ESPN can run their "top 25 portal classes" list all day long and I will tell you the same thing I have been saying since this nonsense started. You want to know what actually built this program? Walk ons. Real walk ons from Louisiana high schools who would have run through a wall just to pull on that purple and gold jersey. Not some mercenary from the portal who is here for one spring and gone the second a better NIL deal pops up somewhere else.
Back in the late 80s under Coach Archer we had kids who showed up to fall camp unannounced with their high school highlight tapes and begged for a chance to try out. They slept on couches in the athletic dorms and ate whatever was left in the cafeteria. Some of them never played a down but they made the starters better every single day in practice because they had something you cannot buy with a bag of cash. They had pride in the Tiger. They had family that had been tailgating in the same spot since the 1970s. They understood what it meant to represent this state.
Now we are supposed to get excited about a transfer class ranking while the walk on tradition is dying a slow death. You think any of these portal kids care about the traditions in Death Valley? You think they know the words to the fight song or understand why we lock arms and sing at the end of the third quarter? They are here for a paycheck and a highlight reel and that is it.
I watched us develop a walk on into an All American in the 90s and I watched that kid cry on Senior Day because he did not want to leave this place. That is what we are losing. That is what the portal and NIL and all this modern garbage is stripping away from the game I grew up loving. You can keep your top 25 portal classes. I will take a kid from Opelousas who has been dreaming of playing in Tiger Stadium since he was old enough to hold a football.