Every recruiting post/thread comes back to the same thing... money. Are we "playing the game" enough? Why don't we realize we have to pay? Where are the portal guys and why don't we get any of them?
In life, if you don't have the funds to play with the big boys, you need to keep your wallet in your damn pocket. Living outside your means, even for a moment, is a path to destruction. We do not have the booster system or high end money in place to play that game. But we know what we DO HAVE. We have family culture. We have passionate fans that take care of their own. We have enough money to pay the stars and keep them happy... at the level we have set.
If you go buy ONE player for the amounts these high end guys are going for, how do you justify not paying them all? How do you keep enough money for the actual stars? How do recruits believe what Dabo is selling? How do you keep the culture in tact?
When you have a positive over everyone else in the field, you don't sell that out to be like everyone else. ESPECIALLY, when you can NEVER sustain that game for the long term.
I am not saying we are broke. I am not saying it is "dirty" to play the money game that is now legal. I am not even saying I don't wish we could buy a stud or two beyond what we are getting. But what I am saying is... I love how Dabo is doing this and I fully believe it is our best chance for STAYING relevant and in the big picture for Clemson.
Back in the day, the saying was "you don't beat Bama by being Bama". Well, the same still applies iyam, just in a different way. We are doing it differently, and it won't always be sexy or fun. But for us to stay at the top, we can't do it the same way as everybody else since we don't have the same as everybody else.
So far, the ones who bought into what we are selling have been compensated enough to stay. We don't HAVE to backfill with portal guys. That is how we do this and stay on top. The other ways are fleeting iyam.
In life, if you don't have the funds to play with the big boys, you need to keep your wallet in your damn pocket. Living outside your means, even for a moment, is a path to destruction. We do not have the booster system or high end money in place to play that game. But we know what we DO HAVE. We have family culture. We have passionate fans that take care of their own. We have enough money to pay the stars and keep them happy... at the level we have set.
If you go buy ONE player for the amounts these high end guys are going for, how do you justify not paying them all? How do you keep enough money for the actual stars? How do recruits believe what Dabo is selling? How do you keep the culture in tact?
When you have a positive over everyone else in the field, you don't sell that out to be like everyone else. ESPECIALLY, when you can NEVER sustain that game for the long term.
I am not saying we are broke. I am not saying it is "dirty" to play the money game that is now legal. I am not even saying I don't wish we could buy a stud or two beyond what we are getting. But what I am saying is... I love how Dabo is doing this and I fully believe it is our best chance for STAYING relevant and in the big picture for Clemson.
Back in the day, the saying was "you don't beat Bama by being Bama". Well, the same still applies iyam, just in a different way. We are doing it differently, and it won't always be sexy or fun. But for us to stay at the top, we can't do it the same way as everybody else since we don't have the same as everybody else.
So far, the ones who bought into what we are selling have been compensated enough to stay. We don't HAVE to backfill with portal guys. That is how we do this and stay on top. The other ways are fleeting iyam.
