I was incredibly bored yesterday so decided to look back at the transition from Gill to Weis to see just how early we should have been alarmed. Warning: Long Post
But first a shout out to the state of Kansas putting out a tremendous 2011 class. https://n.rivals.com/state_rankings/2011/kansas
Phillips, Starling, Ray, Whitehair, Dreamius Smith, Brady Foltz, Heeney, Mike Reynolds, Victor Simmons, Morgan Burns...it's not often the state puts out that many P5 contributors in one class and we even benefitted landing #'s 6, 7, 11, 12 & 13. Not offering Cody Whitehair and Brady Foltz was just a tiny bit of a whiff, but I'm not sure it would have mattered.
This instate haul led to one of KU's best HS classes of the decade- Mike Cummings, Dexter McDonald, Tony Pierson, Victor Simmons, Ben Heeney, Mike Reynolds, Damon Martin, Jacorey Shepherd, Ben Goodman all were big contributors, with several getting to play on Sundays. (Unfortunately not any DT's listed and OL had a lot of non contributors)
So record wise we were bad in 2011 with all the reported issues with discipline, grades and S&C...but scholarship # wise were in a decent spot with considerably more talent than I remember throughout the roster. (James Sims, Tyler Patmon, Jimmay Mundine, Andrew Turzilli, Keba Agostinho, Darius Willis, Jordan Webb, Tunde Bakare, Brad McDougald, Toben Oporum, Ramblood, Daymond Patterson, Kale Pick, Duane Zlatnik, Trevor Marrongelli, Tanner Hawkinson). Alright so obviously just those guys aren't enough for a complete program and win a bunch on Saturdays. We were missing some bodies at OL, DT and needed a true gamechanger type at QB but that combined with the 2011 class is a pretty decent start...just need to fix the discipline, focus on development and recruit a bunch of HS kids with impact transfers sprinkled in...
Here's the list of scholarship players we lost from 2011 to 2012 based on KU athletics rosters:
RB Darrian Miller
K Alex Mueller
QB (LOL) Brock Berglund
DB Adonis Saunders
DB Chris Robinson
DE Javonte Daniel
LB Marcus Garrett
LS Tanner Gibas
OL Travis Bodenstein
DE Julius Green
DB Keeston Terry
LB Jake Farley
OL Chad Kolumber
DE Jaqwalyn Arps
QB Jordan Webb
WR Erick McGriff
DE Tyrone Sellers
OL Tom Mabry
Or at least that's from comparing Rivals announced signings to KU athletics rosters, with the possibility that there were some rising seniors that left as well that I missed. Troubling that we lost so many OL/DL in that group and some really talented young guys.
But no huge concern right? Weis needed to run off kids and bring in his own class to change the culture and obviously many of those players weren't talented enough to get an opportunity to develop into contributors at the BCS level...enter the glut of transfers in Weis' first class : https://kansas.rivals.com/commitments/football/2012
Which doesn't include the 1 year rentals of guys like Dayne Crist, Anthony McDonald, Mike Ragone and Josh Williams that ate up Initial Counters and bringing in a 3 for 2 guy like Jake Heaps.
The result was we lost at least 16 scholarship players from 2011 to 2012 and the vast majority were 2011 Freshman/Sophomores. And Weis compounded that by only bringing in 10 scholarship HS players in his 2012 class.
Unfortunately or possibly fortunately based on Weis recruiting roster building strategy the 2012 state of Kansas class was really poor compared to 2011
https://n.rivals.com/state_rankings/2012/kansas
We still landed #3 and #5 from that class but just look at how few of those names made an impact in college.
OK so one bad class won't ruin us right?
2013 Weis doubled down on transfers, "The Dream Team" only had 8 HS scholarship players
https://kansas.rivals.com/commitments/football/2013
So in the span of 26 months. Weis ran off 16 scholarships the majority with at least 2-3 years left of eligibility (obviously there will always be some change when a new coach is hired) and out of 50 Initial Counters in his first 2 classes he spent 18 on HS players. I didn't go back and check the # of scholarship players lost from 2012 to 2013 but there were multiple. Several years ago Alabama's medical scholarships situation was a hot topic in recruiting with conferences putting rules into place to put limits on it and making scholarships 4 year guarantees vs 1 year renewable so programs couldn't essentially cut underperforming returnees with the new class in order to stay under 86 scholarships, yet we haven't mathematically been able to do that since at least 2014...and we also haven't hit the 85 man limit with recruited scholarship players since 2015.
I am not anti transfer players. Transfers from 2 year and 4 year schools have played huge parts in the success of programs. OU's last 3 QB's were all transfers as was Ohio State's Justin Fields. Good programs all over the country hit up JC's and the transfer portal...but they have a stable base of HS talent in their program in order to take the gambles on transfers.
This is what's exciting to me about the current staff, they are taking their lumps bringing in heavy HS classes. That's going to give us a foundation to be able to go after transfers again.
