Diagnosing the Lack of Depth in the Secondary

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Pompous Elitist said:
There has to be a soccer match going on somewhere in the world.
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You get so bitter when we expose your unreasonable, overly negative, troll-ish comments.

It must be hard going through life with all of the anger built up inside of you.
 

No one could have predicted what happened with Buford, Hardin and Johnson, yet the recruiting misses in 2013 and 2014 are partly to blame for why we are so thin at DB this year. I'm not sure how anyone can disagree with this.

I liked the last staff and think they did some really good things, but their recruiting at times left a lot to be desired. Not only did we miss consistently at QB and WR, we currently are stuck playing the best LB recruit we've had (possibly ever) at DE since we are so thin at the position. We also failed to put a single lineman in the NFL. In 2013 we took 1 o-lineman, Alex Mayes. I remember Kill at the time saying that due to numbers they could only take one, and I found that to be unbelievable given that 5 play on every snap. How could a team ever plan to take only 1 offensive lineman in an entire class? We followed that poor recruiting with taking 3 in 2014 - Connor Mayes, Weyler and Rasmussen. Rasmussen and Mayes are gone, and Weyler is injured. So we have 1 offensive lineman currently on the team from those two classes. Which is why we are starting 3 JUCOs and 2 1st year starters....
 

Pompous Elitist said:
Grasping at straws for ****ting the bed Saturday. I wonder if this is what it was like in the Fuhrerbunker as the reds closed in.

That staff recruited and put numerous DBs in the NFL-are you really disparaging them over one year with some recruiting misses? There was an unforeseen scandal that decimated the CB depth. Put in the young guys and get them coached up. Quit whining.
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You're commending the previous staff for who they brought in. I'm asking who they left?

Sorry that the question exposes your whole narrative...
 


The prevailing deficit at certain positions by people being kicked off the program or leaving the program hurts. It is unfortunate. I hate to see many red shirts being burned. Do we play more PWOs and give them experience and let the RS develop?

 


The funny thing is Western Michigan has just three upper classmen defensive backs. One is Rucker, who transferred from Iowa.

With Ayinde, we have four junior and senior dbs.

How does that happen?

Is that the blueprint for recruiting we want?

One of the Highest rated recruits Fleck landed at WMU was db Tranquill, who was available in part because of high school knee injury. He is out for season as he injured knee again...second time at WMU.

Iowa has two recruited jr/sr dbs, plus two scholarshipped walk on upper class dbs.

Wisconsin has five scholarship jr/sr dbs...brought in a grad transfer for one of those.
 

All schools have most of their players at the FR-RSFR-SO level. After that many usually transfer or quit if they are not contributing. That is partly why it is so important to recruit the best kids that are ready to play right away. It is impossible to know who will be around in 4-5 years due to playing time, injury, NFL, transfer, quitting.
 

hungan1 said:
The prevailing deficit at certain positions by people being kicked off the program or leaving the program hurts. It is unfortunate. I hate to see many red shirts being burned. Do we play more PWOs and give them experience and let the RS develop?
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To be clear IIRC Jerry burned a lot of red shirts in his first year too.

I suspect he wasn't too broken up about it. IMO in some cases it might be a way to clear space in the long term for a new coach.
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
To be clear IIRC Jerry burned a lot of red shirts in his first year too.

I suspect he wasn't too broken up about it. IMO in some cases it might be a way to clear space in the long term for a new coach.
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Fleck also reiterated in his interview on KFAN with PA that he is not a JC recruiter. He believes in recruiting HS players.
 




A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
Yeah I don't expect any JC action from PJ.
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They just offered a JC lineman for 2018. They took at least one or two last year IIRC. Fleck can talk all he wants but there is nothing wrong with taking selected JUCOs even if some dislike it.
 

John Galt said:
No one could have predicted what happened with Buford, Hardin and Johnson, yet the recruiting misses in 2013 and 2014 are partly to blame for why we are so thin at DB this year. I'm not sure how anyone can disagree with this.

