2020 Recruiting Thread (OP Update 1/30/19)

[ellitor 33,080]

35 minutes ago, mcgufcm said:

Lack of development? Seth Williams isn’t progressing? Eli Stove hasn’t improved? Anthony Schwartz isn’t better?

We're clearly talking about development of guys after those 4 & it had been stated or implied multiple times.

The staff is disappointed with most of the guys after the big4 & have been since the Spring & that's all we need to know about why we are taking 4 WRs in the class..

[McLoofus 35,182]

Just now, ellitor said:

We're clearly talking about development of guys after those 4 & it had been stated or implied multiple times.

The staff is disappointed with most of the guys after the big4 & have been since the Spring & that's all we need to know about why we are taking 4 WRs in the class..

My bad. I shouldn't have gotten into here. I'm glad that we have some guys producing this year and I hope that we continue to recruit the position well and see the production continue to get better. I don't have an issue with taking 4 in this class. 

[autan 737]

5* Pickens flipping to UGA certainly didn't help us but we never seem to have a problem getting 4* guys at receiver position.  Getting the right ones may be the issue.

[ArgoEagle 1,771]

1 hour ago, abw0004 said:

Sal hasn't been too bad this year

When he stopped concentrating less on making duck faces into the camera after 2017, he focused more on catching the ball and has gotten much better.

[ClaytonAU 4,606]

2 hours ago, ellitor said:

And Flash.

Flash was great Saturday!

[oracle79 3,569]

1 hour ago, ellitor said:

that's all we need to know about why we are taking 4 WRs in the class..

I knew it when we took a WR transfer from Youngstown St.  Kind of like having an OL transfer from UMass start immediately.

[McLoofus 35,182]

15 minutes ago, ClaytonAU said:

Flash was great Saturday!

He's a fantastic player. I think everyone was pleasantly surprised when he showed up as a fully operational wide receiver and not just a speed demon who can occasionally catch the ball. Smart with the ball in his hands, too. It's crazy that we got him and Worm in the same class. 

[steeleagle 2,945]

16 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

He's a fantastic player. I think everyone was pleasantly surprised when he showed up as a fully operational wide receiver and not just a speed demon who can occasionally catch the ball. Smart with the ball in his hands, too. It's crazy that we got him and Worm in the same class. 

that's a good point. There are plenty of times when fast players don't translate into complete WRs. Schwartz, at first I wasn't sure of, but into year 2, he has shown he can catch, run routes and position himself into making good catches.

 

[toddc 13,194]

2 hours ago, ellitor said:

We're clearly talking about development of guys after those 4 & it had been stated or implied multiple times.

The staff is disappointed with most of the guys after the big4 & have been since the Spring & that's all we need to know about why we are taking 4 WRs in the class..

I think Mathew Hill was getting lots of praise in the spring and summer, but he’s really not ready yet.

[McLoofus 35,182]

1 minute ago, toddc said:

I think Mathew Hill was getting lots of praise in the spring and summer, but he’s really not ready yet.

He should be ready.

[Linayus 676]

Since I don't really follow recruiting much (hardly at all really), what is our biggest issue with getting any offensive lineman 4* or better? Is it truly scheme based and these guys know going to Georgia/Bama/LSU gets them noticed that much more for the NFL or do we just suck hardcore at recruiting the position? I know it has been said Grimes is crap at recruiting (and it looks like he's doing very little of it now) but is a decent fundamentals coach. Do we need a total overhaul with a new o-line coach or do we need someone to fit Gus' offensive identity?

[ClaytonAU 4,606]

49 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

He should be ready.

This. You’d think a competent WRs coach could coach these kids up. 

[toddc 13,194]

1 minute ago, ClaytonAU said:

This. You’d think a competent WRs coach could coach these kids up. 

He’s playing great on STs but obviously there’s something going on with him or he would have been making plays while others were out injured. Then not knowing how to line up on the goal line play is on himself, not CKB. He’s my crush so I have great hopes for him this year, and also my crush last year. I’m not sure what’s going on because he looks great on STs plays.

[ClaytonAU 4,606]

25 minutes ago, toddc said:

He’s playing great on STs but obviously there’s something going on with him or he would have been making plays while others were out injured. Then not knowing how to line up on the goal line play is on himself, not CKB. He’s my crush so I have great hopes for him this year, and also my crush last year. I’m not sure what’s going on because he looks great on STs plays.

Matthew Hill was wanted by Clemson and we beat them out for him. He didn’t magically stop learning how to lineup on the LOS or catch the ball. Something’s up.

[PUB78 1,357]

5 hours ago, ellitor said:

That would be 8 OL in the class. We wouldn’t take 8 OLs even if we took 2 less WRs. 7 was always the potential max.

Staff looking at one graduate transfer OL for next year?

[PUB78 1,357]

12 hours ago, ellitor said:

Again, he did. We’ve had 3 decommits on the D line. As of now we would only take one of them back.

Which one?

[Sizzle 3,909]

Are we looking at grad transfers on the DL?

[Cardin Drake 1,821]

As far as WR's, and coaching, I don't believe our staff isn't doing a good enough job.  They are coaching these guys the same. Some guys are doing what they need to do, and some aren't.  It's virtually impossible to teach speed and hands.  If you've got the right attitude, you can learn to run routes, block,  and do the little things that get you playing time if you have speed and hands.  Usually, when a player doesn't succeed, it's more of a failure in the initial evaluation and/or attitude. 

