Why do people believe Cooper is being moved to LB? He practiced with the scout team at LB all of last season and he was redshirted to gain enough weight to be a Big Ten LB. Yes, the recruiting services called him a safety but that doesn't mean the Gophers saw him as a safety.
As Oleboy mentioned, Stoudermire was moved in the middle of last season because we lacked playmakers at WR.
This spring we are razor thin for depth at WR. Decker is with the baseball team, and Kuznia hurt his hamstring so we are left with Green, Smith, Brandon, McKnight and Stoudermire for WR depth. My guess is that if we plan on moving Stoudermire or McKnight to DB as has been rumored they will probably wait until we have Decker, Carpenter, Allen and Keise in camp. We could probably move one this spring but it would be hard to do more than that. With Carpenter and Allen we won't be lacking playmakers so I personally would not be surprised if Stoudermire moves back to CB. And he is definitely not too small to hold up at CB in the Big Ten.
The difference between Collado and Carter, and why Carter will be more ready to play as a frosh than Collado was, is that Carter is a lot more talented. Say what you will about recruiting services and stars but Collado was a 2-star with unimpressive offers and Carter is a 4-star Army All America with a much more impressive offer list. He held up very well in the Army AA game against the best WR's in the country. If or when Carter plays this season it will be because he beat out players with more experience and not because we have nobody else that can fill the position. He likely will work in to the nickel back role rather than being forced to be a starting CB in our base defense.
With or without Brock we have more depth at DB for 2009 than we did in 2008. We return both starting CB's, at least 1 starting S and if Brock comes back we return our entire starting defensive backfield. Collado played Nickel last year and he returns. Royston is a projected starter at Safety (either Brock/Royston or Royston/Theret at safeties) and he wasn't eligible last season. With a year under his belt Dandridge is expected to compete with Theret for a safety position. We add 3 talented freshman with Carter, Lewis and Watkins and from comments from Brewster, Carter is expected to compete for playing time this fall.
Personally, I'm much more concerned about d-back depth for 2010 than I am 2009 and I would be surprised if we don't add 5 DB's through recruiting this off season with at least one Juco CB.
