Anyone who thinks that Georgia State’s football team will be able to load up in the next signing-day class and become instantly competitive may want to think again. Anyone who thinks the team will have the needed depth after the Class of 2015 may also want to think again.
An examination of Georgia State’s roster shows that the team is not balanced by need in class or position. Coach Trent Miles has a big challenge that he said will take at least three years to solve.
“It’s an extremely big challenge, especially when it comes to trying to meet the needs that you have at each position, while at the same time balancing the classes by positional need and number,” he said.
For example, most teams carry four or five quarterbacks who range in class from a senior to a freshman. When one leaves or graduates, another steps in and the coaches sign at least one more to fulfill the number desired and to maintain a class-by-class balance between the classes.
Georgia State will enter spring football with two quarterbacks who will be juniors next season and another who will be a third-year sophomore. If the Panthers sign a junior college prospect, they may have three juniors.
That type of imbalance is rife throughout the roster.
Miles would like to have 41 scholarship players on offense, 41 on defense and three on special teams, with at least 15 players in each class. He wants that balance because it will allow each position group to reload as seniors use up their eligibility, or attrition occurs because of injury, academics or personal choices.
As the roster is constituted heading into the spring, based upon this season’s playing time, Miles estimates the Panthers will have on scholarship 12 seniors, 15 juniors, 20 sophomores and seven redshirt freshmen.
Within those classes are position groups that don’t have the numbers that Miles would like and certainly not the balance. For example, in the spring, the Panthers will have two safeties, both of whom are underclassmen. Miles would like to have seven when the roster is full, but he likely won’t sign five safeties in February because he has needs at other positions. So, sacrifices must be made.
The challenge of trying to balance the team by class and position was exacerbated by at least two things:
- The team suffered attrition at several positions in several classes in previous years, robbing the roster of depth and eliminating stability by class within the position groups. For example, the Panthers entered last spring with eight wide receivers, five of whom were seniors.
- The move to FBS and the Sun Belt from the FCS and Colonial Athletic Association was somewhat sudden. Therefore, the roster wasn't built with FBS in mind. The move allows for more scholarships (85, compared with 63 on the FCS level), but fewer signees (25, compared to 30 on the FCS level) per year, which limits the chances to rebuild.
Miles said the problem he inherited has nothing to do with his predecessor, Bill Curry. Instead, it has to do with the move itself.
There is no simple solution. NCAA rules dictate that teams can’t sign more than 25 players to scholarships each year. They are otherwise known as “initial counters.”
Currently, 18 high school players (including Alex Stoehr and B.J. Clay, who are expected to enroll in January), one junior college player, and one prep-school player have committed to sign with the Panthers in February. Joel Ruiz, a walk-on on the roster, will be put on scholarship. Those players will take up 21 of the 25 initial counters.
To help balance the classes, the Panthers could turn to junior college players. But there are only four slots available. Miles estimates 16 junior college players are needed to fulfill positional needs and to balance the classes.
So some positions won’t be filled as Miles would like. The same thing will occur each of the next two years because those classes likely will be small, and the team can’t carry more than 85 players on scholarship.
Losing as many as 12 players after the 2014 season may mean that Miles won’t be able to sign the full allotment of 25 players the next February because there may not be that many scholarships available.
A possible solution to adding more junior college players may be to “grayshirt” some of the incoming freshmen, meaning they would sign in February but delay their entry into school until January 2015. But that doesn’t help because they would count against the 25 initial counters for next year, and Miles said he isn’t interested in “robbing Peter to pay Paul.”
Miles recognized this was going to be an issue when he took the job. He wanted to redshirt most of the freshmen he signed this year, but because they practiced and performed well he elected to play 14 of them. That decision will prove beneficial because it will mean the sophomore class will have 20 players, which is closer to the numbers Miles would like in a class.
He said a lot of freshmen likely will play next season for the same reason.
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