No Improvement...

BillySee58 · November 17, 2016

2 hours ago, aztecskin said:

I agree the offensive staff is still learning and has a burden to prove their abilities. I also think that is limited by the roster, in particular the offensive line. It lacks the depth of a normal roster and differs stylistically from the offensive scheme.

Outside of an outstanding few, a lot of drastic scheme changes have growing pains associated with them. Even Nicky Saban went 7-6 in his first year at Alabama. Mike Leach went 3-9 in his first year at Wazzu -- a much more congruent comparison -- Skip Holtz at La Tech went 4-8, Sonny Dykes went 1-11.

It was always going to be rough and it has been. I've tried to maintain that perspective. ( I predicted 7 wins largely because of the schedule we played. Even the best of CUSA are not _that_ great, and Southern Miss imploding is an example of that. So is MTSU falling apart after their starting QB is injured. )

The stated recruiting strategy -- looking for fit and not necessarily stars -- is a sound one, but we will have to see if it is simply rhetoric. Recruiting guys with lots of offers and lots of stars is good. I thought it was interesting that Seth Littrell mentioned the that having guys with zero offers is not necessarily a bad thing in light of what @BillySee58 has touted.

TL;DR: Think they have outperformed the depth chart. Coaches have (lots) of room to improve. I am hopeful about the upcoming recruiting class despite the outside rankings. This is all subject to change, obviously.

History does not look favorably on recruiting classes and teams with high counts of players with bad offer lists. Nor does it look favorably on evaluators who go too far off the cusp and over rely on their evaluations when they don't conform with the general consensus. On the college and pro level. I hope Littrell can find those exceptions without expending too many spots.

Edited November 17, 2016 by BillySee58

Dr. Seuss · November 17, 2016

Losing Wilson for the year will be why we won't win 6 games. Our season is on his shoulders and he isn't playing. I hope I'm wrong but I don't see it happening

UNT 90 Grad · November 17, 2016

18 minutes ago, Dr. Seuss said:

Losing Wilson for the year will be why we won't win 6 games. Our season is on his shoulders and he isn't playing. I hope I'm wrong but I don't see it happening

If we only still had Cooper Jones... He'd save the day.

aztecskin · November 17, 2016

15 hours ago, BillySee58 said:

History does not look favorably on recruiting classes and teams with high counts of players with bad offer lists. Nor does it look favorably on evaluators who go too far off the cusp and over rely on their evaluations when they don't conform with the general consensus. On the college and pro level. I hope Littrell can find those exceptions without expending too many spots.

Agree. Especially in 2016, there aren't _that_ many diamonds in the rough and enough teams run similar offenses that we aren't Moneyballin' here.

@Harry Yeah I see Frank Wilson amassing talent, but I am not overly concerned yet. The kid they got from Denton that made SBN Recruiting tweet, is in trouble. That was always an iffy get. While I don't agree that overly relying on our ability to evaluate is the right idea, just randomly offering dudes to play catch up is not a good idea either. I'm waiting and seeing.

FirefightnRick · November 18, 2016

There's a good number of diamonds in the rough that get little to no interest. You gotta get off the internet and go see them play and talk to those around them to find out what kind of motor they have inside.

Theres a reason why we've been getting our asses kicked by just about everyone else in recruiting the past 10 years.

Rick

Aldo · November 18, 2016

7 minutes ago, FirefightnRick said:

You gotta get off the internet

Now let's not overreact here

VideoEagle · November 18, 2016

20 minutes ago, FirefightnRick said:

There's a good number of diamonds in the rough that get little to no interest. You gotta get off the internet and go see them play and talk to those around them to find out what kind of motor they have inside.

Theres a reason why we've been getting our asses kicked by just about everyone else in recruiting the past 10 years.

Rick

On 11/16/2016 at 6:40 PM, BillySee58 said:

History does not look favorably on recruiting classes and teams with high counts of players with bad offer lists. Nor does it look favorably on evaluators who go too far off the cusp and over rely on their evaluations when they don't conform with the general consensus. On the college and pro level. I hope Littrell can find those exceptions without expending too many spots.

We need to find a balance between these two courses of action.

Each kid is an individual story and no, we will never catch everyone. There are kids who want to "go away" to school mean at least a three hour drive and we're not going to get most of those. There are always girlfriends to follow and we aren't going to get most of those either.

But, we simply should be getting more of the better quality players than we have been. And frankly, it doesn't take a huge number to make a significant difference! Literally, two or three extra a year will add up quickly to more wins for our team.

DeepGreen · November 18, 2016

On 11/16/2016 at 8:20 PM, Dr. Seuss said:

Losing Wilson for the year will be why we won't win 6 games. Our season is on his shoulders and he isn't playing. I hope I'm wrong but I don't see it happening

Agree. Wish I could say that Willie Ivory could step right in and take up where Wilson left off. Maybe this game will be Willie's coming out party. Sure hope so.

97and03 · November 18, 2016

34 minutes ago, DeepGreen said:

Agree. Wish I could say that Willie Ivory could step right in and take up where Wilson left off. Maybe this game will be Willie's coming out party. Sure hope so.

Might be Tucker's.

Cr1028 · November 18, 2016

1 hour ago, DeepGreen said:

Agree. Wish I could say that Willie Ivory could step right in and take up where Wilson left off. Maybe this game will be Willie's coming out party. Sure hope so.

There have been times this season where I've thought Ivery might even be better than Jeff.

UNTLifer · November 18, 2016

I am just not seeing in Ivery what everyone else is. Yes, he is good in space, but I don't picture him being an every down type of back. Hope I am wrong.