It will be interesting to see how all of this plays out in the coming year(s) for certain. Fernando most likely will be drafted by the putrid Las Vegas Raiders where tight end Brock Bowers awits with the potential of being the next Gronk.
NFL rebuilds don’t happen overnight so we’ll see how that goes. But we know this young man is tough and can take a shot and is razor smart. Plus, this kid has that Aaron Rogers chip on his shoulder. He was a 2 star from Miami who wasn’t even allowed to walk-on at MIAMI.
Miami at the least should have been flagged three times for personal fouls on Fernando last night. There is evidently still a bit of thuggery in these Miami Hurricanes left over from the Jimmy Johnson days for certain.
Coach Cignetti will now be the hunted with his Indiana Hoosiers and his model template in these days of NIL and the transfer portal. Coach C did what Nick Saban didn’t or couldn’t. That being, in all of this Wild West outlaw dysfunction which is our current state of college football and basketball…he figured out how to make the system work for Indiana despite their complete lack of any history or tradition of previous success in the sport of football.
BTW…from my view this is precisely the template I see O State’s new coach Eric Morris trying to emulate in Stillwater as he tries to take O State from being the worst in college football two years running to a team which at some point hopes to challenge Cody Campbell’s hydrocarbon fund in Lubbock for the Big 12 bid to the College Football Playoff.
Coach Morris is even being more audacious in bringing his North Texas State roster to Stillwater than what Coach C did with the James Madison players in Year 1 at Indiana. You would think those who run the NCAA would have limitations on this sort of thing. But alas…sigh–they’re more concerned with punishing Owen Heineke for playing three games of lacrosse at his previous school.
Was this a fluke what Coach C just did in Bloomington?
No…I don’t think so at all. Coach C and Indiana just figured out the template, that being Indiana had 47 of its top sixty rostered players somewhere between the age of 22-24 versus 18-21 years of age. Coach C used the actuary tables to his benefit. plus, most of his guys were 2 star and 3 star guys coming out of high school like Fernando… who as long as they play football will have that proverbial chip on their shoulder with something to prove. Just like Aaron Rodgers still does at the age of forty or Tom Brady had at Tampa Bay.
You see…the exacct opposite of what Chet Holmgren came from in his pampered basketball previous life. That being, a much ballyhooed player with all the AAU luggage attached which quite frankly sometimes is an impediment at the next level which requires a grind mentality every day.
So..in essence what Mike J is writing here is that I’m doing Sam Presti and Coach Mark an enormous favor by continually pushing Chet’s on my blog to place that chip on his shoulder and keep it there if he wants to be anything close to a generational player like Shai.
Not to pat myself too much on the back…but I really like the way I interwined Chet with Coach C and Fernado here on okcthunderground.com….the No. 1 OKC underground bllog in existence anywhere on the planet.
Michael Lewis needs to write a book about what Indiana just did. He’s the perfect writer given his melding of finance and sport with previous works such as Moneyball and The Blind Side. The book could then be adapted into a screenplay which Kevin Costner could then purchase and turn into the movie I want to see.
Surely…these dots can be connected since I’ve laid it out for all parties involved.
Eternal love, Mike J