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Let’s talk wide receivers

supacane said:
That gets shut down against any decent team and can't run the ball on even mediocre defenses. Respectfully brah, he ain't Enos. And I would rather wait until I see the product before determining if it's a failure
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This is nowhere near an Enos. I wasn’t blown away by Gattis‘s offense / scheme but he’s operating in another universe than that guy.
 
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Cribby said:
This is nowhere near an Enos. I wasn’t blown away by Gattis‘s offense / scheme but he’s operating in another universe than that guy.
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Yeah I ain't crowning Gattis but he is qualified to coach at Miami and we have to wait and see the product. He is not working with a bare cupboard so he needs to put a pretty good product on the field.
 
Through my orange & green colored glasses, George looks like the smoothest WR. That’s based on his playing time last year as well as a few practice highlights from this year. I would be extremely surprised / disappointed if he regresses.

I am not as high on Restrepo as others. I believe Restrepo will be a very good slot WR, but he is not WR #1 and is unlikely to duplicate Rambo’s productivity from last year.

Sounds like we need the football equivalent of “Johnny Wholestaff” from the WR corps this year to win games.

Let’s see what Gattis can do with this lot.
 
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Not concerned. George and Brinson are studs and Smith will be a weapon in space. If these guys don’t produce, I will be concerned.
 
Hufftwoseven said:
Yo chilll we not going 8-5, that’s **** near Manny Diaz level. My heart will be crushed if we go 8-4 in regular season and lose another **** bowl game
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If we lose 1-2 guys at a couple spots we won’t make it. OL and DT must stay healthy. Front like talent without depth is tough for a long season. It takes 2-3 years of building depth / talent. Just look at Clemson last year, they won double figure games in a season most teams drop 5-6. They had enough talent and depth to overcome the ridiculous amount of injuries.
 
Cribby said:
I felt there was no better time than now to discuss the pink elephant in the room. Yes….I’m talking the wr’s. I had a big part in creating this narrative in early spring. At that time me and a certain poster had a disagreement about the wr group , the poster mentioned he had heard the wr’s were balling. I told him it’s more like the opposite , they’re struggling, we had quite the battle lol. So since I had a small hand in creating this narrative figured it’s only right I pull everyone back off the life boat…..FOR NOW!!

First let’s fact check….are some wr’s dropping balls ? Yes….too many and it’s unacceptable. Are guys having issues picking up the offense ? Yes. Is there concerns about this group going into the season? YES!! Is X far and away the most consistent performer since spring? Yes.

Now let’s get to the part that doesn’t add up, these same guys that are dropping passes now wasn’t doing it last year. At practice or in games. JG was returning punts as a true Fr and was the most consistent guy the entire year. You don’t put guys with suspect hands back for the most hectic , dangerous play in football. Theres literally eleven guys flying down hill and you only have a split second to make up your mind.

So the question I have his why did this suddenly become a major issue? Here’s some of my theories.

1. Guys are thinking more than playing. They went from a elementary style offense which is known for easy route concepts and even easier playbook to learn. The whole point of that O was to not think, just play and fast. This year it went to a college level playbook and it’s busting their asses. Instead of just running a route , putting your foot in the dirt breaking that thing off you’re unsure, maybe even looking at hashes so know where to round it off or just not confident in the assignment / play call.

2. They’re actually facing a really good defense every day, I’ve been told by too many people to count this is as legit of a defense we’ve had in a minute. Big , fast and very physical. Especially a secondary who’s finally allowed to rough up wr’s off the line , which is hurting clean get offs. That leads to no separation. That’s not a good equation for success when most of the wr’s are kinda light in the ***. The one guy giving the D issues is X who’s 5’10 200.

3. Young guys pressing. We forget majority of these guys are getting their first real serious burn and are being asked to be more than role players. JG, RB and BS was the core that was being expected to take this group into the future. It’s different when you aren’t the fourth , fifth or sixth option.

4. Maybe they just aren’t as good as their ranking or as good as we thought they were. The rankings and us as fans overvalued this group.

So now the question is can coaches do anything to take the pressure off or put them in better situations? @LuCane and myself both mentioned that maybe Gattis could implement a little bit of what Lashlee was doing towards the end of last season. Ease up the playbook ,possibly throw in some of the route concepts and wider splits, which gives them more space to work with. I’m willing to bet they’re pressing at this point and as I said it’s likely mental. Simplifying things has been known to work, I’ve seen it too many times to count.

I’m not ready to throw the season away just yet even though I know wr is a concern. Confidence is a weird thing after guys make some plays when bullets start flying. They won’t face a better defense during the season , so it’s all down hill week one.

All we need is this group to be consistent, thats it. Not Andre J, Santana or even Rambo. Consistent Everyone play their role.

