[NU Sports] Where do we go from here?

[Roy Lamberton]

This is long, but as the guy that has the info "at his fingertips" here goes:

By my records, the only SuperPrep/Scout.com 4 star recruits on the present
defense is RS Junior Deante Battle - he has been playing about 40% of the time,
coming in to spell Senior Herschel Henderson.

The other starters, were 2 star Reggie McPherson, and one star Marquice Cole.
Frederic Tarver walked on and wasn't rated.

Brendan Smith who plays a lot at safety was the New Hampshire player of the year
or something like that, but was rated only 2 stars. The other 2 on the 2-deep,
Cory Dious rated 1 star and Andre Butler walked on as a safety.

In any case, I show 7 former walk-ons playing d-back for NU. 

Now over on the D-Line, Barry Cofield [and the injured Adam Hahn] are the only
two 3 star players listed. Everyone else was a 2 star except the two walk-ons
who were rated with 1 star.

This is not to denigrate the talent of these kids, its just how they were ranked
by Scout when they were recruited. My rule of thumb is that the number of stars
suggest when you can reasonably expect them to start getting playing time, and
then start.

In the grand scheme of recruit rankings/ratings, a 3 Star guy is usually someone
who can crack the starting lineup as a Junior. 2 Stars are those who might start
as a Senior, more likely if they redshirt. 1 Star guys have a long road. 

So pass defense is part D-Line, Part D-Backs. Right now NU is starting one 3
star as a Senior, and 5 different 2 star kids with 3 and 4 years left [counting
2005]. On top of that, D-Line coach Eric Washington has never had all 11 of his
guys healthy during his tenure.

The play of the D-Line is a testament to the Spring play of all the guys who
were not hurt and who jumped in and learned their positions. The D-Line was
supposed to be anchored by two seniors, Howard and Cofield. Howard left and
Cofield, as good as he is, wound up being the guy they double team up front.
Schultz is a true Junior - he didn't redshirt and Mims, a RS Frosh came in as a
DE.

In the backfield, those who didn't like Jeff Backes at corner have to now be
missing his speed and fire. Backes got burned, but he also had the cover skills
to keep an offense honest. The Cats came out of the Spring with two decent
experienced cover corners and a good Strong Safety. By the end of August they
had one decent cover corner who was coming off an injury year.

The plan was for Deante Battle to work in at corner along with Corey Dious, and
David Oredugba. Those 3 took a lot of reps in the Spring.. Unfortunately, spring
isn't the Big 10 season and we're seeing the effects of Spring injuries and two
seniors deciding not to play their last year for the Wildcats. 

When Howard was unable to play - even back in the spring, the future was
starting to get dicey. When Backes had to step down, the 2005 defense was going
to be a big question mark, and I think it still is.

On the injuries - our guys tend to get hurt young. The O-Line is made up of guys
who, with the exception of Strief, had injuries early that kept them off the
field. The D-Line has a couple of guys who are injured right now, but they're
freshmen. You'd like to have them in there, but sitting out won't hurt their
future playing abilities.

The rest of our starters, barring serious injury, are probably a year away from
becoming impact players. As with Howard's freshman, and Castillo's Soph year,
these kids are getting a baptism of fire, and should learn from the experience.

Anyway, in most cases, these guys are playing over their heads right now. The
level of play they need is maybe a year away, but to their credit, as with the
rest of the team, they are pushing to play as well as they can. In most
programs, most of these guys would be expected to play as seniors but injuries,
etc, have forced most of them on the field a year or two early.

One of the challenges of being a coach is dealing with changes. Our defensive
guys did a remarkable job adjusting to injuries starting in the Spring and
heading into September.  During the Spring I published a picture of the NU
sideline with the caption, "the problem with the defense." 

It showed almost all of the starters standing along the far sideline of Trienens
Hall wearing orange. I think some of the seeds of this Fall's shakey play were
sown in the Spring, forcing some of our present starters to have to play earlier
than originally planned.

We've burned a lot of redshirts already this Fall. While many of these kids are
talented and will be impact guys down the road, we have to remember that they're
true frosh and the last defense that played a lot of true frosh got waxed,
remember?

rsl

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Roy S. Lamberton - Senior Associate
Computer Applications & Support Associates
and Publisher of Purple Reign, 
The Scout.com Northwestern University Site
(http://www.purplewildcats.com)
AIM Handle: CoachRoy74

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> -----Original Message-----
> From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com 
> [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com] On Behalf Of DPENDERG at aol.com
> Sent: Tuesday, September 27, 2005 6:56 AM
> To: nwu-sports at romaine.tssi.com
> Subject: Re: [NU Sports] Where do we go from here?
> 
> 
>  
> My central point is not, as you suggest, the "bigotry of low 
> expectations"  
> but the irrefutable fact that we have had little success 
> recruiting top-quality 
>  DBs and we need to think very deliberately what we are going 
> to do about  
> it.