Should Auburn Switch to Nike?

[JFDTiger80 790]

On 5/2/2020 at 8:00 PM, DAG said:

Their running shoes are pretty horrible 

How are UA running shoes?

Edited May 10, 2020 by JFDTiger80
correct spelling

[JFDTiger80 790]

I am all for a switch to Nike. Sign me up.

[jared52 4,354]

18 hours ago, passthebiscuits said:

Some of our players apply tape over the Nike logo to step foot in the athletic complex per UA rules. The UA shoes are that poorly fitted. 

 

just FYI. 

Not surprised. I love UA clothing but the 2 pair of shoes I have (basketball and running) are just awful. I am too cheap to throw them out and get new ones but I cannot wait for them to wear out. UA has a huge shoe issue. 

[DAG 33,988]

On 5/10/2020 at 3:03 PM, JFDTiger80 said:

How are UA running shoes?

Not a fan tbh. My top two are brooks and Mizuno. I have a very flat arch so both of those provide me with stability without breaking my shins. IMO, Reebok, UA & Nike do no true justice for runners feet. They look very nice though. 

Edited May 12, 2020 by DAG

[GoAU 1,600]

I’ve got several reasons for despising Nike:

1) Any time a company chooses to make a political stance, some bearing on that stance factors in to how I feel about that company.  Nike supports Colin Kapernick, Under Armour supports our troops - easy enough there for me  

2) I’ve never liked Nike shoes - their running shoes especially.  Way too narrow.  Under Armour is no better in that category, but I like their clothing much more than Nike.  

3) Under Armour seems not to try and take over a programs uniforms like Nike does.  

 

 

[GoAU 1,600]

1 hour ago, DAG said:

Not a fan tbh. My top two our brooks and Mizuno. I have a very flat arch so both of those provide me with stability without breaking my shins. IMO, Reebok, UA & Nike do no true justice for runners feet. They look very nice though. 

So true.  I’m an ASICS guy myself - fit my wide feet really well and pronation control is good. 

[Texan4Auburn 1,626]

3 hours ago, DAG said:

Not a fan tbh. My top two our brooks and Mizuno. I have a very flat arch so both of those provide me with stability without breaking my shins. IMO, Reebok, UA & Nike do no true justice for runners feet. They look very nice though. 

Flat arch here also with some pronation. Brooks, Asics, and Saucony usually top the list for the flat footed.

[Texan4Auburn 1,626]

Will be interesting to see how things playout with them trying to set Adidas up as a Kansas booster and the current pressure on Williamson and his dealings with Nike while at Duke.

[DAG 33,988]

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/29158590/zion-williamson-asked-admit-parents-received-money-gifts-duke-nike-adidas

 

Btw, I don't know if people has been paying attention this story. I don't know if people even care, but remember what you are getting when you ask for this arms race. Heck, I am not saying UA is not doing it. But the priority of this is we need to get the best recruits, so we must get Nike. I don't want to hear anymore "Well we are AU men and everyone else cheats." The bottomline is this stuff goes down. 

[Zeek 16,650]

4 hours ago, DAG said:

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/29158590/zion-williamson-asked-admit-parents-received-money-gifts-duke-nike-adidas

 

Btw, I don't know if people has been paying attention this story. I don't know if people even care, but remember what you are getting when you ask for this arms race. Heck, I am not saying UA is not doing it. But the priority of this is we need to get the best recruits, so we must get Nike. I don't want to hear anymore "Well we are AU men and everyone else cheats." The bottomline is this stuff goes down. 

Yup everyone in here denying that there’s an incentive for basketball players to go to Nike/Adidas schools...

Told y’all 

[AUApostle 7,651]

What if there was a rule barring apparel and shoe logos on all college uniforms? No Nike, Addidas, UA, Riddell, Schutt, etc...

Edited May 11, 2020 by AUDevil

[DAG 33,988]

1 hour ago, AUDevil said:

What if there was a rule barring apparel and shoe logos on all college uniforms? No Nike, Addidas, UA, Riddell, Schutt, etc...

Then none of the schools would have them as sponsors. The whole point of them doing that is for promotion of their items. 

Edited May 11, 2020 by DAG

[DAG 33,988]

1 hour ago, Zeek said:

Yup everyone in here denying that there’s an incentive for basketball players to go to Nike/Adidas schools...

Told y’all 

You are right. For me, I am content with what AU is doing and I like to think it will only get better with winning. However, I think reality show if you want to get this top tier guys, such as Jalen green, it will probably have to come as a price. Even more so for our up and coming, respectable, basketball program. 

[Zeek 16,650]

47 minutes ago, DAG said:

You are right. For me, I am content with what AU is doing and I like to think it will only get better with winning. However, I think reality show if you want to get this top tier guys, such as Jalen green, it will probably have to come as a price. Even more so for our up and coming, respectable, basketball program. 

