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Thoughts From The Past

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hotshot

Sophomore
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In doing some house-cleaning, came across some stuff I'd saved from the 1983 season, where we won (on Jan 2, 1984) our first - and arguably most important - Nat'l Championship.

Things we don't see much anymore:

Impactful Walk-Ons

The two I'm thinking of from that 1983 team were RB Albert Bentley and DE Julio Cortes. Without Bentley's stellar pass-pro for Kosar, and his key runs against Nebraska, we likely don't win. Why don't we ever see walk-ons like Bentley or Cortes anymore? Purely, a matter of money? What's changed with that since the 80s? I doubt Albert or Julio could've afforded tuition, etc back then either.

I almost included Rodney Bellinger, starting CB, but forget whether or not he also had to walk on. Regardless, I know he practically had to beg for a look from UM out of Gables.

Position Switches

So, Consensus HSAA TE Jay Brophy gets moved to LB, All World HSAA Alonzo Highsmith gets shifted from DE to RB, and Eddie Brown and Reggie Sutton move from DB to WR. (Sutton, due to other injuries) gets moved back to defense but Eddie becomes one of our, and the NFLs, all-time great receivers. Same question as to why such moves are so rare these days.
 
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hotshot said:
In doing some house-cleaning, came across some stuff I'd saved from the 1983 season, where we won (on Jan 2, 1984) our first - and arguably most important - Nat'l Championship.

Things we don't see much anymore:

Impactful Walk-Ons

The two I'm thinking of from that 1983 team were RB Albert Bentley and DE Julio Cortes. Without Bentley's stellar pass-pro for Kosar, and his key runs against Nebraska, we likely don't win. Why don't we ever see walk-ons like Bentley or Cortes anymore? Purely, a matter of money? What's changed with that since the 80s? I doubt Albert or Julio could've afforded tuition, etc back then either.

I almost included Rodney Bellinger, starting CB, but forget whether or not he also had to walk on. Regardless, I know he practically had to beg for a look from UM out of Gables.

Position Switches

So, Consensus HSAA TE Jay Brophy gets moved to LB, All World HSAA Alonzo Highsmith gets shifted from DE to RB, and Eddie Brown and Reggie Sutton move from DB to WR. (Sutton, due to other injuries) gets moved back to defense but Eddie becomes one of our, and the NFLs, all-time great receivers. Same question as to why such moves are so rare these days.
Click to expand...
I’m just impressed you’re cleaning house.

I’d say we don’t see as much movement from one position to another or from one side of the ball to other these days is because kids are evaluated sooner and pegged for a certain position at much younger age.
 
hotshot said:
In doing some house-cleaning, came across some stuff I'd saved from the 1983 season, where we won (on Jan 2, 1984) our first - and arguably most important - Nat'l Championship.

Things we don't see much anymore:

Impactful Walk-Ons

The two I'm thinking of from that 1983 team were RB Albert Bentley and DE Julio Cortes. Without Bentley's stellar pass-pro for Kosar, and his key runs against Nebraska, we likely don't win. Why don't we ever see walk-ons like Bentley or Cortes anymore? Purely, a matter of money? What's changed with that since the 80s? I doubt Albert or Julio could've afforded tuition, etc back then either.

I almost included Rodney Bellinger, starting CB, but forget whether or not he also had to walk on. Regardless, I know he practically had to beg for a look from UM out of Gables.

Position Switches

So, Consensus HSAA TE Jay Brophy gets moved to LB, All World HSAA Alonzo Highsmith gets shifted from DE to RB, and Eddie Brown and Reggie Sutton move from DB to WR. (Sutton, due to other injuries) gets moved back to defense but Eddie becomes one of our, and the NFLs, all-time great receivers. Same question as to why such moves are so rare these days.
Click to expand...


I started UM in 1986, the tuition was $8,800 for the year. In the early 1980s, it would have been between $5,000 to $7,000. Today, UM tuition is $52,000 for the year.

Compare that to the cost of, literally, anything else. Almost nothing else in American society has had a price increase of 8 to 10 times the original cost in the past 40 years. Gas cracked $1.00 per gallon in the 1980s and now it's in the mid-$2.00 range. Airplane costs are comparable to what a flight cost in the 1980s, MAYBE the average cost has doubled in 40 years.

But tuition? Good lord, the costs have skyrocketed. VERY hard to get a kid to walk on at Miami when they have to figure out how to pay $52K in tuition per year.
 
TheOriginalCane said:
I started UM in 1986, the tuition was $8,800 for the year. In the early 1980s, it would have been between $5,000 to $7,000. Today, UM tuition is $52,000 for the year.

Compare that to the cost of, literally, anything else. Almost nothing else in American society has had a price increase of 8 to 10 times the original cost in the past 40 years. Gas cracked $1.00 per gallon in the 1980s and now it's in the mid-$2.00 range. Airplane costs are comparable to what a flight cost in the 1980s, MAYBE the average cost has doubled in 40 years.

But tuition? Good lord, the costs have skyrocketed. VERY hard to get a kid to walk on at Miami when they have to figure out how to pay $52K in tuition per year.
Click to expand...
Govt subsidies will do that to prices. Healthcare and education are the two things whose costs skyrocketed. Almost everything else has seen stability or even real declines. The computer you buy today is 1000x better than the computer you could buy in the ‘80s, and costs no more. Maybe less.
 
TheOriginalCane said:
I started UM in 1986, the tuition was $8,800 for the year. In the early 1980s, it would have been between $5,000 to $7,000. Today, UM tuition is $52,000 for the year.

