I've been thinking a lot about the removal of the 25 IC cap as I'm sure everyone else has. As I said in another thread, that single decision instantly changed the way coaches approach recruiting and roster management. Any school that doesn't adjust will start to see diminishing returns almost immediately.
The first question I had was why/why now? The most obvious answer is that this corrects several issues that schools were facing due to recent NCAA decisions (immediate play transfer portal, Covid exception).
Between the immediate play transfer portal and the Covid exception, the number of transfers has blown up...from about 10/year per school to about 20/year per school. The 25 IC cap made that issue worse. Schools couldn't successfully backfill their roster and kids were getting stuck in the portal with no place to go. This creates more homes for those kids.
The Covid exception also created a massive freshmen (soon to be sophomore class) that almost every school in the country was already stressing about. In 3 years, every school in the country is going to graduate between 32-47 kids. The IC cap made it impossible to backfill in a single class. Schools were already getting creative with upperclassmen transfers and pocketing IC's so that they could forward count a bunch down the road. This means that schools won't have to worry about that as much. No one is going to try to make up the entire loss in a single class, but you may see them not stress quite so much.
Those aren't necessarily bad things. Just things to note.
With the immediate play transfer, NIL, and now an unlimited amount of signings (theoretically), schools have to shift what they were doing even more than what they were before. I've got some personal thoughts on this, but I'll save them for another day...I'm still trying to untangle that knot.
For a school like KU, the focus has always been identifying the kids that can play but are maybe an inch too short or a step too slow, putting them in systems that mask their gaps, and developing the hell out of them. I don't think that philosophy necessarily changes, but it's going to have to adjust.
That's now a bit of a double-edged sword for high school recruits. A kid blows up early and suddenly one of the big boys swings in with a 6 figure payout and the kid may be gone. I don't think you can STOP trying to find those kids, but everyone needs to understand that it's going to happen. I don't necessarily think that programs like KU are going to turn into a farm system, but they are going to lose kids. There's no sense in worrying about it or changing what you are doing there. Just start to wrap your head around it.
You mitigate some of that risk by taking that same approach when it comes to kids in the portal. Identifying 4x3, 3x3 kids becomes paramount. You've got enough time with them to work that physical and skill set development. You lose a year of that development, but in return, they basically can't transfer until they graduate without sitting a year. That's going to be a big deterrent for a lot of guys. I know that there are a lot of anti-transfer/pro-high school kid guys on here. You're going to have to understand that those guys aren't negatives on a staff but rather an indication that a staff understands the new landscape.
You will likely see the 85 rounded out annually with 1-year/2-year transfers and with fringe high school kids. There's not really much benefit to banking scholarships for the future if you're not sure that there's anyone solid. With 1 year players, you get the scholarship back at the end of the season. With marginal prospects, you can have a difficult conversation at the end of the first year.
This doesn't necessarily mean that everyone is going to be taking 35 kids a year. I think it will happen the first year or two so that schools can get their rosters back up to normal, but after that, I just don't see that happening with everyone. There will be a handful of programs out there that will try to do it, but in time it will screw them. They will either develop a piss poor reputation which will hurt their recruiting, or their rosters will have enough transfers on it that they just don't have the roster space to do it.
What does this mean for KU? In the immediate future, things got a little harder. Finishing out this cycle is going to be a challenge. There are too many spots to fill and too many programs that just got the green light to snag another 2-3 kids. I think that will balance out after next cycle, but we will see. Personally, I think that the staff is probably going to shift to a 50/50 mindset...50% HS kids and 50% transfers. We will recruit JC's too but right now everyone is sniffing the JC ranks to fill out their rosters so they're being picked pretty clean.
I think the NCAA has another problem on their hands that they are going to probably have to deal with at some point. With the transfer market being what it is, I think they probably need to look at a creating an LOI for transfers with a couple of transfer signing windows. Limiting when kids can go into the portal doesn't fix anything. The same kids are going to go to the portal...the only thing that changes is when...and they will flood the market in a very short window which will hurt them long term. If you create something that binds them to the school and the school to them and note when they can sign, you add a little bit of stability. With so many kids entering after spring ball, it could be 4 months before they lock into a school. The school could change their mind...or the player could go elsewhere. The NCAA doesn't want a situation where a kid is locked into a program, starts fall camp, and then goes to a different school before classes start because another program threw a ton of NIL money at them at the last second because of a late injury. It will happen...and after it happens, it will happen again and again until they deal with it.
