Worst Roster Since When?

[Cusefan69]

Love the focus on portal rankings while simultaneously ignoring the HS rankings. At least be consistent.

We also got rid of the recruiting coaches who couldn’t develop guys. Will it work? Remains to be seen. But Fran is focusing on what he does - getting the players and having more coaches do what they do best - develop and coach. He overindexed in recruiting guys in his mold with his first staff. He has learned and pivoted. Now we will see the results in next 12-24 months.

I’d be very disappointed if we don’t win 6-8 games next year. There will be some surprises I think both positively and negatively with a young roster.

Biggest key to me is the OL continuing to develop. Three starters returning, need youth to perform.

Agree with the above but would add we need the 3 returning starters on the oline to perform significantly better on top of the young guys. Last season, Washington showed some good things but his endurance still needed work and he didn't have a year of strength training under his belt. I would expect him to up his game further. The rest of the oline didn't exactly impress. The season hinges on our new oline coach making a big impact and leveling up our entire oline or it's going to be a really tough year. To me while I try to be hopeful, it's hard to give the oline the benefit of the doubt after all these years. Everyone on the oline has to up their game.

 

[Archbold44]

Agree with the above but would add we need the 3 returning starters on the oline to perform significantly better on top of the young guys. Last season, Washington showed some good things but his endurance still needed work and he didn't have a year of strength training under his belt. I would expect him to up his game further. The rest of the oline didn't exactly impress. The season hinges on our new oline coach making a big impact and leveling up our entire oline or it's going to be a really tough year. To me while I try to be hopeful, it's hard to give the oline the benefit of the doubt after all these years. Everyone on the oline has to up their game.

OLine was not a huge issue with Angeli. With a decent QB, there was a bit more balance in the game. And the SMU game the OL created some nice holes that Willis just refused to run through in a few short yard situations to pick up the first down and keep the drive alive. We just needed some momentum and confidence. Also, remember that drive against Clemson where it was mostly running the ball effectively? That opened up the pass, etc. Once Angeli went down and the defenses realized they could stack against the run AND send pressure AND not have to worry too much about the passing game... it was lights out for the offense and the offensive line. We had no answer. But that is not 100% on the OL.

 

[Newhouser]

Also if anyone actually looks at the portal grades guys get, they'd realize very little thought is put into them outside the top guys. 5k guys get dropped in the portal right away and we think those are serious ratings? Even for some of our guys who left who I liked -- those ratings are a joke.

If you weren't a top 100-250 guy in the portal, your ranking means very little. So a lot of portal rankings have to do with volume.

Fran's been very clear that we're a developmental program. The '25 and '26 classes were our top in modern history. The 25's are already littered across the two deep. I expect a number of '26s to crack the two deep as well.

Just because you don't see guys you know or like doesn't mean they're bad.

Agree but to be fair - doesn't mean they are good either. We need to coach up who we have. That will determine where we go.

 

[upperdeck]

The oline will decide what our top can be.
The Center was hurt all year, then the backup as well
We shuffled the pieces around all year

We can be better with a QB that moves the ball faster and to the right spots more often. But still we need to be able to run in those key moments.

We will know pretty quickly if the new oline coach and the young kids are up to it by the Bye week.

 

[Fowler]

We just need to hold on to players until they are seniors. Indiana was the oldest team in college football I believe. We these classes are seniors that will tell in my opinion which is worth nothing lol.

 

[Cusefan69]

OLine was not a huge issue with Angeli. With a decent QB, there was a bit more balance in the game. And the SMU game the OL created some nice holes that Willis just refused to run through in a few short yard situations to pick up the first down and keep the drive alive. We just needed some momentum and confidence. Also, remember that drive against Clemson where it was mostly running the ball effectively? That opened up the pass, etc. Once Angeli went down and the defenses realized they could stack against the run AND send pressure AND not have to worry too much about the passing game... it was lights out for the offense and the offensive line. We had no answer. But that is not 100% on the OL.

Yes and no. I hear what you are saying but Angeli was actually constantly getting pressured but he was able to work through his reads pretty quickly. That said the oline gave up 5 sacks against UT, 3 against UConn, 1 against Colgate and another 5 to Clemson. That does not include hurries or number of times hit. Running Yasin had 91 yards against UT on over 20 carries. UCONN Syracuse threw the ball 55 times, so no much run game there. Clemson Yasin had 94 yards on 18 and Nixon had 46. So run game was pretty good there and would give the oline credit for opening some holes there. At most they slanted unfavorably inconsistent with some positive moments of physicality. Again I am not counting hits and hurries on Angeli.

 

[mathgeek444]

You can't win with this many underclassmen. Literally 2/3 of the roster is freshman/sophomores.

Where are our NFL prospects that are upperclassmen? Peal? The 2024 team was loaded with very experienced guys that were at least practice squad types.

Dino deserves more credit for finding some gems with absolutely zero resources. Fran looked good in 2024 because the university ponied up more resources for once and Fran got to build on top of a Dino roster. All the Fran fanboys think we're going to be some sort of Kentucky basketball winning with 19 year old kids when Indiana had 23 and 24 year old men.

 

[richmondcuse03]

You can't win with this many underclassmen. Literally 2/3 of the roster is freshman/sophomores.

Where are our NFL prospects that are upperclassmen? Peal? The 2024 team was loaded with very experienced guys that were at least practice squad types.

Dino deserves more credit for finding some gems with absolutely zero resources. Fran looked good in 2024 because the university ponied up more resources for once and Fran got to build on top of a Dino roster. All the Fran fanboys think we're going to be some sort of Kentucky basketball winning with 19 year old kids when Indiana had 23 and 24 year old men.

the dino guys would have been gone if dino stayed. and we had several key transfers in. you're kidding yourself with some of this. the portal spending in 2024 was a fraction of what it takes now to win in the portal. Our entire budget is up at least 4x since then.

 

[Archbold44]

Yes and no. I hear what you are saying but Angeli was actually constantly getting pressured but he was able to work through his reads pretty quickly. That said the oline gave up 5 sacks against UT, 3 against UConn, 1 against Colgate and another 5 to Clemson. That does not include hurries or number of times hit. Running Yasin had 91 yards against UT on over 20 carries. UCONN Syracuse threw the ball 55 times, so no much run game there. Clemson Yasin had 94 yards on 18 and Nixon had 46. So run game was pretty good there and would give the oline credit for opening some holes there. At most they slanted unfavorably inconsistent with some positive moments of physicality. Again I am not counting hits and hurries on Angeli.

It's also not the o-line's fault that Willis could not get into the end zone on two long runs where he cut wrong, we needed TDs, and we came away empty. Coupled with the SMU game, Willis had so many momentum destroying issues... plus, penalties and dropped passes. But he was quick to celebrate the big play.

 

[Cusefan69]

It's also not the o-line's fault that Willis could not get into the end zone on two long runs where he cut wrong, we needed TDs, and we came away empty. Coupled with the SMU game, Willis had so many momentum destroying issues... plus, penalties and dropped passes. But he was quick to celebrate the big play.

You seem overly harsh on Yasin. He played hurt a fair amount and again he ran pretty strong against UT and Clemson. In fairness to Yasin as well, once Angeli went down and Collins was found to be more of a 4th string player than 2nd string., every defense we played against focused on the run and dared Syracuse to throw it. When you stack the box and DCs do run blitz packages our oline and RBs are not going to move the ball. When the QB can't throw you tend to go on 8 game losing streaks.