jpfalcon09 wrote:
He's not directly responsible, but it begs the question about the culture of the football program. Where's the leadership?
Those two words, culture and leadership, were tossed around these parts a lot at the end of the Brandon tenure. Brandon was let go largely because of attrition. He would sign good classes and by the time they were juniors and seniors, the classes were largely gutted, between academics, trouble, dropouts, etc and the result was 6-6 (4-4) in 2008 with a squad that had 12-0 and conference champions written all over them.
I can remember senior day in 2010 and 2011. The seniors (those that were recruited as freshmen) would have been recruited in 2006, 2007, or 2008, so second half Brandon tenure recruiting where a bunch of his recruits had character issues that he and staff either didn't notice or were willing to accept. There were only like eight or so seniors in each of those senior days that were recruited as freshmen. Then come 2012 and beyond when the classes reflected Clawson recruiting, the story was back to where it should be.
So I decided to do some quick research into attrition on the current squad. And what I found was a bit shocking.
2016 recruiting
Between high school and juco, the 2016 class brought a total of 22 recruits. Of those, only 9 are still on roster. That alone is utterly shocking. Two years in, guys that should be either juniors or redshirt sophomores.
Now two of them (Skattebo and Jefferies) have graduated. Skattebo was a junior college transfer and Jefferies amazingly graduated in two years and is transferring for grad school. Great for both of these guys.
Among the rest, you've got a transfer for playing time (Cunningham), quit the sport due to injury (Zimmerman), trouble (Hitchens and Posey), and many others I have no explanation.
Regardless, that is Brandon-level attrition.
2017 recruiting
Between high school and juco, the 2017 recruiting class brought 26 recruits. Of those, 7 are gone, 19 are still on roster. While this is a far better ratio than 2016, remember that these guys haven't even played the season opener of their second season, and this class was lauded as the best class in BG history.
Of the 7 gone, you've got Wilcox and Guyton, kicked off for violent assaults in the off-season, you've got Koontz, lauded as the best player of the class, who never showed, and you've got a few more. That is a quarter of the "greatest class in BG history" gone before beginning their second season.
Now I have to reiterate that I am expecting a turnaround this year. Jinks is in his third year, and third year of a head coach is generally when the team truly becomes his team. He's got a talented roster with a bunch of freshmen playing beyond their years. He's got an actual defensive coordinator instead of a position coach (whose results as position coach weren't even that good) carrying around a clipboard acting like he knows what he's doing. He's got a team that was in some games they had no business being in for as long as they did. All the pieces are there. That all said, when you break it down, this level of attrition is very concerning. The last coach we fired was fired for this very reason, and now two more Jinks recruits who have played for this staff for two years are out the door.