So Uh...Why Do We Have All of Our LB Eggs in One JUCO's Basket

[Caddy]

You don't know this. We will take a step back because we lose a AA beast in JJ, a very versatile and athletic Nieman, and an extremely underappreciated experienced LB in Bower.

Depth will take a hit anytime you lose the experience of 100+ starts at a position.

You're still fun.

It also takes a hit when you have a coaching staff that is too stupid to get the back ups meaningful snaps in games, and when you have a staff that whiffs on their main targets at that position. There's no excuse for 3 brand new starters at LB with little to no experience. That's on the staff, their lack of ability to recruit, and their stubbornness to not give guys some playing time.

 

[HomerChampless]

Man...tough room. I think people are a little out of their element in evaluating talent and should leave it to people who actually do the work. Iowa has been in on this kid for a while and it appears he has the measurables to play in the Big Ten. 210 pounds coming out of HS and running 4.62 isn't too shabby. He will be faster in a year with 15 pounds of muscle. The real question is does he have the toughness and instincts to play at this level. The athleticism is there.

Do you really think there is a huge difference between this kid and Dillon Doyle...yet know one is pissing his pants over Doyle. The fact that Iowa was in early with this kid tells me something.

The whole two star analysis about who made it is irrelevant and flat out stupid. Who do you think Jining, Ojemudia, Reiff, etc are playing behind. A couple of All-Americans at corner (King and Jackson) and a few really good defensive ends (AJ, A. Nelson, and Hesse) who have pushed Reiff inside to get playing time.

Some of the 2 stars that made it at Iowa (some Iowa 'stars' were no stars) are 2 stars because they are evaluated at the position they were in high school. Jackson, if memory serves, was evaluated as a 2 star, 2-way QB prospect from Texas, the position he played in high school. As a DB, Jackson would've been evaluated by recruiting services as a no-star.

More times than not, Iowa makes the high school athlete over with some successes and some failures. When recruiting the 'high-skilled', high school athlete, there is no inherent goodness to this way of recruiting, IMO, It's more of a given that recruiting the highly touted athletes out of high school at their positions leads more to success but KF isn't generally successful in this recruiting battle for highly touted, high school athletes. Also why Iowa doesn't recruit, for example, many 'good' WRs...that and Iowa's offensive scheme for passing isn't conducive for 'highly-skilled', high school WRs to come calling.

Jayden McDonald, the linebacking athlete from Georgia, is a high school athlete I'm really excited Iowa has successfully recruited, for example. Let's just hope Iowa doesn't decide to make him into a DB, DE, WR or RB..