Receiving Game without Smelter

white&gold

white&gold

Damn Good Rat
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Oct 7, 2014
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A slight repost from the thread about Smelter's injury. Although I want to move away from talking about the actual injury and talk about our receiving game for the next 2 games.

This has me the most worried going into Saturday and beyond. Yes, JT has been throwing probably better than any PJ quarterback, but a big reason is that he had Smelter, who is our best guy by far since Beybey. Not only did Smelter have good hands, but he ran really good routes. Run blocking is anther topic.

I just don't see any guys stepping up and making the same impact. Waller isn't nearly as fast and the only good routes I've seen him 'consistently' catch balls on are go and jump balls. Summers is very untested. Has Correy Dennis caught a pass all year? The rest of the guys are just so young with very little experience. Messick caught the one TD reception earlier in the year during mop up duty, and CPJ jokingly made fun of how he botched the route after the game.

As for ABs, I think we have some decent receiving threats but not enough to fill the gap without Smelter. 2 distinct times in the UGA game stick out to me when Andrews dropped a pass (he did get lit up though) and when a good ball went right through Bostic's hands.

Curious on everyone's thoughts.
 
One thing I noticed was that our game seemed to improve when all we did was run the ball.
 
kevinw33 said:
One thing I noticed was that our game seemed to improve when all we did was run the ball.
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You're totally correct . But what about 3rd and 5+?? We fortunately didn't have hardly any of those after Smelter went out. If we get in a few tough situations against FSU and find a 3rd and long, we're without our go-to guy.
 
Smelter also did a good job finding a space to be open for JT to get the ball somewhere when pressured. I think this will hurt us most. Smelter knew what to do to keep a drive going and where to be to get open or how to position himself to catch the ball. Our other guys just go out and run routes or block mainly.
 
AB need to catch the ball when it hits their hands.

That would be a good start.
 
We'll see what happens. He's a huge component to our conversions of third downs. I'm confident some of the routes he was effective at running can be run by another player, what worries me is the chemistry during the scramble drills that he and JT5 had. Also the chemistry on backshoulder throws.

In all honesty though, I think we can beat this FSU team with just running the ball. They haven't faced very many good running teams outside of BC in my opinion, and they didn't fare particularly well against them, granted that game fell between Miami and Florida so there may have been some letdown there. We lose a lot on edge blocking with Smelter out.

I'm just very upset about this loss though. With Smelter I think we have a much easier time with this FSU team, but we have capable receivers backing him up. I wouldn't mind seeing Messick taking snaps. He's looked pretty good in his playing time.
 
I think Waller has proved enough in his GT career that we should be comfortable with him at our #1. We aren't Washington St., we don't need perfect routes and Megatron speed. We just need hands. Waller has them.
 
Not to take anything away from Smelter, but Zenon and Hill have caught their share of clutch 3rd down passes. Losing our top WR is bad, but I think somebody will step up.
 
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GTCrew4b said:
I'm confident some of the routes he was effective at running can be run by another player, what worries me is the chemistry during the scramble drills that he and JT5 had. Also the chemistry on backshoulder throws.

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The Clemson game was when we were on with the timing routes. I recall a Waller/Thomas hook up that was the same way
 
yes there have been similar throws to Waller.
 
Smelter has the ability to make himself a large target with his route running that waller simply doesn't have. It's easy to hit a barn door, much harder to hit the window. Summers hasn't struck me as having that knack either. If we want a passing game, we're going to have to hit different routes than we've been using all year. More vertical routes, slants, switches, posts than comebacks. In the blocking game, summers has quick feet but doesn't blow people up. I think we'll be OK in that regard as he is capable of holding his block plenty long enough, he's just not going to blow a lane wide open.
 
[y]mHnzsGxIrV0&feature=youtu.be[/y]

Skip to 46:37

I think Waller is on the same page as Smelter and Thomas. I just get that feeling from this pass. Obviously Smelter is better, I'm just not convinced Waller and Thomas don't have great chemistry.
 
Sucks, but we have capable 3rd-down targets in Zenon and Hill. I would also consider throwing more fades to Waller in the red zone, who is tall enough to dare a defense to foul him to prevent a touchdown. The last time we had a receiver with his length, his name was Calvin Johnson and we drew PI flags from the fade route to get 1st downs regularly.
 
I agree with others, the biggest loss is still in the run game without Smelter due to his blocking.

Also, Smelter's ability to work back to the ball on the scramble plays will be sorely missed. It may take JT5 tucking the ball and running more often, when the coverage is good, and protection starts to break down, as he is certainly capable of doing.
 
Was looking at the roster and noticed:

http://www.ramblinwreck.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/matt_serpico_752640.html

#83 Matt Serpico

He's a WR converted from linebacker and measures 6'4" and 233 pounds.

Has not seen the field much, but he played TE in high school.

With his size and background, I'm sure he can block just as well as Smelter.

I would assume he doesn't have Smelter's speed or hands or else he would have been playing more. Anyone know if he is game ready?
 
of course you noticed the underappreciated white player. Of course.
 
cincyjacket said:
Was looking at the roster and noticed:

http://www.ramblinwreck.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/matt_serpico_752640.html

#83 Matt Serpico

He's a WR converted from linebacker and measures 6'4" and 233 pounds.

Has not seen the field much, but he played TE in high school.

With his size and background, I'm sure he can block just as well as Smelter.

I would assume he doesn't have Smelter's speed or hands or else he would have been playing more. Anyone know if he is game ready?
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Just stop.
 
Losing Smelter definitely worries me. He was MONEY on 3rd down. You could just about guarantee that he'd get open and guarantee he'd catch it if thrown to him. The only question was if we could block long enough and if JT could put the pass on target.

Waller is great at jump balls and made a couple of nice back shoulder throws, but I don't recall him successfully running the comeback routes that Smelter has this year. In fact, I don't recall anyone since Bay Bay running those routes consistently.

Honestly I think this makes us more 1-dimensional again. Fortunately that 1 dimension is a very, very good one.
 
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