His play has improved. I just wish people would acknowledge and give credit when our players do play well.
Most great players are immediately noticeable. Think #40 for LSU, think Brandon Siler for UF as true freshmen. Hell it was even easy to tell that Hopper had a nose for the ball almost immediately even though he looked like a Safety. I have high hopes for James, but so far he hasn't shown up much. Fantastic. I don't recall saying that he wasn't a great Gator....just not a very good linebacker and I think a lot of ppl who have watched football long enough will agree with that.
It is what it is but I think if Hopper and diabetes were still around our linebacker play would have been much more solid. Especially if Diabate was able to make a similar leap as Burney has this year. Instead both ended up gator bait. Oops
Not too many true freshmen are Harold Perkins. Shemar has flashed and he will be a good one. It will be good once we get this thing rolling as we should have plenty of upperclassmen and we don’t have to throw these kids out there before they are ready.
Hopper was a huge loss for us and in my opinion potentially changes the outcome of multiples games. Look how poor we were without Miller and in 2018 without Reese. Football is a sport where one player doesn't usually have as much influence as a star basketball player but when you take the "qb" of the defense out like Reese or lose a veteran play maker like Hopper from an already thin and young defense the effects snowball. We tried the portal but lost out. 1 or 2 defenders from the portal could have shored up a lot of our gap integrity and changed the whole outcome of the season.
