2024 Football Portal News

budwom said:
I like the fact that Duke keeps its dealings quiet and private as they should be, unlike those of certain other circus-centric programs.
At the very least we have begun to quell the lamentations of those who repeatedly say Duke can't compete, or Nina is doing nothing, whatever.
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This! There seems to be this impulse to think that without complete transparency we did something untoward. I don't buy it. The potential inaccuracies some have cited are media assumptions and speculations born of inference, not anything Manny et al have actually said. There are good reasons for discretion that do not involve anything inappropriate whatsoever. My fellow Dukies who keep smelling something off need a good nasal rinse.
 
Mike Petrik said:
This! There seems to be this impulse to think that without complete transparency we did something untoward. I don't buy it. The potential inaccuracies some have cited are media assumptions and speculations born of inference, not anything Manny et al have actually said. There are good reasons for discretion that do not involve anything inappropriate whatsoever. My fellow Dukies who keep smelling something off need a good nasal rinse.
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Pass them the saline solution.
 
Without having worked at Duke athletics, I imagine the Duke compliance office has a direct line to their NCAA counterparts, and understands fully what the rules and limits are. Moreover, don't NCAA violation void a coach's contract at Duke?

So, imagined violations here are unlikely to have occurred.
 
Mike Petrik said:
This! There seems to be this impulse to think that without complete transparency we did something untoward. I don't buy it. The potential inaccuracies some have cited are media assumptions and speculations born of inference, not anything Manny et al have actually said. There are good reasons for discretion that do not involve anything inappropriate whatsoever. My fellow Dukies who keep smelling something off need a good nasal rinse.
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Just because something is done legally doesn't mean it smells rosy.
 
Stray Gator said:
I'm probably not the only one thinking this, but if the numbers being reported are even in the ballpark of being correct, Mensah had better be really, really good. That's all.
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My thought too. If he is getting $4 million per year, I hope there's a provision in his contract, along the lines of a clawback of $100,000 for every interception that he throws.
 
heyman25 said:
John Mack might be a possibility of a funds source. Former lineman for Bill Murray teams. From North Carolina but was head of Morgan Stanley. Just a wild guess. Maybe Tim Cook at Apple
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He was an absolute boss during the GFC. If anyone hasn’t read the book or seen the movie Too Big To Fail, recommend watching (he’s only in it a bit but still awesome)
 
And on the topic of tampering early with players, in the grand scheme of offenses out there, this one to me is like a 2 out of 10 bad even if we did it (which there’s no evidence we did). This is just the way of the world now until there are some formal guardrails put in place. Once that happens and clearly delineated rules (with punishments and enforcements) are set up, then I think we should care

This is going 75 on a 65-limit country road with wide visibility and no cars coming the other direction
 
CameronBornAndBred said:
Just because something is done legally doesn't mean it smells rosy.
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Sure, but taking several perfectly innocuous facts, piecing them together, and saying I smell a rat makes no sense. As far as I'm concerned it is all a matter of staying within the rules AND treating your student-athletes fairly. We have ZERO evidence that Duke failed at either. All reports are consistent in that Maalik was offered to stay on the team with his scholarship, etc., but decided to go elsewhere because he was not going to be guaranteed the starting job he thought he had earned and of course felt he needed. There is nothing wrong with Manny wanting a more mobile quarterback that can run the offense he brought in his OC to run. And there is nothing wrong with Maalik looking for a program that was going to give him the minutes necessary to have reasonable NFL prospects.
 
budwom said:
not sure how you reach that conclusion since none of knows what precisely happened. Why assume malfeasance?
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I haven't reached any conclusion. My statement isn't even about only Duke; the whole NIL thing is bringing a new level of shadiness. It seems to be able to compete, every program is engaging in ethically questionable transactions, even though on paper they are legal.
I hate that a player that committed during his high school recruitment feels they have to leave because someone else was portaled in over them.

I can't help but turn up my nose at what's taking place, in Durham and elsewhere. I'm still going to cheer on our team, but I feel no guilt in not liking how they are put together. Same applies to our other teams.
 
CameronBornAndBred said:
I haven't reached any conclusion. My statement isn't even about only Duke; the whole NIL thing is bringing a new level of shadiness. It seems to be able to compete, every program is engaging in ethically questionable transactions, even though on paper they are legal.
I hate that a player that committed during his high school recruitment feels they have to leave because someone else was portaled in over them.

I can't help but turn up my nose at what's taking place, in Durham and elsewhere. I'm still going to cheer on our team, but I feel no guilt in not liking how they are put together. Same applies to our other teams.
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I agree with your generalized "up my nose" concerns. The overall situation that has been created truly stinks. What I (and maybe others) disagree with is characterizing singular situations as inappropriate or dirty without any supportive evidence beyond rumors and innuendo.
 
A couple things --

1) I am highly skeptical of the $8 mil figure. I have spoken to some folks who are close to the NIL efforts at Duke they have told me they don't believe it either. Does everyone remember when there were reports that Jeremy Roach was making $1.5 mil to go to Baylor? Jeremy literally laughed out loud when he heard that. At $4 mil per year, Mensah would be getting paid more than half the first round picks in the NFL draft. That just doesn't add up.

