Compared to what it should be.
Think about this… we are a team that is supposed to ROTATE 6 DTs (minimum; when Choate got here he described it as like 3 hockey lines)… and we have two general body types we look for based on primary (not exclusive) responsibilities -> NOSE (space eater) and 3-TECH (upfield guy)
And the first year (2014) of Pete we took
Greg Gaines (good)
Jaylen Johnson (good, but how many 230 guys do you want to convert to DTs? wonder why he struggled with injuries?)
Shane Bowman (not that good, same question as Jaylen)
Will Dissly (who we then moved to TE and didn’t really use much)
So – that is not amazing, but it was put together in a scramble and so you’d expect the next year we’d go after maybe two space eating noses, right? Hahaha.
Well, it turns out that this class finished through 2018 and combined with the guys who’d come before, we were fine for a while. But
NOW WE COME TO THE PEOPLE WE HAD ON ROSTER THIS YEAR
2015
Jason Scrempos (project, 6-6 – rated an .85, weighed 240 – wonder why he got hurt??)
Ricky McCoy (rated an .84; project; wasn’t playing – left)
and eventually from this class we would try to shoe-horn Benning and a walk on (Jared Pulu) in to NT.
UGH.
OKAY – SO STOP – THIS IS WHY YOU CAN’T COUNT WHAT WE GOT LAST AND THIS YEAR THE SAME. THESE WERE OUR SENIORS THIS YEAR.
So, when neither one of these guys panned out we were fucked. You might think we would go hard the next year to get our numbers up (remember we need SIX functioning DTs at all times).
2016
Levi Onwuzurike
Yes, that’s it. Levi was our first four star (YIPPEEE!!!), but also weighed 260 and had been injured in HS. How lucky are we that he didn’t go the Scrempos route of constant injury??
So, yeah, we took ONE GUY in 2016. So you might think – okay – NOW WE ARE GOING TO REALLY LOAD UP BECAUSE IN THE PAST TWO CLASSES WE HAVE 3 GUYS… and we probably need to average 3 guys per class with the kind of attrition we see and the numbers we play.
lolno
2017
NO ONE
Yes. We got no one. We signed Ali Gaye (we only offered him late because we were desperate after USC pick pocketed us with Marlon).
So, this means – are you ready – that in 3 years, instead of getting 9-10 guys (probably what we should do every 3 years), we got THREE.
And we had to play Levi out of position because for some mind bending reason we don’t think numbers at nose are important (hint: they are).
SOOOOOOOOO—— did we learn from this mess?
Kind of.
In 2018 it appeared Ikaika knew what was at stake and we took Mosiah to get some Poly momentum started. Mosiah’s .85 rating was the lowest in that class and Greg Gaines’ .85 rating had been like the fourth highest in his. So that’s good.
We also got Taki (.92) for the early signing period and managed to sign Tuli (.95; I STILL CANNOT BELIEVE WE DID THIS) late.
We also got our upgraded Jason Scrempos in Draco Bynum (.89).
Then, of course last year (2019) we added the best DL class we’ve ever had with Tui (.96), Bandes (.96), Pa’ama (.89) and Ngalu (.87).
But as you can clearly see – we created a MASSIVE and UNNECESSARY gap in our ability to field a decent DL.
You have to assume that with these big guys, the average player is only going to be ready to really make an impact in year 3 (RS-Soph for most). So you aren’t going to sign guys who will come in and play, generally.
And as you can see, when you get lighter guys they get injured.
Last year we had Levi and… Josiah Bronson (walk on who was a DE), Benning (who’d been an OLB) and then freshmen.
Next year will be the first year we will have a little piece of depth, but as you can see, the total negligence of the 2017 class (along with the face that we only took ONE GUY Levi’s year) makes it so we are still going to be pretty thin on the DL.
And when you look at this year’s possibility of JUST GETTING Tanoa Togiai, think about this – is he more of a sure fire guy like Levi or more like Scrempos? We are going to end up with a year where the only senior is Tanoa Togiai.
Why would we do that to ourselves? It’s absolute foolishness.
I love Ikaika, but we need 9-10 guys every 3 years and a minimum of 2 per year. It would be nice if they were good.
But that’s why shit was wonky this year and Levi had to play out of position.
