Originally Posted by
HogDawg
I think 2018 is the year CUSA is really feeling the impact that those "waivers", (or exemptions) that CUSA and the NCAA granted UAB after the Blazers dropped football 4 years ago. I know the waivers were well intended to help UAB rebuild quickly, but they appear to have aided UAB's rebuild process almost to the point of an outright advantage.
Immediately after losing a very physical game to UAB, I heard Skip Holtz give an unusual post-game quote; something to the affect, "those were grown men that we lost to over there" (paraphrase). That comment made me curious. So, I did a little research and compared the two team's senior classes listed on their public rosters. Here's what I think Holtz was referring to, without trying to sound like he was whining:
- UAB has 37 seniors on their 2018 roster. That's a huge number of seniors.
- The average age of 27 of those UAB seniors (73%) is 23 yrs, 7 months as of Oct 2018. That's almost 24 yrs old.
- The remaining 9 UAB seniors had no birth date listed in their official UAB player profiles
- At least 12 UAB players are OVER age 24, including 4 over age 25
- By comparison, LA Tech has 21 seniors on their 2018 roster, with an average age of 22 yrs, 6 mos
- LA Tech's Australian punter Davan Dyer, is the only senior over 24 yrs old on Tech's roster
All, this to say, Skip Holtz may have a point. UAB appears to be a very senior heavy team this year, no doubt aided in part by those eligibility waivers that CUSA and the NCAA granted UAB back in 2015. This likely helped UAB Coach Bill Clark stockpile talent, particularly from Juco players who needed more time to develop academically and athletically. The result is, most of CUSA is pitting younger football players up against UAB's more mature --and in most cases bigger-- 23, 24 & 25 yr old starters. There's a lot of players in the NFL that aren't as old as UAB's senior class.
There is typically a pretty big physical difference between a 19 to 21-yr old player, and a 24 or 25 year old. Could this be why our OL had more trouble pass protecting against UAB that they did against LSU? Could Holtz have had a valid point after all?