The reality of gamecock recruiting

quozzel

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Re: And notice no 5-star players but mostly average........

Feb 8, 2018, 6:49 PM [ in reply to And notice no 5-star players but mostly average........ ]

Tiger77 said:

rated players - not the kind of players with the major talent to take you to the top.

Well, you kinda gotta build with players like that. We did. Dabo's thing was mostly WR's. If you look at his first few classes the impact guys were mostly wideouts. We lucked into Tajh Boyd because The Original Jack-Wagon, Lane Kiffin, took over at UT, turned his nose up at Boyd, and kicked him outta the class late, and Dabo duly swooped and scored. But you take a look at us back in 2009, 2010, and we weren't signing any 5-stars then even under Dabo.

We did get four in the 2011 class...which was good but very overrated because we scored 29 guys and it was top-heavy. Sammy Watkins and Stephone Anthony were assuredly legit; Mike Bellamy was a high-risk/high-reward problem child and he flamed out. Tony Steward's career was messed up by knee injuries his first two seasons.

After that...a whole lotta developmental prospects. A handful of 4-stars but it was largely 3's again and even some 2's down at the bottom. But we got a ton of mileage out of them - that group included Charone Peake and Martavis Bryant in our 4's as well as Eric MacLain (as a tight end!) and Isaiah Battle, Kevin Dodd, BJ Goodson, Robert Smith, Adam Humphries, and Grady Jarrett as our lower-tier guys. How many All-ACC and NFL guys did we get outta that bunch and how many games did we win? Lost track.

Good coaches build with their 3's. As an unproven coach you have to; you aren't going to get 5-stars right off the bat picking you over the likes of Alabama. Well, unless you're Hugh Freeze. (Or - cough - Kirby Smart, but nevermind that.)

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I actually think their class is decently good. It certainly isn't terrible.

Liked some of the offensive and defensive linemen they signed, especially if that late-signing DT out of North Carolina, Sandidge, is academically eligible. (Anybody know?) They got better in the trenches. The problem is they had so very far to go in the trenches and they certainly didn't get much in the way of skill or secondary talent, especially since Bryce Thompson likely isn't going to qualify.

I've said it a bunch but I'll keep saying it, though - it doesn't matter how well you recruit if you're burning them faster than you're bringing them in. You're kinda like the metaphorical hamster on the hamster wheel, scurrying really hard but not really getting anywhere. Muschamp works hard on the trail and he's getting quality if not exceptional quality, but his development philosophy is nuts. He doesn't play anybody beyond the starters and he sees massive attrition every year because nobody sticks around if they're permanently relegated to the bench. Champ's Gamecocks go exactly 1-deep anywhere because that's all they play, ever, and by the end of the year those guys are beat to absolute crap-ola. We see the same thing year-in, year-out with Bobby Petrino there at Louisville.

And notice no 5-star players but mostly average........

Re: And notice no 5-star players but mostly average........

Re: And notice no 5-star players but mostly average........

Re: And notice no 5-star players but mostly average........

Re: And notice no 5-star players but mostly average........

Re: The reality of gamecock recruiting

They're starting OL might be fairly decent in a couple of

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