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Tell me your feelings on playing a lot of true freshmen and Not making the playoffs. Good, Bad, Doesn't Matter?

I could make an argument for both sides of this debate, but wanted to see what you have experienced in your programs.

Do you have other, more experienced, options or not?

If the freshman are the best players, play them.

Just like the smell of an old lady's ass.... depends.

Most freshmen, especially linemen and QB's really benefit from a redshirt year. Over the long run, it is a positive to redshirt incoming players, imo, but circumstances don't always allow you to do so.

In the overall scheme you'd most likely be better served by red-shirting as many players as you can - that way you get 5 years versus 4 years of them, plus they get more familiar with what you're actually running versus learning on the job. Technically, you should have better results with more experienced guys.

Conversely, it can be a recruiting tool to kids saying they can come in and either play or compete for a job from the get-go.

Personally, I'd like to see as many FR redshirt unless they're special players that A) can make an impact & B) get significant playing time. I've seen UD & other schools burn through a red-shirt year by only playing a kid in one game or for a few plays.

Towson's Rb Terrance West is a true freshman.
450 yards, 11 TDs, 6.4 yards per rush

I think it's safe to say he was ready to play.

bluehenbillk wrote: Personally, I'd like to see as many FR redshirt unless they're special players that A) can make an impact & B) get significant playing time. I've seen UD & other schools burn through a red-shirt year by only playing a kid in one game or for a few plays.

Yup, I agree - if they're going to play and play a lot and be an impact player, let 'em play. Injuries do happen in college football and sometimes you end up screwing a kid by having him take a voluntary redshirt early only to not have the redshirt available when he gets hurt. And the other thing - not everyone wants to spend 5 years in college. Some kids actually do want to leave in 4.

GannonFan wrote: Injuries do happen in college football and sometimes you end up screwing a kid by having him take a voluntary redshirt early only to not have the redshirt available when he gets hurt.

That's one of the arguments I see for playing true Freshmen.
But one of the things I was looking for is if you can remember playing a true Freshman that turned out to be really good, not making the playoffs that year, and you wish you had him in year 5 but didn't. More than likely, so much time has passed that you forget about the fact that they played as true freshmen. Just wondering.

CAA Flagship wrote:

GannonFan wrote: Injuries do happen in college football and sometimes you end up screwing a kid by having him take a voluntary redshirt early only to not have the redshirt available when he gets hurt.

That's one of the arguments I see for playing true Freshmen.
But one of the things I was looking for is if you can remember playing a true Freshman that turned out to be really good, not making the playoffs that year, and you wish you had him in year 5 but didn't. More than likely, so much time has passed that you forget about the fact that they played as true freshmen. Just wondering.

That's why you have to make sure the kid is going to play, and play a lot. You only have 4 years of actual playing - if you're going to play in Year 1, it better be for more than just some special teams play.

We are playing 10 true freshmen, including a RB that was, at best, 4th on the depth chart and a QB that was to fight for the starting position next year. That seems like a lot to me compared to established programs. We need to make the playoffs this year or it may be considered a waste.

CAA Flagship wrote:We are playing 10 true freshmen, including a RB that was, at best, 4th on the depth chart and a QB that was to fight for the starting position next year. That seems like a lot to me compared to established programs. We need to make the playoffs this year or it may be considered a waste.

Well thats going to be expected at programs like ODU & GSU at your stage. Every year that goes by, and you recruit additional classes you'll be caught up to everybody else & may not have "the need" to play as many true freshmen.

FYI - by comparison by my count UD has played 5 true freshmen this year, 2 of those 5 are technically "grayshirts" like AP was last season - guys that enrolled in January.

CAA Flagship wrote:We are playing 10 true freshmen, including a RB that was, at best, 4th on the depth chart and a QB that was to fight for the starting position next year. That seems like a lot to me compared to established programs. We need to make the playoffs this year or it may be considered a waste.

Sounds like Towsons '09 season. What a wreck of a season that was.

bluehenbillk wrote:

CAA Flagship wrote:We are playing 10 true freshmen, including a RB that was, at best, 4th on the depth chart and a QB that was to fight for the starting position next year. That seems like a lot to me compared to established programs. We need to make the playoffs this year or it may be considered a waste.

Well thats going to be expected at programs like ODU & GSU at your stage. Every year that goes by, and you recruit additional classes you'll be caught up to everybody else & may not have "the need" to play as many true freshmen.

FYI - by comparison by my count UD has played 5 true freshmen this year, 2 of those 5 are technically "grayshirts" like AP was last season - guys that enrolled in January.

Our true freshmen this year are technically our 4th recruiting class. The odd thing is I think we only used 5 true freshmen last year. Between injuries and players leaving the program (for various reasons), I guess we felt a need to bump that to 10 this year.

