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OT Athletic: Who are true Blue Blood Hoop Programs? Plus ranking all P5 and Top G5's into 6 Tiers

Some thoughtful explanations for their rankings noted in article.

I still think Indiana is ranked too high and Gonzaga too low.

OT: Did Ole Miss staff create a fake Penn State account for bulletin board material?

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Lane Kiffin retweets a few posts from a PSU fan account bragging about how much better PSU is than Ole Miss. Seems rather benign, until you see that the PSU fan account is brand spanking new and oddly has a very similar email to an Ole Miss staffer and the follower list isn't a bunch of other PSU-related accounts. Seems like Lane is catfishing here.

UPDATED: UCF's portal needs (based on graduation/deflections/attrition)

UCF's 2024 roster is in much better shape than most thought.

Based on the numbers, UCF needs TWO transfer offensive linemen and TWO linebackers.

The Knights have added a strong safety, a nickelback, two tight ends, a center, and a rush end from the portal already.

Javon Baker, RJ Harvey, Amari Kight, and Adrian Medley have announced their returns. Not certain Kobi Hudson and Ricky Barber.

UCF has had several guys jump in the portal to make roster space.

Two of the biggest portal "losses" have been Corey Thornton and Josh Celiscar.

UCF will need to consider donating scholarships to a lockdown cover corner and a strongside defensive end.

***UCF Transfer Portal Update***

The Transfer Portal for everyone opens (almost) today, Monday, Dec. 4.

There have been plenty of announcements over the past week, but so far just one from a UCF player. CB Fred Davis, a transfer from Clemson who didn't play this season, will be re-entering the portal as a grad transfer.

There will be some UCF portal entries, though if the chatter is accurate UCF has done a pretty good job retaining most of the top talent.

Of the players UCF wants to keep, I'm only hearing there are questions surrounding maybe six of them. And of those six, only three are probably headed to the portal for sure.

I don't want to name those three players, but I'll allude to them.

-Two of them are seniors with one year left. Defense. Good players, played a lot these past four seasons. I don't think UCF is surprised to see them go.

-Another player is on offense and simply wants more playing time. Not a starter.

Then there's the big three with decisions to make: RB RJ Harvey, WR Javon Baker and WR Kobe Hudson.

RJ Harvey - Keep on hearing he's 50/50 on returning to UCF or going to the NFL. Some have heard he might be a late round or UDFA type player, so it's not a slam dunk to leave. He could also go into the portal for a bigger NIL payday, but I've heard his UCF legacy is important to him and he doesn't really want to do that. The Kingdom will do their best to try and keep him.

Javon Baker - This is an interesting case because I've heard he's not a graduate, so he doesn't have leverage. It's either NFL or return to UCF. He already used up his free transfer and the NCAA isn't really granting waivers. I think he's on track to graduate this time a year from now.

I'm told he was referring to NIL last week when he tweeted, "Your 2-year free trial is up, somebody gotta pay."

Baker has since deleted most tweets, but he was hoping for a big NIL payday that I don't think UCF can afford, even if they want to. So I'm very interested to see what happens here. I think UCF is prepared for him to possibly leave, but it's not set in stone.

Kobe Hudson - I've heard that he's a much better possibility to return to UCF. Like RJ and Kobe, he also was weighing the NFL.

In regards to DTs Lee Hunter and Ricky Barber, I've heard both are coming back. Big if it happens. Most thought Barber would have an NFL-type season, but he was hurt most of the year. When he did play, he was not 100 percent. Lee Hunter showed flashes of NFL potential, but he may need another year to develop.

I hadn't heard anything about RB Johnny Richardson. I know there was some speculation he could go in the portal for more playing time. Some of these decisions could potentially be impacted by the decisions of teammates.

The portal is open for 30 days and that's a pretty long time. Again, just passing along what I've been hearing. Things could change.

Obviously, contributions to The Kingdom are really important. I always hesitate in being frank about the realities of roster management because I know some people don't really want to hear it, but it's just the way it is these days.

Every school probably feels like they need a $5M NIL budget to try to compete. Some SEC schools and bluebloods have $10M plus. I think schools feel like they need $3M at a bare minimum.

Nebraska coach Matt Rhule talked about the $1-2M quarterbacks, but in reality most deals don't come close to that. Most players at UCF would be receiving less than $100K. A lot of deals in the $20-60K type range. A $40K deal would be $3,333/month before taxes.

Typically, four and five-star recruits have $$$ NIL options coming out of high school. Some schools will offer deals before they prove themselves. Other schools absolutely will not offer NIL deals to recruits. Instead they say the deal will be there if you earn it.

It's really quite fascinating when you think about it. Recruiting is no longer about evaluation and personal connections, it's also about wisely allocating your budget and making wise personnel decisions whether it's your existing roster or recruits.

Anyway, I'm just sharing what I've been hearing for the past few days. We'll see what happens. Obviously it's a big month of transfer acquisitions as well.

I heard things went well with Texas Tech QB Tyler Shough, but I don't have much more than that. A lot of these transfers may keep things quiet until they announce a decision. And UCF would keep all transfer talk secret if they can. They don't like to publicize who they're targeting.

I did speak with Tufts WR Jaden Richardson earlier tonight. Smart kid. Economics major. It'll be a longer update, so I won't work on that until tomorrow. No commitment yet.

A Big 12 QB...

