Running out of Room?

[johnnd05]

KJones and Scoop, excellent points. No matter how good, say, Arthur Brown is, he won't be as good as a freshman as Mo Crum will be as a 5th-year senior, and the tendency among people on this board to think otherwise just shows how blinded we can be by hype.

Sorry Son of Rook, but you're clearly in the wrong on this one.

 

[scooper]

That's not to say an Arthur Brown can't come in and be an exception. But you don't know until they step on campus and get in some real action. The fifth years are known commodities.

There's a reason big programs redshirt guys like crazy. It's to give them a chance to develop while letting their older guys lead the way.

 

[johnnd05]

That's not to say an Arthur Brown can't come in and be an exception. But you don't know until they step on campus and get in some real action. The fifth years are known commodities.

You're right - I overstated my point there. The key is that a known commodity is a better short-term investment than a highschooler, and we're going to be pretty heavily caught up in the short-term business for a while.

 

[irishunclebill]

Jersey Guy, Huh? On the bandwagon!

JK, I know you really are a Jersey guy, but I want to know if the kid is still kicking the Poodle whenever he gets a chance.

 

[scooper]

You're right - I overstated my point there. The key is that a known commodity is a better short-term investment than a highschooler, and we're going to be pretty heavily caught up in the short-term business for a while.

Yeah. We're on the same page.

 

[johnnd05]

JK, I know you really are a Jersey guy, but I want to know if the kid is still kicking the Poodle whenever he gets a chance.

In the nuts. We take a quick trip down to SoCal once a week or so and little Jack lets the bastard have it. Now, if only Gainesville weren't so far away ...

 

[johnnd05]

The talent we are developing behind these 2 people will be better by then these two guys are now.

I know this is starting to seem like piling on, but let me just say that even if this first sentence turns out to be true, the highlighted phrase clearly shows exactly what's wrong in this line of argument. We don't need "will be's" for '09 -- we're going for it NOW.

 

[pani_nasz]

What I think is getting somewhat missed in the discussion is the value young talent brings to overall team dynamics. Because of their ability and desire to play at the next level, incoming frosh push the upperclassmen, and it's in that daily internal competition for each position that a better product results. Plus whoever loses out is more apt to step up when injuries occur.

 

[scooper]

What I think is getting somewhat missed in the discussion is the value young talent brings to overall team dynamics. Because of their ability and desire to play at the next level, incoming frosh push the upperclassmen, and it's in that daily internal competition for each position that a better product results. Plus whoever loses out is more apt to step up when injuries occur.

This is true. Very good poing. Nobody is doubting the value of talented incoming players. We're just saying don't be too quick to push vets out the door for the sake of recruiting numbers.

 

[kjones]

This is true. Very good poing. Nobody is doubting the value of talented incoming players. We're just saying don't be too quick to push vets out the door for the sake of recruiting numbers.

Exactly. I never meant to say that great young kids don't make a great programs. They do and always will. I just think it's funny how the recruiting hype train goes around each year, forgetting last years darling's recruits and focusing only on this years crop. Definately you need great young players to challenge the older guys and make them not only better players, but better leaders and more confident.

P.S. Good to see you posting pretty regularly again scoop. I always pay attention to your insights!

 

[Dynasty0609]

Question? Do you think if this scenario plays out?


Since Julio Jones will not be making a quick decision. And only a handful of receivers prove that they can play this year. Combine that with Saban's offense not taking off. That we would hold a spot for him if he can come up and see opportunities in a thriving offense. Because we will thrive...

So I think the three we may hold for are A. Brown, Will Hill, Julio Jones... all instant impact.

 

[stonebreakerwasgod]

I think if Will Hill decides to come here, there will be a scholie for him regardless, same for Brown.

 

[RichardRiot]

Exactly. I never meant to say that great young kids don't make a great programs. They do and always will. I just think it's funny how the recruiting hype train goes around each year, forgetting last years darling's recruits and focusing only on this years crop. Definately you need great young players to challenge the older guys and make them not only better players, but better leaders and more confident.

