Spring practice wrapped and I keep coming back to how our defensive coaches are scheming against the spread this year. We struggled early last season when teams stretched us sideline to sideline but the adjustments they made in the second. The new linebacker rotation they are building this offseasoon has me feeling better about our ability to contain those quick passing attacks. Nobody in the GLIAC wants to admit we fixed our biggest weakness.
Does CBS Sports really have nothing better to cover than the NBA Rockets and Lakers while the NFL Draft is. Every single year the national media treats Division II like it does not exist. We had multiple players this year who absolutely deserved a combine invite and got nothing. No coverage, no respect, no shot. Meanwhile the same five Power Four programs get talked about for months. The draft analsyis buses roll on and they act like our program is invisible. I am tired of pretending this is fair. Our coaching staff puts kids in the league every year. Watch where our undrafted free agents land and tell me they cannot play.
Calling it now , by the time summer workouts wrap up, our 2026 recruiting class will be ranked higher than anyone in the GLIAC expected. We are quietly stacking commitments from guys who actually fit our system, not just chasing stars like the big programs do. Everyone wants to talk about Oregon bringing in five five-stars or Texas landing Dia Bell and Richard Wesley, and that is fine for them. But we are building something deeper and more sustainable right here in Allendale. Our staff has been relentless on the trail, identifying kids who want to compete and develop. The spring portal window being eliminated only helps us because we have always prioritized high school development over shopping for mercenaries every offseason. Watch the rankinggs update after the dead period ends , we will jump a few spots when some of these under-the-radar verbals go public. This front office understands that culture beats talent when talent does not buy in, and you can see it in every evaluation they make. By September, people will stop sleeping on what we are assembling.
Three years we've been hearing about how GLIAC stadiums are nothing special and how our place is just another stop on the D-II circuit. Three years of people rolling into town acting like they are doing us a favor by playing in front of our crowd. And every sngle time they leave with that same stunned look on their faces wondering what just happened. You want to talk about stadium atmosphere? Walk into our place on a crisp October Saturday when the leaves are turning and the band is warming up in the north end zone. That first hit of the day when our defense lays someone out and the whole place just erupts. We do not need 100,000 seats and a jumbotron the size of a house to make noise. The way that sound bounces off the old concrete and traps itself in that bowl creates something you cannot manufacture. People always want to compare us to the big FCS programs with their shiny new facilities and bigger budgets. They talk about the Dakota schools and their domes or Grand Valley with their artificial turf and luxury boxes. But they miss the point entirely. Our place has history baked into every single bleacher. You can feel the generations that have sat in those same spots watching us build something real. That matters more than how many HD screens you can cram into a concourse. The tailgate scene alone is worth the price of admission. Our lot fills up before sunrise and the smell of grills and the sound of people laughing carries across campus all morning. Alumni drive four five six hours to get back here because they know what it feels like to be part of this. There is no substitute for that kind of loyalty and nobody can buy it with an NIL check or a portal haul. We might not get the national attention that some of these bigger programs get for their game day experience but. The energy the tradition the way the whole town shuts down for a home game. That is something you cannot replicate and honestly I would not trade it for anything.
Everyone praising the big programs for their portal hauls this spring is missing the point entirely. The real story nobody wants to talk about is how much coaching stability matters in this era. We watch places year through coordinators EVERY 12 months and wonder why they can't develop consistency. Our staff has been together for three full cycles now. That continuity shows in spring ball when you watch the fundamentals. The guys who just transferred in are picking up the system faster becau...
Everyone sleeping on what spring ball means for our QB room is missing the whole point. We don't need a five-star transfer or a portal splash to win in this league. We need a guy who's been in our system, who knows the reads, who can manage the game and let our defense do the rest. That's what spring practice is for. Developing the guy who's been here, NOT chasing the shiny object from the portal. Our staff has proven they can coach up talent. I'd rather have a three-star who's been in our offense for two years than a four-star who shows up in. That's how you build something lasting.
Everyone wants to talk about the SEC and Big Ten loading up five-stars like that is the only way to build anything. Meanwhile we keep developing kids who actually want to be here and turning them into NFL prospects. I watched the draft this weekend and counted our guys getting called up while progams with all the hype in. The real story in college football right now is not who bought the best class in the portal. It is who actually knows how to coach. You can bring in 50 transfers like Oklahoma State or 43 like Colorado but if your culture is not there. Look at what we do every year. We build from within. We develop. We do not panic when a guy leaves because the next man up has been in the system for two years and knows the playbook. Our staff does not get enough credit for how they evaluate. We find guys that fit our system not just the highest ranked kid on the board. When the season starts and the dust settles on all these Frankenstein rosters we will be the ones who look like a real football team. That is the difference between a program and a collection of mercenaries. We have a program.
Everyone talking about Oklahoma State and Colorado stacking portal guys like that guarantees wins. Nobody wants to admit that building a roster through 50 transfers means zero continuity and zero buy-in. Our coaching staff develops homegrown taletn and gets guys drafted withou...
Everybody keeps pointing at the SEC and Big Ten loading up on five-stars and talking about conference dominance like it. That is lazy analysis and it misses what we are doing in the GLIAC. Conference dominance is about consistency, NOT just flashy recruiting rankings. We have won or shared the GLIAC title in three of the last four seasons. That is dominance. That is a program that knows how to win when the games actually matter, not just when the recruiting services post their ranknigs in February. You look at these Power Four teams flipping rosters through the portal every winter and calling it a rebuild. That is not dominance. That is panic. We reload through development and retention. Our staff identifies guys in high school, builds them up over three or four years. That is how you build a real run of conference titles. It is not about who has the most five-star busts. Meanwhile the national narrative acts like the GLIAC does not matter because we do not have the TV money. But the NFL Draft this week proves something different. Our guys get drafted every year because they are coached up, not just recruited past. Conference dominance is about putting players in the league and hanging banners. We have done both. Let the SEC and Big Ten fight over who has the deeper bench of backups. We will keep stacking titles in our league and watching our guys hear their names called on draft weekend.
