Geno Lewis
- Thread starter zzangeneh
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Geno will probably start and have a great year at Oklahoma, if he stays healthy and performs as expected during practice to win a starting WR spot. They graduated their top 2 or 3 WR's from last year, which was why he chose to go there.....
Geno seemed like a great kid. I remember watching him in the Big 33 and he showed then how he could elevate and catch the deep passes. There was a lot of optimism that he would have a great career at PSU, and if not for the impact the sanctions had on our OL and offense he may have performed at a higher level and set a few PSU records. Yes, I wish him well and hope he can make it to the Sunday league....
Geno seemed like a great kid. I remember watching him in the Big 33 and he showed then how he could elevate and catch the deep passes. There was a lot of optimism that he would have a great career at PSU, and if not for the impact the sanctions had on our OL and offense he may have performed at a higher level and set a few PSU records. Yes, I wish him well and hope he can make it to the Sunday league....
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I wish him well; handwriting was on the wall that he would see less playing time here because of the emergence of underclassmen.
I think Lewis could have made an impact this year for PSU. The problem is if he stayed he would be taking minutes away from kids like Blacknall and that might have forced another transfer. Franklin is no doubt planning for the long run.
Too bad the recruiting has been unbalanced. Too many WRs and not enough linemen or linebackers.
To a certain extent, I agree with you about linebackers (although I think this wouldn't be nearly as bad were it not for Reeder's transfer) - but I don't agree that we haven't recruited enough linemen. Here are all of the linemen we've signed over the past three cycles - and keep in mind that guys like Simmons could very well become a LB, and there were a number of guys like Givens who could have grown into a LB but grew into a DT instead:
DL (4 on the field): Simmons, Jordan, Joseph, Chavis, Shelton, Thrift, Carter, Givens, Buchholz, Miller, Windsor, Brown, Barney (graduated), White
OL (5 on the field): McGovern, Menet, Fries, Gellerstedt, Bates, Jenkins, Palmer, Gonzales, Brosnan, Sorrell, Wright
LB (3 on the field): Toney, Brown, Cooper, Bowen, Cabinda, Reeder (transferred), Kelly (got in trouble)
WR (3-4 on the field): Darien, Polk, Thompkins, Johnson, Charles, Blacknall, Godwin
That seems like a very fair number of OL and DL over three cycles, and it seems like a reasonable number of WR. We just haven't seen many of them on the field yet because they're young or coming off their redshirts.
Pretty simple. With 85 scholarships, thats almost complete 4 teams (22 - 11 on offense and 11 on defense)
OL - need somewhere between 15 and 19 on scholarship, and there would normally be 8-12 upper classmen, given that many will redshirt. During the last 4 years we have not had the upper classmen OL talent to field a good OL.
DL - with 4 on the field need 7+ DE's and 7+ DT's. As has been discussed, we are fine at DE, but we are short now on upperclass DT's.
LB - With 3 on the field need 9-11 scholarship LB's, a number we have not had the last few years, and a number we won't get to unless CJF brings in a bunch with the 2017 class. We now have 6 scholarship LB's practicing this Spring and will have 8 this Fall counting Toney and Brown who some believe may grow out of being LB's)
WR - I have heard of no info to believe we will have 4 WR on the field. With 2-3 on the field we need 8+ WR's on the roster, which we have (8 this fall by my count, 9 if you count Gerity who is a walk on that I believe was granted a scholarship for his Sr year)
Good numbers. For my count, I don't really count Garrity as a scholarship player because his scholarship came through a one-year opening for his senior season, rather than being recruited as a scholarship WR. For the WR's, I would be very surprised if we run out with only 2 WR's outside of short-yardage situations on a regular basis. I strongly suspect from what I've watched of Moorhead's offense that our base personnel will be 1 RB, 1 TE, and 3 WR, with permutations coming from there.
From there, I also suspect that the statistics would indicate that we run in nickel personnel on defense much more than we expect - and our nickel personnel is typically 4 DL, 2 LB, and 5 DB (with the nickel either being a CB or S). If we use nickel personnel almost as much as we use base personnel, it continues to lessen the necessity of sheer numbers at LB and makes the numbers at CB and S much more important - which is reflected in the recruiting cycles so far. That said, our LB corps (in base) will be SR/SR/JR, respectively, in 2016 so I would like to see us grab 2-3 this cycle. Rivers and hopefully Roberts will be a good start - but we've also had some bad luck with transfers and dismissals at the position, and it might necessitate a guy like Simmons moving positions, as much as you hate to move a guy out of necessity rather than skillset. If Simmons redshirts as he's said he wants to, it might give him some more time to adjust.
I also agree that we're short on upperclassmen all throughout the roster - but the impact is felt the most in 2016 at OL and DT. That's corrected more as a function of time than recruiting, and I think we're now on the right path to normalcy at both of those positions.
