Assume:
-85 scholarships total
-25 scholarships this year (would need 2 rising 5th year players to graduate and leave - probably going to happen)
-3 scholarships for the 3 special team slots (K, P, LS)
Leaves 82 scholarships for the remainder of the team. If you divide the number of on the field by 22 (example 5/22 is the proportion of OLs) you get a rough proportion of the numbers we should have at each position. I know that we should probably have a higher or lower proportion at some positions, but if you look at our current returners (minus the 2 mentioned above and the 17 we have committed), the position groups look like:
QB - Have 4 - Need 4
RB - Have 6 - Need 4
WR - Have 7 - Need 11 (even with the 3 we have committed)
OL - Have 16 - Need 19 (even with the 4 we have committed)
TE - Have 4 - Need 4
NG - Have 3 - Need 4
DT - Have 8 - Need 8
LB - Have 14 - Need 14
CB - Have 6 - Need 7
S - Have 7 - Need 7
Completely disregarding the actual quality of the players, the team is really out of balance on offense. Even if we could sign an additional 4 WRs and 3 OLs this year to bring us back into balance numbers wise, and assuming that the additions would be freshman, we would have 1 SR., 2 JR, 0 SO, and 8 FR players at WR in 2017. On the OL, we would have 1 SR, 3 JR, 3 SO, and 12 FR players.
I haven't heard really anything about bringing in some JUCO player at these spots, but because we are so bottom heavy on the OL and at WR, shouldn't this be something we should be doing? Only about 1/3 of the scholarship players in 2017 will be Juniors and Seniors, as things stand now.
We'll only likely have 12 spots open for scholarships in 2018, and it seems to me that unless we get real difference makers, we should stop at say 20 this year and save the other 5 for 2018.
-85 scholarships total
-25 scholarships this year (would need 2 rising 5th year players to graduate and leave - probably going to happen)
-3 scholarships for the 3 special team slots (K, P, LS)
Leaves 82 scholarships for the remainder of the team. If you divide the number of on the field by 22 (example 5/22 is the proportion of OLs) you get a rough proportion of the numbers we should have at each position. I know that we should probably have a higher or lower proportion at some positions, but if you look at our current returners (minus the 2 mentioned above and the 17 we have committed), the position groups look like:
QB - Have 4 - Need 4
RB - Have 6 - Need 4
WR - Have 7 - Need 11 (even with the 3 we have committed)
OL - Have 16 - Need 19 (even with the 4 we have committed)
TE - Have 4 - Need 4
NG - Have 3 - Need 4
DT - Have 8 - Need 8
LB - Have 14 - Need 14
CB - Have 6 - Need 7
S - Have 7 - Need 7
Completely disregarding the actual quality of the players, the team is really out of balance on offense. Even if we could sign an additional 4 WRs and 3 OLs this year to bring us back into balance numbers wise, and assuming that the additions would be freshman, we would have 1 SR., 2 JR, 0 SO, and 8 FR players at WR in 2017. On the OL, we would have 1 SR, 3 JR, 3 SO, and 12 FR players.
I haven't heard really anything about bringing in some JUCO player at these spots, but because we are so bottom heavy on the OL and at WR, shouldn't this be something we should be doing? Only about 1/3 of the scholarship players in 2017 will be Juniors and Seniors, as things stand now.
We'll only likely have 12 spots open for scholarships in 2018, and it seems to me that unless we get real difference makers, we should stop at say 20 this year and save the other 5 for 2018.
