PotatoCreekPete said:
Cowboy Junky said:
I think the secondary has to be an area of big concern. I haven't liked our defensive backs at all the last five years. They either get burned underneath or over the top. Either way, our coverage has been piss poor as of late. We need immediate help there and not a guy that's 5'4" either.
Bohl says he builds a team around DT's, db's, and qb's. At qb we're set. Obviously we need DT help, but I'm more confident that we have good young bodies at DT then we do db. I think Sam Hardy, Diaminti, Fields, Boyland, and Appleby can produce a capable DT or two. Olive is a given. He's going to shine in the new system.
I know Bohl hasn't mentioned it as an area of concern, but Wyoming has traditionally had great safeties. We've gotten away from that in recent years. Go get me another Lee, Rich, Wendling, or Prosinski. I can't think of a great Wyoming defense that didn't have a great safety.
The other area of concern I would like to see addressed through recruiting is the return game. I don't know if the staff would recruit a return specialist, but we really need a halfway crazy guy with blazing speed that can catch the ball consistently. Our return game has sucked for years and years.
Field goal kicker is another position that didn't inspire confidence of late. Wyoming has always had great kickers. Let's go get another one. Our punter might be all right, but who knows. We've rugby punted for five years. I have no idea if he can kick the ball high and deep.
Middle linebacker is a huge key to a Tampa 2. It would be nice if we could find a true Tampa 2 middle linebacker.
If I were the staff, I would focus on db's(hopefully find a return man as well), linemen, a safety, a mlb, and a kicker. That would be my biggest focus this year.
I also agree, good analysis. I would point out that we have a couple excellent linebackers at the middle linebacker position now. Jordan Stanton and Siaosi Hala'api'api are both excellent cover guys, Stanton happens to be one of the leading tacklers in the conference and nation and Hala'api'api was misused in my opinion when they moved him to DE. Both are excellent middle linebackers for the Tampa 2 in my opinion. If we could pick up an excellent young LB with really good speed that would be great but with so few scholarships it wouldn't be a priority to me.
We got exposed this season to not having speed at the WR position especially as our WR's were not able to get separation and this caused all sorts of problems, and in the Utah St. game the announcers mentioned it a number of times it was so evident, but it was around long before that. We have some excellent possession type receivers but with Herron gone no one with blazing speed is left at this position and so we really don't have a deep threat IMO. This is an area IMO that suffered greatly due to a lack of superior coaching and I am sure better coaching will help some here, but there is no answer for real speed and we need that big time to keep defenses honest.
I have no doubt that we will see a couple of fullback types being recruited and in addition a TE or two will probably be recruited as well. But I would expect that we will see more than a few linemen being signed. I would recruit one really good RB, and I read yesterday where we offered a RB with speed from Illinois.
I think that it is a good point that our specials teams and a kicker in particular need attention. Christensen was never able to fill that position to where it was a strength the last few seasons, so I agree, we need a kicker and I would be willing to offer a scholarship this year even when we have so few overall to give out.
I noticed in watching NDSU play that their corners were not scared to come onto the line and jam the WR's...our corners under Christensen appeared to be allergic to coming up on the line, and the only real question with them was how much of a cushion our CB's were giving to the other teams WR's. I have to think that a lack of speed had something to do with this but the majority was just a lack of coaching. Despite the fact that Tim Hayes got thrown into the deep end of the pool as a true freshman and got burned a few times, I like his quickness and speed and think that he can be an excellent CB with good coaching and some experience. I was really surprised by Burns who was what a freshman all-American and appears to have not improved as much as I would expect him to have, was not being more of an impact last season and I have to think that he was one of those guys that just got wore down by having to be on the field for so much of the time. I would like to see us bring in a couple of CB's with speed to provide depth and competition. You are right about the Safeties. Again last season Christensen was forced due to injuries and poor position coaching to play a true freshman (Xavier Lewis) and he went through a typical freshman season, but with another year under his belt and better coaching I would expect to see a big improvement here. But we certainly don't have that stellar safety like Prosinski that we have had in the past.
As far as a return game is concerned, I thought that Tyran Finley, the JC guy out of California was going to be able to fill this position as he was one of the top return guys in California JC's and I think that he would have done a great job if he hadn't gotten injured. I would expect him to be healthy and back next season so I am not too concerned with this position.
