Well it has been a full day. If you’re in the discord you know we helped a player move in with some new teammates to cap it all off. But I have some insights to share. If you stick with us on this report to the very end then I’ll even give you some nice insider nuggets as well.
First off I’d just like to welcome all the new subscribers to the community. CougConnect is a really great place to interact with other fans and players. I think something like 15% of all cougconnect subscribers have only a few weeks here. So I’d like to share the “Why” and “How” of CougConnect before anything else. Seems cheesy but it is very important. After these surges of new subscribers it is necessary too.
CougConnect was started when BYU Football players let us know how much they were struggling. Many were donating plasma, doing Uber eats or missing church to do Walmart grocery pick up orders on Sunday mornings. Some of you are probably thinking “these players get stipends and don’t need anything else.” Well these stipends aren’t the same year round. Some summer months they get a half stipend or no stipend. If you’re paying for extra training on the side and can’t get a decent job with crazy hours because of class, practice etc… well it’s tough.
Long story short we started CougConnect to help them out. It was kind of an instant hit too. We had a lot of fan support right out the gates. Even el jefe from CougarBoard was super generous and helped us out in a lot of ways. It instantly made players lives better. This is “why” we do CougConnect. To connect players with the most passionate, supportive and fun fan base in college sports. Maybe the best fan base anywhere. I think that where we have a lot of fans of faith, it makes for a very giving and caring fan demographic as well.
So bring the awesomeness of Cougar Nation to the players who need it. That’s our why. But the how is also very important. Probably everyone here heard about CougConnect from a friend or an insider report. These insider reports are a fun thing that is a way to add value and community. We all get together and talk sports. When exciting things are happening we talk about that too. But as enjoyable as that makes the community there is a right and a wrong way to do this.
We have guidelines because our community is unique. Players are in the discord and DM group. Players families are in the community as well. So are the families and friends of coaches. So we don’t go venting our frustrations or issues with players or coaches. The CougConnect vibe is a different vibe. It is supposed to be positive because our “why” is to support. Also in order to share the latest and the greatest stuff we need to keep it here. It incentivizes people to join, which results in a stronger community for fans and players. For the most part fans are remarkably good about this. But we can’t go teasing too much info online, or commenting on posts about things that aren’t public knowledge yet. It makes it limiting in what I can safely share.
We also have traditionally been very careful about not giving too much info. But we admit we got caught up in the Kevin Young excitement and probably shared a little more than we should have. So I’ll take the heat on that. We have handled several football recruiting announcements much better than the news about Hugo. And we will be better again. The person we talked with didn’t think there was a problem with us sharing what we shared. But we should’ve have been better all the same.
The truth is with NIL and the transfer portal we can lose players long after a commitment. The Ques Glover fiasco is a perfect example. So it’s hard enough to get and keep good talent. We will be more judicious in the future with specifics. As fans if you see a player posting about their commitment or visit to BYU, go ahead and hype them up. But if a player talking to BYU coaches isn’t publicly acknowledging that, then there is no need to bring it up. Like that generic post and move on. We all are getting caught up in the excitement with the college hoops program so it is hard. But more caution is needed all around.
I want to add a little nugget here while we are t...
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