What's Coming?

First, let me just say that I appreciate the comments that I get. I know I am really bad about failing to actually respond to comments. Unfortunately, job and family considerations often prevent me from being able to get interactive with those people who are kindly enough to give me feedback. I assure you I read the comments and I appreciate the input, compliments, additions, and even the insults that people provide.

On to the show...

With Spring Football over and the summer camps still a ways away, there will be little news of value coming out regarding football. Really the only sports going on right now that interest me at all are baseball and hockey, and I just don't know that much about baseball, and you don't care one bit about hockey.

One thing I'm going to do is not post on weekends for a while. I don't get a lot of readership on weekends, and the posts end up getting pushed down the page before anyone sees them. Plus, it will allow me to stretch limited material a little further without diluting it content-wise. I have vowed never to post just for the sake of posting, and I won't start now. If I'm not feeling the inspiration to write anything, I just won't write. Now, when inspiration comes on the weekend, I'll post it during the week.

If there's something that happens on a weekend that I think needs to be written about, I will write about at that time, and of course when the season starts back up we will be heavily involved in weekend posting, but in the offseason, with so little going on, we'll chill out a bit on the weekends. Maybe do some light gardening.

Last year, around this time, we started doing our profiles of the members of the 2007 recruiting class at LSU. It was a big hit, and was a lot of fun to write up. Actually, we didn't start it until early June, but that's OK. We'll do it again this year, and since I don't have a boss here, I can start it whenever I like.

We're going to be a little more formal this time. I'm going to put players into one of three categories. Players will be either Headliners, or Solid Players, or Projects.

Headliners are guys the class is built around, and who I think the coaches expect the team to be built around in the future. These are players who have a really good chance of playing right away. Of course, I could very easily be wrong about them, but it's a projection. Last year, I would have labeled Chad Jones, Terrance Tolliver, Phelon Jones, Joe Barksdale, and Stefoin Francois as headliners. And maybe one or two others. Chad Jones, Tolliver, and Barksdale played right away, but Phelon Jones and Francois redshirted and are still trying to work their way up the depth chart.

Solid players are just that. They're solid. They're going to come in, and probably not play a whole lot immediately, but if they develop as expected they will be getting onto the two-deep depth chart in a year or two and will comprise the team leaders in their junior and senior years. That is, of course, if they develop. They sometimes don't. I would expect this to be the biggest category of players.

Projects are a group of people who likely are going to have to sit a while before they emerge as players, if they ever do. I don't want it to sound like a pejorative term, but the fact remains that not everyone in a recruiting class is a future star. Some are future depth players, or end up surprising you. I probably would have labeled Jonathan Zenon as a project when he was recruited, and he ended up a two-year starter. Last year, I probably would have labeled Jarvis Jones as a project, and he played backup left tackle as a true freshman. I would definitely have been wrong on that one.

As was pointed out when I labeled Robby Green as a "class filler", these guys sometimes end up being very good. Heck, sometimes walk-ons end up as All-Americans. Sometimes guys who the big schools wouldn't touch end up being Pro Bowl in the NFL. "Project" does not mean "Future Failure". It just means the guy probably has a long way to go before he's ready to help the team on the field.

So, that's what you have to look forward to. I look forward to writing them. I hope no one takes any offense. I don't know when I'll start, but I'll get to them soon.