*** 2019 Recruiting ***
- Thread starter Mavric
- Start date
B.B. Hemingway
Donor
Hedley Lamarr
New member
It's edge rushers that are hard to recruit. They're hard to recruit whether they stand up or have a hand down. Big, explosive people are rare, therefore a commodity. They're even more important against today's one back offenses that take numbers out of the box, giving a defense fewer potential positions from which to generate pressure. All of those receivers also means the ball tends to get out quicker, again, limiting how you can generate pressure, and forcing any outside pressure to need to get there that much quicker.
Edge rushers are hard to recruit in college and expensive in the NFL.
We are still taking best available talent, but our schemes are very versatile so we can plug in a lot of different athletes and make things work. Our needs are also still pretty great, every position could use help at this point. If QBs didn't transfer at such a ridiculous rate, an argument could even be made there.
We are very much still in the collecting phase. JUCO, transfers, position changes. It's about getting a talent upgrade and increasing numbers.
Treand3
New member
Bingo. Explosive edge rushers are at a premium and the top programs seem to get their pick of those that are available. It doesn't matter if it's a 4-3 or a 3-4. Outside of elite OTs, edge rushers are gold in football.
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Right. But generally speaking, pressures and sacks come more often from the interior for a 4-3 than a 3-4, mostly because there’s a UT position and D-lineman have less responsibility in the run game. Thus while a pass rushing end is gold in a 4-4, a pass rushing olb is practically a requirement for a 3-4. If we can’t get an edge rusher consistently, it just seems like it’d make more sense to run a 4-3.
i realize that, even though I’ve taken no part of these discussions, this topic has been done to death on these boards and probably has gotten to the point where any mention of it just stirs the pot. So I guess I’ll just leave this where it is.
Treand3
New member
We struggled getting pass rushers in a 4-3. Just my opinion, it's too early to feel we need to go back to a 4-3. OLB is one of the most difficult positions to recruit, however, depending on what happens this cycle, the staff will have signed a 4* OLB in back-to-back cycles. It would've had 2 last cycle had Jean-Baptiste not flake out at the last minute.
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Mavric
Yoda
They may be more common to get from interior guys in a 4-3 than a 3-4 but they are still way more common from the edge guys regardless of the defense.
Almost all the guys we're recruiting for OLB are listed as Weakside Defensive Ends by the recruiting services. That means they'd play DE in a 4-3 but they'll play OLB if they go to a 3-4 system. It's the same guys we're recruiting regardless of what scheme we're running.
In theory you can usually get more pressure from a 3-4 because you can bring the fourth rusher from any of the four LB spots and you have more athletes on the field. A bit too early to tell yet how Chins uses his guys - when he gets his guys - but I think pointing to the base alignment as the root issue is a bit short-sighted.
Kernel Red
New member
Also up to 14th in Rivals. The best part? Pola-Gates signed his LOI in December!
In reality, with all of the fronts, techniques and alignments used by modern defenses it usually boils down to what you want to call it. Almost nobody bases out of a 3-4 or 4-3 by personnel because so very much of football is dominated by 10 or 11 personnel. Many defenses have somebody as a hybrid of sorts, usually a LB/S or DE/OLB, and if they don't they have so many sub-packages as to make any idea of a base defense a moot point.
The very idea of a base defense goes back to when offenses primarily ran the ball and passing was the exception. If anything, modern shotgun oriented schemes have flipped that script. Many organizations that specialize in player evaluation have just begun generalizing based on task, because trying to figure out exactly what position a guy like JJ Watt or Khalil Mack plays is a pointless exercise.
spurs1990
New member
For awhile there I was expecting this class not to take a jump from past years and still be in that 24 or 25 range. Glad to be wrong and to be right on the verge of top 20 in the composite and close to top 15 in rivals. That average recruit rating is as high as we've had it and to do that with the volume of recruits we have is pretty impressive too.