Ike Spearman



Spearman playing for Kill. Yea--that will work.
 

I'd love to add Spearman.

We'd have to be getting close to done adding LBs though. Spearman would be our 5th (6th if you count Rallis as an OLB) of this class and we signed 3 last season. I realize a few of these guys might move to DE and we might even move one of them to H-Back or TE, but still, i'd think Spearman would be the last.
 

Is Kill pulling an SEC move by oversigning (yes I know its not even close to signing day) or do you think were really gonna lose 10 players?? It will be interesting to see how this unfolds.
 



The headline just writes itself:

"Spearman goes for the Kill"
 





I'd love to add Spearman.

We'd have to be getting close to done adding LBs though. Spearman would be our 5th (6th if you count Rallis as an OLB) of this class and we signed 3 last season. I realize a few of these guys might move to DE and we might even move one of them to H-Back or TE, but still, i'd think Spearman would be the last.

It will be interesting where everyone ends up. I'm curious who is best suited to play DE? We desperately need a DE that can rush the passer...so bad

No WMU offer? Not interested.




LOL Unbelievable. I wonder how many scholarship offers they have out?? 100's....1000's??!! Seems like every kid that comes up has a WMU offer
 

It will be interesting where everyone ends up. I'm curious who is best suited to play DE? We desperately need a DE that can rush the passer...so bad







LOL Unbelievable. I wonder how many scholarship offers they have out?? 100's....1000's??!! Seems like every kid that comes up has a WMU offer

Kill has a personal vendetta against the WMU Coach.
 


Does it seem to anyone else that Kill is slowly compiling a team of only QB's and LB's? I'm joking, kinda.. However, I do like Ike..
 




You guys have really been tragically slow on the front 7 for a while. There've been a few guys who can run, but if Kill thinks you're slow, and in the past you've seemed slow, especially at DE and LB, then maybe he's just getting as many guys who can run and hit as he possibly can in.

I can tell you that as an ASU fan, we had some absolutely terrible defenses under Dirk Koetter. One of the first thing Erickson did when he came in was start pushing for fast LB's. There have been some bumps in the road for ASU the last few years, but last year the defense was able to go toe to toe with Wisconsin (held them to 20 points in Madison), Oregon (outgained them by 200 yards, LMJ said it was the best D he'd faced at the time) and Stanford (17 points), and do alright, and the biggest reason is that the linebackers are fast and violent. Now we've got 4 seniors who can start and play at a high level, and Burfict, who is all everything, and most people expect we'll be top 25 and win our division.

I remember watching that Cal MN game a few years ago and the two obvious things about the game were 1) Eric Decker is a man and 2) you couldn't stop the outside run against speed. Gotta get faster. I think Kill will bring in as many athletic guys as he can and figure out who fits where later when he's got them in for practice.
 

I can sort of see your point, but I think there is something more going on here.

This is 100% pure speculation, but imagine that either Kill isn't very impressed with our underclassmen at LB or he expects some attrition from that position. I realize that we need more athleticism, but we appear to recruiting this position exceptionally hard for a team that will be returning 3 of their best 4 LBs in 2012 and recruited 3 kids at that position last year.

The other factor and I position where I think you hit the nail on the head is that we need to get more athletic at DE. I fully expect to see a couple of these kids transition to DE and I wouldn't be completely shocked if a couple of them end up DT's at some point in their careers (if the kid from North Carolina is really 235-240 now, he could easily be 260 in a couple seasons, and 285 in 4 years (he'd be a RS SO)).

So, I don't think it's really matter of us needing to improve our speed of our LBs, that is one area where I am pretty confident.

Cooper runs about as well as any LB. He runs so well that a lot of people on this board talk about moving him to S. Rallis has decent speed for a LB (converted S), and Tinsley can move. I don't know about Beal, but i'd guess he'd be our only slower plodding LB.
 

Athletic quarterbacks and linebackers are about the most versatile players on a football team.
 

I think Lynn will end up playing the TE, FB, or the H-back role. In alot of his highlights he is playing WR, that shows he has good quicks for the most part, knows routes, and some at least better than average hands.

Like a poster said above me, all of these Lb types are quite interchangeable. Between LB, DE, FB, TE, or H back. I think Hill loses his scholarship next year, he was originally a walk on, that is my guess for one of the freed up scholies.

Also, what is up with no Safetys? I still think we need to add a safety or maybe 2 for this class. Where are the scholies going to come from?
 

