Re: Barton Simmons

quozzel

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Jul 11, 2017, 9:24 PM [ in reply to Re: Barton Simmons ]

Yah. No doubt.

Keep in mind the way Clemson does things is, well, boring. If Dabo had his way, he'd recruit precisely 17 guys per year - that being the number that would get him to 85 on a perfect 5-year cycle - graduate them all, and give the scholies of those who departed early to the NFL to worthy walk-ons. Of which there are always going to be several, in a Dabo-coached program.

Ideally he'd do his camps, firm up his final offer board there, then close with the All-In Cookout here in July, and be done with his recruiting before the next year starts.

If you take a look, we're actually pretty close to that this year. We might - might! - get up to 15 or 16 guys this year. We already have 11 of them. We'll see another couple drop in or shortly after the All-In and that'll be 13 or 14, leaving room for maybe two more oversign-caliber guys down the stretch. And that'd be a wrap for 2018 as far as Dabo & Co. would be concerned.

The problem is, while that approach bespeaks volumes about the stability of Dabo's program and the selectivity and confidence he has in his recruiting process - not to mention the success he's having with developing and graduating the players he already has on hand - it's well, anticlimactic. And would leave the recruiting sites with absolutely nothing to hype or even report upon if everybody did that. So they drum up drama...and the process rewards the drama queens.

In the meantime, the actual football players tend to get to work.

7-on-7's are one of the most artificial situations you can create, by the way. More power to 'em but the only thing 7-on-7's are good for is repetition and route practice. The hope is that in so doing you're developing the muscle memory and reflexes to feel those routes and windows when facing live fire in an actual game but the two skills rarely even remotely correlate since a huge part of what makes a successful QB is the conversion rate on "broken" plays. Can you extend plays with your feet? Can you sense elude the rush? Can you maintain your poise in the pocket? Can you take an actual hit, or even shrug off and break contact?

None of those get measured, even slightly, in a 7-on-7.

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Absolutely amazed me that they not only bumped Fields to #1 but they also gave him a 1.0000 rating. Once you're getting North of 1.0000 by their own definition, you are talking about a generational type of talent. A game breaking "can't miss" program changing type guy.

Which Fields might be. He absolutely could end up being that guy. What bothers me is that he got this bump after a 7v7 tournament.

So pre-The Opening: 4-star, not even top QB in class, much less top player overall

And post-The Opening: 5-star, #1 QB, #1 Overall, 1.0000 rating generational type talent

If Lawrence and Fields both played out their senior seasons, and Fields was clearly the better QB, I could maybe wrap my head around this. But to have Trevor as 'That Guy' for so long, and to put any other QB ahead of him without playing any actual football games in between still has me scratching my head. The timing of it all feels very knee-jerk after Oregon.

Barton Simmons