Xzavier Henderson Hits the Portal

[TheOriginalCane]

That's reasonable ..... I guess I just have ptsd of how we attacked (didn't attack) the portal last yr at the wr position and we see what that resulted in. Like some of y'all are literally saying the exact same thing y'all said last yr .... Not being worried, not wanting to over pay "average" players, etc.... And look at our wr room now. Still a desperate need.

Why do you keep talking bull****? We DID attack the Portal last year at the WR position, we went hard after Addison and Flowers (among others). Just because we weren't succesful doesn't mean we didn't make the effort.

 

[TheOriginalCane]

$1.25 is completely nucking futs!!! This dude trying to get that NFL contract he’s never going to get

After Henderson signs with Cincy or Illinois for 5 or 6 figures, and we find out how much less he was paid, we will be able to calculate PRECISELY how much he and his family hate Miami, in dollars and cents.

 

[TheOriginalCane]

20 should mellow out the portal anxiety.

I wouldn't assume that. As a doctor (Juris Doctor), I recommend 100 mg.

 

[rsa coral gables]

This is the crazy **** on here. So many FANS **** all over everything we got going on regardless of whether or not they have a clue if it's fact or fiction they speak on. Yet heaven forbid they simply watch what's going on. All this talk about dudes not buying in at wr yet we have a **** good one committed in Chance... These kids believe the same **** y'all do. They swear we desperate and as a result they try to bend us over a barrel. Maybe some of y'all are good with getting bent over(that wasn't an invitation you know who)but I ain't in to these games. You don't pay a kid who's coming in for one year a million plus UNLESS he's got **** good RESULTS AT THIS LEVEL... You don't promise these kids anything beyond they'll get an opportunity. If you come here and try to tell us I'm starting and if I stay healthy I want this many touches per game, guess what **** YOU & these games you're trying to play... Best case one year dudes with these types of results should be asking for 100-150k. Not 1.25,that's just ****ery

win and everything takes care of itself, including the rebalancing of leverage in relationships.

 

[DTP]

Or your qb isnt exactly Rex Grossman.

What wr there produced...other than the guy they threw bubbles too alot that is now with the chiefs? @flagator86

Pearsall averaged 20 yards on 33 catches
Shorter averaged 19.9 yards on 29 catches

They had another 3 or 4 guys who had high averages but they only caught like 11 or 12 passes as reserves.

So while AR was not an accurate QB, they definitely employed a downfield passing game. They just didn't use Henderson in it for whatever reason.

 

[Odysseus]

I bet 500 you haven't smiled and enjoyed yourself since 1983... Bruh we get it. You are 100% convinced Miami football is in a horrible spot with Mario and everything is doom and gloom. But every single sentence?

Naw man I'm the biggest homer, I still think we land a top 5 class for 2024. I'm very confident in this staff at every single position except for portal WR lol

 

[Odysseus]

Sheeeeit, I'd pay Mario $499 just to sign his nephew and then switch him to WR...

put Lou in the slot

 

[TheOriginalCane]

I'm not necessarily buying the "they used him wrong" theory. The guy was there for three seasons under two different head coaches and two different offensive coordinators and at no time during those three years did ANYONE say "hey maybe we need to use this guy as a downfield threat"? I mean it's possible that Billy and Mullen were both just totally clueless and totally misused the guy but when you average 10.7 yards per catch under one coach and then 10.8 under another coach, with a completely different system, it may be because you're not Randy Moss.

7 players on UF averaged over 17.5 yards per catch last season. So, it's not bad QB play or an offense that only throws short passes.

Come on. Not every season is identical. In his first season at Florida, Henderson played in 6 games and had 9 receptions. Are you really trying to argue that we should derive some big conclusions on Mullet's utilization of Henderson off of THAT? However, Henderson DID average 16.4 yards per catch in 2020, so maybe you just proved yourself wrong, and Henderson WAS utilized correctly as a downfield threat (albeit lightly) in his freshman year.

I will say, I find it amusing how you used a bunch of low-frequency receivers to arrive at your "7 players on UF averaged over 17.5 yard per catch last season". You know, like the guys who had 11, 4, 2, 7, and 10 receptions. Good lord, Xzavier had more receptions than those five guys COMBINED.

The truth is that Pearsall and Shorter were the only two high-volume Gaytor receivers with more than a 17.5 yard average. The funny part is that Pearsall had Henderson-like numbers in HIS third year at Arizona State before he transferred to Florida, going for 12.1 yards per catch on 48 catches in 2021 (compared to Henderson's 10.8 yard average on 38 catches). Or look at Justin Shorter in his second year at Ped State before he transferred to Florida, going for 11.4 yards per catch on 12 catches in 2019, and he JUST GOT DRAFTED. Which, of course, proves the argument that pedestrian stats at School #1 might not be a barrier to improvement at School #2.

