Roster Snapshot: The Juniors

I mentioned the last time that you have to be a bit forward thinking with recruiting and that means that you have to be looking to the senior class for the 2017 year so that you can get a handle on whether or not the 2017 class addresses. Here are the seniors for the 2017 season:

No. Player Position Ht/Wt Year
51 Tony Morales Center 6-3/295 Senior
3 D.J. Polite-Bray Cornerback 6-0/195 Senior
46 R.J. Hester Cornerback 5-9/185 Senior
53 Kyle Heffron Deep Snapper 5-11/225 Senior
5 Gary Moore Defensive End 6-5/240 Senior
12 Zach Barnes Defensive End 6-3/240 Senior
95 Talor Nunez Defensive End 6-4/255 Senior
99 Mychealon Thomas Defensive Tackle 6-1/325 Senior
12 Ian Sadler Inside Receiver 5-11/195 Senior
13 Cameron Batson Inside Receiver 5-9/175 Senior
19 Zach Austin Inside Receiver 5-11/195 Senior
11 Jacarthy Mack Linebacker 6-2/195 Senior
5 Patrick Mahomes II Quarterback 6-3/230 Senior
16 Nic Shimonek Quarterback 6-3/220 Senior
4 Justin Stockton Running Back 5-10/200 Senior
30 Caleb Woodward Running Back 6-0/210 Senior
30 Matthew Rubal Safety 6-2/185 Senior
11 Derrick Willies Wide Receiver 6-3/215 Senior
14 Dylan Cantrell Wide Receiver 6-3/210 Senior
88 Ja’Deion High Wide Receiver 5-11/175 Senior

If you’re counting, that’s 20 seniors for the next class and of those 20, I think there are 14 or so scholarship players (that’s always tough to determine because you don’t really who know who got a scholarship).

RELATED: The Graduates |

To break this down by position group:

Wide Receiver:3
Inside Receiver: 3
Running Back: 1
Quarterback: 2 (this is obviously dependent if Mahomes stays)
Offensive Linemen: 1
Defensive Back: 3
Defensive End: 3
Defensive Tackle: 1
Linebacker: 1

So, the position of need is probably going to be the receiver spots, that’s 6 pretty productive receivers, both inside and outside, probably the inside guys more than the outside. And the 2018 class already had three highly rated receivers, Jaylon Robinson, Gabriel Douglas and Treveon Johnson. Other than that, I think I’m pretty good with how things look from a recruiting perspective. To look even a bit further out, the inside receivers that will graduate in 2018 includes Jonathan Giles, De’Quan Bowman (who didn’t play at all in 2016 and I’m not sure if he had a redshirt year, but I’d guess that he does), and Keke Coutee. That’s some productive inside guys and I wouldn’t be surprised if the staff really stocks up in 2018 on some inside receivers (see above). Oh, and the pending graduation of Cantrell and Willies was evident in the 2016 class where the staff grabbed Troy Brown, Quan Shorts, T.J. Vasher and Antoine Wesley, big outside targets. That’s the idea, to be ahead of the game.

Also important is that there will be only one offensive lineman leaving (fingers crossed) and that’s good news there. Again, players getting in trouble and retiring due to injury could maybe be tough to blame on the coaching staff because that’s tough to foresee and it’s not as if they’ve gone a glass where they ignored the offensive line.

Up next is where we start getting into the position groups and start with the defensive line.

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