First, I love Josh. He brings some things to the table for Syracuse that we currently do not have (and haven’t for a long time), but as much as I like his size, speed, vision and toughness, i like his humility, his team attitude and his modesty. I think he is a great leader for Beaver Falls, as he will be down the road for Syracuse.
On a more macro level, I think it should be clear to everyone that playing football in the ACC is fundamentally different than playing football in a northeast dominated football league. There is so much talent south of the Mason-Dixon Line that the schools down there have a built in huge advantage over us. Even schools like Duke and Wake Forest that don’t have great facilities or tradition, have dozens of excellent P5 level prospects nearby that would love to play for them. Worse still, the talent disparity in prime recruiting areas relatively close to campuses are getting bigger with each year. States like Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida keep getting better each year, while the areas surrounding our campus appear to be getting worse at producing talent.
The problem isn’t so bad at Pitt given that are in the heart of the most fertile area for HS recruiting in the northeast. And even BC has some advantages over SU recruiting catholic high schools.
So it is likely we are going to be less talented than most other ACC programs most years. We don’t need to accept this and maybe some day that will change. But it is something I think we need to consider when formulating how to turn the program around.
While we probably aren’t going to be more talented than most other ACC programs most of the time, we can be tougher than them. Maybe stronger as well. We need junkyard dogs out there; players who are super competitive and willing to work really hard to get better during their 5 years on campus. Like guys like Eric Dungey or Chris Slayton.
The other area we can look to level the playing field is experience. We need one of the best programs in the country at retaining our players, so every season, we have at least 4 or 5 seniors and 4 or 5 juniors starting on offense and defense. I laid out UB’s starting lineup a week or two ago. That is what a program with a little less talent can do to help offset their relative lack of talent. We need to look at traits like loyalty long and hard when deciding who we should offer. With the new rules making transferring easier than ever, this is more important than ever.
The staff needs to get really good at identifying the right kinds of kids to bring into the program. Maybe we need to focus more on where the players will be in 2 or 3 years than where they are now. If this staff is to be successful, they need to excel at this.
Why am I rambling on about this in a thread on Josh Hough? Because I think he is precisely the kind of player we should be targeting. He has the high ceiling, the work ethic, the toughness and (from everything I have read) the loyalty this program needs. I see him as a future captain. I see him helping establish a new identity for the team, bringing an old school toughness and competitive nature we desperately need.
I can’t wait to see him in orange. Thrilled to read he is going to be an early enrollee.
