Sadly, I am back in my state of residence, Wisconsin, and my friends who are Badgers have been merciless.
Anyway, mixed in with the snide comments was this sobering nugget of information, sent via email this morning: Wisconsin's starting offensive line goes JR, SO, FR, JR, SO. Three freshmen are among the second-stringers. The receiver who hurt us on Saturday, Quintez Cephus, is a SO. The QB, as mediocre as he is, is a SO. We all know the star running back is a FR.
Here I was, hoping our significant youth was a valid excuse because I assumed their players were mostly physically mature, highly experienced JRs and SRs. Wrong.
But it's even more depressing. Every one of their starting linemen was just a 3-star, and they all had very underwhelming offer lists. Cephus, the WR who killed us, was a 3-star as well. Yes, Taylor, the electric freshman back, was a 4-star, but his offer list was underwhelming, too.
Which makes me wonder about Billy Devaney. What has he shown us? When we hired him, I was pretty excited, and thought it was a forward-thinking, great move. I thought (and still think) for us to compete, we will have to EVALUATE talent better than some of our competitors, not just chase the obvious 4 and 5 stars like everyone else. We've got to be different!!!!
Obviously, Wisconsin has great talent evaluation, not to mention superior player development.
I'm bummed this morning, because here I thought their guys up front were so much older and more experienced than ours. Ouch.
Anyway, mixed in with the snide comments was this sobering nugget of information, sent via email this morning: Wisconsin's starting offensive line goes JR, SO, FR, JR, SO. Three freshmen are among the second-stringers. The receiver who hurt us on Saturday, Quintez Cephus, is a SO. The QB, as mediocre as he is, is a SO. We all know the star running back is a FR.
Here I was, hoping our significant youth was a valid excuse because I assumed their players were mostly physically mature, highly experienced JRs and SRs. Wrong.
But it's even more depressing. Every one of their starting linemen was just a 3-star, and they all had very underwhelming offer lists. Cephus, the WR who killed us, was a 3-star as well. Yes, Taylor, the electric freshman back, was a 4-star, but his offer list was underwhelming, too.
Which makes me wonder about Billy Devaney. What has he shown us? When we hired him, I was pretty excited, and thought it was a forward-thinking, great move. I thought (and still think) for us to compete, we will have to EVALUATE talent better than some of our competitors, not just chase the obvious 4 and 5 stars like everyone else. We've got to be different!!!!
Obviously, Wisconsin has great talent evaluation, not to mention superior player development.
I'm bummed this morning, because here I thought their guys up front were so much older and more experienced than ours. Ouch.
