First and foremost is the numbers of the high school kids at the 290 and over lbs. There are a lot of very good kids in the entire nation in the 150 to 280lbs!! Enough of those to fill out 14 positions for every college team to get some good players for their 85 man roster! Now for those 290 and over to fill out 8 positions there just isn't near the numbers available. It really makes it tough competition compared to all those smaller kids!! Now also the ncaa has made things much tougher for Tech to recruit any position; because of the degree progression!! For a lot of the kids there is not near the number of kids in the gray area of acceptance!!! Just 3 or 4 years ago that rule was put into effect!
My take on DL recruiting and why it is difficult for us!!
- Thread starter jayparr
- Start date
Sounds just like part of my line of thinking!
Dustman
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Yes, and then he follows that with "....and they have to qualify academically".
TheSilasSonRising
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No way HS OL are that much more academically advanced than DL. Absurd.
Without building a better D we will forever have those 2 to 3 "what the hell?" games a year
Without building a better D we will forever have those 2 to 3 "what the hell?" games a year
Coloradojacket
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Ok, so flat out no PC, most D-lineman are not exactly the smart guy in the class. the position requires very little thinking and more just brute force. The Derrick Morgan's of the world are few and far between.
takethepoints
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Well … maybe. I think the truth might be closer to: "Why should I work too hard in school? I'm so good somebody will take me and make college easy for me." I.e. pretty much the same thing that a lot of good QBs say to themselves. The competition for them makes it easy to ignore your school work, if you are so inclined. I've known some of these guys and most of them are shrewd as loan sharks. They never got called on to use or expand their talents.
And, yes, there aren't that many Derrick Morgans out there. Too bad.
Oldgoldandwhite
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There is a reason certain kids play defense in HS.
Can't catch - DB
Can't learn plays - Defense
You get the drift.
AlabamaBuzz
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Nothing new here. It takes creativity and a wide geographic recruiting strategy to get the big nasties that would want to be at GT and can hack GT. This right here is why sa(t)an has such a dominant team every year. He basically gets 3-5 of these very limited quantity guys every year. No other team in the country gets as many of the high end DT's and DE's than sa(t)an. I think if GT can get 2-3 by recruiting nationwide every year, it would make a huge difference, but it is easy to say and hard to do.
YJMD
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Pass rushers (DE and 3-4 OLBs) are the NFL commodity. There are lots more athletes with those frames that we nab than true DTs. NFL, though, has far fewer teams and doesn't have to turn over its roster every 4 years nor keep someone academically eligible. Some DTs do go high, but they are much more special in terms of rarity than the pass rushers. Nonetheless, a big body that's stout against the run and will maintain gap integrity is the main focus so that you can free up edge rushers. Those guys don't rack up stats or hype, so the market is artificially low.
Sideways
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A good observation. You can find some that are big. You can find some that are fast. But it is very hard to find any that are big AND fast. Defensive tackles are precious and few except for the football factories that seem to have no problem getting them. The rest of us must make do with the long, hard, slow process of turning defensive ends into tackles, linebackers into ends, hoping and praying that a prospect, perhaps better suited for offense, develops into a defensive tackle, or perhaps making the best of things by using someone too small or not fast enough or some combination of the two. Offensive tackles (in our system) and defensive tackles are the hardest positions to recruit and will remain so. It's just the way it is.
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What is the average number of years a DT plays in the NFL? I would guess it's around 3. Being that large puts a lot of stress on the frame as does the hand to hand fighting and impacts. When you are that big, the ground must hit back harder.
Eli
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Centers are usually the smartest player on the team
Animal02
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Same here...Was definitely true when I played