Still hits different? That tailgate two years ago when we parked the RV in the north lot at dawn and the whole crew. The smoker was running by 8 AM and by kickoff the whole block smelled like victory. Nobody does Saturday like Laker Nation.
Everyone talks about big programs bringing in 50 transfers or stacking five-stars and acts like that is the only way to build a winning culture. Our section at Lubbers Stadium does not care about any of that. We show up for the spring game, we tailgate in the cold April rain. That is real fan culture, not whatever hype machine these major programs try to manufacture. We have been doing this since before the ...
People keep pointing at Oregon and Ohio State loading up 5-stars every year and asking why we can't compete with that. Look at the NFL Draft happening right now. Count how many mid-major guys are hearing their names called compared to a decade ago. The gap is closing. Our development model produces pro-ready players who stick around and play four years instead of jumping to the portal after one good season. Give me a roster full of fourth-year juniors who know the system over a rental any day...
Watching the SEC talk about going to a nine-game scheudle and all I can think about is how that's going. More conference games means more film on opponents, more wear and tear on depth, and way more pressure on rotational guys. That's exactly where we've been quietly building an advantage in the GLIAC for years. Our defense has to face our own offense in spring ball every day and that offense moves. When you're getting punched in the mouth by your own guys in practice, those third-and-longs on Saturdays feel easy by comparison. The thing nobody wants to admit about our defensive unit right now is that the back seven is actually ahead of schedule lmao. We lost some bodies to graduation but the new guys coming through spring drills have that hunger you can't coach. They're flying to the ball on every snap and the communication issues we saw in the first week are already cleaning up. If the front four holds up against the run, we ...
I don't care how many highlight-reel throws Dylan Raiola makes in Oregon spring practice or how many portal guys Deion stacked at Colorado. The officials in the GLIAC have been calling holding on our O-line all spring with absolutely no consistency. One drive they let them play, next drive it's a flag on EVERY down. We are trying to build chemistry with new transfers on the interior and we cannot get a clean rep to.
Oregon landing 5-star QB Will Mencl is exactly what everyone wrned us about when NIL and the new playoff format collided. The rich get richer while the rest of us fight for scraps. But you know what, let them keep stacking top-5 classes. We have built our program on finding underrated gems from the Midwest and developing them over three or four years. Our 2027 class might not have the star rankings. The portal giveth and the portal taketh away, and Oregon will learn that eventually.
Just saw the Ohio State spring game overreactions. People get so hyped over a glorified scrimmage in a half-empty stadium. Our spring atmosphere at the sttadium is actually electric because our fans show up to support the team, NOT just to see five-stars run drills. That's real program culture.
Stop pretending a massive portal haul like Oklahoma State's is some masterclass in coaching. That's just roster assembly, not development. Our staff is building something real with the guys who want to be here, not just collecting 50 mercenaries. That's the kind of stability that wins championships in the GLIAC, not a revolving door lmao.
Why are we not the model for how to build a real program anymore? Everyone's obsessed with Colorado bringing in 43 trnasfers or Oklahoma State flipping 50 guys, acting like that's sustainable football. That's not a team, that's a fantasy draft. We build through development and a few key portal adds, not by renting an entire roster every year. Those schools have no identity, no culture. What happens when all those mercenaries don't gel by Week 3? They'll collapse. Our way, the Lakers way, builds men who fight for each other for years, not just a season. Isn't that what real rivalries and real football are built on?
Watched that spring practice footage they dropped yesterday, the one where the offense was running those inside zone plays with the new back. The way he hit the hole, one cut and gone. It wasn't even a full contact drill and you could see it. That’s the feeling I’ve been waiting for all offseason. Everyone else is losing their minds over Oklahoma State bringing in 50 strangers or Colorado’s 43-man circus. It’s not. It’s desperation. What we’re doing is different. We lost guys to the draft, everyone does, but we didn’t panic and try to replace them with a whole new team. We went and got specific pieces that fit our system, and we’re developing the guys who waited their turn. That’s the part the national folks never get. They see a recruiting ranking or a portal tally and think that’s the whole story. They don’t see the spring reps, the way the new transfers are already calling the veterans by their nicknames. Look at what’s happening at some of these other places. A team brings in 50 new players. How do you build chemistry? How do you establish a culture when half the locker room are mercenaries on one-year deals? That’s not a team, that’s a temporary collection of talent. We’re building something that lasts. I keep seeing these articles about the 2026 draft and guys like Jeremiyah Love being potential top-five picks. It’s a good reminder that elite talent comes from all kinds of programs, not just the usual suspects. It proves our path is valid. We don’t need to be in the headlines every day for some crazy portal splash. We need to be in the lab, putting our guys in positions to make plays within our scheme. The way our staff develops players, especially in the trenches, is going to be the difference. While other teams are teaching their 50 new players the playbook, we’re refining the details. We’re working on timing, on communication, on the little things that win close games in the GLIAC. That’s why I’m steady right now. The confidence isn’t some loud, brash thing. It’s quiet. It’s seeing the work. It’s knowing that our ident...