It's pretty well much documented that DE is a huge issue for our defense - so how did we end up with the situation we have? Here's what we recruited at the position over the years that
'08 - McCardell, Stigers, Ferguson, Bell, Gainous
'09 - McPhee, McKenzie, Cox
'10 - Crawford (SMU), Harrison-Gay, Eulls
'11 - Harris, Smith
I'm trying to think of an impact player that we missed on that we can look back on and say was a huge miss. We missed on Dorsey and C. Thompson in '10 but neither has shown much of anythign yet.
Ferguson has been a serviceable player, but that's about it. Stigers is decent depth but never really developed into anything beyond that. McCardell is probably my biggest disappointment b/c I can't for the life of me figure out why a guy with his speed cannot be a speed rush guy on 3rd and long and blow by a tackle 40% of the time. We all know about Bell, but while he was starting I have to say that I didn't see him being an impact player.
McPhee lived up to much of the hype and despite being doubled teams alot did make a fair amount of plays and got pressure on the QB even though his sack numbers weren't huge. Cox grew and moved inside which initially was disappointing to me b/c I was hoping he could be our dominat DE. McKenzie had the reputation of being a practice monster his freshman year but then quit early last year after the AU game.
So now we're asking a RFr in Eulls to start which you never want to do and it seems the coaching staff is not sure if he's a DE or DT since he practiced a lot at both. I get the feeling he might be a better DT over time and will move there if we land Autry. I have no idea what we have in Harrison-Gay.
No clue on the true freshman or how bright we think their future is.
But given this and how important a position this is, heck I'd try to sign 5 DE's this year. overall it's been our Achilles heal for years as the only high level DE's we've had were positional converts Willie Evans and Titus Brown. We've got enough depth at a lot of position where we could spend more of this recruiting class trying to solve that problem.
We've got Brown and Bell committed so far but Bell may be a OLB. Really need to find a way to get Ward and Autry as well and hopefully they live up to the hype.
'08 - McCardell, Stigers, Ferguson, Bell, Gainous
'09 - McPhee, McKenzie, Cox
'10 - Crawford (SMU), Harrison-Gay, Eulls
'11 - Harris, Smith
I'm trying to think of an impact player that we missed on that we can look back on and say was a huge miss. We missed on Dorsey and C. Thompson in '10 but neither has shown much of anythign yet.
Ferguson has been a serviceable player, but that's about it. Stigers is decent depth but never really developed into anything beyond that. McCardell is probably my biggest disappointment b/c I can't for the life of me figure out why a guy with his speed cannot be a speed rush guy on 3rd and long and blow by a tackle 40% of the time. We all know about Bell, but while he was starting I have to say that I didn't see him being an impact player.
McPhee lived up to much of the hype and despite being doubled teams alot did make a fair amount of plays and got pressure on the QB even though his sack numbers weren't huge. Cox grew and moved inside which initially was disappointing to me b/c I was hoping he could be our dominat DE. McKenzie had the reputation of being a practice monster his freshman year but then quit early last year after the AU game.
So now we're asking a RFr in Eulls to start which you never want to do and it seems the coaching staff is not sure if he's a DE or DT since he practiced a lot at both. I get the feeling he might be a better DT over time and will move there if we land Autry. I have no idea what we have in Harrison-Gay.
No clue on the true freshman or how bright we think their future is.
But given this and how important a position this is, heck I'd try to sign 5 DE's this year. overall it's been our Achilles heal for years as the only high level DE's we've had were positional converts Willie Evans and Titus Brown. We've got enough depth at a lot of position where we could spend more of this recruiting class trying to solve that problem.
We've got Brown and Bell committed so far but Bell may be a OLB. Really need to find a way to get Ward and Autry as well and hopefully they live up to the hype.