Add in TE's and I agree with you. I also agree with Loblaw that a bunch of the kids we are recruting will wind up playing at positions they are not playing in high school. They recruit speed, frame, aggressiveness and smarts and turn them into position players with their training program and position coaching. That is why Klein and the position coaches are critical to Kill. He knows he can't out recruit established programs at the moment for highly rated kids, so he will have to build them out of excellent athletes and steal the occasional developed recruit when he can.
 

Safety's? I think Robert Gregory will commit and be switched to a safety, also think that Terry Harden will commit at some point along with Jean-Marc Charles.
 

I think Spearman will end up playing the TE, FB, or the H-back role. In alot of his highlights he is playing WR, that shows he has good quicks for the most part, knows routes, and some at least better than average hands.

Like a poster said above me, all of these Lb types are quite interchangeable. Between LB, DE, FB, TE, or H back. I think Hill loses his scholarship next year, he was originally a walk on, that is my guess for one of the freed up scholies.

Also, what is up with no Safetys? I still think we need to add a safety or maybe 2 for this class. Where are the scholies going to come from?

Some people think Rallis will be a S and Dinero Moss might as well. I agree though, we need another defensive back or two.

I can't see Kill taking a scholarship away from a walk on, especially considering he is a guy who has been talking up the importance of the walk on program and liking to give them a chance to earn scholarships. I think it would be pretty tough to take a scholarship away from a kid who earned one (by a different regime) and then try to tell a future kid to walk on and try to earn a scholarship.

I don't know where they'd come from. I don't think Kill was just blowing smoke when he said he expects attrition.
 

watching some video I think Lynn gets moved from LB, he just didn't look that impressive at LB to me. Spearman looks like a natural LB.
 

I can sort of see your point, but I think there is something more going on here.

This is 100% pure speculation, but imagine that either Kill isn't very impressed with our underclassmen at LB or he expects some attrition from that position. I realize that we need more athleticism, but we appear to recruiting this position exceptionally hard for a team that will be returning 3 of their best 4 LBs in 2012 and recruited 3 kids at that position last year.

The other factor and I position where I think you hit the nail on the head is that we need to get more athletic at DE. I fully expect to see a couple of these kids transition to DE and I wouldn't be completely shocked if a couple of them end up DT's at some point in their careers (if the kid from North Carolina is really 235-240 now, he could easily be 260 in a couple seasons, and 285 in 4 years (he'd be a RS SO)).

So, I don't think it's really matter of us needing to improve our speed of our LBs, that is one area where I am pretty confident.

Cooper runs about as well as any LB. He runs so well that a lot of people on this board talk about moving him to S. Rallis has decent speed for a LB (converted S), and Tinsley can move. I don't know about Beal, but i'd guess he'd be our only slower plodding LB.

Would you consider Beal an upgraded version of Maresh?
 

@ SD gopherfan, my bad on that, yeah I meant Lynn also. I havent seen Spearmans Highlights yet, Im guessing they are all defense based though. Yeah Lynn's tackling skills do not look forceful, he takes down the guy but not very solidly for a guy his size in high school. He seems to be suited for offense more. Good catch SD Gopherfan!!!

@bob You mentioned the last regime gave him a schollie, exactly it was the last regime. In my opinion he has no obligation to continue to give that schollie. A new coach in town, new needs will be rewarded, schollies for walkons even get pulled by the same regime sometime. I think kill has some rightful wiggle room in this, and we are stacked at LB for the most part.
 

JackiO :

I really don't know much about Beal. He looked good to me in the few spring practices, a similar kind of player to Maresh / Lee Campbell. This is all from a very small sample size, but I think he looks like Lee Campbell with more athleticism and maybe a touch "less strong". But like I said, I saw very little of Beal (or Maresh really).

Victor: I get your point and I realize that he has no obligation to honor tt scholarship. I just don't think it would make sense strategically to pull a kid's scholarship offer who has earned it, from another regime. Like I said, I get where you are coming from and you could certainly be right, I just think a move by Kill of stripping a scholarship from a kid like Hill would have serious negative impact on the walk on program.
 

MinnySunDevil gets half the way there. I don't know how slow the guys we've been playing on defense are in terms of straight-line speed, but there's no doubt that they've played slow. I don't know if that's due to the turnover in defensive coordinators or the lack of football instincts, but there have been too many times over the last couple of decades that I've watched our LBs play too shallow and not be able to impede the QB's vision on an out route or be able to drop back into coverage. Keanon Cooper has been the lone exception that I've seen with the ability to cover the TE deep down the field in the past decade.

Same goes for our DBs, who appear to have athletic ability but can't find the ball in the air.

Count me among those who wonders where the scholarships are going to come from. Kill must have a good idea of how great the attrition level is going to be.
 




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