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Roster Depth and Attrition - An Underrated Problem

GojiraCane

GojiraCane

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Amidst all of the talk about Miami's performance this season, one factor lurking in the background is the overall size of the roster. Miami currently stands at 75 scholarship players, including the four walk-ons who received scholarships. This is five less than Richt's roster last year, and a full ten below a full scholarship load.

This is of course not factoring in injuries, redshirts, or the two players that have been ruled inadmissible this season.

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Going further, since the conclusion of Year 2 of the Randy Shannon's tenure we have seen times of incredibly high attrition of the roster. Five out of seven classes (2010, 2011, 2012, 2015, and 2016) saw an average of 37% of the committed players not make it past their second year. Al Golden's first real class of 2012 saw an incredible 41% of players depart before their third year. Overall, we've signed 95 players (through NSD, transfers, or granting walkons scholarships) in the last four years, and against that we've seen 104 players depart to graduation or transfers.

The end result of this is a constant cycling in of freshmen talent. Players who should be redshirting have been playing early and potentially lack the strength and conditioning needed to go up against teams that are more skewed towards upperclassmen (such as Snyder's K-State rosters).

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Good post except for the K State reference
- he used Juco's more than any other coach

Agreed you cant really rank a recruiting class until you see who makes grades
 
HurricaneHauk said:
One QB in 2009? 72 total players?

What was Shannon doing
Click to expand...
In a sense it was two - in 2009 we converted DB AJ Highsmith to quarterback. He would convert back to a DB in 2011.

The reason for only one quarterback was unexpected attrition. Randy Shannon likely did not go aggressively after quarterbacks for the 2009 class. And it would have been difficult, as in 2008 he had a roster that consisted of redshirt freshman Robert Marve and three true freshman - Jacory Harris, Cannon Smith, and Taylor Cook. It would have been difficult to bring in a fifth quarterback when the roster was that inbalanced towards youth. In Dec 30, 2008, about 1.5 months before NSD Robert Marve announced that he was transferring. On August 25, 2009 Cannon Smith and Taylor Cook both announced that they were transferring. And woila, the Hurricanes went from three scholarship quarterbacks to just one.

The 72 players were also the result of overall high attrition. It's why we faded down the stretch after the strong 5-1 start. Injuries caught up with us - I remember it being cited as a huge concern going into the Clemson game.
 
GojiraCane said:
In a sense it was two - in 2009 we converted DB AJ Highsmith to quarterback. He would convert back to a DB in 2011.

The reason for this was unexpected attrition. Randy Shannon likely did not go aggressively after quarterbacks for the 2009 class. And it would have been difficult, as in 2008 he had a roster that consisted of redshirt freshman Robert Marve and three true freshman - Jacory Harris, Cannon Smith, and Taylor Cook. It would have been difficult to bring in a fifth quarterback when the roster was that inbalanced towards youth. In Dec 30, 2008, about 1.5 months before NSD Robert Marve announced that he was transferring. On August 25, 2009 Cannon Smith and Taylor Cook both announced that they were transferring. And woila, the Hurricanes went from three scholarship quarterbacks to just one.
Click to expand...

How do you lose 3 QBs in one season, guess they saw writing on the wall
 
HurricaneHauk said:
How do you lose 3 QBs in one season, guess they saw writing on the wall
Click to expand...
Great question. We can speculate why Marve left (University of Florida interference, speculating that Shannon favored Jacory). I still don't know why Cook and Smith both decided to transfer on the same day at the end of August.
 
GojiraCane said:
Great question. We can speculate why Marve left (University of Florida interference, speculating that Shannon favored Jacory). I still don't know why Cook and Smith both decided to transfer on the same day at the end of August.
Click to expand...

pat nix
 
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Speaking of Whipple, anyone catch the offensive numbers Pitt put up this week??
He was let go from UMass and is now Pitt's OC.
 
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