P.S. Good to see you posting pretty regularly again scoop. I always pay attention to your insights!

On board with kjones/scoop/johnnd05; my views on this are similar to my comments in the McCarthy thread re. recruit expectations:

http://www.irishenvy.com/forums/showthread.php?p=138225#post138225

but in this case it is the fans who need to temper their expectations. While a few top flight guys can come into programs and impact immediately, most recruits (even highly touted ones) don't see much of the field in years 1 and 2:

-Wenger was viewed as the top center in '06, and has apparently doing well, but he ain't beating out Sully (a 5th year);
-Aldridge was one of the top 2 ND recruits in '06, and he may be 2nd on the depth chart (yeah....behind a 5th year)

 

[son of rook]

5th year players are wonderful if you have't any senior leadership as is the case of this years seniors. When the 2007 senior class is gone we will then have a steady stream of top level talent coming in every year because of better recruiting. If you have done a good job in recruiting talent you don't need 5th year people to keep your level of talent up each year. Hopefully each senior that is leaving will be replace by a more talented recruit coming in the next year thus always improving our overall talent. I don't see a possible 5th yr from next years senior class that had the same upside as our present level of recruits we are now getting. We are improving the talent level of our player back to the time when we did not give or have 5th years . That is Weis goal in my opinion. If you look at the better teams they don't worry about keeping their seniors for a 5th year because their better players are leaving as juniors for the pro's and their reloading with soph. like we'll be doing if we bring in new talent and stop depending on avg 5th year seniors. I guess that my opinion based on my experience.

 

[scooper]

5th year players are wonderful if you have't any senior leadership as is the case of this years seniors. When the 2007 senior class is gone we will then have a steady stream of top level talent coming in every year because of better recruiting. If you have done a good job in recruiting talent you don't need 5th year people to keep your level of talent up each year. Hopefully each senior that is leaving will be replace by a more talented recruit coming in the next year thus always improving our overall talent. I don't see a possible 5th yr from next years senior class that had the same upside as our present level of recruits we are now getting. We are improving the talent level of our player back to the time when we did not give or have 5th years . That is Weis goal in my opinion. If you look at the better teams they don't worry about keeping their seniors for a 5th year because their better players are leaving as juniors for the pro's and their reloading with soph. like we'll be doing if we bring in new talent and stop depending on avg 5th year seniors. I guess that my opinion based on my experience.

You'd have to go back a long way to find a time when there weren't 5th years. And it's not always about talent. It's about experience and physical maturity.

I guarantee at least three 5th years are brought back after next season. And that's a conservative guess.

 

[ShivaIrish]

5th year players are wonderful if you have't any senior leadership as is the case of this years seniors. When the 2007 senior class is gone we will then have a steady stream of top level talent coming in every year because of better recruiting. If you have done a good job in recruiting talent you don't need 5th year people to keep your level of talent up each year. Hopefully each senior that is leaving will be replace by a more talented recruit coming in the next year thus always improving our overall talent. I don't see a possible 5th yr from next years senior class that had the same upside as our present level of recruits we are now getting. We are improving the talent level of our player back to the time when we did not give or have 5th years . That is Weis goal in my opinion. If you look at the better teams they don't worry about keeping their seniors for a 5th year because their better players are leaving as juniors for the pro's and their reloading with soph. like we'll be doing if we bring in new talent and stop depending on avg 5th year seniors. I guess that my opinion based on my experience.

My guess is Maurice Crum will be back, and possibly Terrail Lambert.

 

[stonebreakerwasgod]

That would be nice.

