I am not sure it was an inability to bring in those guys. It always appeared that the preference was for twitched up guys throughout the line versus true space eaters; sacks, TFLs, disruption seemed to be the objective versus holding the point of attack and allow your LBs to make plays. One reason why Knowles failed miserably here was because PSU did not have true DTs on the squad nor were they willing to pay top dollar on the open market.
thats what she said
The rules in the NFL aren't being broken so why do you think a similar set of rules will be broken by Colleges?
Check back in 3 years and see if Indiana's blue-chip ratio is 8% and they are still enjoying the same success as they are currently. If this is the case, then I will agree, Indiana is not a unicorn and Cignetti is an absolute savant at identifying non-blue-chip talent. If either of the foregoing change for Indiana, and there are no other teams with a blue-chip ratio of 8% in the semi-finals of the college playoffs, then I stand by my statement that Indiana is a unicorn.
The situation is a little more nuanced as Williams had the same agent as Fisch, the head coach. Not as black and white as it is portrayed.
It did feel like Franklin just never could bring in the monster sized DTs and this was an issue for the team makeup. It can be helpful to have at least one of the regular DTs be a large space occupying guy and that can help for the partner DT or DEs to be more mobile. Having the whole DL be undersized can be a problem when dealing with more talented opponents who can push you around which I think was part of the issue with the performance vs top 10 teams (our speed/agility was typically effective versus teams with overall less talent).
All 3 or those teams made the quarters with Bama winning a game to do so while one can argue that the other 2 suffered because of the layoff
It's totally Moneyball now. PSU will get immediate production from the Iowa State starters.
Perhaps Hartline had a larger impact than we knew. But other schools are getting sliced up as well. Look at Alabama with 20 in the portal.
There seems to be this notion among all the fanbases, including our own, and the players themselves, that this money is endless, and that schools will just “ throw them a bag” to attract and retain talent, regardless of that players actual production. It’s just not true, even at OSU.
If the layoff was indeed responsible (correlation does not entail causality), then the coaches failed at their job. Notice that Indiana,too, had the same layoff but put belt to as* on Bama
They are. I enjoy Zach Smith's podcast on Rumble (though Kris talks way too much), and when he is on it is super-informative. He is discussing the current exodus and according to what is representing, OSU is losing players because they will not pay "market value" for them.
The bama players were geeked to follow DeBoer to Happy Valley.
And it should be. Offensive line players are a crap shoot. Williams and Birchmeir were 5* who sat on the bench. What is your return on investment when they walk in year 3. Why not go get yourself a 1 or 2 year rental that you know can play. Lower tier schools are flush with players who developed late or were not scouted correctly. That is where you look for players that you know can play versus hs kids
The lockerroom has lost Day.
King Macks dad will be saying hi to lots of people when the money is gone and he's portering bags at the train station.
Couldn't agree more...although I need to admit that I took a bunch of UNC classes while I was at Duke, and they were all excellent
