Before people jump down my throat, my headline was meant to be slightly tongue in cheek. That being said, the 2013 OL recruiting class put into a motion a series of recruiting years that we are still trying to recover from. Starting in 2013, we seem to have found the perfect combination of not enough bodies, whiffing on the guys we did recruit, and a few unlucky injuries.
To start with, the 2013 class was an absolute disaster. Of the 6 highly rated OL we signed that year, Kugler is the only one we got even a season of service out of (and its only halfway done). Bosch and Samuelson transferred, Dawson never played a meaningful down, Fox was injured, and LTT was dismissed. Plus we gave a scholarship to a longsnapper. Even if two more of these guys are on the team now as redshirt seniors I think we are in a much better place.
Given the large class we signed in 2013, we only signed two OL (clearly a mistake) in 2014. JBB might still be of value as he seems to be doing "ok" this year and has another year of eligibility left. Cole has been the best player on some medicore lines since his freshmen year. Its somewhat understandable that we'd only sign two OL in this class after the large haul in 2013, but in hindsight it was a huge miss even given that it was a small class (16).
The 2015 class was even smaller (14) and so we only signed three guys (Newsome, Ulizio, and Runyan Jr). At this point we've signed 11 guys over three classes which isn't enough. We were hurt by the fact that LTT wasn't dismissed until the fall and Fox didn't take his medical until that fall either. And Samuelson didnt transfer until well after signing day, if not the fall (I can't remember exactly). Finally, Bosch didn't decide to transfer until a month before signing day. But by fall of 2015, we were down to 7 OL from three recruiting cycles - a death knell.
At this point, its clear we needed more bodies, and with 26 available slots in the 2016 class, we had the chance to sign more. Instead, we only signed three guys. Then we lost Newsome to injury midseason. So to recap - that's 9 scholarship OL across four classes. This part is where we can and should start shifting some blame to the current staff.
Ultimately, Hoke whiffing on the 2013 class almost completely set in motion a horrible sequence of recruiting. Only signing two more in 2014 seemed like a mistake at the time and an even worse decision in hindsight. We caught some bad luck in 2015 because most of the departures and injuries happened after we could do anything about it, plus we had the coaching transition so I'll give Harbaugh a partial pass on that. But not signing more than three in the huge 2016 class doesn't make any sense given the deficits we had acquired over the previous three years.
Clearly the Newsome loss has hurt us badly, but you have to account for some the bad luck which you can't control. The roster management vis a vis the offensive line has been horrible for the last 4 years. We addressed it strongly in 2017, but I'd like to see us add four in the 2018 class as well so we can start to get these numbers right sized.
To start with, the 2013 class was an absolute disaster. Of the 6 highly rated OL we signed that year, Kugler is the only one we got even a season of service out of (and its only halfway done). Bosch and Samuelson transferred, Dawson never played a meaningful down, Fox was injured, and LTT was dismissed. Plus we gave a scholarship to a longsnapper. Even if two more of these guys are on the team now as redshirt seniors I think we are in a much better place.
Given the large class we signed in 2013, we only signed two OL (clearly a mistake) in 2014. JBB might still be of value as he seems to be doing "ok" this year and has another year of eligibility left. Cole has been the best player on some medicore lines since his freshmen year. Its somewhat understandable that we'd only sign two OL in this class after the large haul in 2013, but in hindsight it was a huge miss even given that it was a small class (16).
The 2015 class was even smaller (14) and so we only signed three guys (Newsome, Ulizio, and Runyan Jr). At this point we've signed 11 guys over three classes which isn't enough. We were hurt by the fact that LTT wasn't dismissed until the fall and Fox didn't take his medical until that fall either. And Samuelson didnt transfer until well after signing day, if not the fall (I can't remember exactly). Finally, Bosch didn't decide to transfer until a month before signing day. But by fall of 2015, we were down to 7 OL from three recruiting cycles - a death knell.
At this point, its clear we needed more bodies, and with 26 available slots in the 2016 class, we had the chance to sign more. Instead, we only signed three guys. Then we lost Newsome to injury midseason. So to recap - that's 9 scholarship OL across four classes. This part is where we can and should start shifting some blame to the current staff.
Ultimately, Hoke whiffing on the 2013 class almost completely set in motion a horrible sequence of recruiting. Only signing two more in 2014 seemed like a mistake at the time and an even worse decision in hindsight. We caught some bad luck in 2015 because most of the departures and injuries happened after we could do anything about it, plus we had the coaching transition so I'll give Harbaugh a partial pass on that. But not signing more than three in the huge 2016 class doesn't make any sense given the deficits we had acquired over the previous three years.
Clearly the Newsome loss has hurt us badly, but you have to account for some the bad luck which you can't control. The roster management vis a vis the offensive line has been horrible for the last 4 years. We addressed it strongly in 2017, but I'd like to see us add four in the 2018 class as well so we can start to get these numbers right sized.
