Dame isn’t overrated.’, you’re a denier who can’t see past your SEC goggles. And maybe the SEC should stop looking at their inbred schedule that is fluffed with just as many easy games as we all have.

I'm pumped. Bring on PSU. GO IRISH. BEAT NITTANY LIONS.


Link: https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/43266364/notre-dame-buoyed-transfers-knocks-georgia-cfp