The JUCO plan

by Narby on Oct 28, 2009 1:28 PM CDT Comment 7 comments

The past couple of years have brought several highly touted Juco transfers to our football team. I looked at what the contribution has been by each player and it hasn't really panned out for Brewster.

Tramaine Brock- Played one year and was a solid contributer with good coverage skills at safety. He was a little weak in run support. Academic casualty before the start of this year.

Simoni Lawrence- Last year he flashed big play ability. Excellent speed for a LB, but I have been really dissappointed this year with his inability to get off his block and contain. He has missed outside contain in many different games this year and Pryor beat him to the outside and turned the corner numerous times last week. He has been basically invisible this year and easily the weakest link in a strong linebacking core.

David Pittman- (who?????)

Rex Sharpe- I thought he would play more this year, but Triplett came on with gusto. In fairness he has been buried in the teams strongest position, behind Campbell and Triplett and has been relegated to special teams.

Traye Simmons- He has been getting burned for a TD weekly. He has not lived up to his own hype and has been servicable at best.

Tim McGee- Academic casualty before he could make it on the team.

Hayo Carpernter- Came in with strong expectations in a huge position of need to take some of the pressure off of Decker. His game speed has not been as advertised, failing to get seperation when he has played. He was also caught by a DE in the Wisconsin game on an end around. He runs a 4.5 at absolute best and doesn't have the shiftiness of Stoudermire or Allen. It hurts more that he is a bust since this is such a huge need position for us. With Decker going down we really need someone to step up, my guess is that it will be Bryant Allen.

The majority of these players were rated as 4 star recruits with only Lawrence and Brock being 3 stars. They are a major reason we have had such highly ranked recruiting classes, but as you can see all they have really been good for is padding the recruiting numbers. When trying to build our team, Juco transfers have clearly not been our answer.

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Cedric McKinley

has been solid as a JUCO recruit. I agree that the JUCOs have not had the desired impact, but the team would be far worse off without all of these guys.

Buck Bravo

by Buck Bravo on Oct 28, 2009 1:36 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

And Wills

I also forgot the very large tub of goo Jeff Wills who gets beat off the edge by anyone with speed and has been unable to push anyone back despite his tremendous size.

I saw McKinley fall on the snap over the head in the Syracuse game, has he been playing since then?

I wonder if that is a freudian slip that I forgot about our offensive line and defensive ends since they have been so- well—forgetable.

by Narby on Oct 28, 2009 1:49 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Hmmmmmmm

I THOUGHT I had read this somewhere else yesterday.

by JG2112 on Oct 29, 2009 7:44 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

These JUCO greats will go down in Gopher history

what you say here can, and will, be used against you

by GopherNation on Oct 29, 2009 3:21 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

JUCO competition

I think JUCOs tend to get vastly overrated because of the level of competition they face. The leagues they play in are often garbage (worse than some of their high school leagues, in fact) and so the decent players tend to look like superstars. Its remarkably similar to the NFL trying to put a draft grade on a DII football player vs a DI football player.

by Jayrome007 on Oct 29, 2009 9:58 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

JUCO's,

along with recruiting classes,assistant coaches,coaching philosophies,and head coaching have ALL been a major disappointment.How many other Big Ten teams have their teams swoon every year after 4 or 5 games? The only areas of improvement under Brewster have been in facilities and strength of schedule. Bottom line: the Gophers have become the opposition’s cupcake.I really,really DO want to feel good about the Gopher football program. Somebody,anybody,tell me why I’m wrong.

by mahogma66 on Oct 31, 2009 2:19 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

well

I think you will know what to expect after this year based upon how we end the season. If we end it going 2-1, you should feel good about us being a middle of the pack team who can overcome some adversity. If we go 1-2, then I expect the gophers to end up in the low middle range fairly consistently under Brewster. Let’s not talk about 0-3.

by TheEvilProfessor on Nov 1, 2009 10:40 AM CST up reply actions 0 recs