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Do We Have the Talent We Need?


Mavric

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13 hours ago, Dr. Strangelove said:

Our RB development hasn't been better.

I have been very surprised by this honestly. I assumed our RB position would be one of our best with all the hooplah around Held and just assumed he would build that room with his perceived recruiting acumen etc. I wouldnt mind going with a good ol boy internal hire and making Ron Brown our RB coach...he is already on campus and a fantastic position coach. Heck if you wanna keep Held keep him, can Mario and sort it out. 

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10 hours ago, TheSker said:

Injuries and covid

Why are people laughing at this?

 

RB's were banged up all year.  Was there even a game where all were active?  Let alone individual RB's active for more than two games in a row?

 

The staff also confirmed that Morrison battled COVID for a chunk of the year.

 

I'm not saying it's the going to be the best RB room in the conference next year, but people can't ignore that this year was hard on the RB room.

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8 minutes ago, funhusker said:

Why are people laughing at this?

 

RB's were banged up all year.  Was there even a game where all were active?  Let alone individual RB's active for more than two games in a row?

 

The staff also confirmed that Morrison battled COVID for a chunk of the year.

 

I'm not saying it's the going to be the best RB room in the conference next year, but people can't ignore that this year was hard on the RB room.

Going into year 4 where have you seen RB development? Often times the position where a Freshman can get on the field the earliest? 

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11 minutes ago, funhusker said:

Why are people laughing at this?

 

RB's were banged up all year.  Was there even a game where all were active?  Let alone individual RB's active for more than two games in a row?

 

The staff also confirmed that Morrison battled COVID for a chunk of the year.

 

I'm not saying it's the going to be the best RB room in the conference next year, but people can't ignore that this year was hard on the RB room.

I think because it's going year 4.  Each year we had one (and IMHO only 1 RB).  It's now year 4 and we still have no reliable, experienced RB.  Yes injuries happen, but to every RB....Covid is what it is.  Bell-Oz (Oz wouldn't have ever gotten a shot had Bell stayed despite his numbers.  Bell leaves.  Recruiting miss?  Mo leaves and Mills gets a shot.  When Mills totes the rock about 20 times we start to see what he can do.  Revolving door doesn't work for his style of running.  Mo a recruiting miss?  Mills this year and really no one besides Wan'dale....And 2 years of being a RB jas Wan'dale packing it up and moving out...It's year 4 and we "look" worse than year 1 with a hobbled recruit class and Riley's guys...

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14 minutes ago, Hedley Lamarr said:

I have been very surprised by this honestly. I assumed our RB position would be one of our best with all the hooplah around Held and just assumed he would build that room with his perceived recruiting acumen etc. I wouldnt mind going with a good ol boy internal hire and making Ron Brown our RB coach...he is already on campus and a fantastic position coach. Heck if you wanna keep Held keep him, can Mario and sort it out. 

 

Held is a balls-to-the-wall recruiter but I'm not so sure he's a P5 coach. Maybe Ron Brown can "happen by" practice a lot and provide some "counseling" sessions for our rb's :D

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1 minute ago, Danimal said:

 

Held is a balls-to-the-wall recruiter but I'm not so sure he's a P5 coach. Maybe Ron Brown can "happen by" practice a lot and provide some "counseling" sessions for our rb's :D

with Brown as our RB coach we had great development and talent evaluations taking place. We need more of that. 

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2 hours ago, Hedley Lamarr said:

Going into year 4 where have you seen RB development? Often times the position where a Freshman can get on the field the earliest? 

 

We've had several freshman playing the last two years.  Keeping them there and not battling injuries and off-field issues has been the issue.

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25 minutes ago, Mavric said:

 

We've had several freshman playing the last two years.  Keeping them there and not battling injuries and off-field issues has been the issue.

would this not be part of poor development at the position though? Inability to develop depth is so far a massive glaring weakness it appears. Granted I think several programs may be dealing with this nowadays thanks to the lovely free agency...i mean transfer portal that exists. 

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Just now, Hedley Lamarr said:

would this not be part of poor development at the position though? Inability to develop depth is so far a massive glaring weakness it appears. Granted I think several programs may be dealing with this nowadays thanks to the lovely free agency...i mean transfer portal that exists. 

 

I don't think so.  Last year we had a freshman show up late in the summer and be one of our most dynamic offensive players.  This year we had two different freshman lead the team in carries by a RB for a given game and a third that played pretty well in the first game of the year.  They couldn't stay on the field due to injuries but they were ready to play and showed it.  I don't think that is a development issue.

