For everyone concerned with the number of players in the portal, let’s just look at them:
1. Chol — no surprise, landed at Howard.
2. Wolf — bummer he didn’t develop from a few nice glimpses we saw freshman year, but clearly was not adding much value.
3. Mag — talent for sure, but decided protecting his market value was more important than going to war with his guys — I’m fine letting someone else deal with that type of player.
4. Simpson — clearly wasn’t hacking it at the B1G level, statistically at the bottom of any P5 offensive metric BY A LOT.
5. Cliff — sucks for sure and I’d love to have him back for his defensive presence alone next year, but guy gave us 4 years. I think the general sentiment around the fan base is respect.
6. GG — stings for sure given the expectations we all had, but also there are indications that he was being told his role might not be guaranteed next year. Fact is: we don’t know how much of this is due to Pike telling him what to expect next year
I’m with everyone else — this NIL/portal era absolutely sucks, it’s deflating, and it has the potential to really change the way a lot of people feel about their college team. But when you evaluate each one of our departures, there are arguments to be made that they all make some sense for Rutgers going forward.
With that said, Pike NEEDS to win the offseason now.