I did this quickly so I might have missed some things so here goes:
2013, 2014, & 2015:
8 WRs: (Apke, Godwon, Balcknall, Thompkins, Hamilton, Charles, Johnson, Polk)
14 DBs: (Allen, Campbell, Haley, Oruwarie, Worley, Gaines, S. Smith, J. Smith, Robinson, Miller, Reid, Petrishen, Taylor, Monroe)
5 LBs: (Only 1 in 2013 Bell, Only 2 in 2014 Cabinda & Reeder, and only 3 in 2015 Bowen, Cooper, Kelly). Reeder & Kelly are now gone
5 DTs: (None in 2013, 2 in 2014 White, Barney, 3 in 2015 Carter, Windsor, Givens ). But this is misleading because Barney was only a 2 year JUCO transfer and Carter, Windsor, & Givens were DEs or LBs that needed to grow a lot to fill the DT position.
I see a huge imbalance. Too many WRs & DBs, not enough LBs and DTs. I'm not counting 2016 because those kids aren't ready to play. The damage was done in 2013-1015. I know we had scholarship limitations but all the more reason not to load too many at one position.
Just go to GOPSUSPORTS and look at the official roster. It does not include inoming frosh that will arrive this Fall (August) or the graduating/graduated seniors that are not practicing now. You can sort it on "POS", i.e. position, which allows you to quickly see where the staff now is playing each player.
For example, Apke has been playing DB for a year, played Safety last year as a true freshmen, and has a chance to win a starting Safety spot. No use categorizing him as a WR as when he got to campus and evaluated him, and moved him, that impacted the numbers and the priority positions recruiting wise going forward from there....
But as has been pointed out, having 6 scholarship LB's practicing in the Spring is a concern, especially with only 2 coming in (that were not natural LB's in H.S.) for the Fall. It would be great of 1 or 2 of the talented walk on LB (Johnson, Vranic,....) develops into a real prime time player....
Same with DT, from a recruiting stand point. But at DT the growth of some DE's into DT's looks to have made up for the lack of recruiting success. This DE to DT progression is something that we have not seen much of at PSU, and seems to be taking place somewhat out of necessity, but this is more common at other programs and may be part of the overall strategy of CJF and coach Chaos. And the two JC DT's coming will also likely address the depth at DT. But J.C. players can't really be counted on a blue chip recruits even if they come in and play well, such as Barney who would have started on most teams, since they will only contribute for 2 years at the most and a blue chip recruit that is the real deal contributes as a freshman and likely starts at least 2 other years.....
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I know that Apke moved to DB but that's immaterial to my analysis. That just means 6 DBs and 3 WRs in 2014 vs. only 2 LBs and 1 DT that year. No matter how you slice it we recruited way more WRs and DBs compared to LBs and DTs.
I'll root for the walkon LBs because I'm a PSU fan and I love the underdogs. But I'm not holding my breath that our walkon LBs can compete with OSU's 4* LBs.
Same with the DTs. Only one 4 year scholarship in 2013 and 2014. 2015 recruits normally wouldn't play until 2017. Our 2015 kids are undersized because they were originally recruited as DEs. We'are asking a lot to have them play meaningful minutes at DT in 2016.
I think it's worth pointing out that even if the recruiting services listed a guy like Apke as a WR, there's no indication that PSU was ever recruiting him as anything other than a S. It's similar to a guy like Toney, who is listed as a DE on the services when we've apparently recruited him from the beginning as a LB. Similarly, Carter was listed as an ATH but has been a DT pretty much from the day he stepped onto campus.
Yep. But I still don't understand why Carter is listed as a DE on the official roster. And I was led to believe he would be the one of the DT's that would be ready to make an impact, yet there has been virtually no mention of him this Spring. Wonder if he is injured.
Roster management has been tough job for CJF in trying to recover from the less than 65 scholarship players he inherited, especially since he has aimed for top talent. But he will get there, with the LB & DT situations the last remnants of the sanctions. It seems he just happened to have more initial success at DB, WR, and DE. We are OK at QB, but it is another position that will have considerably more depth a couple of years from now....
Very few on either the OL or DL at PSU. But Clemson started a true frosh on their OL last year on a team that went to the championship game.
But we tend to see more play on the DL as there are usually liberal substitutions on the DL and it is easier and more worthwhile to the team and player to play a true freshmen on the DL. On the DL a very good player can get some playing time / reps and contribute in spot duty, getting better as the season goes on and then being more ready to take on a larger role in the next year. But there are few substitutions on the OL unless they are made due to injury or poor performance so to burn a redshirt doesn't make sense in most cases. Also, on the DL a speedy, athletic player can make an impact before he has full, mature strength, whereas the OL requires more precise and developed technique as well as strength (in today's game) that usually only comes by multiple years in a college weight training program.
Redshirt frosh is quite different. I would not be at all surprised if both Menet and McGovern start in 2017, their 2nd year, whether or not they redshirt. In fact, both would probably be labeled as favorites to start in 2017 from what we know of their abilities and what we know of the other OL players that will be available in 2017.
I actually think Geno is going to thrive in the BIG12 (with far fewer teams) because they Aren't tough and don't play. defense. If Geno is able to hook-up with a QB who targets him, he'll do well.
Clemson also had a true FR, Christian Wilkins, starting at DT. What a difference it would have made for PSU if we could have landed him.....
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