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Castellanos goes to BC...Why? Only good reason is that HC knew that we need bigger athletic dudes at QB.
Jefferson fits this bill. All QBs just about in Big 12 we played against were bigger than ours and tougher.
Just saying its time to consistently go bigger and able to run and pass.
This is how GT and Big 12 teams beat us this season with their QBs.

This means that many of existing QBs on our roster will not be there in 2-3 years if we are able to properly recruiting at the QB position. No more G5 recruiting at QB position.

OT: Amazon Prime Video to have "limited" commercials starting in Jan (ad-free option will cost an extra $2.99 per month)

Email today:

Dear Prime member,

We are writing to you today about an upcoming change to your Prime Video experience. Starting January 29, Prime Video movies and TV shows will include limited advertisements. This will allow us to continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time. We aim to have meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers. No action is required from you, and there is no change to the current price of your Prime membership. We will also offer a new ad-free option for an additional $2.99 per month* that you can sign up for here.

***Chauncey Magwood basking in the heat at UCF ⚔️🏈

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Cycling back to one of the press conferences at the very end of spring practice... WR Chauncey Magwood, who transferred in from Kentucky at the beginning of the spring semester. He's originally from Leesburg, Ga.

Asked about why he chose UCF, Magwood said he was initially recruited by Chip Lindsey.

"I wanted to come down south," Magwood said. "UCF was one of the top schools down south to come to me. Even though Lindsey left, Gus and Heard talked to me and still wanted me. I felt I'd be a very good fit here so I came."

More on his decision:

"It's a good atmosphere. I wanted to come down south. That was a priority for me. I wanted to be near my family. I wanted to get back in the heat. In Kentucky, it was snowing in May. I wanted to come down south. UCF was one of my top schools coming out of high school."

Asked about the heat, Magwood said he loves it after being at Kentucky.

"The crazy thing is even though it's hot, I can breathe. Probably because I've been at Kentucky. I missed it."

Magwood is competing at the slot receiver position with Xavier Townsend and Jarrad Baker.

"It's a good offense," Magwood said. "It's different. I think I fit very well with the routes."

He would give himself a B or C+ grade this spring.

"I could do better," he said.

Magwood offered his thoughts on UCF's offense under Darin Hinshaw.

"It's different," he said. "When he was at Kentucky I think it was more run. It's pace, very fast. I like that. We can spread it out. I came from a 12 personnel team. Now we're more of an 11 personnel team. We can feed everybody the ball.

"There are a lot of concepts. We're trying to get down the field with vertical posts. In the middle we've got crossing routes. It has everything you can think of. 11 personnel so we're going inside and outside... We're going to put points on the board, easily. We've got the players to do it."

Magwood was especially impressed by tight end Randy Pittman this spring.

"He's a freshman making plays. He's physical. It's crazy. He's a freshman."

After light playing time at Kentucky with just eight catches over two seasons, Magwood is hoping to earn a bigger role at UCF. He has two seasons of eligibility remaining.

"I want to be one of the guys that help the team get where we want to be," he said. "We want to win it all. That's the goal. I have my own goals, but still want to help the team. I want to be one of the standout guys. I've got a lot of work to do."

OT: Any Plex users out there? Question about hardware / software

Hi All - there was an IPTV thread floating around for a while but this is kinda different so I figured I'd start a new thread.

Interested in downloading a bunch of older kids shows from when I was a kid for the baby, old sesame street that sort of thing and then hosting it on a plex server for my house and some friends. A friend was telling me about how cocomelon got his kid so overstimulated she started crying. It's inevitable that kids have to watch tv but modern media for kids just seems so sinister and laser focused on pushing them in to some freaky algorithm


What I have now:
  • old (2011) i5 imac I think is powerful enough to use as the server / processing
  • Netgear SXK80 router that should be robust enough to push whatever needs pushing
  • 250gbps up/down Fios internet
  • subscription to alldebrid

What I need:
  • 2x big hard drives (like 12tb each?) and some sort of enclosure?
  • software

What I'd like to be able to do:
  • send 4k and below content to tvs on my local network, as well as possibly send it to friends and family remotely?
  • send 720p-ish content to phones etc while travelling
  • have some sort of content filtering so kids can only watch kids stuff

questions i have:
  • is the imac good enough to use? it doesn't get updates so it's stuck on High Sierra. i also have a i7 SFF pc my IT department gave me i could use instead, but i like the imac's included monitor etc so it has a smaller footprint in my storage room. if windows / linux is appreciably easier to use for all this stuff i can just do that instead. i dont think it has a high speed usb port
  • what do i need to do to connect the hard drives to my imac? it has a 10gbps thunderbolt port which i assume i'd need to connect to some sort of multi drive dock? usb isn't fast enough is it? i'd love to have the computer do the heavy lifting to back up the HDDs for a DIY NAS thing vs. buying an expensive enclosure
  • do i basically just run the plex server on the 'server' (imac) and then download the client on everything else?
  • is there a way i can set up my network so i can manage downloads but they goto folders on the remote plex server? can i do this remotely?



appreciate any intel anyone can provide

Around the Kingdom: The season's over, now what?

Join Eric Lopez and guest host Andrew Gluchov as they debate some of the current topics surrounding UCF Athletics.

In this episode, the guys recap the tumble in Tampa as the Knights get beat soundly in the Gasparilla Bowl. Not all the news was bad though, as UCF got word two key players will return on offense, how does this help the 2024 Knights?

Plus: Was this season really a success, what is JRP's legacy, is the new double transfer rule a good thing, and what about that lazy river?

Click here to watch from the Sons of UCF.
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