Les Miles said Ja'Marr couldn't play WR

[George Cantstandya]

(01-26-2022, 06:37 PM)MileHighGrowler Wrote: With the amount of money in collegiate sports, and football in particular, unless a coach is trying to set himself up to succeed in the NFL, I don't see college football trying to prep guys to play in the pros.  Especially when considering how many college athletes actually go pro.  

The other side of that is that these programs focus so much on athletics that a lot of the kids aren't getting great academics as well.  Some of them are super smart and pull that off.  Some schools are more demanding.  But there are a lot of athletes scraping by with an easy pass and then hopefully they make it big in the pros and move into media work or can use their name after their career is over.  

But looking specifically at the OP, I think it's really interesting to see how people progress and grow.  I don't hold it against either coach on either player.  There's a lot of development over the years.  But it's amazing to see people who just a few years ago weren't considered to do well in their position turn that around and become some of the best at it. 

I imagine it is much easier to recruit top talent when they can show the high school prospects how many of their players got drafted into the NFL.  I bet there is a lot of behind the scenes talk like, "Commit to [university name here] and I'll do everything I can to make sure you go pro like I did for [insert names here]."