Their great teams were almost ALL built on the Prop 48 guys. Once they lost that they really lost their pipeline to guys from Texas, California and Florida. They never routinely beat out big programs for those kids (like Michigan, Ohio State, etc did in Florida). Add to that their style and what they did with Midwestern kids on the lines and the fact that those things don't really work in today's game......

I'm not really sure how they get back to being a consistent national player again. I think Riley will have them winning 8-10 games yearly and maybe squeak in a great senior class once in a while to get to 11 or 12, but I can't see them being a consistent Top 10 team again.

Sucks, because as everyone said, by all accounts an awesome fanbase who LOVES their program as much as we do.

This post was edited on 5/17/17 at 7:38 am

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Posted by CapstoneGrad06

Little Rock

Member since Nov 2008

72248 posts

Posted on 5/17/17 at 12:36 pm to SummerOfGeorge

quote:
Their great teams were almost ALL built on the Prop 48 guys. Once they lost that they really lost their pipeline to guys from Texas, California and Florida. They never routinely beat out big programs for those kids (like Michigan, Ohio State, etc did in Florida). Add to that their style and what they did with Midwestern kids on the lines and the fact that those things don't really work in today's game...

Their endowed county walkon program ending really hurt too. They stock piled Nebraska kids on those "scholarships".

Roster size being slowly reduced by the NCAA hurt them as well. Osborne won titles after this went into effect, but he had the program humming along for a couple decades by then.

Rebuilding it with all these limitations that Devaney and Osborne didn't have to deal with makes it a much tougher job now.

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