Watched the draft coverage and saw Daylen Everette and Oscar Delp both go in the third round. That's three Tigers in the NFL now and all I can think about is how we used to build rosters back in the 90s. You'd get a kid like Justin Smith who stayed four years, developed in the system, and became a cornerstone. Now every kid with a good sophomore season is staring at the portal or the draft. Everette got roasted as a sophomore at Georgia, came here, we fixed his technique, and now he's a pro. That used to be the normal path. You struggle, you learn, you earn your spot over time.
The 1997 team taught me something that still holds true. That defense didn't have a single first-round pick but they played together for three or four years and could shut anybody down. They knew each other's tendencies, they trusted the system. You cannot buy that chemistry with a transfer class no matter how many five-stars you bring in. Colorado's got 43 new guys and they're still trying to figure out who gets the water bottles on game day.
This new revenue sharing model with the 20 million dollar cap is just going to make it worse. The rich programs will find a way around it and the rest of us will keep losing kids we developed. I miss when a Missouri Tiger meant something more than a price tag.