Sunday, May 09, 2021

Saturday, May 08, 2021

Football Grabs Big 10 Transfer


BG football has a transfer.  This storyline has been evolving.  Coach Loeffler's overall philosophy is that he wants to build a winning culture and that is hard to do when you have constant turnover from transfers, especially short-eligibility transfers. The players who have left his program only exacerbated our numbers problems, and the new culture of college athletes forced him to adjust his thinking.  At some point over the winter he said he was going to adapt and get transfers who were the right fit and with multiple years of eligibility left.

I have no idea what's going to happen here.  I know a lot of fans would prefer to see BG go for the quicker fix they might find in the portal.  I would prefer to see BG develop a program along the Clawson model, which Loeffler cites.  Other teams (Akron) in the MAC have tried the transfer route (under Bowden) and it didn't work.  I also don't know if you're going to be able to execute the Clawson model if players can leave at will.  

This young man is Tommy Guajardo.  He's from the Dearborn area and had a BG offer from HS.  He was a 3-star recruit there.  He was the #30 TE recruit in that class and the #24 player in Michigan, according to 247.  He played both ways in HS and was Free Press All-West.

He was in Dantonio's last class at MSU and wrote this column for the Free Press about sticking with the Spartans after the coaching transition.

He did not play in a game for MSU as a r-FR and entered the portal following spring practice.  He is 6'3" and 230 pounds.

There's an immediate need.  Two-ways TEs are critical for how Coach Loeffler wants the offense to play. For all the recruiting at TE, BG's outlook for the position group was pretty barren in the short term.  You have Christian Sims as the only player with significant playing time.  You even have a player moved from another position to TE.  There are people coming up, to be sure, but you can see Guajardo playing right away.

BG adds Additional MBB Transfer, this one from in-conference


So, BG MBB has a new transfer for the program.  This one is Gabe O'Neal and is the first player we have gotten since the MAC removed the sit-out rule for in-conference transfers.

At one point, Coach Huger predicted this rule would have coaches fighting on the sideline, so you can tee up a Senderhoff v. Huger battle.  FWIW, if that scenario does emerge, I like having a New York City native on the sidelines.  (Senderhoff is from "Spring Valley"  NY.

OK then.  O'Neal entered the portal late in April, the 6th player to do so from Kent.  It was only a week or so before he was transferring to BG.

He's from Cincinnati originally, when to Mineral Area College.  He played one season there and then moved to Kent, where he played two years.  Last year, he averaged 11 minutes a game and had 4.7 PPG and 3.0 RPG.  He is efficient, making 62% of his 2FGs and 84% of his FTs and keep in mind those low minute totals do impact the overall numbers.

He's 6'7" and 240, so you can see him filling in the middle effectively, something BG can definitely use.

Here is where we stand right now.  There are 15 players listed below.  BG has not updated their roster since the end of the season, so this is what we have to go on.  Coach Huger has certainly adapted to changing times, with 6 players coming into BG, 5 of them as transfers. Will be interesting if nothing else.

These times, they are a-changin'.

2 Josiah Fulcher G  

3 Caleb Fields G

5 Kaden Metheny G

10 Cam Young G/F

11 Trey Diggs G/F

13 Chandler Turner G/F

21 Matiss Kulackovskis F

25 Daeqwon Plowden G/F

35 Dylan Swingle C


Samari Curtis (needs waiver)

Brenton Mills (eligible, So)

Myron Gordon (Grad Transfer Eligible)

Ubong Etim, F (early signee)

Joe Reece, F (eligible, two years left)

Gabe O'Neal, F (eligible, two years left)