Seems like numbers are getting tight at DT with the commitment of Kevin Dodd. We have 3 scholarship players to replace (Jenkins, Chavis, Cumbie) and 4 commits already. At the beginning of the season, I was worried that next year numbers would be very thin if Thompson had a big year and turned pro, forfeiting his senior year. That scenario would have left us with 1 senior (Moore), 1 sophomore with very little playing time (Shatley), 2 red-shirt freshmen, and any true freshmen we sign. It's very doubtful that Thompson leaves early, now IMHO. My point is, you can see what the staff was looking at when they offered so many DT's. But the question is now what to do with so many big names left on the board.

From what I've read, we are in the top 2 for Gabe Wright (Rivals #7 DT), top 2 for Philip Dukes (Rivals #21 DT), and leader for Devonte Brown (Rivals #25 DT), teammate of TE Eric MacLain. None of the commits we have are listed in Rivals top 55, and many had unimpressive offer lists. I know rankings don't mean everything, but what do you see the staff doing? Will we cool on these uncommitted recruits, or take them anyway? Currently, Jerome Maybank is playing OL for Waccamaw. I could see him moving to the OL, but the other guys seem too big already to move to DE. Your thoughts?

1) The first thing that concerns me might just be coaches speech, but I'm sure I'm not the only fan that wonders about this. I wonder sometimes why our team struggles against some teams, when it seems other teams have no problem. For example this years Maryland squad has been giving up very large numbers against opposing offenses, yet we struggled quite a bit offensively against them. The most irritating part of this is when the coaches say Maryland's defense did a lot of run blitzing and some things that made it difficult to run. Can you tell me if we are the only team Maryland has blitzed so heavily this year? Listening to the coaches one would think that is true. If it worked so well against us, why does it seem to work so poorly against everyone else? In addition, do the coaches not think when other teams see how much we struggle against the blitz, they won't blitz as well?

2) My next concern may be my biggest concern. The coaches say they are redshirting nearly all the freshmen this year. That is not the concern. The concern is the amount of playing time the freshman who aren't redshirting are getting. This year, prior to the gtech game, I saw where Justin Parker has only played 39 snaps, Darius Robinson has played 58, and Martin Jenkins has played 51 snaps. We are now 7 games into the season, and these players are on pace for less than 100 snaps on the season. I personally feel their freshman years will be wasted unless they start playing much more. I hate to see this especially for such highly regarded recruits. After looking at last year's freshmen who didn't redshirt it appears this may be a trend. Last year Jonathan Meeks played a grand total of 54 snaps. Corico Hawkins played only 119 snaps. Mallicaih Goodman played a good bit of snaps so I don't feel he wasted a year. Have you noticed this as well and if so what are your thoughts?

3) My last concern is the amount of reps the younger players are getting. Next year there will be seniors and potentially a few juniors who will be leaving the program. When I look at the defense I see both corners and one safety will depart after this year. That leaves us with 3 new starters in the defensive backfield. The most likely starters for next year are Xavier Brewer (played a good many snaps), Rashard Hall (played a good many snaps), and Coty Sensebaugh (played a good many snaps). After those three guys, there are not many underclassmen who have quality snaps. Jonathan Meeks who may be a starting safety next year got to play some this week and hopefully that continues. Along the defensive line, we will be losing Miguel Chavis, Jarvis Jenkins, and possibly Dequan Bowers. Dequan would leave quite a void, but I believe Mallicaih Goodman has the potential to be a good d-end himself. At d-tackle we will have Brandon Thompson and Rennie Moore. As much as we like to rotate players on defense though, we will not have much quality depth at any position next year. Very concerning. Offense may be even more concerning than the defense. Next year we will lose our starting left tackle and more than likely our starting quarterback. When looking at the backups for these guys you will notice Brandon Thomas has played only 91 snaps and Taj Boyd has played 48 snaps. Most of the snaps for these younger guys came against a PC team which lost to North Greenville. They get more preparation in practice than they did that game. It seems these guys could have played much more late in the Maryland game and Georgia Tech game. I heard Dabo say the reason we ran the ball so much late in the Maryland game was to run the clock out. When watching the best teams in the country win by a large margin and their backups come in they don't do this. They run their offense like it should be run. Gotta think that is to get the younger guys quality playing time. Getting Taj Boyd out there handing the ball off is better than doing nothing, but this gives him no experience reading defensive coverages. Please tell me the coaches notice this sort of thing, are concerned about it, and are working on fixing this problem.

I just read your "A Different Saturday" article (Saturday night after crushing the Jackets).....couldn't bring myself to read any Tiger stuff this past week because I'm a die-hard watch every-play, eat, sleep, walk, and talk Tiger Fan. Just had to take a week off. The arch in my back and the height of my shoulders have not been what they should have been lately. But we have the talent and the coaching to run the table. We need a little help from someone to beat FSU and Maryland, and we will have destiny in our own hands. It's a shame that we made the mistakes that costed us the games that we lost....but our team has far from given up. We actually look like an NFL team. If there were a college play-off system, we would be ready for the playoffs.
Go Tigers!