NorthGATiger

Or to some of us in our mid forties "Growing Men" lol! Somehow the muscle and bulk don't look as good as it did 10 years ago.

You missed the point lol. This is why Gus is so high on him. He won't have to retrain this guy to a passing tree concept lacking branches. Cord, do you know anything about the WR screen? Yes sir. We ran it on 40% of our passing plays in high school. That's great news son. In high school did your team run any routes other than the WR screen that were less than 20 yard routes? No sir. We ran the WR screen to suck the defense up and then 60% of our remaining pass plays were deep balls. Son I'm gonna tell ya that you have a tremendous chance of seeing a large amount of time on the field here.

Thank you for posting this. The SEC Championship Game. Hurt RB, good QB and we come out with a gameplan of KJ or bust.

It's funny as heck and also sad because it might be true as far as passing concepts and routes lol!

Exactly.

Thats why I said different era. OC would be a better comparison. My point was that I don't want to take away a skill set and advantage he has over others just to add weight. How many games did he miss and how many injuries did he have playing great competition in south Florida?

Different type of backs. I know it was from a different era but Lionel James was 5'-6" and 162 lbs. He was also not a nationally recognized sprinter with sprinter speed. He had a pretty good pro career as well without adding the bulk. Onterrio Speedwagon was 5'-11" and 173 lbs. He averaged 6.4 yards per carry at Auburn, did well in kick return and in the passing game. Worm is 4 inches shorter than OC and weighs the same. I think he will do well and be put in positions to help the team and himself be successful. I prefer to let the young man keep the God given ability of speed at the RB position and let him ball out. I'm not saying Tre mason was slow but he couldn't catch Shaun if Shaun was carrying Mason's girlfriend.

Man I hope we get Booth. I was hoping it was better than 50/50 and he was just waiting until the right time to commit.

The bong man was not from Mississippi. He just went to Ole Miss. The other knuckle head at Ole Miss that tried walking off buildings was from Georgia.

Love the two additions but hate seeing Justin go to UF. They were not in his top 5.

I would love to get Zion Puckett down for Big Cat as well.

Jumbo Fisherman

How do Handy and Pickering compare? Who do we have higher on our board

So do I although I tend to be a pessimist lol. Want OP badly for this class.

Heck yeah

How secure do we feel with Picken's commitment? If I was remembering correctly we got on him early but there was talk at the time that he would be hard to hold on to if Bama came calling

Yes playing Kyle Davis would have paid off if he did not have personal problems. JJ angers me even more than anyone. He could not read a defense. There is no nice way to say it. He was a one read QB. How do you have him at Auburn that long and not know it until it's hammer time? What were the coaches looking at for 4 years? So it was a good idea to have Willis have 7 pass attempts and Barrett to have 14 rushing attempts when they could have redshirted? We took a year of eligibility from them and they didn't even get good garbage time. Keep in mind we played GA Southern, Mercer, and L. Monroe. I don't want this to be a banter back and forth as it's good to disagree and discuss such things but as I stated before, Gus' reluctance to play younger players and his trust issues have caused us serious problems at the end of the year for two straight years. Thank goodness JS did not go down with an injury in early November or else we might be talking about a different head coach right now. If Auburn does not know what it has with JS in the La Monroe game at the end of the year sandwiched between our two biggest rivals then they never will. La. Monroe was when KJ and everyone needed a break after playing UGA with Bama coming up the next week. Barrett got 2 carries and Willis threw 0 passes. This is the part that is head scratching. At the very least let KJ rest and give the other backs plenty of reps.

You better hope so because we don't have any game proven RBs to start for us this year other than Kam Martin and he is not going to be an every down back.

OK. How many teams did KJ wear down this year so our TF running back could get some quality carries?

It's how you learn and get better. If you constantly play in fear or play not to lose instead of playing to win then it is going to cost you in the long run. Do I want a punt returner that lets the ball bounce an extra 20 yards instead of fielding it and saving valuable field position. Am I content with the average KO return at the 25 or do I want more that get me out to the 40. Do I want a bench full of great athletes and recruits that don't play or do I want to use them and their athletic ability to help the team win games. For Gus they are afterthoughts until it's too late and he needs them. Where would we have been if JS was injured on the 1st series of the 1st UGA game? Our back up QB threw 7 passes this year. 5 more than one of our WR's. We would be making more excuses on why we did not beat UGA and Bama. What we should reflect on, in my mind, is what a poor position to have your team in with a back up QB who has basically had zero reps running the offense. Everytime he came in the game 3 year olds in the stands knew he was running the zone read minus the read part. Everytime Barrett came in a game you knew he was catching a screen pass. This does absolutely nothing for the development of the player and certainly does nothing to prepare him to be ready if needed.

Mikey I'm somewhat agreeing with you here but the speed kids we are recruiting are doing it in high school with success. It's only when they get to Auburn that they suddenly can't do it anymore. If it was just the returner position I would say ok but it is every position under Gus that touches the football. We wasted a year on Barrett this year for what 11 touches. We make every excuse FOR Gus and why these kids don't play while every team in the conference finds ways to play kids. I'm sure UGA's freshman RB did not go to pass pro school before coming to UGA but they still found a way to get a very productive year out of him with Sony and Chubb already playing. We can't get Gus to use more than one guy without using Pettway as Gus' excuse. Most of us are just never going to agree on these things. You see Gus killing KJ because Pettway was injured. I see Gus killing KJ because he has zero trust in anyone else. If there isn't another capable back on this roster than it is Gus' fault. You and I don't recruit the players. I don't need to be at the practices to see who does what. It's big boy football and this isn't year 1 when Gus is taking over a team devoid of talent. We have had 5 years of top ten recruiting. Saban got his Freshman QB enough QUALITY game experience where the kid could come in and win the natty. He did not have him play all year with the zone read as his only option. That is the difference in paranoid non trusting Gus and a football coach. It's been 2 years in a row now where Gus has needed someone at the end of the year at two different positions and he has nowhere to turn to because he did nothing during the year to have anyone else ready.

Kids are going to make mistakes just like Hardman did against us. The good usually outweighs the bad. A stable of studs or a good recruiting class means nothing if they are not used to the best of their ability.

Yes he was. He even took one to the house against UT. I think he ranks around tenth in kick return yardage for Auburn. Why did we go from 2014 to this year without a speed guy back there.

I watched Truitt run at state in the 100 and the dude was extremely fast and built like a beast for his size but Gus never stuck him back there. Tell me all of our fastest players that Gus has stuck back there. Better yet if you take the teams fastest players in Gus' tenure I'll give you ten dollars for every one that returned kicks and punts and you give me 10 for those that did not. Tre Mason, and KJ were not our fastest players. Nor was Roberts. J. Davis, Stove, Slayton and a slew of others were. Iggy is the first speed guy we have had back there since Tim Carter and like Zeek said, Iggy would find a defender or a pile and run to it as fast as possible. I'm not saying I blame him. Kick returns are not for the faint of heart. Many teams use a punt returner or kick returner as a weapon. Opposing teams fear them. Gus has trust issues at the position and fears a turnover more than he values field position or a threat. It's just one of the biggest reasons we need a ST coach not named Gus.

That would make too much sense. I bet he will not be used as a returner.