lv20gt
Helluva Engineer
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- 5,587
I think the team has potential but I doubt this year will be another 2014 for a couple of reasons.
The first is I'm not a huge fan of the Qb-BB dynamic that I see shaping up. Mills has a lot of things going for him but he only had 2 runs over 25 yards all year and neither ended in TDs. That alone isn't an issue because he does have the power to be a consistent producer in the middle, but the issue comes with that combined with a new QB. Every new QB under Johnson has gotten a similar treatment of a limited playbook that focused more on called plays and double options. Those two factors alone will probably skew our offense pretty heavily towards longer drives, play wise. More plays means more strain on the new QB to not make mistakes. What makes this even worse is the new kicker and punter. Long drives that end in FGs will allow teams to stick around when they shouldn't, see our bowl game, but long drives ending in missed FGs are absolutely killer. The UNC game last year is a perfect example of this. We had 5 drives, 4 of them 10+ plays, totaling about 300 yards that ended in just 6 points.
The second is that one of the big reasons 2014 was so good was that Laskey got injured and Johnson was forced to play Days. Contrary to what people like to depict, 2014 was not a two headed monster at BBack for the vast majority of the season. The first 7 games were all Laskey. The next 4 were all Days. We were 5-2 in the first 7 but the first 4 wins were sloppy and uninspiring on offense. We'd have probably still had a good year, 7-8 wins, but likely not the 11 win orange bowl season that we did. This year we have a battle at the QB spot. Of course during the summer time is when every player on every team is hyped up by their respective fanbases, but the likelihood that more than 1, let alone all 4, are ready to be ACC level QBs this year, is very small. If we go with a guy who needs a year of experience to get adjusted, then its unlikely we win 11 games. And if we do go with the "wrong" guy at QB, then even if the replacement gets a shot, it's not the same at bback, because who we have at QB greatly shapes the way we run our offense. Nesbitt and Thomas ran the same offense, but two pretty different versions of it. We took advantage of this last year against VT when they prepared for one style and we hit them with another, but we also saw in the second half that adjustments are far easier to make in that situation.
Lastly, I don't think our schedule sets up well for it. In 2014 we started off with 3 of the weaker teams we'd face that year and didn't look good, but were able to win anyways. This year we have Tenn on neutral ground and @UCF. Even not playing that well we started off 2014 with 5 wins. We're going to have to be much better much earlier to repeat that this year.
On the other side of things, the group of QBs we have do provide a wide range of skills. I think there's at least one that compliments the rest of the team well enough to win double digit games. Just need to identify and play him. Really wish we started with the 2014 schedules opening 3 games for this reason.
I do think the defense has a good chance to be the best we've had under Johnson, at least since his first year. That gives more leeway to our offense, and it also helps take advantage of our opponents replacing offensive pieces.
The first is I'm not a huge fan of the Qb-BB dynamic that I see shaping up. Mills has a lot of things going for him but he only had 2 runs over 25 yards all year and neither ended in TDs. That alone isn't an issue because he does have the power to be a consistent producer in the middle, but the issue comes with that combined with a new QB. Every new QB under Johnson has gotten a similar treatment of a limited playbook that focused more on called plays and double options. Those two factors alone will probably skew our offense pretty heavily towards longer drives, play wise. More plays means more strain on the new QB to not make mistakes. What makes this even worse is the new kicker and punter. Long drives that end in FGs will allow teams to stick around when they shouldn't, see our bowl game, but long drives ending in missed FGs are absolutely killer. The UNC game last year is a perfect example of this. We had 5 drives, 4 of them 10+ plays, totaling about 300 yards that ended in just 6 points.
The second is that one of the big reasons 2014 was so good was that Laskey got injured and Johnson was forced to play Days. Contrary to what people like to depict, 2014 was not a two headed monster at BBack for the vast majority of the season. The first 7 games were all Laskey. The next 4 were all Days. We were 5-2 in the first 7 but the first 4 wins were sloppy and uninspiring on offense. We'd have probably still had a good year, 7-8 wins, but likely not the 11 win orange bowl season that we did. This year we have a battle at the QB spot. Of course during the summer time is when every player on every team is hyped up by their respective fanbases, but the likelihood that more than 1, let alone all 4, are ready to be ACC level QBs this year, is very small. If we go with a guy who needs a year of experience to get adjusted, then its unlikely we win 11 games. And if we do go with the "wrong" guy at QB, then even if the replacement gets a shot, it's not the same at bback, because who we have at QB greatly shapes the way we run our offense. Nesbitt and Thomas ran the same offense, but two pretty different versions of it. We took advantage of this last year against VT when they prepared for one style and we hit them with another, but we also saw in the second half that adjustments are far easier to make in that situation.
Lastly, I don't think our schedule sets up well for it. In 2014 we started off with 3 of the weaker teams we'd face that year and didn't look good, but were able to win anyways. This year we have Tenn on neutral ground and @UCF. Even not playing that well we started off 2014 with 5 wins. We're going to have to be much better much earlier to repeat that this year.
On the other side of things, the group of QBs we have do provide a wide range of skills. I think there's at least one that compliments the rest of the team well enough to win double digit games. Just need to identify and play him. Really wish we started with the 2014 schedules opening 3 games for this reason.
I do think the defense has a good chance to be the best we've had under Johnson, at least since his first year. That gives more leeway to our offense, and it also helps take advantage of our opponents replacing offensive pieces.