Our current starting defense is as follows, per 247 composite:
DE: Shareef Miller, 3 stars, .8681 (2015)
DT: Curtis Cothran, 3 stars, .8465 (2013)
DT: Parker Cothren, 3 stars, .8307 (2013)
DE: Kevin Givens, 3 stars, .8498 (2015),
LB: Manny Bowen, 4 stars, .9029 (2015)
LB: Jason Cabinda, 3 stars, .8477 (2014)
LB: Koa Farmer, 3 stars, .8807 (2014)
CB: Grant Haley, 3 stars, .8578 (2014)
CB: Christian Campbell, 3 stars, .8354 (2014)
S: Troy Apke, 3 stars, .8681 (2014)
S: Marcus Allen, 3 stars, .8877 (2014)
At one point, we had the following guys penciled in as starters who are now out with injury:
Torrence Brown, 3 stars, .8178 (2014)
John Reid, 4 stars, .9416 (2015)
Ryan Buchholz, 4 stars, .9056 (2015)
The long and short of it is that our starting defense as currently constructed is filled with a bunch of solid three-star guys, many of whom are upperclassmen and have been playing since they were underclassmen. All of them are arguably playing at a level exceeding their composite rating. That's a credit to our staff and their ability to scout and develop talent.
The issue remains - as it has for a few years now - that we have very few upperclassmen who are blue chip talents. And it hurts a lot more when the inevitable injuries that occur happen to occur to some of the precious few blue chip guys on the depth chart (Reid and Buchholz) or an upperclassmen who has developed (Brown). Replacing a .9056 Buchholz with an .8498 Givens hurts, and replacing .9416 Reid with .8354 Campbell hurts. That's no disrespect to Givens or Campbell who are both outplaying their ranking, but the top programs in the nation are replacing a .9500 player with another .9500 player. We're getting there, but we're obviously not there yet.
