In Reply to: Some honest questions posted by TJJ on December 26, 2024 at 12:31:20
Agree that we need that QB, hard to get offensive players if you don't have a QB. QB and edge are the most expensive players and I'm guessing we don't have enough to get a top name QB or maybe lack of OL doesn't instill much confidence to QB candidates.
We lost JMS (didn't do much for us in 2 years), Loya (disappointing season), Martyn (one good game) and Hardin (sorry season last year though I blame it on the OL). Our defense is what kept us in the game this year and we lost a ton of graduating talents w/o much to refill the roles thanks to all the 3* average HS recruits that Kelley signed. So it makes sense to get what we can on the defense until we figured out on a qb.
We are getting transfers from FSU, SEC schools, Miami, OU. A lot of them only been w/ their previous school for a year, making them just slightly more developed than a HS recruit and it's an unreal expectation to think a freshman can be a starter at those schools. Most of them were 4* recruits in HS, ton of competitive offers from top programs. We are getting them as transfers but if we got them a year ago from HS, ppl would be ecstatic on this board.
Take Robert Stafford as an example, ESPN top 300 recruit from Florida, offer from Oregon, OSU, Georgia, LSU etc... There is no way in hell we can beat out those schools and get a kid like that out of HS. Now he's coming to us after a year of college training from Miami. Take a look at the schools our former players are going to, outside of JMS, most are going to lesser schools (Prongos to Stanford, Martyn to Maryland, Acheampong to Bowling Green), this just means higher-end programs don't think they are good enough. Not all our transfers will succeed at UCLA but chances are higher than getting transfers from Harvard, Yale and Navy.
We all want a Mateer or Mensah or Weigman from the portal but UCLA football haven't been relevant in 20+ years. Outside a few Mora years, we haven't made any splash in college football. We are starting to get some NIL money but nothing close to big programs. Realistically, our only selling point is playing time which they are going to get at any school. Getting DF canned would be a solution? It's just going to start everything over again, new OC, new DC, new recruits. It takes time to turn a program like ours around, hell it took Harbaugh quite a few years to turn Michigan around.