Anybody have any insight on which freshmen are going to play this year?? I know it's hard to say at this point, but just wondering if anybody had some "inside" info.

I posted a thread on this last month that had some good discussion prior to the start of fall practice: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4958

No inside info per se, but based on reading/watching practice reports, I'll revise my semi-educated guess to this:

Play (12):

WR Isaiah Lewis
WR Montez McGuire
WR Shaedon Meadors
WR Jaylan Barbour
WR Deltron Hopkins
C Tobias Edge-Campbell
DE Alanmichael Harkness
LB Devan Stringer
LB Eric Boggs
CB Latrell Gibbs
S AJ Howard
DB Jordan Ford


Redshirt (16):

QB JP Caruso
RB Josh Boyd
RB Jalin Moore
RB/WR Nikia Cathey
WR Mykelti Armstrong
WR Jordan Noil
TE Brandon Walton
OL Chandler Greer
OL Madison Malone
OL Owen Painter
DT Myquon Stout
DE Curtiss Benton
LB Okon Godwin
S/LB Teh'Ron Fuller
S Junior Sigalo
S Austin Exford

That's a ton of freshmen WR's. The need is definitely there though. Heard that Hopkins returned a kick-off in the scrimmage Saturday. He's a burner.

LB's are one of the biggest surprises in terms of not red shirting. Boggs has the body, but the 3-4 that we run is pretty complicated. Stringer was here for the spring and seems to be in every update I read.

Bearboy wrote:That's a ton of freshmen WR's. The need is definitely there though. Heard that Hopkins returned a kick-off in the scrimmage Saturday. He's a burner.

LB's are one of the biggest surprises in terms of not red shirting. Boggs has the body, but the 3-4 that we run is pretty complicated. Stringer was here for the spring and seems to be in every update I read.

FWIW, Dale Jones said in the practice report yesterday that Boggs is the smartest freshman LB he's coached in 19 years. That's quite the compliment especially coming from such a good coach like DJ.

APPARJ wrote:

Bearboy wrote:That's a ton of freshmen WR's. The need is definitely there though. Heard that Hopkins returned a kick-off in the scrimmage Saturday. He's a burner.

LB's are one of the biggest surprises in terms of not red shirting. Boggs has the body, but the 3-4 that we run is pretty complicated. Stringer was here for the spring and seems to be in every update I read.

FWIW, Dale Jones said in the practice report yesterday that Boggs is the smartest freshman LB he's every coached in 19 years. That's quite the compliment especially coming from such a good coach like DJ.

Yeah, I saw that, and he also flat-out said Boggs will be playing against Michigan.

On the WRs, I agree that's a lot. But I couldn't figure out which ones to sit:

Lewis: seems to be the talk of camp. Sounds like he's going to play a lot.

Meadors/Barbour: highest-rated recruits in the class, and both seem to be practicing well.

Hopkins: As Bearboy said, he's a burner, which are in short supply, esp. if Sumler isn't healthy. Also played such a high level of HS competition.

McGuire: Have heard very little from him in camp, but how often does a juco redshirt?


For that matter, it sounds like Armstrong and Noil have done some nice things too, but they can't all play, can they?

Bearboy wrote:That's a ton of freshmen WR's. The need is definitely there though. Heard that Hopkins returned a kick-off in the scrimmage Saturday. He's a burner.

LB's are one of the biggest surprises in terms of not red shirting. Boggs has the body, but the 3-4 that we run is pretty complicated. Stringer was here for the spring and seems to be in every update I read.

Go watch the practice report from yesterday. They did the position report on LB's and they talked about Boggs. Listen for Jones' comments.

East's list is pretty good. Couple of wildcards would be Edge-Campbell. Moving him to center they really want to shirt him and Chapman is still considered the backup for now. Based on conversations they would love to give him time to work more and can always pull the shirt should Fisher get hurt early on. We'll see in a few days.

And with the WR's Capel and Sumler will dictate how many of the true freshmen play. Scott has said several times that they want to carry 8-9 on the travel/active team. Malachi, Dante Jones, Bobo, and Simms make 4, Capel and Sumler can't have a shirt so that's a possible 6. McGuire has three to play two. Didn't take a shirt at GMC so he could if needed but I don't see it so that's 7. That only leaves a couple of spots to reach Scott's number. Sumler has to stay healthy and the light bulb has to go off for Capel. If those don't happen in the next week or so then more Fr will be active.

Even though UM is fast approaching we're still early so a lot can change. We'll have a much better idea come next week as a full on meeting is set to work on a two deep and go more into the game planning for UM.

EDIT: Sorry ARJ and East. I started this post then decided to double check on McGuire. Jones also said about Boggs that having a true freshman play his first game a Michigan will be great or something like that. Sounds like they're planning on him playing as of not.