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3 minutes ago, Mavric said:

 

I don't think so.  Last year we had a freshman show up late in the summer and be one of our most dynamic offensive players.  This year we had two different freshman lead the team in carries by a RB for a given game and a third that played pretty well in the first game of the year.  They couldn't stay on the field due to injuries but they were ready to play and showed it.  I don't think that is a development issue.

Did these Freshman not play because we lacked warm bodies at the position though? Just seems like in year 4 we would hope to have a bit more of a stabilized position than a ton of Freshman backs. I know part of that is due to Mo Wash etc but goodness it hurts to not see us have a solid back like we were accustomed to for so many years.  

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1 minute ago, Hedley Lamarr said:

would this not be part of poor development at the position though? Inability to develop depth is so far a massive glaring weakness it appears. Granted I think several programs may be dealing with this nowadays thanks to the lovely free agency...i mean transfer portal that exists. 

 

I think we put a lot of eggs in the Mo Washington basket, and did not make the right adjustments when he flamed out. The injuries have been tough, because you'd think one out of Mills, Thompkins, Scott, and Morrison would be healthy enough to play. But (especially with how vague they are on injuries) that also seems like a bit of an excuse, and having no viable upper classmen behind Mills is on the staff. Tough to convince transfers to join up with how Mills finished last year and seemed poised to be a workhorse, and plenty of teams have freshman/sophomore backs take big roles. So I really don't know if it's just hindsight saying we needed another back before the year (people were calling for it, so that's a tough sell), or if they just couldn't close the deal on a transfer. Or really believed the guys we had would break out, and injuries got in the way. 

 

I'm optimistic about our depth for this year, since I'd be shocked if that amount of injuries happened again and they have a year of experience. I'm willing to wait based on what they did with Ozigbo and Mills progression, even though he was still way too  boom or bust. But I can understand not buying it, and there's a solid argument that real depth has more than 1 upperclassman RB. On the other hand, injuries are pretty random and it's quite possible that guy would've been banged up too. They had 5 guys (including Johnson) they were willing to roll with when healthy, that's some serious bad luck to have injuries to most of them at once.

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4 minutes ago, Husker in WI said:

 

I think we put a lot of eggs in the Mo Washington basket, and did not make the right adjustments when he flamed out. The injuries have been tough, because you'd think one out of Mills, Thompkins, Scott, and Morrison would be healthy enough to play. But (especially with how vague they are on injuries) that also seems like a bit of an excuse, and having no viable upper classmen behind Mills is on the staff. Tough to convince transfers to join up with how Mills finished last year and seemed poised to be a workhorse, and plenty of teams have freshman/sophomore backs take big roles. So I really don't know if it's just hindsight saying we needed another back before the year (people were calling for it, so that's a tough sell), or if they just couldn't close the deal on a transfer. Or really believed the guys we had would break out, and injuries got in the way. 

 

I'm optimistic about our depth for this year, since I'd be shocked if that amount of injuries happened again and they have a year of experience. I'm willing to wait based on what they did with Ozigbo and Mills progression, even though he was still way too  boom or bust. But I can understand not buying it, and there's a solid argument that real depth has more than 1 upperclassman RB. On the other hand, injuries are pretty random and it's quite possible that guy would've been banged up too. They had 5 guys (including Johnson) they were willing to roll with when healthy, that's some serious bad luck to have injuries to most of them at once.

What worries me more is it seems to be more of a systemic issue across multiple positions. I feel fairly decent across the board on defense but offensively our depth is rather worrisome and I anticipated the exact opposite when we hired Frost. 

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Just now, Hedley Lamarr said:

What worries me more is it seems to be more of a systemic issue across multiple positions. I feel fairly decent across the board on defense but offensively our depth is rather worrisome and I anticipated the exact opposite when we hired Frost. 

 

I think it has improved, but yeah not what I expected in year 4. I don't have to squint as hard to see depth at RB, WR, and OL (Tackle at least), but it is still a lot of young and unproven guys. Guard/Center depth looks abysmal, but I suspect we'll bump a tackle or two down so not as worried. But I think the depth options are better - I'm more optimistic about guys like Morrison, Scott, Betts, Grimes, Brown, etc contributing then our depth the last couple years - Williams/Woodyard, Nance/Houston, Mazour. But right now, there's not a lot of difference in the production between those groups.

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