Granted it depends on what your definition of "small" is, but here are a couple of things that could have happened that would have made a difference for this upcoming year and beyond...
1.) Chris Martin not getting in trouble - now if he hadn't gotten in trouble and was the real deal it of course would have impacted the defense, but that is not where I am going. Moreso, if Martin had not gotten in trouble, then they would have likely bulked Ben Goodman up more. They said before Martin left, they told Goodman to add some weight, but when he left they told him to slim down again. If Goodman were in the 285 lbs range, I think he would be a starting DT for us and we would still be OK at DE because of Mosby/Olobia/Ehambe/Armstrong...but the DT situation would look a lot better with him there...
2.) If Pearce Slater had stayed - we can call him all of the names in the book for leaving KU shortly after he arrived and never returning, but I thought he was decent in the games I saw of SDSU last year. Now I think we will be fine at OT with Shelley-Smith and Mazyck, but we have absolutely no depth. We will be living on the edge this upcoming season when it comes to OL depth and Slater at minimum could have helped that.
3.) Redshirting Kyron Watson/Apa Visinia/Bobby Hartzog/Derrick Neal/Joe Dineen/Darious Crawley - These guys didn't play much at all last year and it becomes a simple outflow/inflow problem here. I mentioned it before, but if these 6 guys would have redshirted last year, we would actually have a better chance at getting the roster numbers close to full within 3 years than we currently do. If they redshirted, that would have been 6 more spots we could have gained on the roster in 3 years. It's somewhat of a hidden thing that isn't obvious, but it is true and would have been very helpful
4.) If Darrell Wyatt doesn't take the UT WR job a few years ago - there is the whole angle of David Beaty not returning for a second time and Wyatt possibly recruiting we could go down, but I am looking at this from a different view. If Wyatt didn't take the job, the rumor was the backup option was none other than David Beaty. What would have happened if Beaty would have landed the UT gig? Would he had been in a position to get the KU job? I am not so sure he would have because even with Beaty's recruiting, UT was on a downward slide and he likely would have been a part of that.
1.) Chris Martin not getting in trouble - now if he hadn't gotten in trouble and was the real deal it of course would have impacted the defense, but that is not where I am going. Moreso, if Martin had not gotten in trouble, then they would have likely bulked Ben Goodman up more. They said before Martin left, they told Goodman to add some weight, but when he left they told him to slim down again. If Goodman were in the 285 lbs range, I think he would be a starting DT for us and we would still be OK at DE because of Mosby/Olobia/Ehambe/Armstrong...but the DT situation would look a lot better with him there...
2.) If Pearce Slater had stayed - we can call him all of the names in the book for leaving KU shortly after he arrived and never returning, but I thought he was decent in the games I saw of SDSU last year. Now I think we will be fine at OT with Shelley-Smith and Mazyck, but we have absolutely no depth. We will be living on the edge this upcoming season when it comes to OL depth and Slater at minimum could have helped that.
3.) Redshirting Kyron Watson/Apa Visinia/Bobby Hartzog/Derrick Neal/Joe Dineen/Darious Crawley - These guys didn't play much at all last year and it becomes a simple outflow/inflow problem here. I mentioned it before, but if these 6 guys would have redshirted last year, we would actually have a better chance at getting the roster numbers close to full within 3 years than we currently do. If they redshirted, that would have been 6 more spots we could have gained on the roster in 3 years. It's somewhat of a hidden thing that isn't obvious, but it is true and would have been very helpful
4.) If Darrell Wyatt doesn't take the UT WR job a few years ago - there is the whole angle of David Beaty not returning for a second time and Wyatt possibly recruiting we could go down, but I am looking at this from a different view. If Wyatt didn't take the job, the rumor was the backup option was none other than David Beaty. What would have happened if Beaty would have landed the UT gig? Would he had been in a position to get the KU job? I am not so sure he would have because even with Beaty's recruiting, UT was on a downward slide and he likely would have been a part of that.
