Recruiting Forum Football Talk III

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#174,905
#174,905
Trying to catch up on some videos of practice, coaches, players and while it's very early it's fun to see that everyone seems to be enjoying themselves. Golesh seems like a kid on Christmas days with tons of new toys to play with, and way better toys than he has ever had before. Players seem to be loose and having fun and enjoying football again. Early, orange colored glasses etc... but it's cool to see anyway.
 
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#174,906
#174,906
GoBigOrange86 said:
We just need to learn to live with the fact that, for now, our rivals are Kentucky and Vanderbilt, not Alabama and Florida.
Click to expand...

I saw that tweet earlier this weekend. While not good and shows that we have had bad coaches, we are 24-6 in the previous 30 years, so picking exactly 10 years was perfect for their exercise.
 
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#174,919
#174,919
I’ve been thinking about Nick’s futuristic forecast of some abysmal football seasons for us, especially over the next 4 years and I wanted to see if I could find a rationale that would support his view. In the past, I and many others tend to dismiss critiques that we don’t want to hear and I’ve previously said I don’t want to do that this time around.

While long range forecasts are difficult to make, especially when it’s almost impossible to have a good handle on the caliber of those future teams on our schedule, I think we can look at our own roster and to a large degree, using the development curves for the various position groups, make some informed estimates. For example, Alontae Taylor is a senior this year, Kenneth George Jr is a sixth year senior this year. I imagine we lose both of those guys after this season. Who do we have left at CB? Warren Burrell. Maybe Fields can play there in the future but I don’t know that we have any other bodies even for the position in 2022. We may be playing freshmen, JUCOs, or transfers, because it looks like to me that we are maybe 2 years behind on recruiting and developing cornerbacks. That could definitely adversely impact future performance. jmo.

We have a lot of older guys on our roster right now, 20 seniors or fifth and sixth year scholarship seniors on the spring roster. In some cases we don’t have their replacements on the roster yet so we’re behind on both recruitment and development. From a bodies standpoint and not yet knowing how the staff is going to proceed from a roster management perspective, it’s easy to see that we’re likely going to be behind for maybe 1-3 years in some position groups. This year we could have the best roster from both a talent and experience view that we may have for the immediate future. jmo.

We have a lot of young talent at wide receiver so while much of it is yet to be proven I think we’re okay recruiting wise there. We just need to hold on to the guys we’ve got and get them the experience part of development. Kodi Burns is one of the coaches on the new staff that I have the most respect for but he still has a job to do and there are no guarantees with any of the kids in his room. jmo.

We may be okay at safety even though we lose Theo and Trevon after this year. I’m assuming Doneiko and Tamarion are nickels so Jaylen comes back and we’ll have Rucker and I assume Marley in the back end. I don’t think there are any other bodies for that group, not yet at least. jmo.

I think defensive tackle is probably okay with Thomas, Bailey, Simmons, Evans, Emerson maybe being around for a while longer. I think we could be okay at WDE with Harrison, Joseph, and Young for a while. All of these guys still need to prove themselves with a significant increase in snaps/game but we do have presumably some good talent and youth here. jmo.

We’ll lose Cade Mays, Jerome Carvin, Locklear, and Calbert as a minimum from our offensive line after this year. We don’t know what we have behind them. jmo.

I think if we can stay healthy and out of trouble we’re probably okay at QB for maybe the foreseeable future. I think we should be at least better but we still have a lot to prove. I was looking at our QB room’s performance since 2009 and Bailey in limited action last year had a better passer rating than any QB room we’ve had over those years. Josh Dobbs had his best year in 2016 and yet HB’s small sample (68 passes) had a higher passer rating than Josh’s 2016 mark. Please note Josh Dobb s had the highest passer rating in the entire SEC in 2016. His development began in 2013 with some playing time at the end of the year and then he took over in 2014 during the Alabama game and continued to improve game after game, year after year, until eventually he was on top of the conference. Bailey’s numbers are starting out well ahead of Josh’s 2013 or 2014 numbers. It may not mean anything but from everything I can gather HB has been working his tail off his entire life at becoming a good QB. It’s been year round and he’s had a lot of celebrated teachers. His work ethic is off the charts. He still has a lot to prove but he also has tremendous promise. If he ends up being the real deal it could mitigate to some degree deficiencies we may have elsewhere. jmo.

