catdaddyp

Recent offer to JUCO RB Jeffery Pittman.

I thought this was a really good episode, especially when talking about recruiting towards the end. Joe Dunn has done a nice job this year of asking questions about who is on scholarship, eligibility remaining for players, and getting Moorhead to speak about how the freshmen are developing. - Robarge and Georges have been put on scholarship. - The most competition when recruiting the high school level is for OL and DL. Even more so in the portal. - The staff is recruiting hard for players in a two hours radius, but Akron won’t be a fallback option. “We want everybody who is local, but we want the guys who can play. - “Start taking guys who can’t play at this level and you have a roster full of guys who can’t win.”

Recent offer out to JUCO CB Jaheim Jenkins. He supposedly has 3 to play 3.

My guess is the focus is now on the recent offers. A few players we offered earlier in the year messaged me on Twitter and we don’t seem to be going after them at this point. I haven’t spoken to Harlem Howard but from outward appearance it seems we are still pursuing him. We were able to get Barrett Maddox on campus and I thought he would pull the trigger, but he’s been racking up offers since then. Including a P5 one from Kansas. All that being said, my best guess for the realistic “takes” left on this list are Harlem Howard, Taylor Wein, Bruno Dall, Vincent Jackson and the JUCOs. But we’ll see.

DT Jovan George committed to Holy Cross.

I think most teams are following along the same ratio Moorhead is using. Don’t want too many developmental players and ideally the portal/JUCO guys will contribute immediately and have a few years of eligibility left. The 1 year guys should at the very least reliably fill a hole. Regardless of how it’s done, a good class usually has 2/3 of the players panning out. 1/3 typically fall by the wayside. Looking at our 2022 class, we landed some high end players out of the portal at receiver, but failed to land the same caliber elsewhere. All the freshmen outside of Landers are developmental and most players from the portal have at least contributed. The DL has improved over last year, but the pass rush is still close to nonexistent. Forget sacks, the DL itself has only 8 quarterback hurries and 16 total as a defense. That puts a lot of pressure on a secondary that has its own issues. Robinson is a project. Harper, Holt, Thomas, and Jones have all been solid, but we need more. LT has been a revolving door, although it looks like Landers (freshman) now has it locked down when healthy. LG has been meh, when we thought Banes would excel. Whigan has been solid at RG. Assuming the freshmen live up to their potential, we should be better along the OL next year. Maybe we land another player or two of Whigan’s caliber from the portal. Terry solidified the LB spot by Bubba, but again nothing spectacular. McCoy (freshman) looks like a star in the making and Fish certainly has all the athletic ability needed to be successful. Safety took a few games to get it together but Thompson and Martin have come on strong and Woods has contributed when he’s had an opportunity. Cornerback play combined with a poor pass rush has killed us. Golden-Nelson seemed like a solid pickup but he’s missed so much time. We really needed Threatt to produce, but that hasn’t happened. This position turned out to be the biggest whiff due to the returning players not playing up to par and the transfers not living up to their potential (or healthy). Solid CB play with a sliver of pass rush would have probably flipped a few games in our favor this year. We haven’t needed Undercuffler in a competitive game, so I’m not sure how he’d be classified (outside of being good for an FU). Banks has started every game at TE, while Clark has some developing to do. We had so many holes to fill before Moorhead took over and still have a few that need filling. On the bright side, it seems the staff is determined to rectify that.

It used to be JUCO because the portal wasn’t really a thing that was used often. Now there are so many more players to choose from the portal compared to JUCO. I imagine this year there will be even more talent in the portal. If the rumblings are true, we are going to see a number of 4 and 5 star kids entering because they didn’t get what they perceived as promised their freshman year. Not to mention all the grad transfers, who the portal was originally geared towards in the first place. It really is going to turn into the Wild Wild West until some type of entity puts parameters on it. I like offering talented kids out of JUCO that could help us right now. Coaches can build relationships and find out more about them and make sure they are a good fit. From the sounds of it, they have far less time when dealing with portal players to make sure they are bringing in the right kind of guys.

Staff offered JUCO CB Trenton Yowe. Second offer issued to a JUCO CB in a weeks time. Pretty clear we’re looking for immediate help there.

Edge Toddrick Brewton to FIU.

