I do not understand the criticism. I really do not. Some people have to complain about something. If there is one thing that brings us back to the top this has been HCWF recruiting. I wrote it before, applesauce and DH have damaged our football program greatly. The damage done is measurable. Our 2026 class is the best in many years, decades. This is for anyone criticizing HCWF recruiting.
What makes you think our 2026 class won’t get better. We are at 16 recruits right now.
And I have to ask that one because it is of great importance.
What makes you think our 2027 class won’t even be better than our 2026th class?
Be excited, our players need our excitement.
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Again, an anecdotal BASKETBALL example.
Why couldn’t we come up with the “Bucket Two” money to keep our best returning FOOTBALL player?
Hint: because it AIN’T there.
Even Gonzaga can bring in a few basketball recruits per year.
Wake me up when Bucket Two can pay for a 105 man football roster.
Dude…there are dozens of football examples.
Tune and others were doing commercials for car dealerships, they had multiple law firms paying them bucket #2 funds and places from Gallery Furniture to Star Pizza went public about their bucket #2 deals.
Also, Weigman was fully paid for by a mysterious bucket #2 source and the same was true when we pulled Donovan Smith from Texas Tech .
I can’t help you aren’t paying attention
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Donovan Smith was pulled from Tech?
Yes
LSU’s bucket one was bigger than our bucket two.
Enough said.
I’m guessing you could count the number of significant football bucket two examples on one hand.
MORE than enough said.
Or maybe they told him NO to the number he wanted after other schools started whispering numbers in his ear?
It’s easy to fathom that CWF ain’t gonna keep a player around whose main objective is the “highest bidder”. You keep bringing up Haulcy for months. Don’t you just get tired at some point??
Nate
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Sure but Sampson didn’t start out recruiting nationally. His initial focus was recruiting Tex/La kids. As he rebuilt the programs image then he started expanding his coverage more and more.
No, I don’t get tired of bringing it up, simply because Cullen never gets tired of saying how supposedly have all this “Bucket Two” of NIL that doesn’t actually exist.
The Haulcy example is such a perfect example with which to debunk that nonsense, that it is only natural to bring it up anytime that nonsense gets brought up.
So as long as said nonsense keeps getting brought up……why not keep bringing up that example in order to debunk it?
Hey listen. I really wish that what Cullen were saying about UH and NIL were true. I’d really like to believe that a bunch of local businesses are going to spend big bucks to help pay for top football recruits at UH.
But we all know that that is neither happening, nor is likely to happen to any significant degree in the foreseeable future. Any business in Houston that wanted to get its money’s worth by linking with jocks in this town is going to do so with PRO sports, where they can reach a way bigger audience given how much larger those fan bases are.
Doing that with UH isn’t going to get you your money’s worth simply because the fan following is too small and the target audience so much smaller by comparison.
Hey listen. If bucket two of NIL actually existed in large numbers, then we wouldn’t have had to fire our last AD due to lack of NIL. Indeed we fired him because NIL, irrespective of bucket, simply wasn’t there.
I hope that changes in the future, but unless and until our fan base grows to the point where it’ll be worth money for local businesses to invest in UH jocks, I’m not optimistic.
In the meantime, we need to make maximum use of our built in transfer portal advantages, and hope that we can do more with less when it comes to NIL based recruiting.
Most players would take less to play at a LSU, for a chance to win a National Championship, as compared to a 4 win team that is picked near the bottom of the Big 12 this season.
As i continously try to get through your thick skull- bucket #2 are the smaller $$ opportunities that allow your non-star nucleus players to stay intact to build a culture and consistency…your role players.
You then use bucket #1 + big bucket #2 deals to secure your star players that will rotate each year.
We will.lose some and win some in this NIL environment but we can use the bucket #2 opportunities to create a culture!
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If by bucket #2, you are referring to the “Bayou Bucket” then maybe someone might agree with you. But is retaining that trophy after defeating Rice really a big recruiting advantage?
Are these the buckets…?
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No,
Bucket #1: literally the bucket of fund the collective raises via private donations from UH fans like you and me.
Bucket #2: NIL opportunities available, outside of the collective, via opportunities in the school’s market.
Can be anything from appearances $$$, commercials, alignment with a certain company or corporate deals such as Shead’s Exxon Mobil deal
Bucket #2 deals may or may not be made public. Yes, many of the bucket #2 deals were made public for the basketball team which is a good sign because i believe the Houston market will have more bucket #2 opportunities, for the football team, WHEN we are playoff worthy …another H-Town Takeover type of run!
Recruits know this!
No disrespect, but Donovan was pulled from Tech because he didn’t have very many options in the Power Conferences
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Our basketball team has:
5 Texas players
3 California players
2 Nevada players
1 Alabama player
1 Florida player
1 Utah player
1 Missouri player (recruited from a Missouri HS, but home is New Orleans.)
1 France player
2/3 of our Basketball team are from out of state. 40% of our football team are from out of state.
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Football recruiting is far different than basketball recruiting.
You cannot just focus on Texas for basketball recruiting like you can for football.
Texas has a higher concentration of elite football players versus basketball, where elite players are much more scattered.
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Yes, I agree and that is why we have so many OOS players, mostly from the portal. We will always have OOS players, but CWF can Drive to Birmingham, AL (667 miles) or Tallahassee, FL (709 Miles) and many other cities within that arc as easy as he can to El Paso (747 miles).
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That’s probably the best UH strategy going forward
Recruit homegrown freshman, but portal OOS kids
Maybe land the one off OOS freshman if it makes sense
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Mike, the 1 Missouri player (Cenac) is actually from Louisiana
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Well, he was recruited from Missouri and we were talking about where CKS went for recruiting. But I can update that.