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Several of our signees, including a few of our tops guys, are not listed on the roster. Odell Spencer isn't on the roster any longer. He was on it as recent as the one for MAC media day. He was rated our #2 recruit coming in this year's class behind Darrion Landry. Ty Redding (Teo's brother) is not listed any longer, and neither is Rashaun O'Neal.

This is why recruiting classes are usually taken with a grain of salt. Some kids don't show up, others flip commitments at the last moment or other circumstances get in the way. Hopefully these won't be too big of losses.

Spencer, from Shaker hts, skipped out of a commit a few yrs ago, IIRC. Not positive, but i know he wasnt a 2016 grad at least.

Class of 61 wrote:Spencer, from Shaker hts, skipped out of a commit a few yrs ago, IIRC. Not positive, but i know he wasnt a 2016 grad at least.

Spencer committed to BG in 2014 then backed out and went to Cincinnati where he did not qualify. He then enrolled at Lakeland College in 2015 and then signed with BG in February of 2016.

One name who isn't on the roster but appears to be in camp is Deonta Belser, a 6'5", 235lb DE out of Cincinnati Elder. He was initially committed to play at Urbana and signed his NLI there. His Twitter account is below.

https://twitter.com/Team_Belser" target="_blank

jpfalcon09 wrote:This is why recruiting classes are usually taken with a grain of salt. Some kids don't show up, others flip commitments at the last moment or other circumstances get in the way. Hopefully these won't be too big of losses.

Exactly. I think we still have a lot of talent, albeit some unproven, at WR.

LB Matt Finkler is no longer on the team

Added to the roster..
Calen Taylor, RB
Davaugn Alexander, OL
Montre Gregory, DB
Pete Norris, WR, he was on the roster a couple years ago.

No longer on the roster
Saquan Qualtney, DL
Erik Sherkel, WR

Siborg wrote:Added to the roster..
Calen Taylor, RB
Davaugn Alexander, OL
Montre Gregory, DB
Pete Norris, WR, he was on the roster a couple years ago.

No longer on the roster
Saquan Qualtney, DL
Erik Sherkel, WR

Sherkel transferred out already to Santa Barbara City College. Barely on campus long enough for a cup of coffee.

Anyone know why Finkler is gone? I know he came from a very small HS (kirtland) and was pretty dominant there. Could be too big a jump in competition level?

Class of 61 wrote:Anyone know why Finkler is gone? I know he came from a very small HS (kirtland) and was pretty dominant there. Could be too big a jump in competition level?

Den,

I was excited to see what he could do. I work with a dude, who lives in Willoughby, and he raved about him at Kirtland. I'll see if he heard anything.

20 days til we shock world...

With all the I'm playing no I'm not to no shows this reminds me of Huger and last year's basketball recruits. Although they did a little better than I expected, I hope we haven't lost enough that were expected to fill vacant positions that leave us jammed up for the couple of years or are we in a rebuilding phase for a couple years that was hoping we would be able to reduce that time by having some of these players.

Tech2000 wrote:With all the I'm playing no I'm not to no shows this reminds me of Huger and last year's basketball recruits. Although they did a little better than I expected, I hope we haven't lost enough that were expected to fill vacant positions that leave us jammed up for the couple of years or are we in a rebuilding phase for a couple years that was hoping we would be able to reduce that time by having some of these players.

I think I understand but, um, I'm not quite sure...

We lost a lot of skilled players from last year thus it seems that the staff went after not only for future positions but JUCO to fill spots for immediate play. It appears that the no shows are mainly from those positions. Last year when Huger came in, he was met with players asking for their release, both recruits and players already here. That was a revolving door until around August where he finally decided either your here or not; cant field a team without knowing who is and is not here. The BB team, I felt would probably be around 500, which they did, but did better in the MAC tourney that I thought they would. Now, we seem to be having a similar issue where players are not honoring their commitment, just not showing up, and or leaving. With Babers leaving when he did, we lost a lot of his recruits that would have been his first real class, many in those skilled positions that Jinks had to go after to fill now. In part, knew it would be a rebuilding year for some positions thus the JUCO route, to get college experience players, to give time for the recruits to learn for next year or so. Now, it appears that with those positions now vacant by the lack of commitment, no I don't blame them if they felt they were in over their heads, our younger players are going to need to learn faster as they will be next up. We may not really see what this team can do until a year or 2 down the line. Basically, a temporary fix that may not work out for us this year. And now that we have some significant injuries in those positions, ie defensive back field, that depth really relies more on the new recruits.

Tech2000 wrote:We lost a lot of skilled players from last year thus it seems that the staff went after not only for future positions but JUCO to fill spots for immediate play. It appears that the no shows are mainly from those positions. Last year when Huger came in, he was met with players asking for their release, both recruits and players already here. That was a revolving door until around August where he finally decided either your here or not; cant field a team without knowing who is and is not here. The BB team, I felt would probably be around 500, which they did, but did better in the MAC tourney that I thought they would. Now, we seem to be having a similar issue where players are not honoring their commitment, just not showing up, and or leaving. With Babers leaving when he did, we lost a lot of his recruits that would have been his first real class, many in those skilled positions that Jinks had to go after to fill now. In part, knew it would be a rebuilding year for some positions thus the JUCO route, to get college experience players, to give time for the recruits to learn for next year or so. Now, it appears that with those positions now vacant by the lack of commitment, no I don't blame them if they felt they were in over their heads, our younger players are going to need to learn faster as they will be next up. We may not really see what this team can do until a year or 2 down the line. Basically, a temporary fix that may not work out for us this year. And now that we have some significant injuries in those positions, ie defensive back field, that depth really relies more on the new recruits.

This is the issue when you're on your third head coach since 2013...there's going to be kids who either bail because the coach that recruited them is no longer with the program, or they get to campus and realize it's not for them. Given the circumstances Jinks faced between having kids renege on commitments and having to fill in spots from those who left/transferred or graduated, he deserves some leeway here. Sometimes all you can do is put a band-aid on a gash and hope it stops it bleeding enough buy you some time.

Hopefully Jinks is around long enough where he is able to build a program that will be sustainable to his style of play. That's something Dave Clawson should be commended for, and it could be argued Babers didn't do enough to ensure that continuity...but that's an argument for another thread. However, that gap may result in some short-term pain for the program, especially after a season where many of us were spoiled by some of the numbers and accomplishments the program was able to achieve.