But the real key would be, you know, ACTUALLY WATCHING FLORIDA GAMES. Which I did. And just because Slingblade Billy used Pearsall/Shorter slightly more appropriately doesn't mean that he was utilizing Henderson properly. Ask any of the Gaytor fans to tell you about the orbit-motion plays and the screen passes that were thrown to long-strider Henderson.

Or you could just go back to popping out stats and then walking away as if you proved something.

Here are Henderson's 38 catches last year in 10 games (pre-injury):

11 yards
3
0
15
7
5
28
2
4
2
4
10
-3
3
3
22
18
12
16
19
21
7
1
12
11
8
11
-3
-4
4
78
35
17
3
8
5
7
8

Henderson missed the final 2 regular season games against Vandy and F$U (plus the bowl game) due to an ankle injury. Through the first 10 games, Henderson was the leading Florida receiver and was 61 yards from being the leader by yardage as well:

"Henderson has been reasonably successful this season, leading the Gators in receptions (38) and ranking third on the team behind juniors Justin Shorter (471) and Ricky Pearsall (421) in yardage (410)."

And just look at those receptions. 16 of his 38 receptions were for 5 yards or less. That's PLAYCALLING. That's Slingblade Billy putting him into orbit-motion and running short routes for him. And he was Florida's LEADING RECEIVER at time of his ankle injury.

I'm sorry, but if you take one of the fastest (straight-line) college WRs in the country...and then throw him screen passes for almost half of his receptions...IT SHOULD **** WELL BE A REFLECTION ON PLAYCALLING AND UTILIZATION.

 

[Cryptical Envelopment]

A poster made a comment saying he felt we had several receivers as good as Henderson, to which a prominent poster replied "we do?" You were very clear in your contention that Henderson played with an extremely inaccurate qb and was misused by the Florida staff - used primarily on short routes. So if used properly what kind of production would be expected? And yes, a poster did project this: (name omitted)

"With our vertical passing game and TVD y'all really don't think this kid has 50 catches, 750 yards, and 6 TD's up his sleeve? He's not a lazy kid like Ladson." -

Point being, that the board is influenced by the opinions of particular posters who were behind this take before the apparent snag. Now he's a laughing stock.

Just read the thread. Read the first 5-6 pages and then the last few. Has the consensus changed? You'd think different players were being discussed.

I said that!

And I stand by it. He led UF in receptions last year with that **** show. At UM he'd have a more accurate QB, better OC, better scheme that calls plays that suit him, better OL IMO, more downfield throws, etc. And I think the staff agrees that the potential is there, as is the size and speed. But this kid wants to get paid like a guy who put up 900+ and 10 TDs last year in Power-5. You can't do that. You need to manage your budget and your roster like a manager would their employees comp. Things have to be kept (somewhat) equitable. If he comes down to something reasonable I'd like to see us land him. But it seems he's willing to sacrifice getting into a situation that sets him up best for the NFL for short-term $.

 

[UnForgiven]

Naw man. 20mg is just right for me. Edibles be kicking my ***!

Some of the stuff out there is nuts. Dudes making Rosin gummies, or gummies using the kief extract stuff, that seem to be triple potent. Getting harder to dial in. I'd put a 50mg rosin gummy up against 150mg regular any day....you just won't be moving or talking very much lol.

 

[DTP]

Come on. Not every season is identical. In his first season at Florida, Henderson played in 6 games and had 9 receptions. Are you really trying to argue that we should derive some big conclusions on Mullet's utilization of Henderson off of THAT? However, Henderson DID average 16.4 yards per catch in 2020, so maybe you just proved yourself wrong, and Henderson WAS utilized correctly as a downfield threat (albeit lightly) in his freshman year.

I will say, I find it amusing how you used a bunch of low-frequency receivers to arrive at your "7 players on UF averaged over 17.5 yard per catch last season". You know, like the guys who had 11, 4, 2, 7, and 10 receptions. Good lord, Xzavier had more receptions than those five guys COMBINED.

The truth is that Pearsall and Shorter were the only two high-volume Gaytor receivers with more than a 17.5 yard average. The funny part is that Pearsall had Henderson-like numbers in HIS third year at Arizona State before he transferred to Florida, going for 12.1 yards per catch on 48 catches in 2021 (compared to Henderson's 10.8 yard average on 38 catches). Or look at Justin Shorter in his second year at Ped State before he transferred to Florida, going for 11.4 yards per catch on 12 catches in 2019, and he JUST GOT DRAFTED. Which, of course, proves the argument that pedestrian stats at School #1 might not be a barrier to improvement at School #2.

But the real key would be, you know, ACTUALLY WATCHING FLORIDA GAMES. Which I did. And just because Slingblade Billy used Pearsall/Shorter slightly more appropriately doesn't mean that he was utilizing Henderson properly. Ask any of the Gaytor fans to tell you about the orbit-motion plays and the screen passes that were thrown to long-strider Henderson.

