[cardcrimson]

My post related to the comment below that I interpreted as lamenting that we're seeing a brobdingnagian drop off on offense because of playing 4 freshmen on the OL:

"more playing the level one would expect where 3 or 4 players on your offensive line were playing high school ball last year.  Their strength and technique is a long ways from where it will be in the future ( I hope)."

I simply noted that Alabama hasn't seen a similar drop off on their D playing 4 true frosh. Apparently, the consensus here is that there is a brobdingnagian difference between OUR freshmen and OUR older players, while there isn't the same difference between ALABAMA's freshmen and ALABAMA's older players. Seems counter intuitive that our player development is THAT much better than Alabama's.

As for the differing academic requirements between the schools, I completely understand it. That said, I tire of the "well they're players couldn't get into Stanford" trope that someone else inferred (oddly, completely irrelevant to my post). As Mick pointed out, Alabama has at least one, if not two, of their freshman defensive starters that had the grades to get in to Stanford. On another note, when was the last time Stanford had a finalist for a Rhodes Scholarship who also won a national championship? Alabama's had one this decade.

[cardcrimson]

My post related to the comment below that I interpreted as lamenting that we're seeing a brobdingnagian drop off on offense because of playing 4 freshmen on the OL:

"more playing the level one would expect where 3 or 4 players on your offensive line were playing high school ball last year.  Their strength and technique is a long ways from where it will be in the future ( I hope)."

I simply noted that Alabama hasn't seen a similar drop off on their D playing 4 true frosh. Apparently, the consensus here is that there is a brobdingnagian difference between OUR freshmen and OUR older players, while there isn't the same difference between ALABAMA's freshmen and ALABAMA's older players. Seems counter intuitive that our player development is THAT much better than Alabama's.

As for the differing academic requirements between the schools, I completely understand it. That said, I tire of the "well they're players couldn't get into Stanford" trope that someone else inferred (oddly, completely irrelevant to my post). As Mick pointed out, Alabama has at least one, if not two, of their freshman defensive starters that had the grades to get in to Stanford. On another note, when was the last time Stanford had a finalist for a Rhodes Scholarship who also won a national championship? Alabama's had one this decade.