When I watch highlights from the late 90's-2003, I see players that are physical beasts. I STILL don't see that that with much of this team. If we are still struggling physically with the good teams on our sched, I could care less about staff hires or recruiting rankings, or the NCAA scandal. In year three, there is absolutely no excuse for being thrown around like rag dolls the way we have been for what is going on almost a decade now.
again, this **** takes time. you can't physically impose your will when you have as many freshman and sophomore's on the field as we do, going up against juniors and senior laden teams that have had the extra couple of off-seasons to get bigger, faster, stronger.
Even in this upcoming season, the bar is being set to high. We need to build some god**** depth. I would be off the walls with 10 wins. We have a lot of potential studs on this team, but you also have to recognize there is no depth because of the abysmal roster that was given to Golden. He is doing his best with these recruiting classes to fill needs and in time add good depth.
We have
quality depth at two positions: WR and OL. There is no depth anywhere else. If Duke goes down we literally become one dimensional, if Morris goes down we become one dimensional, if both go down we are totally ****ed. We were building some LB depth, but at the moment it appears to be diminished. You need quality depth to be a legit top 10 team.
Now next season we might be able to pull off 10 wins because our schedule is soft and we are explosive offensively if everyone stays healthy, but it still doesn't change the fact that we are very thin in the 2 and 3 spots at almost every position. We have depth at almost every position, but only WR and OL have quality depth, which is the big thing here. If we are going to be a real top 10 team next season we have to A.) Keep Morris and Duke healthy and B.) have some freaking guys step up and improve to the point where they are capable back-ups and don't look like they are running around headless on the football field, especially defensively.
Clive Walford, Chickillo, Porter, Gunter, Shayon Green, Dye, Jimmy Gaines, Olsen Pierre and Luther Robinson are all upperclassmen this season, and need to play like it.
Since this is about Golden, I will end this post by keeping the light on him. The guys I listed above need to step up and play like upperclassmen. At the very least they should be guys that do their jobs on the field and aren't having problems with assignments, tackling, etc. That falls on Golden. It's his job to get these guys to become consistently good football players. They don't have to stand out, that's what Duke, Morris, Deon and Perryman are going to do. Just develop like the junior's and senior's do at other major programs. This is the third year this guys are with Golden, it's time to start making some serious improvements. No more of this being lost on the field ****, and not understanding certain schemes or assignments, it's time to get it together. Again, it's Golden's job to get these guys motivated in the off-season to be 100% committed to their diets and training, and it's his job to ensure they are being properly coached on the gridiron. If the majority of those guys haven't significantly improved, Golden isn't the "developer" that people have said he is.
These guys should be solid contributors next season all the time. Not just showing flashes of it, they should be contributing positively whether small or large, every game, every offensive and defensive series. We will likely never have the depth Alabama or LSU has, but we can and will come **** close to it if Golden can develop guys and the recruiting keeps going the way it is now, which it absolutely should and more once this NCAA cloud is no longer over our heads.