I liked the last staff and think they did some really good things, but their recruiting at times left a lot to be desired. Not only did we miss consistently at QB and WR, we currently are stuck playing the best LB recruit we've had (possibly ever) at DE since we are so thin at the position. We also failed to put a single lineman in the NFL. In 2013 we took 1 o-lineman, Alex Mayes. I remember Kill at the time saying that due to numbers they could only take one, and I found that to be unbelievable given that 5 play on every snap. How could a team ever plan to take only 1 offensive lineman in an entire class? We followed that poor recruiting with taking 3 in 2014 - Connor Mayes, Weyler and Rasmussen. Rasmussen and Mayes are gone, and Weyler is injured. So we have 1 offensive lineman currently on the team from those two classes. Which is why we are starting 3 JUCOs and 2 1st year starters....
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There is no question they had some misses in recruiting O linemen which for a run first team is a little odd. Then again, I'm not as down on the current line when they're being asked to do the near impossible by the OC.
 

Pompous Elitist said:
They just offered a JC lineman for 2018. They took at least one or two last year IIRC. Fleck can talk all he wants but there is nothing wrong with taking selected JUCOs even if some dislike it.
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I should have said much rather than any. My bad.
 



Pompous Elitist said:
Some of the biggest hellions I ran with in high school and college were kids of clergy or kids raised in strict catholic schools.
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Are you worried we have too many "kids of clergy or kids raised in strict Catholic schools on the team"? And, what can we do about this???


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Johnnyboy18 said:
Stop crying Fleckster
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No one has ever accused JG of being a Fleckster. JG is a rationale poster who sometimes takes a different stance on things than I do. You're obsessed with PJ, it's a totally different thing.
 

There is no doubt that Fleck is a better recruiter than Claeys by a lot and Kill too. I do often wonder if Claeys had been stricter with discipline would the players never done what they did to get themselves kicked out of school. If you don't get disciplined for skipping class do you learn how to control yourself? I think it is possible that those backs never would have done what they did had Fleck been coaching at that time. When I coached middle school girls I had major discipline for being even 30 seconds late to practice. It was a rare day when someone was late and even if they were injured, they were on time ready to help. This crossed over into everything...including simply listening at practice. Discipline can be taught and I appreciate that the new staff seems to make that a priority. It'll benefit these boys their whole lives.
 

John Galt said:
No one could have predicted what happened with Buford, Hardin and Johnson, yet the recruiting misses in 2013 and 2014 are partly to blame for why we are so thin at DB this year. I'm not sure how anyone can disagree with this.
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2013 - We signed two DBs - Duke McGhee and Jaylen Myrick
- - This class has some big hits and big misses. We had Campbell, Wilson, Myrick (all going to play in the NFL multiple years). Wolitarsky, McGhee and Santoso (however you feel about giving scholarships to K/P). And then some duds.

2014 - This class was OK. We didn't recruit enough DBs and this definitely plays into our lack of depth.
- - The class has a lot of multi-year starters/contributors (Weyler, Mayes, Elmore, Poock, Lingen, Moore, Stetler) and a couple of our best players (Smith and Richardson).

Some of the issues with these classes are similar to the unpredictability.
I'll give you these points:
(1) Every bit of criticism to Kill and Co. regarding recruiting and developing WRs is 100% justified. They missed on them consistently;
(2) We did not recruit enough OL or enough DBs in these classes

However, some of the other issues could not have been planned for. Somehow you seem to be blaming Kill & Co for Weyler's injury and Connor Mayes leaving (then retiring). Those are just things that happen when you switch coaches, it's no one's fault and it's impossible to account for. Fleck likes to use a different kind of DE than the previous regime. That's cool, but it also made it tougher to play DE's like Elmore (who also left and shouldn't be part of the blame on the previous regime).

For me, the previous regime can be blamed for the quarterback situation, the WR situation (even though the last class seems to be their best) and the OL situation.
The secondary, IMO, is entirely because of the incident. If the situation that even you described "could not have been predicted" didn't happen, it would be the strongest position on the entire team.

CB: Hardin - K. Thomas
CB: Buford - Shenault
S: Winfield - Huff
S: McGhee - Johnson

That's a pretty good group.
 

CoMn said:
There is no doubt that Fleck is a better recruiter than Claeys by a lot and Kill too. I do often wonder if Claeys had been stricter with discipline would the players never done what they did to get themselves kicked out of school. If you don't get disciplined for skipping class do you learn how to control yourself? I think it is possible that those backs never would have done what they did had Fleck been coaching at that time. When I coached middle school girls I had major discipline for being even 30 seconds late to practice. It was a rare day when someone was late and even if they were injured, they were on time ready to help. This crossed over into everything...including simply listening at practice. Discipline can be taught and I appreciate that the new staff seems to make that a priority. It'll benefit these boys their whole lives.
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How can you say that?

