[SamuelMcF]

Just as a CFB fan, it seems to me that there are really two or three NIL markets in Power 5 football: 1.) QBs 2.) Highly-coveted transfers 3.) Everybody else.

I have no inside info but it sure looks to me like Stanford is not at all trying to compete in the first two “markets” I mentioned. I hope I am wrong.

I would say your intuition is almost right on, but "mega-whale HS recruits at every other position" should also be a bucket. A bit less significant market-power-wise than the first 2 but still much more significant than "everybody else."

In the transfer realm, my sense is that we're certainly trying to recruit good ones, but so many of them are "chasing the bag" that the returns on effort there are scant to none. The amount Walter Rouse is getting from Oklahoma is crazy, for example, and supposedly Nebraska and Iowa both offered similar amounts. He was never staying with Stanford engineering degree in hand and offers like that on the table.

As soon as it's clear there's a legit bidding war between collectives, we're out on principle. I don't think our collective does that. There will occasionally be a good transfer for whom the bidding war is less of a priority, like Gaethan Bernadel. You miss every shot you don't take, but it sure takes a hell of a lot of shots to find a guy like him and guide him through the transfer process.

We've offered many HS studs per usual but I'm way less sure about how HS recruiting is going. (That doesn't mean we're doing bad; it means I legitimately don't know.)

[SamuelMcF]

Just as a CFB fan, it seems to me that there are really two or three NIL markets in Power 5 football: 1.) QBs 2.) Highly-coveted transfers 3.) Everybody else.

I have no inside info but it sure looks to me like Stanford is not at all trying to compete in the first two “markets” I mentioned. I hope I am wrong.

I would say your intuition is almost right on, but "mega-whale HS recruits at every other position" should also be a bucket. A bit less significant market-power-wise than the first 2 but still much more significant than "everybody else."

In the transfer realm, my sense is that we're certainly trying to recruit good ones, but so many of them are "chasing the bag" that the returns on effort there are scant to none. The amount Walter Rouse is getting from Oklahoma is crazy, for example, and supposedly Nebraska and Iowa both offered similar amounts. He was never staying with Stanford engineering degree in hand and offers like that on the table.

As soon as it's clear there's a legit bidding war between collectives, we're out on principle. I don't think our collective does that. There will occasionally be a good transfer for whom the bidding war is less of a priority, like Gaethan Bernadel. You miss every shot you don't take, but it sure takes a hell of a lot of shots to find a guy like him and guide him through the transfer process.

We've offered many HS studs per usual but I'm way less sure about how HS recruiting is going. (That doesn't mean we're doing bad; it means I legitimately don't know.)