[steeleagle 2,945]

48 minutes ago, Cardin Drake said:

As far as WR's, and coaching, I don't believe our staff isn't doing a good enough job.  They are coaching these guys the same. Some guys are doing what they need to do, and some aren't.  It's virtually impossible to teach speed and hands.  If you've got the right attitude, you can learn to run routes, block,  and do the little things that get you playing time if you have speed and hands.  Usually, when a player doesn't succeed, it's more of a failure in the initial evaluation and/or attitude. 

Attitude b/c they don't see themselves getting enough playing time,

or b/c they are not consistently in the flow of the game and contributing, they lose focus, and something like what happened to Hill Saturday, causes the HC to go ballistic.

Especially since it was a RZ call and critical to winning the game.

[ClaytonAU 4,606]

1 hour ago, Cardin Drake said:

As far as WR's, and coaching, I don't believe our staff isn't doing a good enough job.  They are coaching these guys the same. Some guys are doing what they need to do, and some aren't.  It's virtually impossible to teach speed and hands.  If you've got the right attitude, you can learn to run routes, block,  and do the little things that get you playing time if you have speed and hands.  Usually, when a player doesn't succeed, it's more of a failure in the initial evaluation and/or attitude. 

So the regression of multiple highly recruited WRs under this staff is all on the player? 

[McLoofus 35,182]

15 minutes ago, ClaytonAU said:

So the regression of multiple highly recruited WRs under this staff is all on the player? 

Yeah. I'll buy that we missed on a couple guys- we've signed 20 including and since the 2013 class, and a large number of them either left the program or switched positions- but it's still difficult to swallow that out of even 10 guys Darius Slayton was our only bonafide NFL WR. Lots of 4* in that group, some of them very high 4*s. It's understandable that a lot of them didn't come here to be blocking dummies. 

[Gowebb11 9,313]

56 minutes ago, ClaytonAU said:

So the regression of multiple highly recruited WRs under this staff is all on the player? 

Here’s what I believe. Most of us are best and what we do most. A receiver who gets targeted 6-8 times a game most weeks, will likely develop pass catching skills better than a guy who gets targeted 1-2 times every other week.  It’s hard to become great at something you don't do very often. That said, were 4-0 right now so whatever is working we need to keep doing it. 

[mcgufcm 4,096]

@McLoofus, no one is "hard up" to argue with you. I'm so confused. Sometimes, you and I have the most interesting conversations about football. Other times, if I don't just wholesale agree with you, you react like it's always the same ole thing! C'mon. You staked out a non-nuanced position on a message board and didn't want to discuss it? You didn't say "we don't develop guys other than the top four guys"; you said "we don't develop WRs." There is a difference. No matter what E tried to inject, your position was not limited to the backups. This is a message board. If you're going to take a broad-brush position like that, you cannot be surprised when someone wants to talk about it or disagrees with you.

I would say, we do a pretty good job of identifying the guys we want to feature, and on the whole, we develop those guys. Slayton got better. Ryan Davis got better. Eli Stove has gotten better. Will Hastings has gotten better. Seth Williams did NOT show up a fully formed WR. He's better now than he was last year. 

What I don't think we do is develop depth. The biggest difference between Rodney Garner and Kodi Burns (other than one being a cool, old-guy, badass) is Garner's ability to develop depth. Davidson and Brown have improved over four years, but at the same time, he was helping Truesdell along. Kodi doesn't seem to be able to do that. He's done a good job coaching Stove, Herring, Williams, and Schwartz, but he did a bad job with Nate Craig-Myers (5 catches for 88 yards in his debut at CSU last week). He hasn't been able to move Matthew Hill along. We haven't seen anything from Shedrick Jackson yet. Nothing from Zach Farrar. Nothing from Jashawn Sheffield.

I can't blame Kodi for Kyle Davis or really even Jason Smith, but really good coaches build depth. To this point, Kodi hasn't been able to do that. We need to sign four guys, in part, because we didn't sign anyone in 2017. The only WR we signed is our starting CB right now. So that's your senior class next year... nonexistent. But we also need to sign four guys this year because we have absolutely no idea what we have behind our top four.

[SumterAubie 3,031]

1 hour ago, Gowebb11 said:

Here’s what I believe. Most of us are best and what we do most. A receiver who gets targeted 6-8 times a game most weeks, will likely develop pass catching skills better than a guy who gets targeted 1-2 times every other week.  It’s hard to become great at something you don't do very often. That said, were 4-0 right now so whatever is working we need to keep doing it. 

The problem is, and it seems to overlooked by many of us, is there are only so many passes to go around. Now would we rather have Williams targeted 8 times in a game, or Matthew Hill. Schwartz 8 times, or McClain. Members here act like each wr should have 10 balls a game thrown their way.

[fredst 9,064]

As far as receivers go, I feel like we’ve taken “athletes” and assumed they would be good receivers as opposed to taking “receivers” (regardless of how they are labeled by services/us). Jason Smith/Ricardo Louis/etc were guys with great athleticism but not “receivers” like Ross/Ridley/Cooper/etc(yes, I realize those guys were elite). A good portion of this is on the development or lack there of as well. Falling short multiple steps along the way adds up to less than stellar production(others factors in play here also that have been discussed at length).