But first a shout out to the state of Kansas putting out a tremendous 2011 class. https://n.rivals.com/state_rankings/2011/kansas
Phillips, Starling, Ray, Whitehair, Dreamius Smith, Brady Foltz, Heeney, Mike Reynolds, Victor Simmons, Morgan Burns...it's not often the state puts out that many P5 contributors in one class and we even benefitted landing #'s 6, 7, 11, 12 & 13. Not offering Cody Whitehair and Brady Foltz was just a tiny bit of a whiff, but I'm not sure it would have mattered.
This instate haul led to one of KU's best HS classes of the decade- Mike Cummings, Dexter McDonald, Tony Pierson, Victor Simmons, Ben Heeney, Mike Reynolds, Damon Martin, Jacorey Shepherd, Ben Goodman all were big contributors, with several getting to play on Sundays. (Unfortunately not any DT's listed and OL had a lot of non contributors)
So record wise we were bad in 2011 with all the reported issues with discipline, grades and S&C...but scholarship # wise were in a decent spot with considerably more talent than I remember throughout the roster. (James Sims, Tyler Patmon, Jimmay Mundine, Andrew Turzilli, Keba Agostinho, Darius Willis, Jordan Webb, Tunde Bakare, Brad McDougald, Toben Oporum, Ramblood, Daymond Patterson, Kale Pick, Duane Zlatnik, Trevor Marrongelli, Tanner Hawkinson). Alright so obviously just those guys aren't enough for a complete program and win a bunch on Saturdays. We were missing some bodies at OL, DT and needed a true gamechanger type at QB but that combined with the 2011 class is a pretty decent start...just need to fix the discipline, focus on development and recruit a bunch of HS kids with impact transfers sprinkled in...
Here's the list of scholarship players we lost from 2011 to 2012 based on KU athletics rosters:
RB Darrian Miller
K Alex Mueller
QB (LOL) Brock Berglund
DB Adonis Saunders
DB Chris Robinson
DE Javonte Daniel
LB Marcus Garrett
LS Tanner Gibas
OL Travis Bodenstein
DE Julius Green
DB Keeston Terry
LB Jake Farley
OL Chad Kolumber
DE Jaqwalyn Arps
QB Jordan Webb
WR Erick McGriff
DE Tyrone Sellers
OL Tom Mabry
Or at least that's from comparing Rivals announced signings to KU athletics rosters, with the possibility that there were some rising seniors that left as well that I missed. Troubling that we lost so many OL/DL in that group and some really talented young guys.
But no huge concern right? Weis needed to run off kids and bring in his own class to change the culture and obviously many of those players weren't talented enough to get an opportunity to develop into contributors at the BCS level...enter the glut of transfers in Weis' first class : https://kansas.rivals.com/commitments/football/2012
Which doesn't include the 1 year rentals of guys like Dayne Crist, Anthony McDonald, Mike Ragone and Josh Williams that ate up Initial Counters and bringing in a 3 for 2 guy like Jake Heaps.
The result was we lost at least 16 scholarship players from 2011 to 2012 and the vast majority were 2011 Freshman/Sophomores. And Weis compounded that by only bringing in 10 scholarship HS players in his 2012 class.
Unfortunately or possibly fortunately based on Weis recruiting roster building strategy the 2012 state of Kansas class was really poor compared to 2011
https://n.rivals.com/state_rankings/2012/kansas
We still landed #3 and #5 from that class but just look at how few of those names made an impact in college.
OK so one bad class won't ruin us right?
2013 Weis doubled down on transfers, "The Dream Team" only had 8 HS scholarship players
https://kansas.rivals.com/commitments/football/2013
So in the span of 26 months. Weis ran off 16 scholarships the majority with at least 2-3 years left of eligibility (obviously there will always be some change when a new coach is hired) and out of 50 Initial Counters in his first 2 classes he spent 18 on HS players. I didn't go back and check the # of scholarship players lost from 2012 to 2013 but there were multiple. Several years ago Alabama's medical scholarships situation was a hot topic in recruiting with conferences putting rules into place to put limits on it and making scholarships 4 year guarantees vs 1 year renewable so programs couldn't essentially cut underperforming returnees with the new class in order to stay under 86 scholarships, yet we haven't mathematically been able to do that since at least 2014...and we also haven't hit the 85 man limit with recruited scholarship players since 2015.
I am not anti transfer players. Transfers from 2 year and 4 year schools have played huge parts in the success of programs. OU's last 3 QB's were all transfers as was Ohio State's Justin Fields. Good programs all over the country hit up JC's and the transfer portal...but they have a stable base of HS talent in their program in order to take the gambles on transfers.
This is what's exciting to me about the current staff, they are taking their lumps bringing in heavy HS classes. That's going to give us a foundation to be able to go after transfers again.
