Started to look through 247 again and I didn't realize how few and far between players in these classes were. Theoretically, guys in the 2015 class should be RS-Srs this year and guys in the 2016 class should be Srs or RS-Jrs. This is totally unacceptable, just imagine this team with all of the talent that we thought would be leaders.
2015 Class
Tim Settle- Left Early to NFL
Austin Clark- Dropped out of the program
Dwayne Lawson- Transferred
Yosuah Nijman- Graduated
Xavier Burke- Transferred
Mook Reynolds- Kicked off the team
Trevon Hill- Transferred
Tremaine Edmunds- Left Early to NFL
Deshawn McClease
Darius Fullwood- Transferred
Jahque Alleyne- Transferred
DuWayne Johnson- ???
Harry Lewis- ???
Carson Lydon- ???
Adonis Alexander- Kicked off the team
Houshon Gaines- Multi-season injury
Tyrell Smith
Chris Cunningham- Transferred
D'Andre Plantin- Transferred
Coleman Fox- Transferred Injuries
Zachariah Hoyt
2016
Jerod Evans- Left early to NFL
Divine Deablo
Josh Jackson- Transferred
Khalil Ladler
Reggie Floyd
Eric Kumah- Transferred
Phil Patterson
Jovonn Quillen
Samuel Denmark- Dropped out of program
Demetri Moore- Transferred
Jimmie Taylor- Transferred
Jarrett Hopple- Transferred
Tyree Rodgers
Tavante Beckett- Kicked off the team
Emmanuel Belmar
Patrick Kearns- Transferred
Henri Murphy- Graduated
Jarrod Hewitt
Clay Dean- Transferred
TJ Jackson
Eron Carter- Transferred
Brian Johnson
Silas Dzansi
reading this list like
And people are wondering why we are so young and playing freshman and not redshirting guys
Comments
14 players out of 44 still on the team from those two recruiting classes. Yikes.
I swear, no matter how bad this season gets, a good Star Wars gif from hokiejeep will always cheer me up...
Now that I think about it....Collectively in the fall camp, game week, and post-game pressers, those 14 names have all come up at various times...
🤔
Is it so bad that our best would be red shirt seniors are in the NFL already? Guess it means that even though the best players are gone the other ones still didnt stay
Sustainable roster management requires that you recruit and develop players so that they can be almost ready for prime time as sophomores while your seniors ball out. Then when these guys are juniors, you are grooming the freshmen to be serviceable backups the following year. If a guy leaves after his junior year for the NFL, then you might have a rough year while your sophomore replacement is thrust into the starting position, but shit shouldn't blow up in your face. And that's assuming you don't have multiple guys in one class who can play a position. If you're relying on everybody staying five years just to make it work, you have already screwed the pooch.
The best of them are in the NFL, some were kicked off for disciplinary reasons, and a good number of them would be non-factors.
Of the remainder, a handful would have been useful on the team. I wish Josh Jackson had stayed to give us more depth and an alternative at QB, but I don't think he was necessarily the answer, either.
The most surprising thing for me was on the oline, although they didn't play much while they were here, having Plantin, Moore, Hopple and Kearns would add to our depth and a few of them would most likely start with more development, they were all decent enough recruits
We need to treat good O-line players like gold. It's a hard, thankless job and we never have enough good ones.
100% agree this team is young, and this info should be factored into staffing decisions. Would love to compare this to other rebuilds. If there was more talent in the pipeline, I'd be far less concerned.
Except for this year, the recruiting seems to have been decent on offense, though we need linemen and a star running back.
Not sure if we're getting it done on defense.
Not really... a bunch of WRs and not much else. Bunch of project type players at positions of desperate need. No impact QBs in the 2019 or 2020 classes. Recruiting is very mediocre.
Chris and DC have brought this up in the past, but there are more 4-stars than ever before. A more accurate calculation would be looking at average recruit rating, not stars.
When you do this, you see that recruiting hasn't improved much.
If you look at recruiting rankings since Fuente has been here (apart from this year), recruiting hasn't been terrible.
Not great when you look at positions of need, but certainly better than is sometimes characterized.
"When you ignore the results for the most important units, and also throw out the bottom 25% of the sample size, the results aren't that bad!"
Not at all what I said. If you have to change the comment, maybe you're not interpreting it right.
You are seeing on the field how much the "we signed a bunch of 4 star players" metric is flawed. We have huge holes in the roster, and Payoutte, Simmons, and Pinckney standing on the sidelines not playing when you can't move the ball on Duke is troubling for the future as well.
So recruiting is measured by results, and not stars?
I guess people shouldn't get so worked up on signing day, then.
17 4 stars in two seasons would be very good recruiting. If more than 2 of them were on defense or 1 was a QB. That's my point.
I think we do have some highly-rated quarterbacks.
As for defense, Bud has made a career out of creating a defense with underrated/overlooked talent. Something seems different there right now.
we have Kim and Kadum at QB for 2019 and 2020 in terms of HS recruiting. Neither are ACC level prospects at that position.
Hmmm a bunch of transfers in there. wonder why the coaching staff couldn't keep those guys around? If they had we wouldn't be so "young" right now.
There's nothing wrong with these classes. Lots of talent that went to the NFL early, you want that for recruiting. The problem is that we didn't recruit and develop properly to replace them effectively in 17, 18, 19, etc.
Youth is a problem, but every team has to rely on some youth with the same 3-5 year turnover rate everyone else you're playing has to deal with.
Feel like in the recent years we have only recruited WR.
Nice work and analysis on this. I'll throw in some comments:
1) We always have transfers and other issues that cause players to leave the program early. You believe this is unacceptable. The numbers in the years you've shown are probably normal.
2) For the most part, transfers are good. Usually, they are players who are having trouble cracking the depth chart. They transfer to a program where they believe they have a greater opportunity to play. It also opens up more scholarships for us. It's a win-win.
3) Someone said this above - players leaving early for the NFL is a good thing. Those guys are realizing their dream, and it looks good for the program that we are developing talent. It's great for recruiting.
4) You also believe a lot of talent has been lost. That's definitely not the case with players who fit into my 2) above. If guys are transferring to programs like Alabama, Clemson, Penn State, etc., I would worry. If they are going to Madison, ODU, Norfolk State, etc., I wouldn't be concerned. The vast majority of our transfers fit into the latter grouping.
5) Fuente and the staff made a big deal over the off season about losing a lot of bad eggs this past offseason. I think they wanted a lot of those kids gone. Bad chemistry in the locker room is a killer. I will admit we're looing worse than last year when we had those bad eggs, but if Fuente thought he needed those kids gone, it probably good they are gone.
Now, should we be concerned with the future of our program based on the performance for far in 2019? I think so. But, I don't think our drop this year is due to attrition.
I don't think Coleman Fox transferred. I believe he stopped playing early because of several injuries.
You are correct sir, updated
DuWayne Johnson was buried on the depth chart and transferred pretty much immediately, it wasn't very surprising.
Carson Lydon played on ST and had a few tackles as a true freshman and then transferred, which was surprising.