Roster Management

kchusker_chris said:
Can someone (Mav) clarify if the 77 number is our actual scholarship count right now? Looks like people are confusing the injuries with scholly's, if you're injured, you still have a scholarship. That happens every season to every team obviously. But if we're truly at 77 right now...that's some pretty significant attrition. We did that a year or two ago too. I know based on Mav's numbers we came pretty close to hitting the 85 number in February - maybe 1 short? If we're at 77 now, giving 8 walk-ons scholarships is ridiculous. There aren't even 8 senior walk-ons left on the team. If they go into the season with 85 Joe Felici, Derek Foster who've never even played in a game would "earn" one. Drop down to the juniors and Long, Kuzu, Gangwish and Broekemeir get one, none of whom have played in a game. After that, there's still a couple more left. Who are all these "deserving" walkons you're talking about Atbone? The whole concept of the walk-on "earning" a scholarship is lost.
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Long and Gangwish for sure. Reilly.

 
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I think the roster is working itself out pretty nicely - injuries aside. The players that have been leaving are allowing the coaches to take a bigger recruiting class than they would have otherwise. With only 9 senior scholarship players this class would have been much smaller if not for all of the movement.

 
By my count, there are 78 scholarship players right now. But I added Burtch to my list when Pelini said he would be on scholarship this spring so 77 could be correct as well.

Off the top of my head, Avery Moss, Aaron Curry and DeAndre Wills all left the team somewhat unexpectedly since (basically) the end or the last recruiting cycle, meaning there hasn't been a chance to replace them through recruiting. Also, Jay Guy, Toby Okeyemi and Tyler Evans didn't return for their fifth seasons. Those weren't necessarily unexpected but I don't know how far ahead the coaches knew that for sure to be able to recruit a replacement.

There is another thread with speculation about which walk-ons will be getting scholarships. I think it's fair to count Burtch as a scholarship player as he was a regular contributor last year and the coaches had obviously decided well ahead of time that he would get a scholarship. Burtch plus the three unexpected departures is 81. The other three would make 84. So it's fair to say we were a little short. The degree is up for debate.

 
Mavric said:
By my count, there are 78 scholarship players right now. But I added Burtch to my list when Pelini said he would be on scholarship this spring so 77 could be correct as well.

Off the top of my head, Avery Moss, Aaron Curry and DeAndre Wills all left the team somewhat unexpectedly since (basically) the end or the last recruiting cycle, meaning there hasn't been a chance to replace them through recruiting. Also, Jay Guy, Toby Okeyemi and Tyler Evans didn't return for their fifth seasons. Those weren't necessarily unexpected but I don't know how far ahead the coaches knew that for sure to be able to recruit a replacement.

There is another thread with speculation about which walk-ons will be getting scholarships. I think it's fair to count Burtch as a scholarship player as he was a regular contributor last year and the coaches had obviously decided well ahead of time that he would get a scholarship. Burtch plus the three unexpected departures is 81. The other three would make 84. So it's fair to say we were a little short. The degree is up for debate.
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There are always unexpected departures. Going into the season with 82-83 leaving room for a couple walkons is perfect IMO. Every once in a while we'll hit that 80ish mark. Anything below that is pretty concerning to me, and it's happened a few times under Bo. USC, and all their sanctions...still is only capped at 75. So we've essentially self imposed almost an equal reduction as the NCAA placed on USC.

How Bo wouldn't know about Guy, Okeyemi, and Evans before the end of last years recruiting is a little beyond me. He likely has that conversation with every senior on the team, and probably again after the regular season giving him a couple months to recruit the position. They would communicate that too him, I'm 100% confident. It only hurts the team not to. So why those spots weren't filled is bizarre.

I don't think we can continue to brush this off as though it doesn't have an impact because we fill them with walkons that weren't going anywhere anyway. Being 6-8 short every year, when our competition is 2-3 over is too big of a gap. It's the difference between having a guy like Mike Shoff on the roster providing depth at OL, or another DT or two (Bazata), or a DE (Ott). It's in the trenches where we lack numbers, and it's there where we most often miss on recruiting. The numbers are the only way to solve that, and we aren't using them. It's my biggest issue with Pelini's recruiting. It's not so much the lack of talent in the individual, it's the lack of talent on the team because we lack the #s.

 
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kchusker_chris said:
Mavric said:
By my count, there are 78 scholarship players right now. But I added Burtch to my list when Pelini said he would be on scholarship this spring so 77 could be correct as well.

Off the top of my head, Avery Moss, Aaron Curry and DeAndre Wills all left the team somewhat unexpectedly since (basically) the end or the last recruiting cycle, meaning there hasn't been a chance to replace them through recruiting. Also, Jay Guy, Toby Okeyemi and Tyler Evans didn't return for their fifth seasons. Those weren't necessarily unexpected but I don't know how far ahead the coaches knew that for sure to be able to recruit a replacement.

