Doogie: Look at 2008 'U' class confirms signing day is one big maybe

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It's getting to be kind of a tired line of thinking. The 2008 class did have some duds, but I'll say it again, if every one of our classes was as good as 2008, we'd be a really good football team.

If you want to know why Brewster failed, look at the 2007, 2009, and 2010 classes. Not every single player turned out to be great in the 2008 class, but we had nearly as many hits as we had misses. If you look at those other three classes, that'll explain why Brew failed and why we had so many problems last year.
 


This was a pretty good class.
4 players have spent time on NFL Rosters. T Brock played significant minutes for SF. Big Play Traye spent time with SD. Simoni Lawrence and Ced McKinley have spent time on various practice squads.
Another player, D. McKnight, will probably be an UFA and get a look somewhere in camp.
Another player, T. Stoudermire, is a record setting special teams guy who may get a look somewhere after next year.
There are also some players like Deleon Eskeridge, who made nice, but not great contributions for a few years. Jewhan Edwards did some nice things for a few years, just smoked himself out of college.
No school hits on all of their recruits. This class helped us go to two bowl games. If the two classes before and the two classes after had helped more....
There was plenty of talent in this class, too bad they didn't have a consistent system and coaching to help them.
 

Boy, that was a "No sh*t, Sherlock" column.

I agree with Bob by-and large. 2008 was a great class on paper. Probably one of the best on paper that we've had in a couple of decades. Of course, you can't play the game on paper which lends credence to Doogie's straightforward point.
 


Doogie is in a competition with Bob Sansevere for the trophy for most Insipid Sports Writer in Minnesota. Both of them are usually a day late and dollar short with their columns.
 

We definitely got some good talent from that class, but we made way too many mistakes. Kill alluded to this on Wednesday and I heard Mason discussing it as well. Not every player is going to be a starter, but you at least need guys that can be in your program for 4-5 years and be back-ups that can provide some depth. Brock, Dandridge, Edwards, Hill, Maresh, and Whaley all were academic casualties. That's 6 guys in one class, which is way too many.
 

If you want to really be depressed, look at the 2005-07 classes. Holy no impact. 2008 is an Alabama haul in comparison.

Nevermind Mase's six QB class of 2004. John Carlson, Adam Ernst, Mike Maciejowski, Tony Mortenson, Andre Sloan El, David Wess. I think they combined to make one career start any position.
 

I usually don't mind Doogie but this column was pretty pointless. His bullet points at the end were pretty earth shattering, stating that 3 JC guys are likely to see significant playing time. The whole point of recruiting JC guys is in the hopes that they will be starters for you right away, if they are not then they are a wasted spot on the roster since they only have 2 or 3 years tops in your program.

And yes there were some misses in that 2008 class but there was also a lot of very good talent. I would take a class like that even with the flameouts over the group we signed this season. Like others stated our problems can be attributed far more to the classes around that one and all the coaching changes.
 



50PoundHead said:
Boy, that was a "No sh*t, Sherlock" column.

I agree with Bob by-and large. 2008 was a great class on paper. Probably one of the best on paper that we've had in a couple of decades. Of course, you can't play the game on paper which lends credence to Doogie's straightforward point.
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The same exact phrase went through my head when I read the thread title!
 

This analogy kind of sucks, but I always think of Doogie's articles as comparable to gothic kids in high school. They're all trying to be different, but they're really all the same.
 

Well, that column was neither amusing, well-written, or insightful, but at least I learned absolutely no new information from it.
 

John Galt said:
We definitely got some good talent from that class, but we made way too many mistakes. Kill alluded to this on Wednesday and I heard Mason discussing it as well. Not every player is going to be a starter, but you at least need guys that can be in your program for 4-5 years and be back-ups that can provide some depth. Brock, Dandridge, Edwards, Hill, Maresh, and Whaley all were academic casualties. That's 6 guys in one class, which is way too many.
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While I agree that academic casualties can't be nearly as high as they were in the past. I have a hard time lumping Brock and Edwards into the same group as Hill and Maresh. If we get 1 year out of any of our JuCo's as good as Brock's 1 season with the U, i'll take it and consider it an absolute success. I'll say a similar thing about Edwards. He was our best defensive player in 2010 and the best player on the field for the U against Iowa. He's a jerk, but it's hard to argue that he wasn't a helpful player to our program.

Now when you look at the 2010 class (for instance), literally 1/2 that class is gone, in only 2 years. The same thing can be said about the 2009 class.

For me, if a class can produce 15-20 guys who made an impact for 1 year (for JuCo) or 3 years (HS)...it's a success.
 



Don't forget that these kids still need to be coached by someone who knows what he is doing. Brewster squandered his opportunities with this class by worrying more about the uniforms and all the other rah-rah crap he blew out of his yap.
 

Wow. This is a tough crowd here. I thought the article was fine.
 

50PoundHead said:
Boy, that was a "No sh*t, Sherlock" column.

I agree with Bob by-and large. 2008 was a great class on paper. Probably one of the best on paper that we've had in a couple of decades. Of course, you can't play the game on paper which lends credence to Doogie's straightforward point.
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more. Since when did being a journalist become just stating the obvious to everyone with some little fluff.
 

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