Ok, I’ll bite. Opinions on the players aside, is there any position we should stress too much over? And realistically...it’s a game and we’re talking about children. If you’re over 15, you shouldn’t “stress” about a college football recruit.
But for the context of UM football being the only thing on earth, what positions are we allowed to stress about? All I see on this board is “we shouldn’t stress over DBs, they grow on trees here” and I see Robert Knowles running around in the secondary like he just got dropped alone on Mars. We shouldn’t stress over WRs, they’re a dime a dozen. Meanwhile I see balls bouncing off Dee Wiggins’ face like he’s Mia Khalifa. Miami lost to Duke 2 months ago. At home. They need really good football players, a lot of them, and quickly.
Again, not to turn this into a “must have” discussion. I only chimed in because I saw the obligatory “he sucks” post because he’s probably not coming here. And as I said, it’s literally the ground floor of the scorned hoe guidebook. Bogle can play. Period. Not that Miami isn’t recruiting anyone else who can’t, but eventually watching all these SFL kids ball at other programs has got to make u stop saying “we’ll be fine” over and over and over. We’re clearly not fine. We just got blistered by Wisconsin’s backup QB and didn’t even score a TD in 2018 offensive football.
People can have their own opinions. I got mine. As for stressing, I wouldnt get hung up on the word. This is a recruiting board and we’re trying to communicate. Everyone knows what is meant when that is expressed. No need to go into semantics.
IMO we have had difficulty keeping the best local DBs in Miami, and with the modern pass heavy game you need a lot of them, and it’s supposed to be an area we can be ahead of the pack at based on local talent, so I do think ‘stressing’ over DBs can make sense. If we can’t keep the best local guys at home, we ain’t going to be back, imo. Also our legacy at DB is unique. The school that produced Ed Reed, Sean Taylor, Bennie Blades, Darryl Williams, et al. should not be trotting out AJ Highsmith and Kacy Rodgers.
At DE, we need fewer guys and we have proven over a long time we can find talented guys. Joe Jackson wasn’t on everyone’s radar when we took him. Garvin wasn’t. Rousseau wasn’t. Go back further. Trent Harris wasn’t. Vernon wasn’t. Add guys who were and we got anyhow - AQM, Thomas, Chickillo, Campbell, Bailey. We have usually not lacked for DE talent and shouldn’t. Just this cycle, Harvey is IMO a better prospect than Bogle, and Cam Williams is **** close in talent, and we are also bringing in Phillips as a transfer who was the No.1 prospect overall in 2017. So yeah, I am not worried about DE.
Where should we worry? We have sucked at DT recruiting for most of the past 17 years. Call it the curse of Dave Howell. There are fewer top local options and we have struggled identifying and recruiting them. OL we have not been particularly good or deep at for ages. Even when we have had talent we haven’t developed it well or used it well.
QB, yep, stress. Most important position on the field and we have had one legit good QB since Gino Toretta was at UM. Coaching matters here, but so does evaluating.
LB - we used to be LBU. Not anymore. The current trio is solid but the school that produced the bermuda triangle, dan morgan, and the best defensive player of all time bar none - ray lewis - should not be muddling around as we have at LB too often recently.
TE we seem to do fine. Until we don’t, not worried.
RB we have a good history, but you have to get the right guys. So it is an area to be concerned over. Too many top local guys have gone elsewhere the past 15 years. It’s been a long while since Edge, Portis, Willis and Gore.
WR - we need to evaluate better. We have brought in highly sought after guys here, with mediocre results going back to Ryan Moore and Akeem Jolla. There are plenty of So Fla options at WR, also. I am quite skeptical of going out of area at WR save for a very, very top kid.
Now don’t get me wrong, it’s about ability not rankings, at all positions. I’m not saying recruit higher stars. I’m saying recruit the best guys. Evaluate well then get them, no matter their stars. Find us the garvins and rousseaus. Grab the duke johnsons and deon bushes. Get the best guys.
/end rant