Why has it been so hard for us to put 4 good quarters together?

Dec 8, 2024, 10:40 AM

I keeping watching us, game after game, get off to good starts and then seemingly fade away. I've finally accepted the conclusion that I think most of us have, and it is simply our lack of depth. When you play a finite number of players over an entire game, they wear down over time. And when they are tired, they make mistakes or simply lose a step.

When other teams can substitute and stay fresh, they can maintain their momentum. Conditioning is an issue for our team and that also breeds injuries.

We saw what happened early in the season when we got big leads and then started substituting. It was a tremendous drop off in talent. This is the challenge with a young team coming out of HS. They simply don't have the experience and reps to fill in. You need backups with experience so that at least the second team can perform at a consistent level without much drop off in performance.

Say what you want about the portal, but most successful programs using it have significant depth advantages over us.

For me, this has been a huge challenge for us all year and there isn't an easy fix during the season. You have what you have and you just have to deal with the outcome. I really hope we create a plan to address our depth for the future in the offseason. We didn't get the numbers we needed from this last recruiting class so if we are ever going to consider using the portal, now seems like the perfect opportunity, especially with the addition of 20 scholarships.

Message was edited by: slwcu79®