Always play the most talented player. Always play the players that help you win. What year they are should never be a factor.
No recruit would ever come to a school that has a policy of purposely benching Juniors.
2-3 players will leave early every year. It will work for some, and won't for others. This happens at every school, and has always happened. Fans need to move past it.
It wouldn't be a policy. Our coaches would need to be tactful.
For example, Jeff Thomas ended the spring on crutches after having knee surgery. Payton performed well in his place and is garnering his share of offseason hype. There's your built-in reason for keeping Thomas out of the starting lineup. "
We're bringing him along slowly." "Payton took more reps with the QBs during the summer while Thomas was rehabbing, and actually has as much experience in our new offense as anyone else." Of course, Thomas would be a focal point of the offense and would enter the game after one or two plays.
Dallas is going to split reps with Harris and Lingard this season so there shouldn't be an argument there from anyone. That one's a no-brainer. The kid is very confident and will obviously a play a big role either way. We won't have a bell-cow like we did with Homer in '17 & '18.
Donaldson is probably the trickiest one as our most experienced OL but Gaynor, Hillery, Campbell, Reed, perhaps Clark will all play a lot in 2019 and Donaldson still has "conditioning concerns." "
We think bringing him off the bench will allow him to finish games stronger." He'll play the same amount of snaps he would otherwise.
Garvin is going to rotate with Hill, Rousseau, Patchan and Harvey in 2019. He seems like a nice kid and it would be a shame to play with his mind since he appears to do things the right way, but he's a prime candidate to leave early for the NFL and we all saw what happened with Joe Jackson. "We like Jon and he's doing a great job, but we're equally excited about Trevon Hill, Greg Rousseau, and Scott Patchan and consider them a committee." "The decision to start Trevon and Scott is based on their leadership, experience, and
they do what they're supposed to do on every play."
Bandy is a dog and a leader. However, it would be easy for Rumph to say something like "we value Trajan at a number of positions (corner, striker, nickel) and we're comfortable with Ivey and Blades holding up on the outside
while using Trajan all over the field in our "positionless" role. "We envision DJ and Al as our starting CBs for the next 3 seasons." Obviously, Bandy would enter the game right away and will lead all DBs in the number of snaps played.