Compare that to the cost of, literally, anything else. Almost nothing else in American society has had a price increase of 8 to 10 times the original cost in the past 40 years. Gas cracked $1.00 per gallon in the 1980s and now it's in the mid-$2.00 range. Airplane costs are comparable to what a flight cost in the 1980s, MAYBE the average cost has doubled in 40 years.

But tuition? Good lord, the costs have skyrocketed. VERY hard to get a kid to walk on at Miami when they have to figure out how to pay $52K in tuition per year.
Click to expand...
Baylor University went from $9K/year in 1990 to $47K in 2021. Just like Miami and many other colleges...a rise far outstripping the rate of inflation.
 
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423Hurricane said:
I’m just impressed you’re cleaning house.

I’d say we don’t see as much movement from one position to another or from one side of the ball to other these days is because kids are evaluated sooner and pegged for a certain position at much younger age.
Click to expand...

Derion Kendrick was the #4 WR in the class of ‘18; Dabo & staff after getting him on campus switched him to CB. DJ Johnson goes to Oregon & after which they switched him to TE. I’ve seen other programs still make timely switches to players after getting on campus. I haven’t seen that here since The Butch days. Not that I can recall, at least.
 
Rellyrell said:
Derion Kendrick was the #4 WR in the class of ‘18; Dabo & staff after getting him on campus switched him to CB. DJ Johnson goes to Oregon & after which they switched him to TE. I’ve seen other programs still make timely switches to players after getting on campus. I haven’t seen that here since The Butch days. Not that I can recall, at least.
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No doubt there are examples of players switching positions when they get on college campuses but I think generally most kids are pegged for certain positions at a young age.
 
Rellyrell said:
Derion Kendrick was the #4 WR in the class of ‘18; Dabo & staff after getting him on campus switched him to CB. DJ Johnson goes to Oregon & after which they switched him to TE. I’ve seen other programs still make timely switches to players after getting on campus. I haven’t seen that here since The Butch days. Not that I can recall, at least.
Click to expand...
DJ Dallas switched to RB. Started off at a safety.
 
423Hurricane said:
I’m just impressed you’re cleaning house.

I’d say we don’t see as much movement from one position to another or from one side of the ball to other these days is because kids are evaluated sooner and pegged for a certain position at much younger age.
Click to expand...
If you were 75, you might be doing some of that too.
 
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Da Jumbo Mutombo said:
DJ Dallas switched to RB. Started off at a safety.
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I don’t recall DeeJay switching from S; I thought he played more receiver, first. Regardless, he was considered an ATH coming out. An ATH is a nice way to say gadget player, no real position.
 
Rellyrell said:
I don’t recall DeeJay switching from S; I thought he played more receiver, first. Regardless, he was considered an ATH coming out. An ATH is a nice way to say gadget player, no real position.
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Greg Rous is the best and most recent example. He was a Safety/WR that we recruited as a DE.
 
Astcloud11 said:
Greg Rous is the best and most recent example. He was a Safety/WR that we recruited as a DE.
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No; Greg came out as a WDE. He just happened to play other positions in HS, but he was considered a DE b/c that’s where he spent most of his time. It would’ve been different if we had him playing DE & then switched him to TE.

Most kids play dual positions in high school, that doesn’t mean that’s their position when coming out.
 
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Ethnicsands said:
Govt subsidies will do that to prices. Healthcare and education are the two things whose costs skyrocketed. Almost everything else has seen stability or even real declines. The computer you buy today is 1000x better than the computer you could buy in the ‘80s, and costs no more. Maybe less.
Click to expand...

Computers cost way less today. Not even counting features. On a features basis, you could make the argument they cost much less by a factor of 1000, may be a factor of 10,000 or 100,000. The computer that sent human beings to the moon, is a gnat’s pubic hair compared to the phone in your pocket.
 
SFbayCane said:
I have to believe that the evolution of the recruiting industry has had a negative impact on the number of quality walk-ons out there.

Between the internet and the camp circuits, kids are far less likely to stay below the radar thru high school.
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I dunno. The HS recruiting publications available on every newsstand in the early 80s, mags like Max Emfinger's Super Preps, Tom Lemming's pubs, etc. broke down hundreds (thousand +) of HS kids, all over the USA. (Those mags also featured blatant advertising by schools aimed at certain kids, in a way the NCAA banned a short while later.) The HS recruiting "game" was, if anything, even more super-heated back then.

And, the walk on players I named who became great additions for UM were NOT considered "quality." If they had been, they'd have had schollys. That's the point, to get quality when no one else sees it. Seems that is as valid today as then. In fact, easy to make a case that our HCs this century have relied FAR too much on "evaluations" by recruiting services and not enough on their eyes/gut.
 
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OriginalCanesCanesCanes said:
Computers cost way less today. Not even counting features. On a features basis, you could make the argument they cost much less by a factor of 1000, may be a factor of 10,000 or 100,000. The computer that sent human beings to the moon, is a gnat’s pubic hair compared to the phone in your pocket.
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Yep. I agree. Was just trying to make the more general point. Data processing is almost certainly 10,000x cheaper today.

Heck, think about the fact that your car has a computer in it that would have cost a fortune or couldn’t exist 30 yrs ago.

Your cell phone is a better walkman than sony ever made.

The list goes on and on.
 
Rellyrell said:
No; Greg came out as a WDE. He just happened to play other positions in HS, but he was considered a DE b/c that’s where he spent most of his time. It would’ve been different if we had him playing DE & then switched him to TE.

Most kids play dual positions in high school, that doesn’t mean that’s their position when coming out.
Click to expand...
Can you imagine the wingspan on that monster at TE? My good god
 
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