Kirby is on SEC Now talking about all this young talent and I cannot help but think about what we lost to get here. Three portal losses in one week this winter and that is just the cost of doing business now. I remember when you recruited a kid out of high school, you shook his daddy's hand, and he was a Bulldog for four or five years. You watched him grow from a freshman who could not find the weight room to a senior captain who knew every gap assignment in his sleep. Now these kids come in for spring practice and if they are not starting by the second scrimmage they are gone to some other program before the leaves turn.
The portal killed something special and I do not think the people running this sport understand what they traded away. We used to build teams the way Coach Dooley built them, year after year, same faces, same families sitting in the same seats every Saturday. Now we are plugging holes every December like we are patching a leaky roof. Kirby is a great coach and he will figure it out with Kaiden Prothro and the young receivers but I cannot help wondering what this pogram would look like if some of those kids who left had stayed and grown up in our system. That is the part nobody talks about when they celebrate the portal era.