I have a chronic issue that never allows me to feel content lol. Agreed Bruce can get us to the final 4 range and potentially a bad call away from a championship. Still, one would have to think having higher talent would make those runs less improbable and with higher seeds.

Football-wise I don’t know what we have to do to move up from the top 7 range to top 3 (even occasionally). 

[DAG 33,988]

1 minute ago, Zeek said:

I have a chronic issue that never allows me to feel content lol. Agreed Bruce can get us to the final 4 range and potentially a bad call away from a championship. Still, one would have to think having higher talent would make those runs less improbable and with higher seeds.

Football-wise I don’t know what we have to do to move up from the top 7 range to top 3 (even occasionally). 

That still hurts and not talked about enough. Honestly, Bruce and Sir Charles were such good sports about it, it just kind of went away.  I do believe had we matched up with Texas Tech, we would've been champions. Between that and the 2013 National Championship game between FSU...

For football, we need to win games when the opportunity is there. That is just the end of it, tbh.  We actually recruit at a much better level than I think we deserve from the football level. Seems to be the polar opposite when it comes to basketball.

[eaglenest 332]

It's a no brainer for me, Nike is clearly head and shoulders above all other apparel company's, they manufacturer the best products in the sporting industry. They are second to none!!! most Auburn fans need to pulled there heads out of there rear end because of fear of changing the uniforms/ they are to political / no, the real reason is Auburn fans want to have say so and control over all things Auburn and that mentality has hindered Auburn ability to grow and become a big BRAND. It sicken me when I walk into a sporting good store to all of the bama gear and 95 percent of it is Nike, and, at a reasonably cost,  I then find myself scrounging around that store looking for Auburn gear and all you can find is 10 percent of Auburn gear and 5 of that is over price under armor stuff, and some other brand, and all of which is awful looking to say the least. I don't understand why Auburn fans seem to isolate Auburn from everybody else as if it is so unique... we are going to do thing different from everyone else, that line of thinking just DRIVES me CRAZY.

[Beaker 2,457]

22 minutes ago, DAG said:

That still hurts and not talked about enough. Honestly, Bruce and Sir Charles were such good sports about it, it just kind of went away.  I do believe had we matched up with Texas Tech, we would've been champions. Between that and the 2013 National Championship game between FSU...

For football, we need to win games when the opportunity is there. That is just the end of it, tbh.  We actually recruit at a much better level than I think we deserve from the football level. Seems to be the polar opposite when it comes to basketball.

yup; 100%

[Zeek 16,650]

15 minutes ago, DAG said:

That still hurts and not talked about enough. Honestly, Bruce and Sir Charles were such good sports about it, it just kind of went away.  I do believe had we matched up with Texas Tech, we would've been champions. Between that and the 2013 National Championship game between FSU...

For football, we need to win games when the opportunity is there. That is just the end of it, tbh.  We actually recruit at a much better level than I think we deserve from the football level. Seems to be the polar opposite when it comes to basketball.

I don’t know about football. There’s plenty of programs that finish above us with less success.

Hell we didn’t even get much of a bump off winning a Natty or going to one. We suck at getting 5* players. Texas A&M finished above us and got 2 five star players. They’ve been very average.

We have only five 5* players since 2015

Byron Cowart - waste

Calvin Ashley - waste

Derrick Brown - amazing

Owen Pappoe and Bo Nix - instant impact.

I get we have to be more consistent but if we continually recruit under our rivals it’s hard to not lose against them (we’re especially abysmal on the road against UGA and LSU).

in that same timespan

Georgia - 24 five star players

Alabama - 24 five star players

LSU - 12 five star players

So we’re constantly playing 3 teams with more talent than us. It’s actually amazing Gus has been so successful against Bama with the talent differential.

[McLoofus 35,182]

55 minutes ago, Zeek said:

Still, one would have to think having higher talent would make those runs less improbable and with higher seeds.

One of the most fascinating phenomena on the internet to me is Auburn fans trying to make a case for not going after the best talent. We've seen it in football and now we're seeing it in basketball. So much LBS. And, since we haven't traditionally pulled in a ton of 5*s in either sport, a few genuinely ignorant attitudes towards elite athletes, too. 

Sorry, that's a tangent off the Nike discussion. I haven't seen much of that in this thread, if at all. I don't think anyone is citing intentional abstinence from 5* players as a reason not to pursue a Nike deal. It's been a good discussion as far as I can tell. 

[DAG 33,988]

1 hour ago, Zeek said:

I don’t know about football. There’s plenty of programs that finish above us with less success.

Hell we didn’t even get much of a bump off winning a Natty or going to one. We suck at getting 5* players. Texas A&M finished above us and got 2 five star players. They’ve been very average.