Anyway, I can see when people look at our roster they can see holes not just now but well into the future. It’s like Dooley not signing any offensive linemen in 2012. Roster holes are difficult to fix in the next class because every position group has a development curve and so it takes time. Stability is when you actually have a roster well populated with balance across the classes. That’s the only way next man up works. jmo

I looked at all the guys we lost after 2016 and it was devastating. I looked at the struggles we’ve had before and since trying to find a QB. I’ve looked at the guys who were major contributors one year and moved on and how we transitioned to their replacements. We’ve not been very good at that. We’ve not built our team to be consistently successful with the ongoing changes to our rosters. jmo.

There is an expression that says coaches don’t make the players; players make the coaches. A lot of fans harp on the fact that Josh Dobbs was the reason Butch had some success while he was here with us. Of course that was true but it wasn’t just Josh. It was Derek Barnett and others as well. The same can be said with any coach. Obviously coaches are imperative, both from a recruiting standpoint and a development standpoint. Some players like Cam Sutton and Bryce Thompson show up on day one. Others take a bit of time. The one rationale I think that could support Nick’s forecast for our future is we’re behind and a lot of what we have now is unproven. He may end up being right but I’m not going to be betting on it. jmo.

Lastly, in one of his interviews while he was still a young kid, Bailey said he wanted to play college football for a head coach who had himself played QB. Talk about being prescient. The kid was in the 8th grade. I think Florida was his favorite school at the time. We were just one of the few dozens of schools reaching out to the prodigy. And now here we are. Bailey is at Tennessee and his head coach is a former Heisman runner up QB and the QB from a national championship football team. Something about life clearly moves in mysterious ways. jmo.
 
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#174,920
#174,920
tomq_123 said:
Trying to catch up on some videos of practice, coaches, players and while it's very early it's fun to see that everyone seems to be enjoying themselves. Golesh seems like a kid on Christmas days with tons of new toys to play with, and way better toys than he has ever had before. Players seem to be loose and having fun and enjoying football again. Early, orange colored glasses etc... but it's cool to see anyway.
Click to expand...
Some call it “orange colored glasses”...others see it as not being closed off to optimism. Nowhere near declaring Heupel or staff as done deal success, but like yourself I enjoy teaching in the game of football...especially the college version. We have no idea how Heupel will manage a TEAM against SEC level competition, but I know in our OC searches that we were never in the running for his peer in scheming and QB development. Same for Ellarbe with the OL. Our options in that search were looking a lil peaked if you factor in that we interviewed Jim Turner as a viable candidate. TE’s are a position group that some staffs throw a recruiter at and hope for the best (ala Niedermeyer and Rodney Garner in his first UT stop), but when you have a bonafide whisperer as Golesh showed at Iowa State? That’s a strength that pays dividends. Golesh’s commentary on all the position groups also indicates he’s not an OC in name only. He’s coordinating that offense and involved in all facets save playcalling imo. Lot to like so far. Don’t apologize.
 
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#174,925
#174,925
I don't know if I'd even try to give a 4 year forecast, I would say I need to see what this next recruiting class and the one after ends up ranked. Cause I think in year 1 there's a lot of SEC talent on the roster already, so we could have a pretty good year to start off the Heupel era, but if he can't recruit well and the class rankings slip then I don't know how well things will go.

Honestly if we're a 6-8 win team each season for the next 4 and everything kind of levels out on the NCAA worries and the constant turnover in the AD and on the coaching staff I'd be pretty alright with that. Rather see us in the 8-10 win range, but I'd take 4 straight seasons of being bowl eligible at this point.
 
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