Have you noticed there is a huge lack of veteran players on the team? Especially guys who are in at least their 4th year in the program (a redshirt junior recruited out of high school), let's call these guys greybeards. I was thinking about all the turnover on Defense yesterday, and realized that's true across the board. The only 2 full recruiting classes from the Chryst Era have left a big void of experience and leadership on the roster. Here's a bit of a long breakdown based on the scholarship board:
https://pittsburgh.forums.rivals.com/threads/the-2017-scholarship-board-updated-8-28-2017.115947/
Offense:
-5th year players (4): Jester Weah, Devon Edwards, Jones-Smith, Officer
-4th year players (6): Ollison, Aston, Bookser, Ditino, Herndon, O'Neil.
Essentially we only have two graybeard contributors outside the o-line, with Aston and Weah, both highly under-recruited guys. Our skill position players had a boom or bust class in 2013 with guys slated to be redshirt seniors, Conner and Boyd, who left early for the NFL. But zero QBs and only one guy left at RB and WR. 2 contributor RBs transferred to whisky (Ibrahim and James), Ollison probably will get better, but overall no depth at the skill positions.
No surprise, with Chryst recruiting classes that OLine is by far the strength of the greybeards: 4 of our five starters, and 2 other guys on the 2 deep (counting Herndon) are from these classes. If DJ had redshirted, he might have stuck around.
Defense
-5th year players: None
-4th year players (9) : Wirginis, Maddox, Folston, Roy, Idowu, Williams, Zeise, Motley, Briggs.
That's right, zero redshirt seniors on defense (the highly regarded 2013 class). Taleni was kicked off the team, and Galambos, Jarret, Webb, and Soto did not redshirt.
Blair would have been a 4th year, as he, Wirginis and Maddox burned their redshirt, and were lettermen all 3 of the year's they played.
Where are the D-Linemen? One starter, and only one other on the 2-deep.
At LB, Idowu is a walk-on who is probably our best LB, Zeise lost 3 years to injury and trying the WR position. Williams is a candidate to graduate and open up a scholarship, and of course Wirginis has to wait a couple of weeks, and who knows how he fits in.
At DB Briggs and Maddox are captains (who else in the defense could you pick?). Briggs is a first year starter at boundary Safety while Motley has been hurt a lot.
Bottom line, we don't really have many veterans that are playing. Everyone who is clamoring for the young guys to get playing time: well they already are because we have very few old guys left.
This is a pretty big deal when we aren't recruiting the talent that FSU, OSU and Alabama are, and can leave early through pure talent. And Chryst isn't all to blame, he had to burn a bunch of redshirts on guys who we'd like to stick around another year because of the instability. But we see Narduzzi again needing to play true freshmen this year, because of our lack of depth overall. The previous instability, Chryst's recruiting, and some kids acting dumb and getting suspended, have put us in that position this year. It's going to take a couple of more years of solid recruiting to break out of that cycle.
https://pittsburgh.forums.rivals.com/threads/the-2017-scholarship-board-updated-8-28-2017.115947/
Offense:
-5th year players (4): Jester Weah, Devon Edwards, Jones-Smith, Officer
-4th year players (6): Ollison, Aston, Bookser, Ditino, Herndon, O'Neil.
Essentially we only have two graybeard contributors outside the o-line, with Aston and Weah, both highly under-recruited guys. Our skill position players had a boom or bust class in 2013 with guys slated to be redshirt seniors, Conner and Boyd, who left early for the NFL. But zero QBs and only one guy left at RB and WR. 2 contributor RBs transferred to whisky (Ibrahim and James), Ollison probably will get better, but overall no depth at the skill positions.
No surprise, with Chryst recruiting classes that OLine is by far the strength of the greybeards: 4 of our five starters, and 2 other guys on the 2 deep (counting Herndon) are from these classes. If DJ had redshirted, he might have stuck around.
Defense
-5th year players: None
-4th year players (9) : Wirginis, Maddox, Folston, Roy, Idowu, Williams, Zeise, Motley, Briggs.
That's right, zero redshirt seniors on defense (the highly regarded 2013 class). Taleni was kicked off the team, and Galambos, Jarret, Webb, and Soto did not redshirt.
Blair would have been a 4th year, as he, Wirginis and Maddox burned their redshirt, and were lettermen all 3 of the year's they played.
Where are the D-Linemen? One starter, and only one other on the 2-deep.
At LB, Idowu is a walk-on who is probably our best LB, Zeise lost 3 years to injury and trying the WR position. Williams is a candidate to graduate and open up a scholarship, and of course Wirginis has to wait a couple of weeks, and who knows how he fits in.
At DB Briggs and Maddox are captains (who else in the defense could you pick?). Briggs is a first year starter at boundary Safety while Motley has been hurt a lot.
Bottom line, we don't really have many veterans that are playing. Everyone who is clamoring for the young guys to get playing time: well they already are because we have very few old guys left.
This is a pretty big deal when we aren't recruiting the talent that FSU, OSU and Alabama are, and can leave early through pure talent. And Chryst isn't all to blame, he had to burn a bunch of redshirts on guys who we'd like to stick around another year because of the instability. But we see Narduzzi again needing to play true freshmen this year, because of our lack of depth overall. The previous instability, Chryst's recruiting, and some kids acting dumb and getting suspended, have put us in that position this year. It's going to take a couple of more years of solid recruiting to break out of that cycle.
