2020 Macadoodle's Mailbag: 37th Edition

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GD: Rather than rephrase what I posted in Monday Morning Thoughts, I'll just paste it here:

We talked about this some on GPITS yesterday. It means different things for different teams. Ohio State is going to be fine. It's going to keep getting top five and top ten recruiting classes. Ohio State is the college football version of recession proof. Michigan might be (I understand Michigan isn't a national power exactly right now, but they've got enough juice to be able to weather this storm and stay very good and have a chance to be a power in any given year). I think Penn State can survive. If we're being honest, Penn State has overcome worse recently.

Beyond that in the Big Ten, I think it really hurts everyone. It sets back the programs like Minnesota and Indiana that were on the way up. It delays or maybe derails a comeback at Nebraska. The most interesting ones are Iowa and Wisconsin. Those are really good programs that are at times great. Can they sustain that after this? I don't know. And the reason is simple. Every coach of a team that is playing has his assistants telling recruits "They don't even care about football there." If that pitch works and kids that have choices are choosing the schools that are playing, it's a huge blow. I'm not saying kids are going to start choosing Ole Miss or Mizzou over Ohio State. But what if they start overwhelmingly choosing Ole Miss and Mizzou over Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska? That makes a difference. Have that happen for two or three years and then you're sitting in a spot where you've had three or four bad years in a row and unless you are Ohio State or someone like that, that's really tough to bounce back from.

The PAC 12 is a little different because it recruits in a lot of areas that the other Power Five leagues don't recruit as much. USC has plenty of history behind it to survive and be whatever USC is going to be. Oregon MIGHT have built up enough to stay where it is. But the rest of the league? I think it suffers.

Now in the interest of fairness, let me present the other side. That is "It's only one season and these kids aren't even the roster so maybe it doesn't make a difference." Plus, while every SEC, ACC and Big 12 coach is making the pitch we talked about, the Big Ten and PAC 12 coaches are telling kids "Come here because we care about you. They view you as a piece of meat and a jersey in their football machine. We cost ourselves $70 million because we care about our players as people."

Ultimately, we'll see what the impact is. I don't think there's any way to really know yet.

GD: If you look out in front of your horse, your cart is up there. Like way up there. Eli Drinkwitz has done a very good job. He's got one of the best classes we've seen here. But he hasn't coached a game. What you've basically laid out is him being a better recruiting Gary Pinkel. Even in hypothetical fantasy land I can't go there yet.