Some interesting comments from him at his weekly press conference, especially on costs to bring in transfers...
“I am not philosophically against the portal. Some coaches don’t believe in it. To me, if there’s a good football player out there that fits our culture and helps us win, we’ll take him. We’ve had a lot of really good transfers here.
“College football has changed so much in the last 18 months. Let’s say we went through spring football and Mitch Griffis had an injury that has him out for the year and Michael Kern decided to graduate and leave. Do people realize what the market is to get a high-caliber starting quarterback? It’s at least half a million and at least for a real good one, it’s probably seven figures. We’re not in that market. Part of the reason that we want to keep our own is we don’t have access to that market the way that some people do. Anytime someone is saying, ‘they’re the portal kings’, a lot of the people who are the portal kings are backed by very healthy collectives.”
“Last year we graduated Kobie Turner, and he got drafted and we tried like crazy to find the next Kobie Turner. We’re offering guys playing time, a chance to play for a winning program, and a Wake Forest degree. Other people are offering them the same things and a car, and an apartment, and six figures. We didn’t even have a collective set up then. We ended up taking some defensive linemen in the portal but our competition for those guys was different. It wasn’t a bidding war. That’s what the transfer portal has become. When you recruit high school players: the college experience, and the degree, all those things matter. When you get into the portal, it becomes, ‘what does your collective have?’
Now fortunately right now we do have a collective. I think that will get better here. I think it’s improving. I’m hopeful. But a year ago when we tried to get guys out of the portal that were really high level players, we were noncompetitive for those guys. We found players, but a lot of our guys came from lower levels, where with our competition, they didn’t have to get paid. That’s the reality of college football right now.”
“Again, it’s my job as a head coach, and we gotta figure out a way. But that market has changed dramatically in the last two years of how you get those guys. I don’t know if we could’ve gotten Malik in this environment two or three years ago. To me, our emphasis is on we gotta keep our own and that gets hard. We had two of our starting offensive linemen get offered over six figures from a Big Ten school and they weren’t even in the portal. Now fortunately we had a collective at that point and they decided to stay and get their degrees and I’m sure the collective had something to do with that. A year ago we weren’t in that market, we couldn’t be, we didn’t have any way of doing that.”
“I am not philosophically against the portal. Some coaches don’t believe in it. To me, if there’s a good football player out there that fits our culture and helps us win, we’ll take him. We’ve had a lot of really good transfers here.
“College football has changed so much in the last 18 months. Let’s say we went through spring football and Mitch Griffis had an injury that has him out for the year and Michael Kern decided to graduate and leave. Do people realize what the market is to get a high-caliber starting quarterback? It’s at least half a million and at least for a real good one, it’s probably seven figures. We’re not in that market. Part of the reason that we want to keep our own is we don’t have access to that market the way that some people do. Anytime someone is saying, ‘they’re the portal kings’, a lot of the people who are the portal kings are backed by very healthy collectives.”
“Last year we graduated Kobie Turner, and he got drafted and we tried like crazy to find the next Kobie Turner. We’re offering guys playing time, a chance to play for a winning program, and a Wake Forest degree. Other people are offering them the same things and a car, and an apartment, and six figures. We didn’t even have a collective set up then. We ended up taking some defensive linemen in the portal but our competition for those guys was different. It wasn’t a bidding war. That’s what the transfer portal has become. When you recruit high school players: the college experience, and the degree, all those things matter. When you get into the portal, it becomes, ‘what does your collective have?’
Now fortunately right now we do have a collective. I think that will get better here. I think it’s improving. I’m hopeful. But a year ago when we tried to get guys out of the portal that were really high level players, we were noncompetitive for those guys. We found players, but a lot of our guys came from lower levels, where with our competition, they didn’t have to get paid. That’s the reality of college football right now.”
“Again, it’s my job as a head coach, and we gotta figure out a way. But that market has changed dramatically in the last two years of how you get those guys. I don’t know if we could’ve gotten Malik in this environment two or three years ago. To me, our emphasis is on we gotta keep our own and that gets hard. We had two of our starting offensive linemen get offered over six figures from a Big Ten school and they weren’t even in the portal. Now fortunately we had a collective at that point and they decided to stay and get their degrees and I’m sure the collective had something to do with that. A year ago we weren’t in that market, we couldn’t be, we didn’t have any way of doing that.”
