Given that only about 20% of our scholarship players under CPJ* have made it to their 5th year, I'm all for playing whoever can help the team. Or playing whoever can use the experience to build depth to cover for possible crunch time injuries.
I also think that getting fan/public/ESPN enthusiasm is essential to keeping CPJ. So there is no retreat.
I don't know how much bringing in Simmons helped, but the D played their best game of the year. Can't wait for your review.
* Probably less than 20% for most other schools.
Fwiw, I'm not entirely sold on that stat. 2009 was really CPJ's first "real" class, and last year would've been their 5th year. Last year, we had 15 RS Srs, by my glance, it seems that 10 of them were members of our 21 recruit 2009 class. Other members of that class who did not make the RS year were Izaan Cross, Stephen Hill, Orwin Smith, Rod Sweeting, and Julian Burnett (who I think all played as Tr Fr), Jeremy Moore, Lance Richardson and Carl Miles who never broke through, Antonio Foster and JC Lanier who had health issues and Jordan Luallen who transferred. So, it seems to me that of the 16 scholly guys we RS'd in 2009, we had 11 who played in their fifth year, 9 of them were key starters. Robbie Godhigh was also a RS Sr last year.
On this year's team, 8 of our 11 RS Srs and 1 Sr were part of our 19 recruit class from 2009, which included Jake Skole who chose baseball, Denzel McCoy who had health issues, Jeremiah Attaochu, Lou Young, Justin Moore who never RS'd, and four guys left early for some reason, Ryan Ayers, Anthony Williams, Catlin Alford, and Fred Holton (who played as a true Fr but I think used a RS year later). Of the 9 guys from that class on our roster this year, 6 of them are starting and the other 3 are running backs who play every game.
Obviously we've had some bad attrition since then, but in discussing CPJ's RS policy, I think it's best to focus on the years where he's been both recruiting and red-shirting. In these years, it seems to be paying off. Take it for what it's worth.