2) I am REALLY GETTING SICK of folks speculating that Murphy was flipping off the coaching staff in some kind of serious fashion at the end of the Wake game. Everyone involved, including Maalik, have explained what was going on there and it was nothing but playful stuff. I have been told that Duke had not made any final decisions about the future of the QB position at that time and certainly would not have told Maalik that they were going to move on from him. I'm going to issue a blanket warning -- IF YOU CONTINUE TO TALK ABOUT THIS WITHOUT EVIDENCE TO BACK IT UP, YOU WILL GET A RUMOR MONGERING INFRACTION.

3) As others have mentioned, the portal is the wild wild west. You know how on the first day of NBA free agency we see dozens of players sign contracts even though there was barely time for the team and the player to even shake hands, let alone negotiate all the finer details of a 4-year contract? Well, that is because the "start of free agency" is sorta a fake starting line and most teams have been speaking to agents for weeks at that point. Well, it should come as no surprise that the same thing happens with regard to the college portal opening. Now, my impression is that the portal stuff happens fairly quickly -- I've been told that conversations with agents don't really start up until after the regular season has ended for teams because coaches cannot be bothered with that stuff in the midst of their regular season. In any event, if you think the first time Duke spoke to Darien Mensah and his representatives was the moment he arrived on campus... well, you are being naïve.

4) On the positive side, Duke making waves and attracting attention for our aggressive roster building in football is a damn good thing! It shows that the college football world needs to pay attention to us and is a signal to other players that Duke is serious about building a team that can compete for the top of the ACC and a spot in the playoff. Duke has now won 9-8-9 (or 10?) games in the past 3 seasons. This is a program on the rise and we are speaking LOUDLY with our NIL investment to prove it.
 
Totally agree with Jason Evans’s 4 points. Nobody on this Forum really has any solid facts on these points…except that the NIL Wild West is very strange for all of us who grew up in the ‘50s in college football…when revenue was from tickets and concessions. It is a different world. I would counsel that the CBS article was, if read carefully, actually couched in terms of pure speculation. While smoke usually means fire…it can also mean just smoke.
 
It is so tough to decide whether a headline on a news feed that talks about a trade or signing is a guess as opposed to real news, that it doesn't surprise me that someone would post a headline about an NIL deal meant to attract clicks, with no facts or support behind it at all. And then of course everyone takes it as gospel.
 
For good or ill, collegiate athletics - or at least where they generate money - is a meritocracy. Schools want to win, but not lose boatloads of money trying. And maybe even fund some of those non-revenue sports in the process.

Athletes want to play. Some athletes want to be paid in more than a scholarship. Some athletes don't want to wait to play or don't want to be the back up. And some would rather be the backup on a good or great team rather than a starter on a mediocre team. Others, the opposite.

The current system - albeit a far cry from what we grew up with - encourages athletes to find their own comfort and skill level, with a great reshuffling every season. It's amazing how fast it's all changed!

-jk
 
-jk said:
For good or ill, collegiate athletics - or at least where they generate money - is a meritocracy. Schools want to win, but not lose boatloads of money trying. And maybe even fund some of those non-revenue sports in the process.

Athletes want to play. Some athletes want to be paid in more than a scholarship. Some athletes don't want to wait to play or don't want to be the back up. And some would rather be the backup on a good or great team rather than a starter on a mediocre team. Others, the opposite.

The current system - albeit a far cry from what we grew up with - encourages athletes to find their own comfort and skill level, with a great reshuffling every season. It's amazing how fast it's all changed!

-jk
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yes, some sort of efficient market theory situation, quite the change.
 
JasonEvans said:
A couple things --

1) I am highly skeptical of the $8 mil figure. I have spoken to some folks who are close to the NIL efforts at Duke they have told me they don't believe it either. Does everyone remember when there were reports that Jeremy Roach was making $1.5 mil to go to Baylor? Jeremy literally laughed out loud when he heard that. At $4 mil per year, Mensah would be getting paid more than half the first round picks in the NFL draft. That just doesn't add up.

2) I am REALLY GETTING SICK of folks speculating that Murphy was flipping off the coaching staff in some kind of serious fashion at the end of the Wake game. Everyone involved, including Maalik, have explained what was going on there and it was nothing but playful stuff. I have been told that Duke had not made any final decisions about the future of the QB position at that time and certainly would not have told Maalik that they were going to move on from him. I'm going to issue a blanket warning -- IF YOU CONTINUE TO TALK ABOUT THIS WITHOUT EVIDENCE TO BACK IT UP, YOU WILL GET A RUMOR MONGERING INFRACTION.

3) As others have mentioned, the portal is the wild wild west. You know how on the first day of NBA free agency we see dozens of players sign contracts even though there was barely time for the team and the player to even shake hands, let alone negotiate all the finer details of a 4-year contract? Well, that is because the "start of free agency" is sorta a fake starting line and most teams have been speaking to agents for weeks at that point. Well, it should come as no surprise that the same thing happens with regard to the college portal opening. Now, my impression is that the portal stuff happens fairly quickly -- I've been told that conversations with agents don't really start up until after the regular season has ended for teams because coaches cannot be bothered with that stuff in the midst of their regular season. In any event, if you think the first time Duke spoke to Darien Mensah and his representatives was the moment he arrived on campus... well, you are being naïve.

4) On the positive side, Duke making waves and attracting attention for our aggressive roster building in football is a damn good thing! It shows that the college football world needs to pay attention to us and is a signal to other players that Duke is serious about building a team that can compete for the top of the ACC and a spot in the playoff. Duke has now won 9-8-9 (or 10?) games in the past 3 seasons. This is a program on the rise and we are speaking LOUDLY with our NIL investment to prove it.
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Hear hear on all counts!!
 
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