Imo we won’t see any 18 % drop rates this year like a couple guys who are no longer here.
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Just to jog my memory, but didn’t JG muff a punt against NCSt last yr?
 
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supersaiyanshel said:
You make a valid point, but here's the thing --

Gattis is doing what Mario wants him to do.

If you look at all of the other rumored OC's they were pretty much cut from the same pro-style cloth.
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Completely true
Mario is a bro style run first guy
It’s gonna work in 2-3 years when he gets the kind of oline he’s recruiting now
He should see we have more of a spread personal and tell gatis to do that
 
Last season after Michigan's #1 WR went down, they ended up with their five leading receivers (not necessarily just WR's) with between 40 to 22 catches.

I can see a similar scenario this season at Miami, with X having much more than 40 grabs
 
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My biggest concern here is the philosophy shift as it relates to complexity. We’re going from ultra simple, to very (or at least much more) complex. Being multiple is great, if you can make it work. It can also be disastrous if you end up sucking at everything and are good at nothing.

As it stands, it seems like the passing game is lagging behind the running game. To be fair, I’d be more concerned if the running game was worse off. Right now the outside guys don’t look great on the small bit of tape we get.

Who knows? Maybe someone puts together a couple monster games and flips a switch on his confidence. Maybe the group as a whole flips on the confidence.

They can also go in the tank for good and turn in into Pope/Wiggins. Maybe having a competitor at QB and savage head coach has helped them create the mental toughness that Pope and Wiggins never possessed or developed.

It’s cause for concern and they are quite obviously at a crossroads.
 
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Cribby said:
So guys that made plays as Fr and didn’t drop passes suddenly can’t make plays and are dropping passes? That’s a jag? Respectfully there’s alot more to this than calling people jags or elite after five minutes of being on campus.
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Im just saying we havent recruited as well as people think at that spot. Im talking 99-00-01 type athletes, we haven't been up to our old school caliber thats what I mean. Edit: what your saying is right they are dropping balls and regressing I dont know why im not talking about that, for me I dont like the way the position has been recruited for high caliber top end guys. Not saying they arent talented but I would like for us to grab some sure fire 1st round types there, same like we doing with the OL.
 
AtlAtty said:
What?
We do have one of the best QB’s in college football. He isn’t Brady but we also won’t face any NFL defenses. The comparison does not mean Restrepo/TVD are as good as Walker/Brady, but it does mean that they are the equivalent at a lower level of football.
We effectively have the college version of Welker/Brady or so the argument goes. I think it’s an incredibly appropriate comparison as to how I believe Restrepo will be used, how productive I expect he will be, and how often our very, very, very good college QB will target Restrepo.

why not?
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TVD started 9 games bro I think you are jumping the gun. Restrepo has started how many games? We have not seen TVD work through his progressions and go to 2nd and 3 reads yet. We haven't seen TVD excel in the underneath game.
 
Lazarre said:
That’s the easy way out of the problem. It’s the coordinators job to get the most out of these kids… especially if the coordinator is the WR coach. These kids were good in HS and now they are Jags?
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Im always on the fence of HS and College are two different games. U can be good and HS and average in college.....if we go by someone being good in HS then that would be like the Dorito video arguing with Hurlie Brown
 
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Thinking of what you’re supposed to be doing is something that usually gets better with confidence which gets better with time.
 
Cribby said:
Yes. Two muffs on one play but he was perfect the rest of the year. You rarely see Fr in that position in the first place. **** we haven’t been fielding punts since BB left. None of the older guys could including JT
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Yeah; iirc Stevenson was back there & he, too, muffed. Lol.

I hope we can scheme these guys, but my only caution for this team was learning a whole new playbook w/ route concepts. It’ll be interesting; nevertheless, I’m not worried even if we drop a few games, b/c that’s what “reasonable” fans who understand growing pains expect.
 
DTP said:
Can’t agree with this take. The class of Brinson, George and Smith was the highest rated WR recruiting class at Miami in 247 history. If you think you need 5 stat receivers to have a competent passing offense, you’re ignoring the dozens of programs who put up huge numbers with guys rated much lower than ours. ****, we had our best passing offense ever last year with a couple of guys who didn’t even get drafted leading the way. If Josh Gattis can’t get a bunch of highly rated 4 star guys to produce, we need to start questioning his ability as a WR coach. Especially when George, Brinson and Smith all played very well when given snaps last year.
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I like Smith out of that group I didnt like Brinson cause I always like guys that can pull away at wr and I felt like he cant pull away (against top tier programs) but we will see. Guys lower rated put up numbers for sure but when its the blue bloods they wont do anything and thats my point, I want guys that can make plays against top tier comp cause thats where we are headed
 
We should have kidnapped Luther Burden. Sat him down and gave him a blank check. Blows my mind that the number 1 WR in the nation is at Missouri but he’s going start this year. And he could return punts too.
 
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