[chicard]

Or, maybe the 3-nations-in-1 analogy makes me the Iraq of Stanford football sites.  But I'm a football fan only.  The rest is mostly just noise to me.

Like Bob K., I've been with the Bootleg forever...like, when they were a Monday faxed football season newsletter.  They have one thing: LOTS of posters and enough of them are connected guys who bring the kind of news a staff would if they actually had a fully-functioning staff. And even in the off-season the football board isn't dead.

Cardboard?  Was part of the original, Yvonne-led Gang of Five and for unfathomable reasons continue to be its nominal, ad hoc treasurer.  We have been delightfully free of (some) Bootleg posters' tendency to self-absorbed, abusive acting-out in print.  May it remain ever thus.

I joined Rivals in its original iteration.  But it was basically comatose and I eventually dropped it.  But Drukarev (ex-Bootleg) has singlehandely turned things around and his energy and results put into recruiting news finally won me back.  I'll ride with him and the board for a year to see whether they can sustain or will go into hibernation outside of prime recruiting time.

I was a Bootleg subscriber for many years but just dropped my premium subscription a few months back.  I agree 100% with your assessment -- the real value of the site is the message board, both in the number of posters and the fact that several are very connected and/or knowledgeable.  But I got frustrated because 1) their recruiting coverage was poor, 2) their frequent website changes were driving me crazy, and 3) threads involving certain posters would inevitably devolve (to be clear, I was bothered by both sides -- those who were constantly negative and those who constantly responded to the negativity without discussing the actual issues).  I do miss the volume of posts, though. 

I was planning to subscribe to Rivals (and still may), but my concern is whether their message board is robust enough.  And while I love reading about recruiting, that's not all I care about -- and I don't know what their non-recruiting coverage is like.

I recently started reading the Cardboard.  I like that it's free :) and the general congeniality of the board.  It's great to see some familiar posters here, and it's great to read posts from Hulk again!

[chicard]

Or, maybe the 3-nations-in-1 analogy makes me the Iraq of Stanford football sites.  But I'm a football fan only.  The rest is mostly just noise to me.

Like Bob K., I've been with the Bootleg forever...like, when they were a Monday faxed football season newsletter.  They have one thing: LOTS of posters and enough of them are connected guys who bring the kind of news a staff would if they actually had a fully-functioning staff. And even in the off-season the football board isn't dead.

Cardboard?  Was part of the original, Yvonne-led Gang of Five and for unfathomable reasons continue to be its nominal, ad hoc treasurer.  We have been delightfully free of (some) Bootleg posters' tendency to self-absorbed, abusive acting-out in print.  May it remain ever thus.

I joined Rivals in its original iteration.  But it was basically comatose and I eventually dropped it.  But Drukarev (ex-Bootleg) has singlehandely turned things around and his energy and results put into recruiting news finally won me back.  I'll ride with him and the board for a year to see whether they can sustain or will go into hibernation outside of prime recruiting time.

I was a Bootleg subscriber for many years but just dropped my premium subscription a few months back.  I agree 100% with your assessment -- the real value of the site is the message board, both in the number of posters and the fact that several are very connected and/or knowledgeable.  But I got frustrated because 1) their recruiting coverage was poor, 2) their frequent website changes were driving me crazy, and 3) threads involving certain posters would inevitably devolve (to be clear, I was bothered by both sides -- those who were constantly negative and those who constantly responded to the negativity without discussing the actual issues).  I do miss the volume of posts, though. 

I was planning to subscribe to Rivals (and still may), but my concern is whether their message board is robust enough.  And while I love reading about recruiting, that's not all I care about -- and I don't know what their non-recruiting coverage is like.

I recently started reading the Cardboard.  I like that it's free :) and the general congeniality of the board.  It's great to see some familiar posters here, and it's great to read posts from Hulk again!