The first question I had was why/why now? The most obvious answer is that this corrects several issues that schools were facing due to recent NCAA decisions (immediate play transfer portal, Covid exception).
Between the immediate play transfer portal and the Covid exception, the number of transfers has blown up...from about 10/year per school to about 20/year per school. The 25 IC cap made that issue worse. Schools couldn't successfully backfill their roster and kids were getting stuck in the portal with no place to go. This creates more homes for those kids.
The Covid exception also created a massive freshmen (soon to be sophomore class) that almost every school in the country was already stressing about. In 3 years, every school in the country is going to graduate between 32-47 kids. The IC cap made it impossible to backfill in a single class. Schools were already getting creative with upperclassmen transfers and pocketing IC's so that they could forward count a bunch down the road. This means that schools won't have to worry about that as much. No one is going to try to make up the entire loss in a single class, but you may see them not stress quite so much.
Those aren't necessarily bad things. Just things to note.
With the immediate play transfer, NIL, and now an unlimited amount of signings (theoretically), schools have to shift what they were doing even more than what they were before. I've got some personal thoughts on this, but I'll save them for another day...I'm still trying to untangle that knot.
For a school like KU, the focus has always been identifying the kids that can play but are maybe an inch too short or a step too slow, putting them in systems that mask their gaps, and developing the hell out of them. I don't think that philosophy necessarily changes, but it's going to have to adjust.
That's now a bit of a double-edged sword for high school recruits. A kid blows up early and suddenly one of the big boys swings in with a 6 figure payout and the kid may be gone. I don't think you can STOP trying to find those kids, but everyone needs to understand that it's going to happen. I don't necessarily think that programs like KU are going to turn into a farm system, but they are going to lose kids. There's no sense in worrying about it or changing what you are doing there. Just start to wrap your head around it.
You mitigate some of that risk by taking that same approach when it comes to kids in the portal. Identifying 4x3, 3x3 kids becomes paramount. You've got enough time with them to work that physical and skill set development. You lose a year of that development, but in return, they basically can't transfer until they graduate without sitting a year. That's going to be a big deterrent for a lot of guys. I know that there are a lot of anti-transfer/pro-high school kid guys on here. You're going to have to understand that those guys aren't negatives on a staff but rather an indication that a staff understands the new landscape.
You will likely see the 85 rounded out annually with 1-year/2-year transfers and with fringe high school kids. There's not really much benefit to banking scholarships for the future if you're not sure that there's anyone solid. With 1 year players, you get the scholarship back at the end of the season. With marginal prospects, you can have a difficult conversation at the end of the first year.
This doesn't necessarily mean that everyone is going to be taking 35 kids a year. I think it will happen the first year or two so that schools can get their rosters back up to normal, but after that, I just don't see that happening with everyone. There will be a handful of programs out there that will try to do it, but in time it will screw them. They will either develop a piss poor reputation which will hurt their recruiting, or their rosters will have enough transfers on it that they just don't have the roster space to do it.
What does this mean for KU? In the immediate future, things got a little harder. Finishing out this cycle is going to be a challenge. There are too many spots to fill and too many programs that just got the green light to snag another 2-3 kids. I think that will balance out after next cycle, but we will see. Personally, I think that the staff is probably going to shift to a 50/50 mindset...50% HS kids and 50% transfers. We will recruit JC's too but right now everyone is sniffing the JC ranks to fill out their rosters so they're being picked pretty clean.
I think the NCAA has another problem on their hands that they are going to probably have to deal with at some point. With the transfer market being what it is, I think they probably need to look at a creating an LOI for transfers with a couple of transfer signing windows. Limiting when kids can go into the portal doesn't fix anything. The same kids are going to go to the portal...the only thing that changes is when...and they will flood the market in a very short window which will hurt them long term. If you create something that binds them to the school and the school to them and note when they can sign, you add a little bit of stability. With so many kids entering after spring ball, it could be 4 months before they lock into a school. The school could change their mind...or the player could go elsewhere. The NCAA doesn't want a situation where a kid is locked into a program, starts fall camp, and then goes to a different school before classes start because another program threw a ton of NIL money at them at the last second because of a late injury. It will happen...and after it happens, it will happen again and again until they deal with it.
