catdaddyp

A sack and an INT on the same drive?? When was the last time that happened?

Terrible spot.

Oh man, Wiley had a chance to take that one to the house but missed the last cutback.

A good number of recruits are at the game according to twitter accounts.

If we win, we better not have to forfeit this game due to Undercuffler playing this half. I hope the ejection rules have changed.

New offer out to JUCO OT Caleb Barajas. Check his twitter feed and he has a clip pinned doing a standing backflip. Impressive for a guy his size.

I’ve yet to figure out how to watch certain games on CBSSN. When I check, it does not show Akron as an upcoming game. Supposedly, I can watch it on Hulu but Hulu brings up past ESPN+ games. Any thoughts or ideas?

Hope he decides to come back. Would be nice to see what he can do when fully healthy and an off-season with this staff.

I really like Kyle Thomas. He seems to fire out of his stance quicker than any other DT we have. He also may be our best interior pass rusher, but is not as strong against the run as Holt and Harper. I’m excited to see how he develops with a full offseason in the program. I haven’t heard anything about Holt receiving a medical redshirt. I hope it happens, but not counting on it. I’m excited about Murphy too. He has unusually quick feet for a defensive lineman and certainly has the size and strength to contribute. I think he’s played in one game on special teams, so it’ll be interesting to see if he gets any playing time at DT in these last few games. We may take a few lumps early next year, but I think the combo of Thomas and Murphy have a much higher upside than our current DTs. And that’s not a knock on Harper or Holt.

Not sure how I missed this one, but JUCO CB Jett Elad was recently offered.

3 star CB Jameel Croft committed to Kansas.

Adding him to the transfer portal thread.

JUCO CB Reggie Neely was offered today.

Still working on this list, but bump for update.

I’ll add him. I slowed my roll on the updates with the portal picking up steam. I realized there will be a ton of connections this year, plus some players checking us out due to SJL’s success. Awesome to have a player up for best WR even when the team only has one win. Shows the kids will get recognized here regardless of the record.

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.