This is the thing that sucks about college football. It is so hard to have balance. Wish we could have extended Bennet's and Franklin's contracts, but again that's college. Just when you have something nice, they have to move on.
...which highlights the importance in a program like ours of being able to redshirt instead of rush guys out there to fill holes in the two-deep.
I know, I know -- there will occasionally be kids who are good enough athletes, physically mature enough, etc. that they don't necessarily need to redshirt to make an impact [see: Williams, Trill]. But in most cases, we're going to benefit a lot more from that fifth year after a year to redshirt, spend the extra year in a collegiate S&C program, and having that year to learn our system / acclimate to the speed of the collegiate game / have things slow down for them so they can just go play, than we will from that first year of meager contributions where in general true frosh are physically overmatched.
How great would it be to have Erv Philips this year, for example, than to have burned his initial year as the hybrid back? That would probably give stability to an unsettled WR unit. Ditto Bennett / Franklin. Would kill to have one of them back, let alone both.
Hopefully, we're at a point now where the vast majority of our players can be redshirted from here on out -- it will pay dividends with year-over-year stability. We're so close everywhere -- just think about how our WR corps [to a lesser extent] and LBs are holding us back.
And the above paragraph said, we're two plays away from being 6-0 -- erase an illegal man downfield penalty against Clemson to convert that fourth down, and a generous spot from the refs on the road when we probably stopped Pitt on 4th down late in the fourth quarter, and we're undefeated despite all the warts.