I doubt they will, unless they receive some P5 offers and choose to go that route. Just thinking back to the beginning of the year and to what the HC, OL, and DL coaches were saying. They made sure not to hype expectations and focus on the building process and getting better day by day. They all strayed away from talking about the roster itself as much as possible. That’s why I feel like they are really pitching playing time and the building process. We already have the facilities, band, and a fan base that wants to support. Put a winner on the field and watch things really pick up.

Moorhead basically said he was looking to take about 15 HS prospects and 10 portal if I remember correctly. If that’s the case, we should be close to finished with this prep class. With that being said, I think a few of these kids are still “takes” regardless of the numbers. With the recent offers out to more 2023 prospects I wonder if the staff is expecting some more of our players to hit the portal at year end. I’m not sure if the losses have much effect on this year’s class. I’d guess the staff is pitching playing time and the building process.

Added to 2023 outstanding offers list along with recent offer for JUCO DB Matt Littlejohn.

Colin Van Rooy decommitted from Pitt, so he’s back on the list.

Insane play by Jean Louis.

We could have really used the bye week after the Kent game, but it’s finally here. This week will give the staff an indicator of which players are still invested and which ones they might need to think about showing the door at the end of season. It’ll also allow them to work with the younger players and give them 1st team reps for a few days as well as the coaches a chance to hit the road recruiting. I’m expecting some new offers to be issued this week. As far as the Miami game, kinda same ole same ole. My reactions throughout the game tend to be “Ok, good. Looks like we cleaned that up,” to “Very nice. We are playing that well today,” to “Wtf was that?! Why?? No way he’s coached to do that.” Plenty of upperclassmen on the roster but still a ton of inexperience when it comes to game time and being coached properly (outside of this season) so it makes us look like a young team at times. Offense: - We continue to get placed in crappy field position when starting drives. It causes us to string together long drives which lowers the chance of scoring success. - 3 turnovers is a killer, especially when the defense doesn’t create any. - We saw the gamut of DJI - the good and the bad. As he goes, so does the offense. - Hope DJI doesn’t get hurt in the first half of the next game because Undercuffler decided to make himself unavailable. - Miami’s defense was really good as expected. - The OL was not great by any stretch, but they did create holes at times. When that happens the RBs must make someone miss in close space and that rarely happened. I put those situations on the RBs. The short yardage failures are a collective fail and I’m including the play-calling in those situations. - Adams came alive late, but we could have really benefited from him making a few of those catches earlier. - The adjusted final yardage of 396 to 268 is a tough pill to swallow when only scoring 9 points. Defense: - Defense was actually solid for parts of the game. We even held them to only 2 third down conversations. The issues came on explosive plays and giving up key downs within drives. - Cornerback play was borderline atrocious against the pass. Golden-Nelson looked like he hadn’t played in a few weeks. Hooks looked like he reverted back to bad habits. Durant gives it his all, but he’s constantly picked on by opposing offenses. Having Amankwaa jet for the portal hurt us this week. - Safety play was solid for the most part, but they did make a handful of mistakes. - If I’m mistaken, Terry lost the TE twice for big gains at the LB spot, but he may have thought he had help over the top. - Harper and Holt were very active. Good to see Harper get a sack. Thomas and Wilson caused some havoc in garbage time. - Bubba was Bubba. - I’ve said this before, but Lewis has learned to disguise his blitzing extremely well. Some problems won’t be fixed by anything except recruiting at this point. I hope this team can regroup after the bye and give one last push to finish out the season strong.

384 yards compared to 270 for Miami and only muster 9 points. Tough outing.

What was Undercuffler thinking? Come on man.

Did we just make a stop with only 10 men on the field?

Can’t argue there. Miami has the best defense we’ve seen in the MAC, but the offense should have put up more than 3 points.

Some RS Soph. in there too

Off the top of my head I think these are the numbers. Not counting transfers: Offense = Georges, Williams Defense = Bubba, Hooks Counting Transfers: Offense = Everyone but Adams and Landers Defense = Everyone but Durant and Lewis

Are we counting the COVID year?

Hopefully we make a game of it in the 2nd half. Have you tried the hotdogs? I was pleasantly surprised.

Interesting decisions in that first half to say the least…

So we start attacking the middle of the field when clock is running down? 🤨