 

[son of rook]

I would think the walk - on center Bemenderfer has a better chance to get a scholarship then the possible 5th yr seniors. We Have 11 defensive back coming back next year without counting any freshman all who will have been developed for one more year. It make sense to me to get one more freshman out of the group of Slaughter, Blanton, McCarty, Brown and Byrant than to waste a scholarship on a senior 5th yr back who has been only marginal up to this point in time. And the same holds true with the line backers which we have 11 of as of now with the possibility of of about 5 more who have better potential than a 5th year senior. (Sweat, Brown, Filer, Sabino, Moore, Beal etc.) USC has started Freshman linebacker the last 2 years because they were more talented than all those experience player some people think are so important. Top team start the most talented people not 5th yr seniors who if they were any good would have left their junior year.Top team get rid of their senior and start juniors, soph and frosh. This is how we won National Champships by putting the most talent on the field at any given time.

 

[stonebreakerwasgod]

I think it's a great exercise that ya'll are doing, but I say we wait to do the higher math until we get closer to LOI. We get a long way to go.

 

[son of rook]

I didn't feel i was doing an exerise. I was stating how i believe you win National Championships or at least how I've seen the better teams including ND have won NC in the past. I believe it's something you plan for and not something that just happens whch I feel Weis is doing by changing the talent level of our team.

 

[stonebreakerwasgod]

Trying to figure out the exact number of recruits by attempting to figure out which seniors will return (all the while not knowing what CW or the players are thinking) is an exercise in futility (especially when the season has not even begun to evaluate who is even deserving of returning). Just one man's opinion.

 

[johnnd05]

Oh, I could say so many things ...

I don't see a possible 5th yr from next years senior class that had the same upside as our present level of recruits we are now getting.

Perhaps so, perhaps not. But first off, it's not about 'upside', it's about winning NOW. Secondly, Lambert was 4* Scout/3* Rivals and Crum 3*/3* coming out of highschool, so it's not exactly like they were chopped liver. (And Vernaglia was 4*/4* -- woohoo!)

Top team start the most talented people not 5th yr seniors who if they were any good would have left their junior year.

Unless, they, um, wanted to finish their degrees. Which, um, happens sometimes.

Top team get rid of their senior and start juniors, soph and frosh.

What do you mean 'get rid of'? You can't pull a kid off scholarship, so unless he goes pro (which we've covered already) or becomes academically ineligible (which doesn't happen at ND), he CAN'T be 'gotten rid of' in less than four years.

In sum: at ND, unlike certain other institutions in, say, Ann Arbor, Columbus, Gainesville, and the LA ghetto, decisions like this are made on grounds that include PEOPLE and ACADEMICS, and not just winning. Our athletes aren't (generally) like theirs, our academic standards aren't (at all) like theirs (wait - do they have ANY academic standards?), and as a result our redshirt and fifth-year senior policies are going to differ from theirs. If you want a football factory, root for the Spoiled Children. Notre Dame, meanwhile, will continue to do things the Notre Dame way.

[/scolding]

Whew. Let me make two other points, though, one on each side:

First, from what I understand, ND traditionally has NOT granted scholarships to fifth-year seniors; it's only in the past few years that it's become common. The reason for the old policy was that everyone is required to take enough courses to graduate within four years, and they didn't want kids just hanging around doing nothing. In altering their red-shirt policy, they've required fifth-year seniors to enroll in some sort of degree program, but the standards there probably haven't been as high as they usually are. I'm certainly not opposed to this change, but I do think that a good argument could be made that being too free with redshirts and scholarships for fifth-year players could compromise our academic integrity -- so if someone wants to base an argument for restricting them on THESE grounds, I'd be willing to listen.

Secondly, we should also note that the recent turn in this discussion misses entirely the point that IUB and I were batting back and forth at the start: namely, the issue of only having 85 TOTAL scholarships to give, which comes to just over 21 a year even with only one fifth-year senior (or walk-on - and don't we always have one of those?) on board. Obviously, as IUB pointed out, we may be willing to exceed that number this year, but at some point we're going to have to get ourselves consistently within the 19-21 range, and every year we go over that hurts our ability to get under it in the future. Again, I don't think this issue is at all conclusive, but it's definitely worth bearing it in mind.

