3 picks in the first round shows that Louisville lost a lot. And according to ESPN, Louisville has 11 players that registered for the draft. That's a lot more than losing just 1 player.

Three first round picks is really impressive. For all the grief that Charlie Strong got for leaving, he did an incredible job there developing talent. Hopefully Petrino can keep it up.

(05-08-2014 10:53 PM)ChrisLords Wrote:  3 picks in the first round shows that Louisville lost a lot. And according to ESPN, Louisville has 11 players that registered for the draft. That's a lot more than losing just 1 player.

I'm not exactly sure how to respond. Who said UofL only lost Bridgewater? It's been widely accepted for a long time that Pryor was going 1st round and while Smith was a 1st rd surprise, everyone was projecting him to be drafted fairly high. How often does a top 25 team only lose 1 contributing guy off the roster?

The Cards match A&M as the only schools with 3 picks in Rd 1.

Strong built a lot of depth on both sides of the ball. We lose a lot but we have A LOT coming back...and a lot of experience. Strong was very good about rotating in younger players everywhere but QB.

UL was almost definitely going to struggle some replacing key contributors. Then they lost their coach (though they replaced him with another proven guy). And they're joining a substantially better conference.

I was equally impressed with the large number of ACC players being drafted and or mentioned as possible first round picks. I think the ACC is well on it's way to becoming at least the second strongest conference in Football. Seems only the SEC had more players chosen. I haven't had time to verify that though.

had to make up for winning a BCS game and not having any1 drafted last year

I think part of that was the fact that Charlie had to start so many true freshmen 4 years ago when he came to UL. The team was pretty bare of real talent and a ton of guys played early and played a lot. Then over the next couple of years he really brought in "higher level" talent in many of those areas. Some of the guys we have who are really good were not 4 or 5 star players starting out -- they were coached up to that level. Lots of them were changed from one position to another -- actually all 3 chosen last night played QB in high school -- yet 2 of them moved in college.

Petrino has a bunch of good players who came back from some decent recruiting that Strong did over his years. But what is better is that CBP will really coach them up -- on both sides of the ball. So losing a lot, we still have some really great guys coming back -- especially on offense cause CBP will use them to their max whereas Strong didn't push for the offense to be great.

(05-08-2014 10:53 PM)ChrisLords Wrote:  3 picks in the first round shows that Louisville lost a lot. And according to ESPN, Louisville has 11 players that registered for the draft. That's a lot more than losing just 1 player.

One could make the argument that it's also indicative of how much talent Louisville really has in the program that the typical fan wasn't aware of. Charlie was quietly assembling a serious roster. I think one of his biggest strengths is evaluating talent.

We lost a lot but there is still quite a bit of potential NFL talent. We're obviously not going to produce three first rounders again next year but I'd expect guys like DeVante Parker and Lorenzo Mauldin to go pretty high in 2015.

If you check out this link you'll see Louisville littering the boards:

2015 NFL draft prospects

(05-09-2014 05:03 AM)CardFan1 Wrote:  I was equally impressed with the large number of ACC players being drafted and or mentioned as possible first round picks. I think the ACC is well on it's way to becoming at least the second strongest conference in Football. Seems only the SEC had more players chosen. I haven't had time to verify that though.

If you count up draft picks for the last decade, the ACC ranks second only to the SEC. Yet the ACC wasn't the second best conference.

I think , we should revisit this issue after we are in the middle of the 2014 ACC Football Season. I believe Louisville will shock some of the ACC mighty!

(05-09-2014 01:55 PM)Marge Schott Wrote:  

(05-09-2014 05:03 AM)CardFan1 Wrote:  I was equally impressed with the large number of ACC players being drafted and or mentioned as possible first round picks. I think the ACC is well on it's way to becoming at least the second strongest conference in Football. Seems only the SEC had more players chosen. I haven't had time to verify that though.

If you count up draft picks for the last decade, the ACC ranks second only to the SEC. Yet the ACC wasn't the second best conference.

Where do you point the finger then? Coaching is the first place that comes to mind for me. Off the top of my head UNC and NC State comes to mind when I think of drafts where you see a decent number of guys drafted from a school and you wonder why that team was mediocre or decent at best the prior season.

(05-09-2014 10:16 AM)marleycard Wrote:  If you check out this link you'll see Louisville littering the boards:

2015 NFL draft prospects

That doesn't appear to be including any underclassmen.

