…to compete against the rest of the SEC. If our player performance only matches our recruiting rating, we will be mired in the bottom third of the overall SEC forever. So, we all hope that we evaluate better and develop better than our competition so our three stars will beat up their four and five stars on the field. So, who are (we hope) our highly over achieving players? Here are my suggestions:
Johnny Gibson
Austin Cantrell
Colton Jackson
Briston Guidry
Hajalte Froholdt
Dejon Harris
Jamario Bell (assuming he has found a home in the 3-4)
I don’t know if I’m reading your post correctly. You’ll have to clear this up if I’m wrong. But I’m reading it as you listed guys who need to surpass their given rankings?
If so,
Cantrell, Guidry, Froholdt, Bell, Storey, and Pettway were all highly recruited 4 star guys. But… several of them have yet to do anything, and in that sense I hope they atleast live up to their hype. I also think that Brian wallace (I know he started) has yet to live up to his hype, same for Jalen Merrick, they need to step it up.
But I agree completely we need guys to surpass their expectations in order to beat the Bamas and LSUs
Guys who I think need to surpass their star rating personally are : Santos Ramirez, Coley, Liddel, Gibson, Jackson, D. Harris, J Nance, R Ramsey.
Those three stars will all play and need to be better than their star rating/offer list. W/e
These are guys who I think or at least hope can surpass their rankings. That means four stars who out play other teams five stars. Three stars who over achieve to become All SEC. For instance, I think Froholdte who came as an OK rated defensive lineman can end up at Arkansas as an All SEC offensive guard. That is what we need to compete in the SEC. I put up a list of the ones I hope or think might do this. I hope there are more.
The key is to get a few threes you develop into NFL prospects. You do that and it changes the game. For example, find a Jason Peters or a Jamal Anderson and turn them into NFL players. Of course, you have to turn the fours into NFL players, too. That’s the battle that Arkansas has always waged and been successful at times.
One thing that I think you have to do different in recruiting, sign more running backs. You go back to Houston Nutt’s time, he took more running backs than you might think could get on the field. Then, some of them went to other positions, like Brandon Holmes and Eddie Jackson. Running backs can play wide receiver (TJ Hammonds) and they can play in the secondary. I have always liked the idea of over signing backs.
I guess those two and Brandon Burlsworth are the poster boys for that process. For each Burlsworth or Peters that Arkansas finds, how many do they have that end up transferring out or just use up their eligibility and never make it onto the field? Every year, we have scholarship players move on and we hear nothing about the walk-ons that never get off the practice squad. These Diamonds in the Rough emerge maybe every 3-5 years if you are lucky and every 10-15 years if you are not. CBB’s claim to fame in this category is J.J. Watt. I wonder how many walk-ons failed to pan out for him before Watt came along?