 

[son of rook]

Hopefully Weis will fill all of the remaining 13 scholarships plus any transfers or quits with talented recruits this next year so we can get on with winning another NC. If he can do that I wouldn't have to worry what the senors did in 2007 because the entire team will be Weis's To Clarify when i said get rid of the seniors I meant not to grant seniors 5th years if its cuts out a talented recruit. If the seniors were that good they would probability enter the NHL draft at the end of their junior year. Furthermore scholarships are look at yearly can be withdrawn although it rare that there not extended.

 

[Junkhead]

I wonder about # of offers vs. actual spots open. What if 5 TEs are offered, and by some fluke, 4-5 commit. Will anyone be turned down if it shown that position is no longer needed?

 

[son of rook]

When Weis gets the number of recruits he wants at a postion he'll cut it off and pull the offers.

 

[Pete]

What do you mean 'get rid of'? You can't pull a kid off scholarship, so unless he goes pro (which we've covered already) or becomes academically ineligible (which doesn't happen at ND), he CAN'T be 'gotten rid of' in less than four years.

Scholarships are a one year deal. When Spurrier took over for Holtz, he didn't renew or reoffer, scholarships to 5 or so players. Texas 'runs-off' players, as does Florida.

 

[Jason Pham]

Hopefully Weis will fill all of the remaining 13 scholarships plus any transfers or quits with talented recruits this next year so we can get on with winning another NC. If he can do that I wouldn't have to worry what the senors did in 2007 because the entire team will be Weis's To Clarify when i said get rid of the seniors I meant not to grant seniors 5th years if its cuts out a talented recruit. If the seniors were that good they would probability enter the NHL draft at the end of their junior year. Furthermore scholarships are look at yearly can be withdrawn although it rare that there not extended.

The point that John is making is that Notre Dame and her student athletes do not regularly follow the same lack of standards exercised at other institutions such as pulling scholarships or letting go of athletes before they complete their degrees. While at another program, a highly rated athlete may feel they are ready to enter to draft preceding their junior year, pursuing a degree at Notre Dame, in many cases, dramatically offsets any benefit of leaving early and you will see a majority of Notre Dame student athletes exercising this option. Notre Dame is an academics and student athlete first institution, and this is apparent in the attitudes of the staff and of the students.

 

[johnnd05]

Scholarships are a one year deal. When Spurrier took over for Holtz, he didn't renew or reoffer, scholarships to 5 or so players. Texas 'runs-off' players, as does Florida.

Thanks for clarifying - I hadn't known that. Pretty messed up, if you ask me - seems that it should definitely be against the rules to jerk a kid around like that unless he's a real tool.

The point that John is making is that Notre Dame and her student athletes do not regularly follow the same lack of standards exercised at other institutions such as pulling scholarships or letting go of athletes before they complete their degrees. While at another program, a highly rated athlete may feel they are ready to enter to draft preceding their junior year, pursuing a degree at Notre Dame, in many cases, dramatically offsets any benefit of leaving early and you will see a majority of Notre Dame student athletes exercising this option. Notre Dame is an academics and student athlete first institution, and this is apparent in the attitudes of the staff and of the students.

This, meanwhile, hits the nail on the head. (I especially like "Notre Dame and her student athletes", rather than "its".) Thanks, Jason!

 

[stonebreakerwasgod]

Scholarships are a one year deal. When Spurrier took over for Holtz, he didn't renew or reoffer, scholarships to 5 or so players. Texas 'runs-off' players, as does Florida.

No loyalty to players, only to team. That is disgraceful. They are pretty much persona non grata at alot of schools after that.

Pulling offers when we fill the quota is fine by me, they could have accepted early instead of waiting. Their fault, not CW's.

 

[kjones]

Great job boys, some great posts here, too many to give that many props on. I've been busy and MIA from the discussion, but it's going fine without me (big surprise). Just wanted to drop in and say this is one of those discussions that makes me love Irish Envy. Talk on!