Any way the coaches have a lot of talent to pick from and a lot of hard decisions to make in the next week or so.

Unless something has changed since the spring, I don't think Capel will be a factor this year. I know he can't redshirt but I don't think he will play much. Would have said the same for Jones at the time, but it sounded like he did well in the first scrimmage, so maybe he's making a push.

EastHallApp wrote:Unless something has changed since the spring, I don't think Capel will be a factor this year. I know he can't redshirt but I don't think he will play much. Would have said the same for Jones at the time, but it sounded like he did well in the first scrimmage, so maybe he's making a push.

Agree on Capel. Dante had a pretty good spring game. Ran good, crisp routes in his time in there. Stats are 3 for 23 and 1 TD but he was inches away from getting that foot down on that long pass Caruso threw up during the scramble. He caught it just barely OB on a diving attempt. JS has been saying good things about him all spring and summer. We'll see soon enough.

firemoose wrote:

EastHallApp wrote:Unless something has changed since the spring, I don't think Capel will be a factor this year. I know he can't redshirt but I don't think he will play much. Would have said the same for Jones at the time, but it sounded like he did well in the first scrimmage, so maybe he's making a push.

Agree on Capel. Dante had a pretty good spring game. Ran good, crisp routes in his time in there. Stats are 3 for 23 and 1 TD but he was inches away from getting that foot down on that long pass Caruso threw up during the scramble. He caught it just barely OB on a diving attempt. JS has been saying good things about him all spring and summer. We'll see soon enough.

Capel's case is fascinating to me. He elected to lose a year of eligibility in order to transfer to App State and it looks like he's on the bottom half of the talent totem pole. Same with Dante Jones. Kid was a highly recruited prospect with a BCS offer and we're questioning the level of his impact.

But this is why I love college football... you just NEVER know whether a big time recruit will pan out. On paper, Isaiah Lewis shouldn't be making the headlines in fall camp, but he is! It all comes down to who works hard and steps up with their time comes.

Competition breeds excellence and the best competitors rise to the top!

Capel is an interesting case to me as well. He put up 8,500+ yards and 113 TD's as a dual threat QB in HS, 2/3's of those TD's were rushing TD's so he can move with the ball. But how many times have we seen, not just at App but everywhere, QB's trying to be converted. Sometimes they get it right away and others just can't seem to grasp it. Hopefully he'll get it down or we can find a place for his skill set as an ATH.

Not as worried about Jones. Everything I've heard says he's just quietly going about his business. The huge group of WR's we brought in have captured the attention on most everybody. He was the second leading receiver in the scrimmage and has been having a good camp from all accounts. It just hasn't been posted because of all the talk about the Fr. Happens every year that someone gets left out because there is only so much space for the reports. I think he's going to be just fine for us and may catch some people off guard who have somewhat forgotten about him because they aren't seeing a lot written about him. We've got 106 players on the team as of today with a few more to come. Can't mention them all in the short written reports.

firemoose wrote:Capel is an interesting case to me as well. He put up 8,500+ yards and 113 TD's as a dual threat QB in HS, 2/3's of those TD's were rushing TD's so he can move with the ball. But how many times have we seen, not just at App but everywhere, QB's trying to be converted. Sometimes they get it right away and others just can't seem to grasp it. Hopefully he'll get it down or we can find a place for his skill set as an ATH.

Not as worried about Jones. Everything I've heard says he's just quietly going about his business. The huge group of WR's we brought in have captured the attention on most everybody. He was the second leading receiver in the scrimmage and has been having a good camp from all accounts. It just hasn't been posted because of all the talk about the Fr. Happens every year that someone gets left out because there is only so much space for the reports. I think he's going to be just fine for us and may catch some people off guard who have somewhat forgotten about him because they aren't seeing a lot written about him. We've got 106 players on the team as of today with a few more to come. Can't mention them all in the short written reports.

I would love for Dante to catch us off guard and be great. I'm pulling for him, for sure.

APPARJ wrote:

Bearboy wrote:That's a ton of freshmen WR's. The need is definitely there though. Heard that Hopkins returned a kick-off in the scrimmage Saturday. He's a burner.

LB's are one of the biggest surprises in terms of not red shirting. Boggs has the body, but the 3-4 that we run is pretty complicated. Stringer was here for the spring and seems to be in every update I read.

FWIW, Dale Jones said in the practice report yesterday that Boggs is the smartest freshman LB he's every coached in 19 years. That's quite the compliment especially coming from such a good coach like DJ.

