National Signing Day 2016

ibleedpurpleandgold
Posts: 304
Joined: Tue Dec 29, 2015 11:16 pm

That school in central Il only signed 17 as well.
ibleedpurpleandgold
Posts: 304
Joined: Tue Dec 29, 2015 11:16 pm

YSU 11
NDSU 26 (16 scholarships 10 walk on)
WIU 17
ISU 17
USD 31
SDSU 29
In ST 23
UNI 29
Mo St 14
Siu 22
Here are the #'s on the MVC classes are class was small but there were several small classes in the league.
rocki
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Joined: Sat Apr 19, 2014 9:08 pm

Wonder how many of those had more kids that graduated than we did?

I remember being concerned last year because the defense was so young. I'm thinking we probably didn't lose that many to grad?
ibleedpurpleandgold
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rocki wrote:Wonder how many of those had more kids that graduated than we did?

I remember being concerned last year because the defense was so young. I'm thinking we probably didn't lose that many to grad?
We lost quit a bit on the DL but most of are secondary and all are LB's are back.
rocki
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OK, I thought we lost most of the DL before last season. My mistake.

So, this might be some of the cases where kids have to step up immediately?
ibleedpurpleandgold
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rocki wrote:OK, I thought we lost most of the DL before last season. My mistake.

So, this might be some of the cases where kids have to step up immediately?
Yeah coach fisher that some of those guys would step in and need to play to provide depth.
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ST_Lawson
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You can see who all we lost to graduation this last year at the 2015 Seniors thread here: http://www.leathernecknation.net/forum/ ... ?f=7&t=742
DB - 4
LB - 1
TE - 2
RB - 1
OL - 1
DL - 4

Not all of those guys were regular starters though. Most of the D-line guys were starters, 1 TE (Larry Harris), the RB (Nikko Watson), and the O-Lineman (Ryan Ricketts) were starters. The rest were mostly depth/backup players. If you look at our two-deep chart from before the last Illinois State game (page 23 of the game notes here: http://goleathernecks.com/documents/201 ... df?id=3884) you see that 3 of the four starters on D-line were seniors, none of the LBs were seniors, and none of the starting CBs were seniors.

Obviously we've got some great young players on defense that have stepped up in the last year or so, but we did get burned for an average of just under 30 points per game last year, so I think the focus was primarily:
1. Get defensive players who can fill in, in a few instances start right away, but mostly add depth to the defense. Also, get some players who can challenge the existing defensive players somewhat...maybe the new players will still redshirt, but having some talent "breathing down your neck" might be able to light a fire under some players. In the case of the D-line though, it's thin enough that we will likely end up having to play one or two of the new freshmen right away. I hate seeing them burn a redshirt year, but we just don't have the numbers right now to go without them for a year.
2. Get a few position players on offense that have a lot of talent to help develop and see if they can take over in a year or two after the existing starters are done.

2016 will be the last year of Norvell/Lenoir/Borsellino, so we'll need to have something to replace them. Obviously McGuire has shown signs of being able to take over for Norvell (or even start in place of him, depending on how things go), but will 2017 be McGuire throwing to Lesure and Smith....or maybe some other combination? Those are the players and schemes that need to be planned for and getting put into place now, so that the players are all ready to go when they need to be.

Defensively in terms of the 2016 season, we have a total of 1 senior on the entire defense (Jean-Marc Charles)...everyone else is younger, and the largest "class" of defensive players are our sophomores, where we have 14 players, so we'll have them for a few more years. Still, lots of experience was lost from the d-line last year, so that's why they brought in 9 defensive players (3 of them d-linemen) this class.

If you want to look over the numbers and breakdown, here's my spreadsheet of players. The Players tab is just a listing of everyone on the current roster (updated 2/4/2016), the Totals tab shows the breakdown by class, position, percentages of the group in each class year, etc., and the last three tabs (Offense, Defense, All Players) show bar charts that help illustrate some of the numbers. Like, for example, it's easy to see from the chart that most of our O-linemen are going to be Juniors this next year, the class with the most WRs is currently the sophomores, etc. One thing to keep in mind when looking at it, it looks like the new freshmen are the only ones where they'd specifically classified DE's, rather than just saying DL (for all Tackles and Ends), so it looks like we only have the two freshmen DE's, even though some of the older players listed as DL (D-Linemen) do play DE.
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ST_Lawson
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And you guys remember how I said it's a signing period, not just signing day....

[tweet]696083207909986306[/tweet]

For reference...
Area code 717 is a telephone area code which serves south central Pennsylvania, used in the Harrisburg-Lancaster-York metropolitan areas.
Scott Lawson - Board Admin
Western Illinois University Alum/Fan/Employee
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ibleedpurpleandgold
Posts: 304
Joined: Tue Dec 29, 2015 11:16 pm

ST_Lawson wrote:And you guys remember how I said it's a signing period, not just signing day....

[tweet]696083207909986306[/tweet]

For reference...
Area code 717 is a telephone area code which serves south central Pennsylvania, used in the Harrisburg-Lancaster-York metropolitan areas.
https://twitter.com/Lij65
This kid has been following the staff and players.
Leatherneck57
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Joined: Thu Dec 17, 2015 9:41 am

A very good disciplined player when you watch him on film. Very quick, explosive, holds his ground and gets off blocks well!

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