We have only five 5* players since 2015

Byron Cowart - waste

Calvin Ashley - waste

Derrick Brown - amazing

Owen Pappoe and Bo Nix - instant impact.

I get we have to be more consistent but if we continually recruit under our rivals it’s hard to not lose against them (we’re especially abysmal on the road against UGA and LSU).

in that same timespan

Georgia - 24 five star players

Alabama - 24 five star players

LSU - 12 five star players

So we’re constantly playing 3 teams with more talent than us. It’s actually amazing Gus has been so successful against Bama with the talent differential.

Who are these plenty ? 
 
I am confused . Chizik had a top 5 recruiting class after our NC year. Let me repeat this. GENE CHIZIK. 
 

Texas A&M is in a recruiting hot bed and now is the premier Texas school in the SEC. To think they aren’t going to be able to pull 5 stars from their own state (which majority of them are from) is a little misguided . There is no way you can compare that to our situation. 

 

Edited May 11, 2020 by DAG

[McLoofus 35,182]

25 minutes ago, DAG said:

Who are these plenty ? 

Well, not an exact answer, but I attempted a somewhat scientific approach to an answer. 

The last 5 years, Auburn has averaged a final AP ranking of 20th. That includes 2 years that we finished unranked, for which I very generously assigned a ranking of 26th. 

If you average our recruiting class rankings according to 247 for 2013-2017- more or less the kids who contributed the most to the last 5 seasons- then the average ranking is 8.4.

So, on average over the last 5 years, at least 11 teams in any given season have had less success than us recruiting but have finished higher in the polls. Now, I phrased it that way intentionally because "higher in the polls" doesn't mean "better". But an 11+ spot swing can't be entirely explained away by strength of schedule IMO. 

As for who those schools are, it just depends on which season we're talking about. 

Just some numbers to consider. Again, not an exact or correct answer by any stretch of the imagination. 

[DAG 33,988]

13 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

Well, not an exact answer, but I attempted a somewhat scientific approach to an answer. 

The last 5 years, Auburn has averaged a final AP ranking of 20th. That includes 2 years that we finished unranked, for which I very generously assigned a ranking of 26th. 

If you average our recruiting class rankings according to 247 for 2013-2017- more or less the kids who contributed the most to the last 5 seasons- then the average ranking is 8.4.

So, on average over the last 5 years, at least 11 teams in any given season have had less success than us recruiting but have finished higher in the polls. Now, I phrased it that way intentionally because "higher in the polls" doesn't mean "better". But an 11+ spot swing can't be entirely explained away by strength of schedule IMO. 

As for who those schools are, it just depends on which season we're talking about. 

Just some numbers to consider. Again, not an exact or correct answer by any stretch of the imagination. 

Thanks for doing that! But I guess my pushback is I am looking for consistency. Like there are times Texas A&M recruits near the top 6 and there are other times they recruit in the teens. I absolutely believe individually you can find teams with less success on the field who has recruited higher than us in an annual season, but not consistently. Definitely not in a four year period (my assumption). I can name maybe a handful off of my head including USC, FSU, etc.

Edited May 11, 2020 by DAG

[McLoofus 35,182]

1 minute ago, DAG said:

Thanks for doing that! But I guess my pushback is I am looking for is consistently. Like there are times Texas A&M recruits near the top 6 and there are other times they recruit in the teens. I absolutely believe individually you can find teams with less success on the field who has recruited higher than us in an annual season, but not consistently. Definitely not in a four year period (my assumption). I can name maybe a handful off of my head including USC, FSU, etc.

Good point. I'm guessing that if you look at the names over those five years, they change a lot. 

I do hope it's at least five years before we finish another season unranked. 

[passthebiscuits 6,846]

22 hours ago, jared52 said:

Not surprised. I love UA clothing but the 2 pair of shoes I have (basketball and running) are just awful. I am too cheap to throw them out and get new ones but I cannot wait for them to wear out. UA has a huge shoe issue. 

They are absolute garbagio. No serious runner uses UA. 
 

as for cleats, there’s function (Adidas makes a great cleat with lots of support), and there’s style. Nike has the ear of most of today’s youth...like it or not. 

[Zeek 16,650]

11 minutes ago, passthebiscuits said:

They are absolute garbagio. No serious runner uses UA. 
 

as for cleats, there’s function (Adidas makes a great cleat with lots of support), and there’s style. Nike has the ear of most of today’s youth...like it or not. 

For what it's worth Clemson, Alabama, Ohio State, Oregon, and Oklahoma wear Nike (almost every playoff team but Notre Dame is sponsored by them)

If we won't do Nike for whatever reason (politics and bad practices)

Adidas wouldn't be terrible

or Jordan (essentially Nike but different enough)