I post this less to be critical of FSU ... they got their heart torn out, I get it ... and more to point out that I don't think you are going to find teams winning with just portal, eg., Colorado. Culture matters ... and you have to develop that.
- I don't think anyone would argue that if you can do it, the way to build sustained success is stacking high school classes, losing good players to the portal who want PT because they weren't as good as their rankings or got recruited over, and then supplement with the portal. That's not easy to do. It's what UGA and Bama are doing, tOSU to an extent. Texas will, OU will. I think the HS recruiting is the hard part.
- There are programs that will never have the sustained HS recruiting part because (1) they don't have the reputation (NCSU, UVa, Illinois, Minnesota) and/or don't have the coach (Colo). They are going to have to rely more heavily on the portal, but also development and diamonds in the rough they can hold on to. Missouri with who is turning out to be a good coach is a good example. These schools won't have sustained success, but they can be the Butlers of CFB ... get a senior laden team a couple times per decade and make a run to get into the CFP.
- Which brings us to the FSU's of the world - FSU, maybe Nebraska, Maimi - teams with history who may be able to cycle back. FSU is in rebuild mode, so they are jacking up high school recruiting - they were 19, 20, 22 IRCC, then 9 this year. They need to keep stacking classes. FSU getting a number 9 class is good, but that's Richt good - I think most people understand that comparison. He was always top 10, but rarely top 5. Going forward that will get you in the CFP, which is good, but it's not going to get you sustained success. So you need to push HS recruiting, keeping your players as much as you can, and develop a culture of brotherhood where you don't have late-round NFL guys opting out because they wouldn't do that to their brothers.