The House of Blue

Great article. Thanks. The below quote was very telling.

"When we took over, there were a lot of guys that we felt we made mistakes on. Now, the number of mistakes is way down. The junior and senior classes are small for a reason. They’re small because a lot of guys didn’t think they could play here, a lot of guys we didn’t think could play here. The young classes are bigger because we feel like there have been less mistakes made."

This^^^^

I agree totally with that statement, too. The Cats will not be pushovers this season and stand primed and ready to pull a major upset or two. Who knows, though. I can't wait for the opening kickoff against the Cards!!!

They may be responsible for some of those misses, but probably not the majority. Turn the clock back and look to see who most of the productive kids mentioned as their lead recruiter 4-5 years ago. My guess is Joker. He couldn't recruit 25 kids per year. Who is our hottest recruiter now? Probably Cassity. He wasn't on staff. Summers is having some success also.

Turner has added the two highest ranking players. Bell and Hyde are great prospects, could play for anyone. If he adds Drennon it won't even be close. I'm glad he is stepping his game up. I just don't see how anyone can say Cassidy is YET. We need someone who can recruit WR's and LB's. Alot of "experts" say landing good LB's has everything in the world to do with what type of personality their position coach has. I really wish Smith could land a few big name players, it would make his job so much easier.

Hey dude - you can't see the forest for the trees.

If you can agree that we have less misses now and more misses then, then logic would seem to say that those that are gone would likely be the cause of such misses. If it were due to Phillips, Sanders and Smith then the percentage of misses would tend to remain the same.

Of course logic doesn't mix well with agendas.

I agree that Joker, Sanders, & Smith have a significant portion of the responsibility and Joker is owning up to that, hence the "we made mistakes". Not sure what else you want him to say as his statement is accurate and refreshing to hear from a HC.

They have addressed the issues w/coaches who didn't/couldn't recruit and replaced them. There is alot of young talent on the team and the staff is going to have to them coach them up quickly. Hopefully we can show enough improvement for Joker to keep his job as I think we are on the right track with these last few classes...and if Joker doesn't get it done than the next staff will have a nice talent base to start with.

Seems like percentage wise, they'd be around 33.3% of the blame. Considering I remember a few stretches made by past coaches, that numbers drops even lower.

Also, Joker kind of explains how they had a few coaches do the work of 9 coaches...

Yes, those 3 coaches (Joker, Sanders, Smith) hold some responsibility...but to me it seems like Sanders and Smith would have been fired if they were sub par recruiters.

I'm down with this line of thinking. No, joker, sanders, and chuck smith aren't responsible for all the misses, but those 3's fingerprints are all over this roster. Can't deny it. Glad Joker is owning up to it and I hope he can turn it around.

We've all talked about this many times almost everyone has admitted Joker, Smith and Sanders done the majority of the recruiting. Since Joker, Smith and Sanders get the majority of the blame they should also get the majority of the "pats on the back" for the good ones... I just hope we don't suffer the same problems 3 or 4 years from now because of the same thing...

The sec doesn't have weak links anymore, back 5 years ago there were a couple SEC teams we could beat now everyone has passed us by on the trail... I know a team can not rely on recruiting alone but it sure makes it easier... One can only hope our classes are way under-rated because we were last in 12 and will probably be last again in 13 with Joker's job on the line... It also sucks for us that Mizz and Vandy have been on a role... It's funny how Franklin's first class wasn't all that great and as soon as they showed signs during last season things started to take off. I really hope this can happen for Joker, if we can play better than most think it should help on the trail. Joker's job is in his own hands... He can't ask for any more.

One thing that really "gives me hope" is that (last yr) with no offensive line, WR's that catch 50% of the time, QB's that can deliver a catchable ball 50% of the time, no special teams return game, a below average defensive line, and a poor secondary....we can almost go .500 in the top conference in the nation during it's hay-day.

It was not so long ago that going 2-10 or 3-9 was the norm.....and 4-8 was the peak. It's a blessing that so many are on boards like these talking about how 6-7 or 5-7 records are beneath us now.

IMO if the coaching staff can just survive this year the better talent that they have been recruiting will have some seasoning and should be ready to have a good year in 2013.

Thanks for the article, Darrell.