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Word is fletcher is out for the season…

I’m fine with him missing spring to ensure health . Martinez/allen/lyle/cj/loften/wheatley can split reps even ward will have run plays . Share the load until Aug 31
 
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GojiraCane said:
I think Adam Cole (AEW) suffered the same injury in October 2023 and he’s not yet cleared for wrestling. These foot injuries can take a long time to come back from.
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Lis franc injuries can be really tough to come back from. I would be curious to see how that is distributed among people who have the surgery versus the people that elect not to do surgery, like Fletcher.
 
Geddy Lee said:
So is Mark Fletcher out for the year? Or are you all just playing grabass?
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Just doing what we do. Grabassin all day long

Animation Grabass GIF
 
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I always laugh at these “if the starter goes down we don’t have an equally capable backup!” posts. Who does? What team has multiple superstar running backs? There’s maybe one or two teams that can claim no drop off from RB1 to RB2 and I’m struggling to think of who they even are.

Here’s the thing: if a star player, at any position gets hurt, the team is going to experience some type of drop-off. It’s up to the coaching staff to determine how to best use the replacement player. If your big running back gets hurt, maybe you alter the game plan to feature less between the tackles power runs. Maybe you throw the ball more often. This is why actual coaching is important. These days of NIL and transfer portal means you’re not going to be able to stockpile first round picks at every position. You’re going to have to use backups more creatively and be willing to play underclassmen.
 
DTP said:
I always laugh at these “if the starter goes down we don’t have an equally capable backup!” posts. Who does? What team has multiple superstar running backs? There’s maybe one or two teams that can claim no drop off from RB1 to RB2 and I’m struggling to think of who they even are.

Here’s the thing: if a star player, at any position gets hurt, the team is going to experience some type of drop-off. It’s up to the coaching staff to determine how to best use the replacement player. If your big running back gets hurt, maybe you alter the game plan to feature less between the tackles power runs. Maybe you throw the ball more often. This is why actual coaching is important. These days of NIL and transfer portal means you’re not going to be able to stockpile first round picks at every position. You’re going to have to use backups more creatively and be willing to play underclassmen.
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It's so weird.

The Mope Squad has lost some of their specific whipping-boy players to graduation and transfer. So now they are going to use injury generalities to tell us why we will only win 7 games.

And, look, nobody is saying that injuries don't happen. They do. An injury to Ward and/or Martinez would be brutal for our offense.

But let's break this down.

For Ward, not ony did he throw the ball 485 times last year (and the rest of the WSU passers had 25 throws), he also had 120 runs. So the first thing that jumps out when you see those numbers is that Ward is durable and/or knows how to take a hit and not get injured. Sure, there are fluke plays, but defenses had a chance to hit him SIX HUNDRED TIMES with no injuries. Second, Ward had the MOST carries on his team. By a lot. And, sure, some were probably scrambles and sacks, but you don't get to 120 rushes with just scrambles and sacks.

For Martinez, he had 194 rushes and 11 catches. Again, over 200 plays with the possibility of getting hit and hurt, and unlike a QB, a RB does not usually go down after first contact. So, again, Martinez may have been hit 400-600 times, and he emerged uninjured, which also speaks to his durability and/or knowledge about how to absorb hits.

So conclusions can be drawn. First, these are two senior players who are battle-tested and can carry a high volume of plays called for them. Compared to TVD (333 passes thrown) or the whole UM team (436 passes thrown), Ward can carry a heavier load. And compared to Miami runners (our top 3 ball-carriers ran 105, 100, and 94 times apiece), Martinez can carry about half the time by himself (both teams had a nearly identical number of rushes, 440 for Miami and 445 for Oregon State).

Second, if you now ADD those two players and their productivity to the Miami situation (good OL and good WRs/TEs), you can project that if Miami throws the ball a bit more and runs the ball a bit less (but with heavy reliance on Martinez), then we have reduced the "need" for a second co-equal running back.

This concept that we "cannot succeed" if Fletcher does not play the first half of the season (or even the full season) is just crazy. Between Florida and VaTech we will have three pretty winnable OOC games, so anyone who thinks Ward and/or Martinez will be worn out in October because of the Florida and VaTech games is just being unnecessarily pessimistic.

Not to mention the fact that many believe Lyle will be a surprising freshman to emerge once the season starts.

Get well, Fletch. You make the team better. I'd love to see you play in every game. But I'd rather not have you play until you are 100% ready.
 
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DTP said:
I always laugh at these “if the starter goes down we don’t have an equally capable backup!” posts. Who does? What team has multiple superstar running backs? There’s maybe one or two teams that can claim no drop off from RB1 to RB2 and I’m struggling to think of who they even are.

Here’s the thing: if a star player, at any position gets hurt, the team is going to experience some type of drop-off. It’s up to the coaching staff to determine how to best use the replacement player. If your big running back gets hurt, maybe you alter the game plan to feature less between the tackles power runs. Maybe you throw the ball more often. This is why actual coaching is important. These days of NIL and transfer portal means you’re not going to be able to stockpile first round picks at every position. You’re going to have to use backups more creatively and be willing to play underclassmen.
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CIS is no place for commons sense analysis. Just stop it.
 
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