What type of season does BWC need to avoid "bust" status?

Well, by definition, anything short of All-conference and a first or second round pick would be a bust. However, I would be happy with him and be proud of him if he simply worked himself into an every down player who was not a liability, and held down the most thin position on defense.

Saying a player is a bust makes it sound like the player didn't live up to his potential.  But maybe the problem is with the rating services more often than with the players.  Why aren't the rating services the ones that are described as busts when their predictions don't pan out?  For example, of the Rivals five star recruits for 1996, 11of 28 went undrafted by the NFL.  That's nearly 40%. A couple of these were due to injuries, but most of those 11 players just never had the ability to become stellar college football players or even marginal NFL players.

Kinda post is this?

you can qualify someone as a bust, before their career is complete. I think he was solid last year, and being under the same defensive coordinator, that preaches technique, will do him wonders.

This post should be discussed next January.

at least yet. Lets see what he does. Plenty of guys don't live up to their ranking and many do better than their ranking. Its not his fault he was a 5 star. Measurables yes, but maybe he should have been a 4. Either way, the continuity of the program, especially defensively can only help. It's not like we hear rumors of him being lazy or uninterested. Lets give him this year..it is his time, lets see what he does with it! Obviously we all hope he is great this year! We need him to be to beat the likes of Bama.

Does anyone know how his career compares to the 4 DT ranked in front of him at Rivals that year?  Some of the names ring a bell but I'm not to familiar with all their careers.

Sheldon Richardson, Jacobbi McDaniel, Gary Brown, and Chris Davenport.

Edit:  I think Will ranks pretty good against the guys above.  Jacobbi looks to be the only one you can really talk about.

he has a Nick Fairley type of senior season!

too tall to play where he is, his technique has seemingly improved but too often this is his problem. For me, he needs about 3-5 sacks, take up some double teams so our linebackers can get stops, after that, I don't care about any honors, play with good technique, get a few tackles for loss, help the team win!