Or you could just go back to popping out stats and then walking away as if you proved something.

Here are Henderson's 38 catches last year in 10 games (pre-injury):

11 yards
3
0
15
7
5
28
2
4
2
4
10
-3
3
3
22
18
12
16
19
21
7
1
12
11
8
11
-3
-4
4
78
35
17
3
8
5
7
8

Henderson missed the final 2 regular season games against Vandy and F$U (plus the bowl game) due to an ankle injury. Through the first 10 games, Henderson was the leading Florida receiver and was 61 yards from being the leader by yardage as well:

"Henderson has been reasonably successful this season, leading the Gators in receptions (38) and ranking third on the team behind juniors Justin Shorter (471) and Ricky Pearsall (421) in yardage (410)."

And just look at those receptions. 16 of his 38 receptions were for 5 yards or less. That's PLAYCALLING. That's Slingblade Billy putting him into orbit-motion and running short routes for him. And he was Florida's LEADING RECEIVER at time of his ankle injury.

I'm sorry, but if you take one of the fastest (straight-line) college WRs in the country...and then throw him screen passes for almost half of his receptions...IT SHOULD **** WELL BE A REFLECTION ON PLAYCALLING AND UTILIZATION.

He played two seasons under Mullen. Yes, his first year he only caught 9 passes so that’s not much of a gauge. But his second year he caught 26 passes and averaged fewer ypc than he did in 2022 under Billy. Maybe both those coaches totally ignored some kind of downfield receiving ability? I guess it’s possible. But what’s more likely is that they just threw him a bunch of screens because he can’t get open downfield.

 

[TheOriginalCane]

Pearsall averaged 20 yards on 33 catches
Shorter averaged 19.9 yards on 29 catches

They had another 3 or 4 guys who had high averages but they only caught like 11 or 12 passes as reserves.

So while AR was not an accurate QB, they definitely employed a downfield passing game. They just didn't use Henderson in it for whatever reason.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

The eyeball test completely proves you wrong.

You speak of this "definite" downfield passing game, but you didn't even watch the games.

Take Pearsall, with his "gaudy" stats. But dig deeper. He had EXACTLY ONE pass that went for longer than 39 yards (a 52 yarder against F$U, when leading WR Henderson was out due to injury). And to prove how shaky "small sample size" stats are, if you removed that ONE 52 yard pass from Pearsall's season, he would lose an entire yard off his average, going down to 19 yards per catch from 20 yards per catch. Meaning that a full 5% of his entire average came from ONE PLAY while Henderson was injured. Meanwhile, in the 10 games where Henderson played, SIX of those games had Pearsall getting either 1 or 2 catches. And in the 3 games that Henderson missed, Pearsall got 10 of his 33 receptions. So let's not pretend that Pearsall was getting all of Henderson's "downfield" receptions. He had 23 catches in the first 10 games.

Now let's take Shorter. At the time that Henderson was hurt, he only had 21 catches, and managed to get 8 more catches while Henderson was out. And using the same "small sample size" analysis as Pearsall, Shorter had EXACTLY THREE passes that went for longer than 39 yards (a 75 yarder against Eastern Washington, a 51 yarder against LSU, and a 41 yarder against UGa). And, again, if you removed ONE 75 yard pass from Shorter's season, he would lose TWO FULL YARDS off his average, going down to 17.9 yards per catch from 19.9 yards per catch. Meaning that over 10% of his entire average came from ONE PLAY (his only catch against mighty Eastern Washington). Meanwhile, in the 10 games where Henderson played, FIVE of those games had Shorter getting either 1 or 2 catches. And in the 3 games that Henderson missed, Shorter got 8 of his 29 receptions. So let's ALSO not pretend that Shorter was getting all of Henderson's "downfield" receptions. He had 21 catches in the first 10 games.

So it's beyond obvious, if you actually analyze the performance, and not just the "stat totals" or "stat averages". Both Pearsall (10) and Shorter (8) caught a lot of passes when Henderson was hurt.

And there was no "downfield passing game". Henderson caught one pass over 39 yards. Pearsall caught one pass over 39 yards. Shorter caught three passes over 39 yards.

Just stop making up bull****. Pearsall and Shorter were lucky that Slingblade Billy didn't target them for more screen passes. And/or that AR-15 bounced more short passes to them.

Whatever the reason, stop inventing some fictional "downfield passing game" that targeted Pearsall/Shorter more than Henderson. All three essentially got the same (limited) number of longer passes. And pre-injury, Henderson was the leading target for AR-15, INCLUDING screen passes. Pre-injury, Henderson was getting targeted (38 receptions) as much as Pearsall/Shorter COMBINED (44 receptions).