It may be coach speak, but if he really is smarter/quicker to pick up the defense than DJ Smith that is saying A LOT.

firemoose wrote:Capel is an interesting case to me as well. He put up 8,500+ yards and 113 TD's as a dual threat QB in HS, 2/3's of those TD's were rushing TD's so he can move with the ball. But how many times have we seen, not just at App but everywhere, QB's trying to be converted. Sometimes they get it right away and others just can't seem to grasp it. Hopefully he'll get it down or we can find a place for his skill set as an ATH.

Not as worried about Jones. Everything I've heard says he's just quietly going about his business. The huge group of WR's we brought in have captured the attention on most everybody. He was the second leading receiver in the scrimmage and has been having a good camp from all accounts. It just hasn't been posted because of all the talk about the Fr. Happens every year that someone gets left out because there is only so much space for the reports. I think he's going to be just fine for us and may catch some people off guard who have somewhat forgotten about him because they aren't seeing a lot written about him. We've got 106 players on the team as of today with a few more to come. Can't mention them all in the short written reports.

Speaking of practice reports not always mentioning everyone who is making an impact; I remember being confused who that #49 at DE was when he started at ECU in 2011. We hadn't heard much about him during recruiting or the summer, but there he was starting in the opening game. The two deep can change almost daily at this point of practice. I agree that Dante will be on travel squad come Aug. 30. Maybe we should look at Capel as a return man???

Yeah and I remember having to look up #77 on our roster as to was our starting center for the game at VT - Alex Acey, my man !!!

EastHallApp wrote:I posted a thread on this last month that had some good discussion prior to the start of fall practice: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4958

No inside info per se, but based on reading/watching practice reports, I'll revise my semi-educated guess to this:

Play (12):

WR Isaiah Lewis
WR Montez McGuire
WR Shaedon Meadors
WR Jaylan Barbour
WR Deltron Hopkins
C Tobias Edge-Campbell
DE Alanmichael Harkness
LB Devan Stringer
LB Eric Boggs
CB Latrell Gibbs
S AJ Howard
DB Jordan Ford

Redshirt (16):
QB JP Caruso
RB Josh Boyd
RB Jalin Moore
RB/WR Nikia Cathey
WR Mykelti Armstrong
WR Jordan Noil
TE Brandon Walton
OL Chandler Greer
OL Madison Malone
OL Owen Painter
DT Myquon Stout
DE Curtiss Benton
LB Okon Godwin
S/LB Teh'Ron Fuller
S Junior Sigalo
S Austin Exford

My thought, and I'm sure Satterfield is thinking this as well, while we may have 5 freshman WRs worthy of playing that we need to redshirt more than 2. With Simms, Malachi, and Beathard I know we can't redshirt every freshmen but I hope that no more than 3 play as true freshmen.

Ford is definitely going to play. Harkness and Campbell are really good gets from what I have seen and read. Those two are probably better than some of the players who got on the field last year right now.

I'm not completely sure on Boggs and Stringer but I would imagine just one of them plays. We know McGowan and Law will play ILB. I think Sombo either plays ILB or OLB and has a good year. We all know Gilchrist and Townes will play. I would expect Ward and Thomas to also see a lot of minutes. We might can redshirt all those true freshmen LBs.

JTApps1 wrote:

firemoose wrote:Capel is an interesting case to me as well. He put up 8,500+ yards and 113 TD's as a dual threat QB in HS, 2/3's of those TD's were rushing TD's so he can move with the ball. But how many times have we seen, not just at App but everywhere, QB's trying to be converted. Sometimes they get it right away and others just can't seem to grasp it. Hopefully he'll get it down or we can find a place for his skill set as an ATH.

Not as worried about Jones. Everything I've heard says he's just quietly going about his business. The huge group of WR's we brought in have captured the attention on most everybody. He was the second leading receiver in the scrimmage and has been having a good camp from all accounts. It just hasn't been posted because of all the talk about the Fr. Happens every year that someone gets left out because there is only so much space for the reports. I think he's going to be just fine for us and may catch some people off guard who have somewhat forgotten about him because they aren't seeing a lot written about him. We've got 106 players on the team as of today with a few more to come. Can't mention them all in the short written reports.

Speaking of practice reports not always mentioning everyone who is making an impact; I remember being confused who that #49 at DE was when he started at ECU in 2011. We hadn't heard much about him during recruiting or the summer, but there he was starting in the opening game. The two deep can change almost daily at this point of practice. I agree that Dante will be on travel squad come Aug. 30. Maybe we should look at Capel as a return man???

Always happens. I'm sure some of the players they are raving about will redshirt while someone they aren't raving about will play. I remember Corey Lynch went to Hawaii and backed up Mike King. They thought King was ready and he got burnt bad. Lynch goes on to start right after that and ends up being an All-American, NFL Draft Pick, and App State HOFer (it's obviously going to happen).