FORT WORTH — Gary Patterson, who has graduated over the years from noted football thinker to sage, spent only a portion of his 45 minutes with local media Wednesday talking the astronomy of recruiting and the two, three and four stars who make up his Class of 2019.
He likes this roundup of recruits, a cast firmed up on Wednesday with seven guys who signed national letters of intent, joining 22 who did the same in December.
“One of the best speed classes we’ve ever recruited,” Patterson said, not to mention power on the edges of the defensive line. The Horned Frogs went looking for defensive linemen and found eight of them, perhaps more, depending on how all the bodies evolve over the next few years.
Mikel Barkley is one of the fast guys, in fact, “a really fast dude,” the coach said, a track guy with an upside as a wide receiver from Palomar College.
With two parents as Marines, it is presumed he’ll have no trouble getting to class on time and bring with him the habit of a haircut every week. High and tight doesn’t just happen.
The imagination took off thinking about TCU assistants playing the role of blocker for Newton running back Darwin Barlow, an apple of recruiters’ eyes from Southern Cal and Florida State, who made an aggressive push late in the process. In the old days, they might have hidden him away in a storage shed somewhere.
Alex Delton, a graduate transfer from Kansas State, added his name to the quarterback depth chart, making official his decision to come to Fort Worth, which will seem like the real Manhattan compared to Manhattan, Kan.
And then there was the legacy signing. The name “Tomlinson” at TCU will catch any eye, discerning or otherwise. This one is Tre’Vius Hodges-Tomlinson, the nephew of the TCU great. He’s a prospect at defensive back.
The apple apparently didn’t fall from the tree: Like his Hall of Fame Uncle LaDainian, Tre’Vius is undersized, leading to an under-appreciation from recruiters.
Yet, his new head coach said, there’s a suspicion the football program will be “pleasantly surprised” by him over the next four or five years.
Now, and this is the important part of it all, if only they all stay at TCU.
That was the bee in Patterson’s bonnet, this seeming new generation of players, who take off at the first sign of hardship – and lack of playing time, as an underclassman, mind you – and a culture, new rules and, ahem, parents that encourage them to do so.
There is currently a spirit of transfer reform burning brightly, with even fewer restrictions being proposed.
The first of what many believe will be a slippery slope was adopted in October. Players can now up and leave, free from the obligation of asking permission from their current schools to do so. Schools also cannot block a transfer or have any influence on where they go.
They simply go into a database or what has more commonly become known as the “transfer portal,” the newest, most annoying term in the lexicon, at least to college coaches.
This subject has been on Patterson’s mind for a while, though he introduced a new term to the visitors to TCU on Wednesday: “Portal parents,” an evolution of sorts of the “Little League parent.”
“It’s kind of like when I interview coaches, I interview their wives,” Patterson said. “It’s one of those things when the kids come in, I want them to bring their parents with them. You can already tell if it’s not going the way that it needs to that they’re going to be changing.
“If everybody is going to be, ‘Well, I don’t like this [I’m leaving],’ I think there has to be some changes. One of the things I really worry about. The portal thing is only going to get bigger.”
Recruiting was challenging enough as it was. Now, you have to make sure the parents, too, are a good fit for the program? That sounds a little too much like marriage.
It’s parents that make a mess of youth sports leagues, so if you go a little too far on this stuff, the integrity of the college game and the college experience is imperiled.
Some might get a kick of a sentence that includes athletics and integrity of the college experience. There is a punchline there.
But there’s probably a reason the NCAA is considering further limitations to transfer. Where I come from, it’s called Catholic guilt.
As the voices for paying players a piece of the multi-millions they help generate, officials at the NCAA home office, not to mention the Power 5 conferences, are in the mood for a new understanding and accommodation because they pass around money as if it were the Gotti family business.
There is no competition … yet.
The Alliance of American Football has entered the marketplace for guys trying to improve and make their way to the NFL stage. Former TCU receiver John Diarse is one. He was cut by the Denver Broncos last year. As a member of the AAF’s aptly named San Antonio Commanders, he’s vying for another invitation to an NFL camp.
It is in essence an NFL minor league.
It’s a fear some have about the NBA G League, which “officials” hope to develop into a true minor-league system and yet another NBA revenue stream. Why bother with the hassle of college algebra – can’t blame them for that — when the future is professional basketball?
Plus, $7,000 a month in salary.
The voice in the room, as competitive as it gets on a Big 12 sideline, on Wednesday called on the better angels of our nature.
Your future is more than likely not professional basketball or football or whatever.
It’s a difficult message for kids, who don’t know any better, and some parents, who don’t know any better.
Fewer than 2 percent of the college guys we see every Saturday will play in the NFL. What to do with the other 98-plus percent, the coach asked?
“I still think what’s best for the kid is you have to grow them up,” Patterson said. “You still have to get them where they mature so they can handle life. When do you teach that if they transfer four times? Where are you teaching that? Or you’re not getting enough playing time, so you’re going to leave? Is that the way it works [in life]?
“How do we help them understand you still have to get a degree? How do we still make that important instead of ‘if it’s not working, I’m just going to transfer?’ How do we find and in-between that best for everybody?”
The TCU basketball program has gotten more than a mouthful taste of this, along with the gag reflex usually reserved for Jagermeister.
Keeping them around is good for them and also makes your college football program better. Older, smarter, experienced and more seasoned and mature upperclassmen are good for the alma mater’s bottom line on the field.
Unfortunately, the Grayson Muehlsteins of the world don’t grow on trees anymore.
On all of this, time – and the ill effects of a slippery slope – will make more converts than reason.