First of all, we need to reserve judgment until after National Signing Day . Some very interesting things may happen 'tween now and then. Secondly, I am much more interested in what Miles' first true recruiting class looks like next year. The glass is half full !
Everyone should understand that we are going to take a hit with recruiting because of the coaching change. Hell even the great Nick Saban didn't have a great first recruiting class, but tore it up when he had a full year of recruiting under his belt. It is unrealistic to think we can hire a coach and pull off a top 10 class in less than 30 days. Additionally, this was going to be a tough recruiting year because we can't sign as many as we have in past years. LSU can afford to have a down year in recruiting with the talent returning on this team. One year won't kill us. We need to give Miles a full year of recruiting before we pass judgement.
Florida is in deep trouble on defense. To start with, Crowder left for the NFL. Two of their best linebackers, Taurean Charles and Jarvis Moss are doubtful because of academic problems. That leaves only one Gator linebacker with any significant amount of experience. The rest are unproven Squad undergrads. The Gator defensive line is small to begin with, and lacks depth. Strong is simply not in a position to do much better under Meyer than he did under Zook because he is not LOADED as many Gator fans seem to imagine. And Florida's defensive recruiting to date has been average. If they lose Atkins, who has only given a soft verbal, their class will be very mediocre. I don't get the feeling that Miles has a sense of urgency about this recruiting class. I hope he understands that this is the SEC and any advantage at all, even in terms of denying the other teams talent, is pretty important.
Having significant experience at LB helps but has never stopped many very good LB's from breaking out in their first full years. Odell Thurman, Thomas Davis, and so forth did fine in their first full-time years. Experience helps but is over-used quite a bit in today's football world.
The urgencies with this class (besides QB since we didn't get one last year) as far as I can tell are Safety and TE. Next year we only have Jones, Zinger and Cole, and people keep saying Kyle Anderson will grow into a Tackle ala Winston in Miami. Farr was a huge loss. He would more than likely have made an impact next year and pushed to start in 06. At Safety we have 30 and 31 but behind them we really only have Steltz and Daniel Francis. Maybe Joe Lawrence will become a safety. I was really pumped when Nick had Ward, Keyes, and Hawkins commited. I think Nick definately reckognized safety as a need and pushed hard for those players. I'm hoping we can get R.J. Jackson becuase he could be one of those versatile guys who can play saftey if there is more need there than RB. Regardless Saftey may be our number 1 priority next season with number 2 being OL.
Daniels and Landry are only going to be juniors next year, although Landry could very well go pro, but we signed Steltz last year, already have Hawkins this year, and Ishie Oduegwu could very well be on the way (Curtis Taylor should also be able to provide some depth). Safety shouldn't be that big of a concern, but TE could, but I'd rather Kyle Anderson be able to develop in an offensive lineman and take our chances with Mit Cole and company after next year.
I hope you are right about Safety, I just feel if we are going to play the agressive defense we have in the past we need an impact player at FS. See 2003 Cotton Bowl without Damien or even last years defense before Laron started. I thought Steltz was of the SS build.
Don't forget about Keys comming in this year. He is committed to Alabama but i hear that he is going to be comming to LSU. I am from the same area as him and that is what the talk is.
I think if Keyes comes to LSU that more people would be surprised than would have expected it. I think he ends up at Bama.
