Portal strikes again...where does the team/coaches go now?

Dec 3, 2021, 7:23 PM

So once again the transfer portal rears its ugly head at the Tigers, with 4 more players chosing to leave us after the season finale. People are gonna have their complaints or naysays about the departing players, but the fact of matter is that further erodes depth that we were already a bit behind the 8 ball in filling. Looking through the scholarship breakdown & trying to guess on who's leaving and not, I'm counting about 73 scholarships between guys that are for sure or hopefully staying on for 2022 and the current commits coming in, leaving the staff with 12 schollys to fill.

QB (3): TP leaving now brings us down to 2 for-sure QBs in DJU and Klubnik, as well as Taylor. Know the plan for Taylor was to switch to WR, but with this bit of unexpected attrition, I feel they keep Taylor in the fold another season to have 3 scholly QBs. Unless TP changes his mind (which I don't expect - think he transfers either to UConn or somewhere up north to be closer to his family after the past year or so he's had w/ the injury and the family home fire), I expect the scholarship guys be those 3 and most likely Helms receiving a scholarship given a) Helms is probably not going anywhere and the staff probably wants to reward him, B) late in game to get a QB recruit, and C) definitely don't see portal being option given most QBs are transferring for playing time.

RB (3): The fat got trimmed here during the season and thing that we should be very confident that Pace, Shipley, and Mafah aren't going anywhere. But depth behind them is huge, especially since Pace & Shipley struggled to stay healthy all year. This makes landing Trevor Etienne a huge priority for the coaching staff. Given that we had 5 scholarship RBs entering the year, think we try to land one more. Do the coaches go after a lower-rated guy that is hopefully not gonna try to bolt or go after a RB in the portal?

WR (8-11): Ladson leaving was unexpected and hurts the depth, but with him being so snakebit w/ injury during his time here, he probably just feels its best to cast his lot elsewhere. As far as numbers, this one is a tough read - we got 8 guys for sure with the returning players and Randall coming in. We also had 3 players that were prior walk-on on scholarship (Brown, May, D. Swinney), with Brown being a 5th year senior. If coaches keep D. Swinney and May on scholarship again another year, that makes it 10. If Brown decides to exercise the COVID waiver, that makes it 11. Williams out of Dutch Fork becomes a priority on the recruiting trail regardless of what happens with the walk-on guys, & hopefully the Ladson news may swing Williams b/c he knows it could mean more opportunity to come in and contribute right away. Think there could be a couple portal options here. Someone mentioned Robinson from VT (who still has 3 years left) could be a likely option; Corrales from NC (almost 1200 yds and 12 TDs, but hampered by injury since 2020) might warrant look but he would really just be a stopgap player for a season. My guess is hope we land Williams, expect May & Swinney to remain on scholly, and see where the chips fall in terms of landing another WR or not.

TE (4): Think they're set with the quartet of Davis, Briningstool, Ennis, and incoming recruit Sapp. Galloway and Price could possibly exercise the COVID waiver for another season; I could see Galloway doing so due to the lost year b/c of the osterine issue, but I also just don't see the light switch getting flipped for him either like what happened w/ Leggett late in his career.

OL (15): Barring anymore departures, think the OL with 15 scholarship players would be set. Brockhorst could exercise COVID waiver and return for 1 more season, but when he did the post-injury interview, that pretty much read as he was moving on after this year, so I say look for the returning guys and incoming players to be it.

DE (6-7): This 1 is in a little bit of flux due to whether KJ Henry stays or leaves early for the draft. If he stays, then the count is at 7 & I expect the staff to go after 1 more to join Campbell coming in. If Henry leaves, then we're really in a pinch. Wildcard here...I've been expecting XT to be gone after this season; however, he does have the COVID waiver option. If he WERE (which I don't expect), that would be huge, but that also means we can't whiff on anything next year on recruiting trail b/c DE is gonna be a big need in next recruiting cycle.

DT (7): Think we're pretty set with the 7 guys we'd have back (haven't heard anything on Davis and being an early NFL draft option, but given struggling with injury this year, I would hope he doesn't bolt). I would love for the staff to land 1 more guy and get us to 8 for depth (especially since Davis, Bresee, and Williams were affected by injury this season) but we've uncharacteristically been on outside looking in on defensive line recruits this cycle. Hopefully our staff pulls a rabbit out the hat and flips someone before either of the NSDs.

LB (8): We could go for another one here, but also given the scheme we run and that we've also got 8 safeties currently, I could see the coaches holding pat (running the hybrid SAM/NB). I would like to see another 1 just because 5 of the players are gonna be juniors next year, so we could get 1 in the wings and not have to replace all 5 of them in 1 hit when their senior year rolls around. Another wildcard would be if Spector decides to use the COVID waiver, which would give 9 scholly LBs and would also provide senior leadership at the spot.

CB (7-8): If Booth decides not to leave early for the NFL, then I think we'd be in great shape here for next season and next season given the young guys coming in.

S (8-9): Even with Thorton leaving this week, I don't think the staff goes after another player here considering we got 8 for sure guys with Covil and Sabb coming in. Big part of that is also hoping that Zanders is back to 100% after playing injured in 2020 and missing this year due to injury. Had 1 player (Donnelly) that was walk-on given scholarship; I could see the staff keeping that in place as well.

ST (2): Only 2 schollys locked up here are Swanson and Gunn. I could see staff issuing 1 to whoever becomes LS for next year. Potter could chose to exercise the COVID waiver, which if so, would be pretty significant b/c would give us a reliable kicker and not have to put pressure on Gunn right away.

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Portal strikes again...where does the team/coaches go now?

2 dang long man for me man

QB and WR

Helms I expected, but Wiles would probably make sense too

Re: Helms I expected, but Wiles would probably make sense too

Ok

Re: Portal strikes again...where does the team/coaches go now?

Read first sentence only....

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