 

[TheOriginalCane]

He played two seasons under Mullen. Yes, his first year he only caught 9 passes so that’s not much of a gauge. But his second year he caught 26 passes and averaged fewer ypc than he did in 2022 under Billy. Maybe both those coaches totally ignored some kind of downfield receiving ability? I guess it’s possible. But what’s more likely is that they just threw him a bunch of screens because he can’t get open downfield.

Look, I just destroyed you in two separate posts. It's time for you to stick your "small sample size" generalizations deep inside your ******.

Literally and figuratively, you simply don't know what the **** you are talking about.

At the time when Henderson was injured, he had nearly as many catches (38) as Pearsall and Shorter COMBINED (44). Henderson was AR-15's favorite target. He had just as many "10-yards-or-longer" receptions (16) as he did "5-yards-or-shorter" receptions (16). Slingblade Billy just called Henderson's number more frequently (longer AND shorter routes) and AR-15 just found Henderson more frequently (longer AND shorter routes).

Simple analysis of the results (and not just "totals" or "averages") makes it very obvious.

 

[Brooklyndee]

$1.25 is completely nucking futs!!! This dude trying to get that NFL contract he’s never going to get

Yeah. I'm really hoping the number was just exaggerated when I was told the ask. Cause he told Illinois 400 which is still too much but real big difference.

 

[Page305]

Why do you keep talking bull****? We DID attack the Portal last year at the WR position, we went hard after Addison and Flowers (among others). Just because we weren't succesful doesn't mean we didn't make the effort.

Okay.... that's fair. I guess I should have said I would have PREFERRED a different strategy other than waiting on the bigger names. Supposedly we had "lesser" guys who would have came but we pushed them away for guys who left us with our pants down. And this feels too much like the same. That's all my concern.

 

[TheOriginalCane]

Yeah. I'm really hoping the number was just exaggerated when I was told the ask. Cause he told Illinois 400 which is still too much but real big difference.

So he and his family hate Miami $825K worth...

 

[Brooklyndee]

Naw man I'm the biggest homer, I still think we land a top 5 class for 2024. I'm very confident in this staff at every single position except for portal WR lol

I'm glad to hear that. Cause I only been paying attention in this thread and I was overwhelmed shall we say. Now into the issue at hand, portal wr. Which wr in the portal do you feel is a significant enough, clear cut #1 wr worth spending more than a half million to get him here? Cause when I look at portal options I don't see any even potential #1 wr outside of a perfect world. It's important to remember portal recruiting isn't in anyway similar to high school recruiting UNLESS they're fresh out of high school,worse case one year in. You're getting limited availability out of portal kids and I some instances they're grad transfers which you basically only have ONE SLOT to get them in with. You also gotta remember with nil there's a business angle outside of simply pay for play. You gotta atleast in some way be able to justify a basic roi. Sure some of these dudes atleast in theory are an upgrade over some of the options we have but they don't really raise the ceiling at the position. It's more that they extend it. Why pay some outrageous number for that? Then throw on top play demands... You can't just let yourself be muscled for the **** of it.

 

[TheOriginalCane]

Okay.... that's fair. I guess I should have said I would have PREFERRED a different strategy other than waiting on the bigger names. Supposedly we had "lesser" guys who would have came but we pushed them away for guys who left us with our pants down. And this feels too much like the same. That's all my concern.

OK, that's a much fairer assessment. We definitely waited on Flowers, who left us hanging. Addison was a hope, but not a very realistic hope given USC's offer.

 

[Caned Peach]

I do miss the days of $75k and a luxury SUV for Patrick Johnson :/

 

[Odysseus]

I'm glad to hear that. Cause I only been paying attention in this thread and I was overwhelmed shall we say. Now into the issue at hand, portal wr. Which wr in the portal do you feel is a significant enough, clear cut #1 wr worth spending more than a half million to get him here? Cause when I look at portal options I don't see any even potential #1 wr outside of a perfect world. It's important to remember portal recruiting isn't in anyway similar to high school recruiting UNLESS they're fresh out of high school,worse case one year in. You're getting limited availability out of portal kids and I some instances they're grad transfers which you basically only have ONE SLOT to get them in with. You also gotta remember with nil there's a business angle outside of simply pay for play. You gotta atleast in some way be able to justify a basic roi. Sure some of these dudes atleast in theory are an upgrade over some of the options we have but they don't really raise the ceiling at the position. It's more that they extend it. Why pay some outrageous number for that? Then throw on top play demands... You can't just let yourself be muscled for the **** of it.

I only got upset because it seem like every week there was a new name popping up at WR and then things go silent or they go elsewhere. But it makes sense because we never know the back stories or negotiator prices like you said. Just because we have the money doesn't mean we should spend it all just because. I only think there's one WR even close to being a WR1 or WR2 here and that's the guy Franklin form UTSA