Another one of Steeples' kids is now in the portal...

Interesting that 247 has him listed at 6 foot 3

IMO we don’t need to take flyers on guys who not legit LB’s.
We need solid guys at the Mike, 2, minimum

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I know that spots aren't really in short supply, but why would we waste a spot on a backup/special teamer? If you want another JACK, go get a guy who can actually play the position; don't get a special teams guy. It seems like this guy wasn't even much more than rotational depth for a really bad WVU team... I can't imagine he'd be more than a bench warmer for us.

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We badly need some kids who can help out on special teams.

For all the screaming about Polian, we were really scraping to find people who could help there. And the kids who have hit the portal from our roster are a whole lot of the people who did play on the special teams.

It isn't a good idea to just fill up special teams with freshmen or to draft a bunch of backup wide receivers. You need a mix of some veterans and some kids with size, too. A 6-1, 245-pound guy who can run a little like this kid can will bring you some value there.

And if he can give you depth at Jack that's a plus. Right now you have Saivion Jones (maybe, if he doesn't play end), DaShawn Womack, Swinson (who's pretty light at 230 pounds) and 205-pound Zavier Carter (who did look good in the Citrus Bowl), and that's it. Unless you want to move Perkins over there, which the depth at linebacker says you can't do.

You actually need somebody who can hold his own on the edge, if for nothing else than depth.

I'm not saying I'd take this guy. I'm just saying he might be somebody we'd look at and if we do there could be reasons for it.

Agreed, Bjorn.

Some of these kids aren't even in the portal for playing time. They're in it because they're on bad teams or in bad programs and they want to win.

I don't know that we want this kid, but if we decided we did, he's got a relationship with Steeples and with Jefferson, not to mention Wingo and Seth Marcione and maybe Markway (and maybe even JK Johnson too), and he knows he's coming to a good program that could vault him from playing on a crap team to the playoffs.

Guys like that can very often come in and be glue guys, and when they play they give so much effort that they'll be more productive than anybody thinks.

Hopefully steep made a call, cause if he did then maybe he’s worthy of a chance to compete, and then again, maybe they “know” he can compete and make a name for himself, good coaching can make lots of kids better, just never know imo!

I'll leave all that up to scouts and the coaches. I'm sure they are studying the portal and doing their due diligence on every athlete available.

They were the best team in the state of Missouri regardless of class in 2019 and were the 2nd best team in the state in 2020. They unseated perennial powerhouse CBC who is a top 20 team in the country nearly every year in St Louis and have since 3 peated again the last 3 years. Desmet been mediocre the last couple years since steeples left and they weren’t a notable program atleast on a state championship contending level for a decade before Steeples got there. He turned that program around and made them into a powerhouse. Every single kid that’s ever been around him in St Louis loves him.