Football Recruiting - 2015

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WIU0812
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It would be nice to see a Big TE with WR capabilities for Trenton, but most of those are hard to come by in the FCS schools. I am pretty sure our Redshirt Freshman Pete Swanson is going to be pretty good though so may not be an immediate need. Reloading the Defense and adding a couple of WR would be a smart idea.
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ST_Lawson
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I tossed the current roster through my player data chart from last year, and here's where we're at prior to signing day: (be sure to click through the page tabs at the bottom for charts and stuff).
I also manually added in Nikko Watson, since barring any other issues, it looks like he'll be a Senior RB this next fall for us.
Feel free to take a look and analyze. Also, let me know if you'd like me to run the numbers any differently, or add in calculations or data.

Without looking at players that still might, for whatever reason, leave the team, either to play elsewhere or to just focus on other priorities, the seniors that we lost last year were:
2 RB, 1 WR, 1 OL, 2 DL, 1 DE, 3 LB, 6 DB
Total of 4 on offense, 12 on defense, and no special teams.
(for reference, here's last year's chart)

I don't know exactly what the strategy that coaches usually follow is...do they normally try to find guys roughly equivalent to the current year's seniors? So that they'd be redshirted the first year, then take over, at least filling in the depth, where the leaving seniors left off?

This year's seniors include: 2 RB (including Nikko), 1 WR, 3 TE, 4 OL, 5 DL, 2 LB, 3 DB
Totals of 10 offense, 10 defense, and again no special teams.

I would say that defense would be a strong priority, but we'll also need some O-line guys over the next couple of years.
I also noticed an odd listing...#51 Colin Olson (DL) is listed as a R-So. but I don't see any of the other Sophomores listed that way (including many who also redshirted their freshman years), so I'm changing how he's listed on my chart...he's a Sophomore.

We do currently only have 2 QBs listed on the roster: Norvell (Jr.) and Sean McGuire (R-Fr.). This means that two of the QBs from last year: Rhys Gervais and Devin O'Hara have left the team to do other things. I assume that Trenton will start and Sean will be the backup, then barring any injuries, we'll keep any true freshmen QBs as redshirts this year if possible. So, we'll probably need at least one QB just to have an emergency 3rd for this season, but would probably like to have a couple.

Overall, it seems like we've got a pretty "donut-shaped" defense...and no, that's not specifically a knock against their shapes or their ability to stop the run. What I mean is that we have 10 Seniors, 0 Juniors, then 10 Sophomores and 9 R-Freshmen. Really, other than pretty much our top offensive "playmakers", we have very few juniors on the 2015 team. I don't really know what that means for recruiting, but it's an interesting thing to take a look at.
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letsgonecks
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You can always have a Freshman QB dress and travel with the team, but redshirt or come into action if need be. I'd assume J'Vaughn would be the emergency QB if needed. Especially if it looked to be short term fill. Has a full year under the system as Trenton's back-up 2 years ago.
letsgonecks
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Kinda strange occurance, but a scholarship comes open at Iowas for Wilson and he drops us. The scholarship might have been the one pulled from QB Jack Beneventi and he's now committed to WIU. Possibly using the scholarship opened up from Wilson.

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/r ... nti-142337
letsgonecks
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Rivals also shows OL Drew Wagner committed.

http://sports.yahoo.com/footballrecruit ... 7FaeBDPZB4
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ST_Lawson
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They'll be posting a lot of the signing day news on the WIU Football twitter account:

[twitteruser]wiufootball, 562720972269436928[/twitteruser]
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sealhall74
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letsgonecks wrote:Kinda strange occurance, but a scholarship comes open at Iowas for Wilson and he drops us. The scholarship might have been the one pulled from QB Jack Beneventi and he's now committed to WIU. Possibly using the scholarship opened up from Wilson.

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/r ... nti-142337
Don't tell me schools are now "trading" signees - sort of reminds me of the pros trading draft pick positions.
Embrace the pace of the race.
wiu712
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ST_Lawson wrote:We do currently only have 2 QBs listed on the roster: Norvell (Jr.) and Sean McGuire (R-Fr.). This means that two of the QBs from last year: Rhys Gervais and Devin O'Hara have left the team to do other things.
Rhys Gervais has transferred to the University of Findlay in Findlay, Ohio.

The University of Findlay is a member of the NCAA Division II and competes in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (GLIAC).
meganeck
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wiu51 wrote:
ST_Lawson wrote:
meganeck wrote:WIU will be losing a recruit, Nick Wilson from Des Moines, received an offer from Iowa today. So he is de-committing from WIU to commit to Iowa.
That sucks, but you can't blame the kid. A Big 10 offer and closer to home...yea...hard to compete with that.
In a year or two we can get him back after he doesn't play for a year or two.
If he wasn't from Iowa I might agree, but I don't see him leaving since it has been his dream to play for Iowa.
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