I have been sitting here for about ten minutes thinking about this comment. It seems to me that player attrition helps us (purely in a FB sense) so long as we have the right guys leaving. I hear what you are saying and it may help us less than it helps BAMA, but it still helps. Protecting the scholarship of unhappy or low contributing members of the roster is honorable, but it hurts the program worse than letting them go for the next recruit. In my estimation it won't get us all the way to having a roster like a top 5 team, but it is a step in that direction. While I agree that our offense requires a little more maturation in the system than most, our defense probably doesn't. We do rely on player development, but if a player isn't developing by year 3, it is unlikely that he will make huge strides in the last two. That isn't universally true, but the most likely scenario. If the truth be told, I get a little unsettled upon hearing players are leaving. Then I just talk myself into recognizing it isn't such a bad thing. Team chemistry is huge. If they don't want to be here, team chemistry will most likely be impacted if they stay.
Of the players leaving this year, Klock and Marshall probably hurt the most. We are unlikely to replace them with new guys who represent an imediate upgrade, if ever. I don't blame either kid, but it will hurt none the less.
I guess, overall, I look at it like this: recruiting is an inexact science and sometimes you miss. If you were only allowed one swing and miss every AB in baseball, there would be a lot more K's. By letting kids loose from the roster, we may still be down in the count (as in a swing and miss), but we have at least another hack before we have to head back to the bench.
