Maybe it's just the normal pre-season "things are going to be different this year" stuff, but it really seems like things are so night and day different in the football program over 2 years ago it's stunning.
Under the old regime, the program was generally organized and in all honesty, we did bring enough talent every year to be competitive (the 9-10 win stuff). But now, everything we do just seems to be happening with a coordinated purpose, from how we recruit to how we involve our current players in the off-season, etc. It also just seems like we're identifying and bringing in a higher level of athlete then in the past, and that goes all the way back to 1997. Not even Callahan recruited with this much vigor and got this many good kids at least interested, even though I will always thank Bill Callahan for Suh. Further, we seem to be doing it without the antics of the likes of people like Johnny Blake, the human NCAA violation.
Getting 2 really good 4-star QBs and a seemingly really good transfer QB in the first 18 months is huge, but what is really impressing me is the seemingly higher quality of the 3-star players we're bringing in. Kids like C. Davis, Decker, Neal, A. Williams, Young, Barry, A. Davis, Reed, Ozigbo from 2015 seem to be at a higher level than many of the 3-star players we recruited in the past (except Abdulla). The same seems to be true for 2016 with guys like Brokop, Stille, Domann, Speilman, Grim, Bryant, and Farniok, who if they played under brighter lights in high school probably would have been 4-stars.
Sure, there will be injuries and kids who don't pan out, but I really don't expect whole classes of a certain position to bust under these guys like the 2009/2010/2011/2012 DL (Vestel, Ashburn, Guy, Okuyemi, Pete,Williams, Carter, Pensick, Rome, Curry, Moss, ) where the only DLs we recruited who actually were DL contributors were Ankrah, Randal, Valentine, and McMullen. Just think about that; in four years we only signed 4 defensive lineman who even reasonably contributed (Pensick did at center) and 2 of them left before their eligibility was up. We had 11 busts on the DL in 4 years. In 2013 we brought in Collins, Maurice, Natter and Gregory, two of which are now gone and one is still trying to prove himself and stay healthy, but we had 2 recruits (Mixon and Suttles) who never wore a practice uniform. In 2014, we signed Wills, King, Keels, Newell, Freeedom, and Stoltenburg. Keels was a wasted scholarship, Wills never played, King is iffy, and the other 3 seem to be solid with Freedom and Stolt likely being really good. In 2015, we got the Davis', Neal, and A. Davis, all who seem to have good futures. We signed 2 seemingly good DE prospects in 2016 and no DTs.
All in all, from 2009 to 2016, we signed 33 defensive lineman. 14 were busts, 6 were good players no longer here, 1 moved to center, 4 have real playing experience and are still here, and 8 have yet to play a down.
We seem to have solved the QB recruiting problem. This and next year, we need to solve the DL recruiting problem.
Under the old regime, the program was generally organized and in all honesty, we did bring enough talent every year to be competitive (the 9-10 win stuff). But now, everything we do just seems to be happening with a coordinated purpose, from how we recruit to how we involve our current players in the off-season, etc. It also just seems like we're identifying and bringing in a higher level of athlete then in the past, and that goes all the way back to 1997. Not even Callahan recruited with this much vigor and got this many good kids at least interested, even though I will always thank Bill Callahan for Suh. Further, we seem to be doing it without the antics of the likes of people like Johnny Blake, the human NCAA violation.
Getting 2 really good 4-star QBs and a seemingly really good transfer QB in the first 18 months is huge, but what is really impressing me is the seemingly higher quality of the 3-star players we're bringing in. Kids like C. Davis, Decker, Neal, A. Williams, Young, Barry, A. Davis, Reed, Ozigbo from 2015 seem to be at a higher level than many of the 3-star players we recruited in the past (except Abdulla). The same seems to be true for 2016 with guys like Brokop, Stille, Domann, Speilman, Grim, Bryant, and Farniok, who if they played under brighter lights in high school probably would have been 4-stars.
Sure, there will be injuries and kids who don't pan out, but I really don't expect whole classes of a certain position to bust under these guys like the 2009/2010/2011/2012 DL (Vestel, Ashburn, Guy, Okuyemi, Pete,Williams, Carter, Pensick, Rome, Curry, Moss, ) where the only DLs we recruited who actually were DL contributors were Ankrah, Randal, Valentine, and McMullen. Just think about that; in four years we only signed 4 defensive lineman who even reasonably contributed (Pensick did at center) and 2 of them left before their eligibility was up. We had 11 busts on the DL in 4 years. In 2013 we brought in Collins, Maurice, Natter and Gregory, two of which are now gone and one is still trying to prove himself and stay healthy, but we had 2 recruits (Mixon and Suttles) who never wore a practice uniform. In 2014, we signed Wills, King, Keels, Newell, Freeedom, and Stoltenburg. Keels was a wasted scholarship, Wills never played, King is iffy, and the other 3 seem to be solid with Freedom and Stolt likely being really good. In 2015, we got the Davis', Neal, and A. Davis, all who seem to have good futures. We signed 2 seemingly good DE prospects in 2016 and no DTs.
All in all, from 2009 to 2016, we signed 33 defensive lineman. 14 were busts, 6 were good players no longer here, 1 moved to center, 4 have real playing experience and are still here, and 8 have yet to play a down.
We seem to have solved the QB recruiting problem. This and next year, we need to solve the DL recruiting problem.
