Quote Originally Posted by Really Clark? View Post
Paul also said he understood how tight positions were and it was hard to see who you drop for him. We dropped Ulric Jones in that class already and still didn't add a DL because of other needs. We had to sign 2 QB's because of the Cord situation. It was tight on numbers. I believe Paul or maybe it was another site said they couldn't see dropping Simpson for Bradley either. Simpson was close to being rated much higher and was still up graded with a torn ACL. No injury and he played in the All star classic the way he had been before the injury, he had a slight chance of getting an Auburn offer in the end. It didn't happen of course because of the ACL. So then the question is, who AT THE TIME could we drop. We see it now but at the time positions was tight. Especially at DL when we signed, what? 6-7 the year before. And we can't ever assume who is a 3 year guy when we sign them. Everybody was convinced Quay and James were 3 year guys the year before. They were right on Quay but only because everybody was totally wrong in what he would contribute. I liked Bradley, a lot of people liked Bradley, he was very undersized though and that is not a normal Turner DL. It is what it is. Bear was rated lower than Simpson that year.
We signed a lot of questionable players in that class over Bradley. A lot. We took guys like BJ Hammond and Artimus Samuel together, neither was highly rated and neither panned out. Jeremy Chappelle and Shelby Christy, same thing. Even when you look at a guy like Jake Thomas who was technically a 4 star (but had no other legit SEC offers), I think most would have been OK with taking Bradley over him. None of those guys mentioned above were ever thought to be high ceiling type guys even at the time, yet we took all of them.