I think you're probably right. I hope you're right. But until Fleck's classes start becoming JRs / SRs, you might want to hold off on the "there is no doubt" talk.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
How can you say that?

I think you're probably right. I hope you're right. But until Fleck's classes start becoming JRs / SRs, you might want to hold off on the "there is no doubt" talk.
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Agreed.

I sure hope PJ is a better crooter and maybe there are some good signs... but until I see real improvements over time I'm not buying it outright.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
How can you say that?

I think you're probably right. I hope you're right. But until Fleck's classes start becoming JRs / SRs, you might want to hold off on the "there is no doubt" talk.
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Ditto. Definitely perceived as better..time will tell.
 

I agree with how we got here, but you have to understand Kill/Claeys would have brought in some JUCO transfers each year to fill gaps. Fleck is trying to avoid that as much as possible. Their different recruiting philosophies IMO is one of the biggest reasons we have some lack of depth.
 

Taji34 said:
I agree with how we got here, but you have to understand Kill/Claeys would have brought in some JUCO transfers each year to fill gaps. Fleck is trying to avoid that as much as possible. Their different recruiting philosophies IMO is one of the biggest reasons we have some lack of depth.
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Good point
 

CoMn said:
There is no doubt that Fleck is a better recruiter than Claeys by a lot and Kill too. I do often wonder if Claeys had been stricter with discipline would the players never done what they did to get themselves kicked out of school. If you don't get disciplined for skipping class do you learn how to control yourself? I think it is possible that those backs never would have done what they did had Fleck been coaching at that time. When I coached middle school girls I had major discipline for being even 30 seconds late to practice. It was a rare day when someone was late and even if they were injured, they were on time ready to help. This crossed over into everything...including simply listening at practice. Discipline can be taught and I appreciate that the new staff seems to make that a priority. It'll benefit these boys their whole lives.
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I don't think we can state Fleck is a better recruiter than Kill/Claeys until we see it on NSD. He looks like he can fill a class pretty quickly but we're still waiting for a benchmark commit- heck even a benchmark visit (for 2018).


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Oregon Gopher said:
I don't think we can state Fleck is a better recruiter than Kill/Claeys until we see it on NSD. He looks like he can fill a class pretty quickly but we're still waiting for a benchmark commit- heck even a benchmark visit (for 2018).


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They've had multiple 4 star visits for 2018.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
No one has ever accused JG of being a Fleckster. JG is a rationale poster who sometimes takes a different stance on things than I do. You're obsessed with PJ, it's a totally different thing.
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Claeyster
 


CoMn said:
There is no doubt that Fleck is a better recruiter than Claeys by a lot and Kill too. I do often wonder if Claeys had been stricter with discipline would the players never done what they did to get themselves kicked out of school. If you don't get disciplined for skipping class do you learn how to control yourself? <b>I think it is possible that those backs never would have done what they did had Fleck been coaching at that time. </b>When I coached middle school girls I had major discipline for being even 30 seconds late to practice. It was a rare day when someone was late and even if they were injured, they were on time ready to help. This crossed over into everything...including simply listening at practice. Discipline can be taught and I appreciate that the new staff seems to make that a priority. It'll benefit these boys their whole lives.
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Group Sex?
Great Take.


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Oregon Gopher said:
Excellent- obviously haven't panned out yet. Is there a resource that shows past visitors?


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Not for unofficial visits, unless you want to go through the 200+ pages of the 2018 thread.
 

Some Day...Maybe said:
Are you worried we have too many "kids of clergy or kids raised in strict Catholic schools on the team"? And, what can we do about this???


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I'm not sure what you're trying to say. Would you like to make a friendly wager on whether a Fleck recruit will eventually be disciplined or dismissed despite The Culture? Easy money.
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
How can you say that?

I think you're probably right. I hope you're right. But until Fleck's classes start becoming JRs / SRs, you might want to hold off on the "there is no doubt" talk.
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I think you are looking at player development and other aspects at that point. If you aren't developing the players and putting them in a position to succeed it doesn't mean you weren't good at bringing in talent.
 

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