You Badger fans always did have a selective memory. You're crying about loyalty after Alvarez spent years poaching Minnesota kids and raiding our Texas backyard? Please. That 1998 team you're so proud of was built on takking players from other regions. You think we've forgotten the battles for guys like Lee Evans? This isn't new, it's just more visible. And spare me the tears over development. Mike Leach built an entire empire on finding kids everyone else overlooked and turning them into stars, from Wes Welker to Danny Amendola to a walk-on quarterback named Graham Harrell. That still happens. Our guy Tahj Brooks, a three-star kid nobody wanted, just ground his way to being one of the best backs in the country. He didn't need the portal. Development isn't dead, you just have to actually coach.
You talk about the portal like it's a curse, but for a program like ours, it's a lifeline. You think we were getting five-star croots to Lubbock in the old days? Never. We built through junior colleges and finding diamonds in the rough. The portal is just the modern JUCO route. Joey McGuire is doing exactly what Spike Dykes did, finding tough kids who want to be here and building a culture. The difference is now we can go get a quarterback like Behren Morton who understands the system, or a defensive leader from another Power Five school who's hungry. It's not renting mercenaries, it's finding Red Raiders who just happened to start somewhere else. That 2022 team that beat Texas and Oklahoma had heart, portal kids included.
Your whole argument reeks of Big Ten privilege. You had your built-in TV network money and traditional pipelines. We've always had to adapt and scrap for everything. Conference realignment killed the Southwest Conference and fractured the Big 12, so don't lecture us on tradition being erased. You helped kill it. The game has changed, but the core is the same. Kids still want to win. They still want to play for something. You just can't rely on geography...