(05-09-2014 01:59 PM)Marge Schott Wrote:  

(05-09-2014 10:16 AM)marleycard Wrote:  If you check out this link you'll see Louisville littering the boards:

2015 NFL draft prospects

That doesn't appear to be including any underclassmen.

Correct, it breaks down by class. Note the drop down option for 2016 or even 2017. Obviously it is early for these type of projections but my overall point is that the cupboard is decently stocked for the Cards.

(05-09-2014 01:59 PM)CollegeCard Wrote:  

(05-09-2014 01:55 PM)Marge Schott Wrote:  

(05-09-2014 05:03 AM)CardFan1 Wrote:  I was equally impressed with the large number of ACC players being drafted and or mentioned as possible first round picks. I think the ACC is well on it's way to becoming at least the second strongest conference in Football. Seems only the SEC had more players chosen. I haven't had time to verify that though.

If you count up draft picks for the last decade, the ACC ranks second only to the SEC. Yet the ACC wasn't the second best conference.

Where do you point the finger then? Coaching is the first place that comes to mind for me. Off the top of my head UNC and NC State comes to mind when I think of drafts where you see a decent number of guys drafted from a school and you wonder why that team was mediocre or decent at best the prior season.

Absolutely the coaching has been bad. How many 2014 schools will have new-ish coaches? And almost none of them are because their good coach was poached away, it's because they repeatedly make poor hires.

Experience at current school (completed seasons):
VT - a lot (warmseat)
Duke - 6 years
GT - 6 years (hotseat)
Clemson - 6 years
FSU - 4 years
UVA - 4 years (hotseat)
UL - 4 years (0 in current stint)
Miami - 3 years
Pitt - 2 years
UNC - 2 years
NC State - 1 year
BC - 1 year
Cuse - 1 year
Wake - 0 years

Literally half of the conference has coaches that have 3 years at their current school or less. And 3 of the "longer than 3-year" coaches may not be around in a few years due to lack of performance. Besides Fisher, Cutcliffe, Swinney, Golden and Petrino, I cannot confidently say I expect any other coach to be at their current job in 5 years.

But saying the only issue is coaching is a cop out. Why was coaching the issue? Because schools weren't paying competitive salaries. Because they didn't have competitive facilities. They didn't have competitive budgets (for recruiting, other personnel, training table, etc). It was a league-wide issue. Things appear to have changed in regards to facilities. Most schools are "caught up" in a sense, although they won't be confused with the Michigan or Texas of the world. I don't know much about salaries off hand and knowing what schools are doing with support personnel is very hard to figure out. The proof of real change will be the results.

But people have been pointing out the ACC's "potential" and its draft success for years, and, well, we're still the ACC.

I wouldn't concern myself with the Time length of each coaches tenure at said schools.......

I would more so concern myself that in the past (last year has changed some things) none of the coaches were able to win KEY OOC games and Bowl wins.

I do believe this will change in the future and help to change the ACC perception.
FlossY out...

(05-09-2014 02:42 PM)HRFlossY Wrote:  I wouldn't concern myself with the Time length of each coaches tenure at said schools.......

I would more so concern myself that in the past (last year has changed some things) none of the coaches were able to win KEY OOC games and Bowl wins.

I do believe this will change in the future and help to change the ACC perception.
FlossY out...

You don't think there's any correlation between tenure length and ability to win games?

Also, it's great that you believe things will change in the future, but you don't really say why or present anything to support your opinion.

Also, I listed the coaching issue as a symptom of an ACC-wide issue, not the cause (disease).

I see the ACC football power structure as these Top Five teams in alpha order:

Top Five Programs
Clemson
FSU
Louisville
Miami
Virginia Tech

Middle Five Programs
Georgia Tech
North Carolina
North Carolina State
Pitt
Syracuse

Bottom Four Programs
Boston College
Duke
Virginia
Wake Forest

(05-09-2014 03:00 PM)Wilkie01 Wrote:  I see the ACC football power structure as these Top Five teams in alpha order:

Top Five Programs
Clemson
FSU
Louisville
Miami
Virginia Tech

Middle Five Programs
Georgia Tech
North Carolina
North Carolina State
Pitt
Syracuse

Bottom Four Programs
Virginia
Boston College
Duke
Wake Forest

Wilkie, is this your opinion strictly moving forward in the short term with no consideration of history? I'm assuming so, otherwise the Cards can't be #3.

(05-09-2014 01:55 PM)Wilkie01 Wrote:   I think , we should revisit this issue after we are in the middle of the 2014 ACC Football Season. I believe Louisville will shock some of the ACC mighty!

In what way?