There is another thread with speculation about which walk-ons will be getting scholarships. I think it's fair to count Burtch as a scholarship player as he was a regular contributor last year and the coaches had obviously decided well ahead of time that he would get a scholarship. Burtch plus the three unexpected departures is 81. The other three would make 84. So it's fair to say we were a little short. The degree is up for debate.
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There are always unexpected departures. Going into the season with 82-83 leaving room for a couple walkons is perfect IMO. Every once in a while we'll hit that 80ish mark. Anything below that is pretty concerning to me, and it's happened a few times under Bo. USC, and all their sanctions...still is only capped at 75. So we've essentially self imposed almost an equal reduction as the NCAA placed on USC.

How Bo wouldn't know about Guy, Okeyemi, and Evans before the end of last years recruiting is a little beyond me. He likely has that conversation with every senior on the team, and probably again after the regular season giving him a couple months to recruit the position. They would communicate that too him, I'm 100% confident. It only hurts the team not to. So why those spots weren't filled is bizarre.

I don't think we can continue to brush this off as though it doesn't have an impact because we fill them with walkons that weren't going anywhere anyway. Being 6-8 short every year, when our competition is 2-3 over is too big of a gap. It's the difference between having a guy like Mike Shoff on the roster providing depth at OL, or another DT or two. It's in the trenches where we lack numbers, and it's there where we most often miss on recruiting. The numbers are the only way to solve that, and we aren't using them. It's my biggest issue with Pelini's recruiting. It's not so much the lack of talent in the individual, it's the lack of talent on the team because we lack the #s.
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Exactly. It's baffling why this is happening because it only makes a hard job harder.

 
NUpolo8 said:
Exactly. It's baffling why this is happening because it only makes a hard job harder.
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I can understand it if it happens once every 5 years. Kids leave, especially talented ones. But this is a recurring theme. Reading that article with Grobe in it - he talked about how he changed how he recruited after he started winning - recruiting kids that maybe where more talented but borderline in other areas. They got in trouble, they left the program, were suspended, etc. That was his downfall. Bo seems to be in a very similar situation, he's not able to keep a roster in tact.

 
Thanks, Mavric.

Based on that, it seems more accurate to say we're 78 off of 80-82, rather than 77 off of 85. It's a little short, I agree, but not a significant numbers issue. The roster is still in good shape, or at least, we'll find out about the quality of our recruiting in recent years.

I think we'll show just how solid that's been. But I'm an optimistic guy right now.

 
zoogies said:
Thanks, Mavric.

Based on that, it seems more accurate to say we're 78 off of 80-82, rather than 77 off of 85. It's a little short, I agree, but not a significant numbers issue. The roster is still in good shape, or at least, we'll find out about the quality of our recruiting in recent years.

I think we'll show just how solid that's been. But I'm an optimistic guy right now.
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how is it more accurate to say we're 78 of 82 when there are 85 available?

 
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Because a few unexpected transfer happen every year, such as Curry in fall camp or Stringfellow over the summer? Maybe the staff could have known and accounted for all of the others, or maybe not - that's speculative. And it's normal/expected for a small number of scholarships to be open to walk-ons around this time.

So really, if this thing crashes and burns this year, it's not "oh Bo should have just recruited a few more guys to me." It will be an indictment on his recent recruiting that's so far been full of promise. Look at the rate of young guys that are in the mix now compared to a few years ago.

And yes, you did say 82 is perfect
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I'd roughly agree with that, so we're around 4-5 players shy rather than 8, which, again, is a little short but not to an extreme degree.

 
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zoogies said:
Because a few unexpected transfer happen every year, such as Curry in fall camp or Stringfellow over the summer? Maybe the staff could have known and accounted for all of the others, or maybe not - that's speculative. And it's normal/expected for a small number of scholarships to be open to walk-ons around this time.
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By small number, you mean 10% then?

 
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Um, by small number I mean 3-4, which works out to roughly 3-5%.

So, thanks to some extra unanticipated attrition (like the 2.5% that Curry and Stringfellow account for), we're an extra few below normal. Really nothing to throw a fit over, IMO.

 
zoogies said:
Um, by small number I mean 3-4, which works out to roughly 3-5%.

So, thanks to some extra unanticipated attrition (like the 2.5% that Curry and Stringfellow account for), we're an extra few below normal. Really nothing to throw a fit over, IMO.
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If we weren't so frequently at 10%, and hadn't also NOT accounted for 3 graduating seniors - which is about the easiest thing to possible account for.

 
Polo,

You seem to be advocating that giving scholarships to walk-ons that are producing on the field is a waste of the scholarship. Is that your opinion?

 
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