Observation:
The thing that is so difficult right now is that I think that it is really hard to judge the talent level at certain positions on the team and once Coach Bohl sees them on the field for spring ball he will be able to tell much better what he has. One thing that I noticed, that while we were being told that the recruiting classes were getting better each year under Christensen we weren't seeing the improvement of the players once they got into the program that you would normally expect. To me this is evidence of really poor position coaching. It is critical for a program like Wyoming that the position coaches be good teachers and developers of talent and we just didn't see this under Christensen's program. Take Blair Burns for instance, here was a guy that came in and was freshman all-American and after his first season he didn't step up his game to all-conference level and I would have expected that based upon his freshman season. We have many examples of guys that just didn't develop within Christensen's system for whatever reasons, my feeling was that it was just poor positional coaching. I think that we will see a much bigger improvement in the players fundamentally and incrementally under Bohl as he has had to do that with NDSU for years now.
Overall, good analysis, I would adjust my recruiting priorities based upon the few comments that I made.
Good points.
I think it's easier to look at the positions that we have quite a bit of talent.
At qb, we're good to go even if Brett gets drafted. Thompson looks like he can be a hell of a qb. That Fort kid from Gillette looks like a prototypical Bohl qb. He's big, fast, and has a strong arm. I'm comfortable with that, but would love to see Brett come back. I'm not counting on it though.
At defensive end we've got two guys that can really get after the qb when they're fresh. Yarborough and Puletasi generate a lot of pressure when there not burned out from playing 40 minutes a game for twelve games straight. We could use some more depth there but I like the starters.
Haliapiapi looks like a good specimen for mlb. Hopefully, they can get the size on him and keep the speed necessary to cover. Stanton also looks good. This is another position I feel good about.
Obviously FB and TE are going to need to be built from the ground up. If we do see Bohl go the JC route I wouldn't be surprised if he does it at these positions. We might see some guys follow him from NDSU, so that's a possibility. Otherwise, Bohl is going to have a long transition to his style of football. Maybe he can pull a Joe Glenn and find a Josh Biezuns on the roster. It's not out of the realm of possibility.
The offensive line is a huge concern. We have a lot of 6'6" guys that we're recruited to slow people down on their way to the qb. They are space eaters. I'm not sure if he can develop them into smash mouth hogs. This is a BIG need in recruiting.
At wr, we still have Sewell and Brown coming up. I don't know how fast they are, but they can't be any slower then the majority of our wr's. Speed might not matter as much to an offensive coordinator that sets up plays and adjusts during the game. Christensen scripted his crap and ran it no matter what. It's not hard to blanket a receiver when you know he's going to run a bubble screen 80 percent of the time. We do need some speed though. I think it's a main reason why our return game sucks. Overall though, we've got a pretty talented core of receivers. I think we're mostly set there.
I don't know if our d tackles are as bad as the results. They had no depth due to Christensen focusing on offense the first couple of his recruiting classes. Moving Tyler Strong to offensive line didn't help. I do like the guys we've recruited the last few years though. Uso is a star in the making. He's going to be the anchor of our defense very soon. Hardy, Appleby, Diamanti, Fields, and Boyland have potential. With some good coaching and another year in the weight room, people might be surprised that defensive tackle isn't the wasteland it appears to be.
Linebacker concerns the hell out of me. I think Haliapiapi and Stanton are game ready. Wacha is athletic as hell with great instincts, but he needs to get big quick. He gets ate up by blockers and driven back by ball carriers. I'm sick and tired of seeing our linebackers get chewed up and blown back all game. We need some big strong guys in there that can tackle. Tackling has to be a huge priority and it starts with the linebackers. We need a lot of help at linebacker. Switching from a 3-4 to a 4-3 should give us more depth. The linebackers have potential to get good quick with better coaching and a focus on tackling.
DB is another position we have been horrible at. In my mind, this area is the BIGGEST recruiting need. I won't go into all the negatives, but I don't feel great about any of our db's. In fact, I don't even feel half-assed good about any of them. They were terrible for the last three seasons. Again, they were on the field way to much. The coaching staff wanted them to play 10 yards off. They're too small, too slow, and can't tackle. I can't think of a positive to say about the db's.
That brings us to one of our traditionally strongest positions: safety. Again, too small, too slow, and can't tackle. We need a smart safety or two with good speed and the ability to deliver a hit. A safety has to be able to tackle. That got lost under Christensen as many of the safeties were converted db's. I'm not asking for Brian Lee, but please deliver us somebody that can tackle(it would be nice if he had hands and instincts like Lee though).
"Special Forces" is the force of my recently eaten lunch trying to find it's way to the sunlight again every time we punt, kick, attempt a field goal, or drop back to return. Thank god that's over. This area needs a lot of work, but I think special teams can be improved more then any position on the field through coaching. We might have a good punter, but we need some return guys and we probably need a kicker.
Bohl has some work to do in year one, but the cupboard is not bare. He's got some solid pieces to build around.
