There are always unexpected departures. Going into the season with 82-83 leaving room for a couple walkons is perfect IMO. Every once in a while we'll hit that 80ish mark. Anything below that is pretty concerning to me, and it's happened a few times under Bo. USC, and all their sanctions...still is only capped at 75. So we've essentially self imposed almost an equal reduction as the NCAA placed on USC.
How Bo wouldn't know about Guy, Okeyemi, and Evans before the end of last years recruiting is a little beyond me. He likely has that conversation with every senior on the team, and probably again after the regular season giving him a couple months to recruit the position. They would communicate that too him, I'm 100% confident. It only hurts the team not to. So why those spots weren't filled is bizarre.
I don't think we can continue to brush this off as though it doesn't have an impact because we fill them with walkons that weren't going anywhere anyway. Being 6-8 short every year, when our competition is 2-3 over is too big of a gap. It's the difference between having a guy like Mike Shoff on the roster providing depth at OL, or another DT or two (Bazata), or a DE (Ott). It's in the trenches where we lack numbers, and it's there where we most often miss on recruiting. The numbers are the only way to solve that, and we aren't using them. It's my biggest issue with Pelini's recruiting. It's not so much the lack of talent in the individual, it's the lack of talent on the team because we lack the #s.
Agree with you on this. We are consistently in the high 70s. We need to be around 82-84 coming out of fall camp, and that's not including injuries, and then 2-3 walkons earning scholarships a year to get us to 85. Bo needs to do a better job of keeping us in the low 80s. 2-3 players can make a big difference in depth, like Ott and Bazata, or look what happened with Leroy Alexander, a lowly 2 star.
IMO we need to oversign by one or two every class to help keep up with the transfers that will happen. Would get us right where we need to be when the season starts 82 83.
We are at 80 for next year with 12 recruits committed for the 2015 class so we can sign 5 more right now. Would like to see us sign 18-19 total with over signing. Wouldn't be mad at all if Bo pushed it to the limit and we signed 20. There will be a few transfers in the spring and we'll be right back to 85. Put history shows us Bo hasn't taken advantage of the over signing. I really hope in a small class he does it this year.