In '21 we had 16 seniors on the team. Last year 9 and this year 9. There will be 19 eligible seniors next year but at least 10 will probably leave early. And due to the combination of our recruiting and the portal, it looks like this will be the norm for the foreseeable future. All of the recruits we're bringing in are coming here with a pro career on their mind. If they are successful as planned, they are likely gone in three years. If they don't see the opportunity coming to fruition after a year or two, they will likely portal out. And since there is no limit on recruiting classes, we'll continually backfill with talented freshmen or selected portal players. So the new normal will be a roster construction that is turning over at a higher rate than in the past and perpetually "young" compared to what a normal roster was 4 or 5 years ago.
So what impact will this have, particularly on team leadership? Leadership traditionally came from your fourth or even fifth year seniors as we saw when Chubb, Sony, Carter, etc. came back.
Will we be able to develop leadership early in the young players, or more specifically, does this become an even more important criteria in recruiting?
Will we continue to need one or two key players to return, like Van Pran, Brinson and Stackhouse this year and Beal, Chris Smith and Nolan Smith last year?
Will we be able to find a formula each year that works, or will we be susceptible to a year where we don't have strong enough leaders to overcome the rat poison, or to lead us through a game like MO last year or a big comeback in a big game like OSU?
The other impact of this trend is it seems like it really puts a premium on hitting on your recruiting targets. If you have a class where we really missed on a lot of players, then this whole scenario gets exacerbated and we have an even younger team than what we're seeing now.
So what impact will this have, particularly on team leadership? Leadership traditionally came from your fourth or even fifth year seniors as we saw when Chubb, Sony, Carter, etc. came back.
Will we be able to develop leadership early in the young players, or more specifically, does this become an even more important criteria in recruiting?
Will we continue to need one or two key players to return, like Van Pran, Brinson and Stackhouse this year and Beal, Chris Smith and Nolan Smith last year?
Will we be able to find a formula each year that works, or will we be susceptible to a year where we don't have strong enough leaders to overcome the rat poison, or to lead us through a game like MO last year or a big comeback in a big game like OSU?
The other impact of this trend is it seems like it really puts a premium on hitting on your recruiting targets. If you have a class where we really missed on a lot of players, then this whole scenario gets exacerbated and we have an even younger team than what we're seeing now.
