I am intrigued by this thread. NMU clearly needs to fill out the
roster after losing players to graduation and discipline problems.
What I wonder is what will happen in the future. If their class is 13
this year, what does that mean for the next three years? Small
recruiting classes followed by another huge class in the fourth year?
I'm sure this has happened at other universities. The case I can
comment on would be Michigan's classes of '93 and '97. During the '93
season, I wondered how they would replace a large departing class of
seniors (Chris Tamer, David Harlock, Pat Neaton, David Roberts, Mark
Ouimet, Dan Stiver) which would soon also include the departure of two
juniors (Aaron Ward and Cam Stewart). All of a sudden, this team
which was good enough to reach the previous two Final 4's was losing
its top 4 defenseman and 4 of its top forwards.
We now know that Red Bererson more-than-adequately replaced them with
this year's senior class (Morrison, Botterill, Madden, Legg, Luhning,
Sloan, Schock, Frescoln, Bourke). What happens next year? Can
another recruiting class be brought in to replace this graduating
class?
Certainly, non-Michigan fans wouldn't mind seeing a decline when this
class leaves. I'm less interested in the specific case of the
Michigan team than I am in the general philosophy.
Does it make for a more stable program to try for recruiting classes
of roughly equal size each year? Certainly, recruiting exactly 6
players each year would give you a team which constantly has senior
leadership, freshman enthusiasm, etc. On the other hand, having a
13-player freshman class this year should make NMU a force to be
reckoned with by the time these 13 are juniors and seniors.
Perhaps it is a philosophy preference. Would the coach rather have
consistent quality; or would he rather have a roller-coaster ride with
a team that is not as good but learning how to win, then a team that
is very good, then back to the learning stage again.
How do you feel as fans towards this question? I think it would be
different based on the stature of the program you follow. For Ohio
State, for example, there has not been much success to this point. I
would think they would be happy to have a very large recruiting class
which could make the team strong for a year or two. For teams that
are consistently in the top 5 every year, consistency would seem
preferable since they do not need the 'monster' class to put them into
the elite group.
Glenn Auerbach
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Michigan '88-'93; A2 townie '93 - ??
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