FURMAN FOOTBALL WEEKLY: ETSU

[gofurman]

You look at that and you see some of what is coming into the recruiting class and it's good.

Take the Nettles kid for example. He can add a 3rd down back type capacity to the offense that is maybe stronger than what we have had now.

You look at Hedden in a year two, more mature, year in the weight room, with the same receivers, line with all this experience and snaps, all the TEs and other backs ... we will have the ability to light up the scoreboard.

I’m all in and positive EXCEPT the OL. I’m still in disbelief that we started a R-SR. R-JR. R-JR. R-JR. R-SO OL and yet were so ineffective. That means our ‘average’ OL was a R-JR. AND combine that with a head coach who specializes in OL. I have never seen two games of worse snapping the ball. Never. By ANY team. I haven’t watched the ETSU game. But season long our oldest unit has been our worst. And it’s CCH specialty. That’s like Deion not getting his DBs to play well. Just strange.

I do know our center was a R-FR for a while but ,.. hey, that was the coach’s choice. They have to Own that.

I like the FUATT post but notice there isn’t a mention of OL. I’ll reserve judgement on ability to light up a scoreboard until I see an OL unit that can run block. Otherwise, we will just be a better version of this year’s offense. Which as was said by Jackal or someone , was worse than even the most pessimistic among those here thought. Let’s not jump the gun. Improved skill position play only goes so far without a better OL

Totally Fair.

Ok, if you look back at OL, a clear issue that really caused a lot of problems was the R-FR Center. Not a question of effort, but he was just not ready to go. C is a difficult position. You have to make calls, you have to snap, and then you have to block the nose or pick up a blitz and it is hard. And the dude was just not ready and the backup was not ready so we had to move Petit in and he was not trained to snap. So that was that.

This line was going to regress. We had 5 guys who were basically 5th year Seniors in there. We had an NFL level player in Johanning at one G. Next to Johanning we had Norman who was 6-7 342 so even if he was wrong on a play he was long and physical enough to make it right. Both guys who played C graduated. We had a Grad student and RS Sr on the other side. Only three guys on the two deep from last year (Lamb, Brasher, Hundley) are in the lineup this year. C was not one of those spots. Oh, and we had all 6-7 260 of Pline in there blocking at TE when we needed that.

One other thing... We rolled a lot of the year with two 5th year RB. They really understood the blocking schemes, pass protection, routes etc. and they got what you could get every time when they were in there.

So, while I think it is totally fair to point out that we did not run it like we wanted to, its totally fair also to point out that given the experience and talent level we lost both on the OL and at RB, it was reasonable to expect at least some regression. Maybe not as much as we have seen, but some.

BTW... man you go back and look at the Montana game depth chart and the number of players listed at R-SR or Grad. is just astounding. On Offense, the only non Jrs on the depth are Hinton, Ferguson, Ethan Harris, Chappel and Jones, Brasher and Lamb. Only one started, Ferguson.

On D... NO Fr or So across DL, Maier at BAN (out for season), and Moson (lost for year at Citadel) and Williams in secondary.

To think we are basically about three plays away from being 6-4 and 4-2 in the conference is hard. So close to being at least "good." This team got NO BREAKS this year. I think it's going to make them hungry. I'd be afraid of us next year.

FUATT, Thank You (!!!) for being objective and fair !!! - Right... that's why I do get a little frustrated when people say pre-season (I mean these were all KNOWN things of how old we were last year - guys like Huff, Johanning, Blackshear, Pline, Stanfield ) "we will win 9 games this year". I get it, they are fans. And I can understand the early optimism. I can live with the 9 game win prediction... What gets me is later when we lose more, the SAME people say - "well, sure, what did you expect?"... um, you said "I expected to win 9 games". It's like some people only play in the world of reality in November. Oh well.

I get the injuries. That changed some of it. But we were never going to win 8+ Games. Just too young on OL / QB etc. and we knew of 2 of the DB injuries pre-season.

I allow that some didn't know that Fred Turner was gone. I think we might have won one or two more if we had had him. that dude was huge ! literally

appreciate your objective look at the OL.

and for objectivity - think of it this way... Just remove Huff and Roberto and we couldn't beat a bad Wofford last year (and that PAINS me to no end).

My hope for next year is a winning season and a good OL !!! GoFurman !! oh, and BEAT WOFFORD !!!!!!!

Well, in FAIRness.... I kind of thought we would be good.

I presumed this was probably not a SoCon title team. I kind of felt like this was a 6-7 win team. What went wrong?

1. Massive amounts of injuries, particularly in the defensive backfield but really across the D through the season, and out best RB and the good transfer TE out. Then add Harris to that which changes the receiving corps. And Stanfield.

2. Slow pace of QB development. We ended up with a guy (Jones) who wouldn't lose a game, but pretty much couldn't win one, and a guy (Hedded) who was capable of losing or winning a game with his talent and decisions. Hedden arguably won us the Citadel and ETSU games (but DEFENSE) and probably lost us the VMI and ChsSo games. If we had been consistently better back there with fewer soul stealing turnovers, our record is better.

3. OL issues, which we have charted well in other parts of this and other threads.

I feel like this team has been finding itself all season because we just didn't go into this with the right mix of guys, leadership and sense of what our identity was. I'm not sure that was anyones fault. I hate to use a cliche like "it is what it is" but... it truly is.

yep. interesting - Do you mean Jayquan smith as best RB?

yes, losing Josh Harris and and FSU TE who actually played at FSU some - he saw the field - had to be a killer. Harris would have made is SO much easier on Hinton...

[FUATT]

Since I talked about returning players earlier in the thread I thought I would put this here (since I didn't know the best place for it).

It looks like DB Brayden Holmes is no longer on the roster. Not sure when that happened but he was on there earlier in the season.

Don't know if anyone has noticed but you can add Charles Ingram V to that list as well. Unsure reason off team.