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Message: [QUOTE="RF2044, post: 444797, member: 40"] Sure--here is what I was talking about: last year was the first year that we were essentially at a full roster, after the original attrition that happened when Marrone took over. After the rough start, we began seeing the advantage of having a full roster with improved special teams play, etc. Overall, speed / athleticism / size has improved fairly significantly over Marrone's four years. That covers the "replenished" part. And please note that I'm not suggesting that we are all the way back in terms of where we need to be--just that the foundation is finally in place, and we're starting to land the athletes that will enable us to be legitimately competitive against our schedule--and it took four years to get there. The next phase of replenishment will be to start upgrading via recruiting, to get better players than the ones we currently have to solidify the foundation even further. In terms of balance, we still have a few imbalances over how the classes are laid out at certain positions--especially at RB, OL, and LB. Which is one of the reasons that it makes sense to go after some JUCOs, which on paper should have the ability to contribute earlier than most high school prospects coming in. I don't think that the ENTIRE roster is necessarily "out of whack," but as we move forward we're going to see more HS recruits being able to be redshirted, to maximize their long term value as we don't [or won't] have to march as many out there just to fill holes on special teams [for example]. We're starting to see that manifest for certain positional units; not so much for others. But we're close, and that should iron out over the next few recruiting classes, since the aforementioned foundation is now in place with the roster. This also factors in the premise that we aren't going to see recruiting classes chock full of four star recruits. Hopefully, we'll see more of them as we build upon the success that the team is having. The coaching staff overall seems to do a very good job of identifying good athletes who fit our system, but it might take some [or many] of these guys a year or two to round into form. That's not a bad thing--it just is the reality of the uphill recruiting we've faced going from the perception that we were the worst BCS program, to one that is now starting to have some on-field success. [/QUOTE]

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