| FTBL Depth & Maturity

[bamatommy]

We clearly don't have much depth this year. And we're playing an awful lot of young guys, including true freshmen.

How much better will the depth and maturity be next year, when a lot of guys will have critical game experience?

 

[TerryP]

We clearly don't have much depth this year. And we're playing an awful lot of young guys, including true freshmen.

How much better will the depth and maturity be next year, when a lot of guys will have critical game experience?

Depth and maturity are two different things.

We have a lot of depth, but not much experienced depth.

What position did you specifically have in mind when you posted this? Offense? Defense?

 

[bamatommy]

We clearly don't have much depth this year. And we're playing an awful lot of young guys, including true freshmen.

How much better will the depth and maturity be next year, when a lot of guys will have critical game experience?

Depth and maturity are two different things.

We have a lot of depth, but not much experienced depth.

What position did you specifically have in mind when you posted this? Offense? Defense?

Offense and defense. Especially offensive line, defensive line, linebackers. A lot of our starters on both sides of the ball played almost the entire game.

Yes, depth and maturity are two separate issues, but I think they're related. We are playing an awful lot of young guys, which means a lot of guys with not much experience (thus, not a lot of maturity). If we had more talent in our upperclass, we wouldn't be playing all these young guys in an effort to develop depth.

 

[TerryP]

We clearly don't have much depth this year. And we're playing an awful lot of young guys, including true freshmen.

How much better will the depth and maturity be next year, when a lot of guys will have critical game experience?

Depth and maturity are two different things.

We have a lot of depth, but not much experienced depth.

What position did you specifically have in mind when you posted this? Offense? Defense?

Offense and defense. Especially offensive line, defensive line, linebackers. A lot of our starters on both sides of the ball played almost the entire game.

Yes, depth and maturity are two separate issues, but I think they're related. We are playing an awful lot of young guys, which means a lot of guys with not much experience (thus, not a lot of maturity). If we had more talent in our upperclass, we wouldn't be playing all these young guys in an effort to develop depth.

A couple of thoughts here...

One, we don't have an upperclass, so to speak. 9 seniors, all of which are seeing significant playing time with the exception of Will Oakley.

As to Juniors, we really only have a few that are not seeing a lot of PT as well.

Peek (will next year, can't this year)
Cardwell
Rogers
King

We also have a few Jr.'s that are seeing relief roles, and doing well...

Sharrief
Huber
Anders (been really involved since Arkansas)
Hall...everyone knows that story.

Our sophomore class is where you see the lack of production, but you can see where, how and why with a lot of them.

Consider this list of names...

McElroy, Grant, Alexander, Hanks, Sikes, Dial, Ross, McCullough, Motley, Pharr, Talbert, Higgenbotham, Kirschman, C. Williams...

FWIW, you are looking at some names there where you will likely see some of the attrition in the off-season coming from.

Why do we see so many true frosh out there? Out of that sophomore class, we have McClain, L. Davis and Kareem Jackson as the guys from that group contributing.

Out of the defensive positions, we have experienced depth (contributing) everywhere except LB's.

Offensively we are sticking with our starters most of the time on the line. But, which team doesn't?

 

[NTT]

Upshaw seems to be coming along very nicely. He is the best on kickoff coverage and was in the game vs. UK at the end. By the end of the season I think he will be pushing the 1st teamers. Reamer has fallen off the map. Woodall is looking good.

 

[TerryP]

Upshaw seems to be coming along very nicely. He is the best on kickoff coverage and was in the game vs. UK at the end. By the end of the season I think he will be pushing the 1st teamers. Reamer has fallen off the map. Woodall is looking good.

Agreed on the most part.

Reamer is a bit of an unknown because he's been the guy pulled off the field when we've gone to our nickel package. And, we've spent quite a bit of time in the nickel this season.

One guy who has really shown up the last 3 games is Anders in his role. He's coming along well!!