At the skill positions does it matter as much as the other position like OL & DL & LB

Karrington Bush
Freshman year 2007 - 11 game 1039 yds, post season AA
APY - 1621

Better his soph year
Jr yr multiple ligament injuries....he never fully recovered from that

Should we have redshirted him? I don't know.

Marcus Clark 2007-10 - Will LB
Never missed a game in 4 years......as a walk on.
Wouldn't trade that for anything.


Ben Follis - 2011 Sr punter
Another who has failed to miss a game in 4 yrs. We needed this guy.

DaBigBlue wrote:At the skill positions does it matter as much as the other position like OL & DL & LB

I prefer to give the guys that 1st year to get bigger, stronger, faster.
We started a true freshman last year at QB. He wasn't too shabby, but was a bit on the light side for college. He went down with an ACL in game 6.
This year the kid is 20 lbs stronger and doesn't even look like the same person.

Conversely, we were forced to start a true freshman on the Dline that was already @ 300+. He's back and what he did was slim down but bulk up (that make sense) and was free weighting 700 lbs over the summer.

JMU has played on one true freshman this yr, #31, Andre Smith, at receiver. That was due to:

-4 star UVa WR transfer Quintin Hunter (played at UVA as a true FR in 09', started at JMU last yr) taking a redshirt due to torn Achilles in Spring

-2 deep WR from last yr rSo Kaveon Seaton not playing- not sure why, but he is on the team, been on the sideline in his jersey.

-Expected 2 deep WR rFr Anthony Rose missing all of Spring and Summer and only starting practice Week 3 due to the legal issue with the Rose brothers.

Andre Smith is like a lot of JMU true freshman that have played over the last 1/2 doz years- did a PG year at FUMA. So while technically a true Fr, is 19 yrs old, 2 years removed from HS ball, part of the 10' recruiting class, most of whom are 2nd yr rFr or So.

Thinking on this afterwards I wanted to add that I am opposed to what has happened this year.
True Fr RB who had his rs pulled just before game 1 because one of our 4 ( a jr) RBs went down with an ACL.
The kid has lost that RS year and has seen very limited PT in 4/7 games, mostly in mop up time.
Kid was highly touted coming out of HS, was being looked at by a lot of colleges but chose TXST and they have hardly used him.

Purely a waste.

its 2011, most every kid thats recruited at this level can comprehend Football and what it takes to play.

If a kid is good enough to recruit, play him right away, this isnt 1965

andy7171 wrote:Towson's Rb Terrance West is a true freshman.
450 yards, 11 TDs, 6.4 yards per rush

I think it's safe to say he was ready to play.

same with ODU's Taylor Heinecke or however the hell you spell his last name. I believe in little over 2.5 games he has a completion percentage of over 70% and has an 8/1 TD/INT ratio.

LeadBolt wrote:Most freshmen, especially linemen and QB's really benefit from a redshirt year. Over the long run, it is a positive to redshirt incoming players, imo, but circumstances don't always allow you to do so.

This is certainly true, but nobody said that a redshirt year has to come FIRST. We had a really versatile guy who played his first year and THEN redshirted. I think that gave him some time to think about the system. (He may also have had an injury. It's been so long that I've forgotten. ) He ended up playing three different positions for us (QB, WR, TB), and I think he was all-league at each one. I STILL think our OC screwed the pooch on this guy, though. He was one of the best QBs Sac ever had, IMO....

The only time I don't mind seeing a true freshman play is he starts all year. When a true freshman plays they are giving up what should be their most productive year (5th year) for their least productive year (true freshman year).

CatMom wrote:Thinking on this afterwards I wanted to add that I am opposed to what has happened this year.
True Fr RB who had his rs pulled just before game 1 because one of our 4 ( a jr) RBs went down with an ACL.
The kid has lost that RS year and has seen very limited PT in 4/7 games, mostly in mop up time.
Kid was highly touted coming out of HS, was being looked at by a lot of colleges but chose TXST and they have hardly used him.

Purely a waste.

What about redshirting him next year?

SuperHornet wrote:

CatMom wrote:Thinking on this afterwards I wanted to add that I am opposed to what has happened this year.
True Fr RB who had his rs pulled just before game 1 because one of our 4 ( a jr) RBs went down with an ACL.
The kid has lost that RS year and has seen very limited PT in 4/7 games, mostly in mop up time.
Kid was highly touted coming out of HS, was being looked at by a lot of colleges but chose TXST and they have hardly used him.

Purely a waste.

What about redshirting him next year?

I'll run that by Fran and see what he says.

Seriously, though, Imade comes back next season and the other RS RB makes it, we'll have 6 in the backfield
Hawkins - Sr (slash back)
Curry - Sr (tailback and slot)
Imade - Jr (hback)
Franks - RS soph (tailback)
Nutall - Soph (hback)
Gay - RS frosh

(plus 2 FB)

It looks like we will be using our 11th True Freshman in today's game against Villanova.