We have been spoiled at WR.

techfowl

Jolly Good Fellow
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We have had such great recievers lately, that our biggest concern is whether they are a deep-threat or a possession guy.

Teams like USC and Clemson have had a slew of track stars with five stars on signing day, that consistently are so open that even Dondrell Pinkins and Woodie Danztler could tell they were open - and most of them can't catch an STD in a whorehouse.

Our biggest problems have been that we thought (accurately or not) Will Glover, Kerry Watkins, and Jonathan Smith weren't fast enough after Kelly 'Jet Fuel' Campbell left us. Those guys never dropped balls - it was just a matter of Yards After the Catch or whether the catch itself was across the first down marker.

When was the last time you remember a dropped ball from any of our guys? I remember PJ dropping a sure TD in the flats against UNC but he did so great in that game and the rest of the season, I think it's the only obvious mistake he had all year.

I hear about Levon not being very consistent in practice, but I don't remember any game day drops.

Levon is like Aries Curry before last year. The guy does everything right except catch the ball. If he is consistent catching, he is big time. If CJ can catch, he will be big time. If Bilbo will run decent routes, he's big time, and Nate, I can tell you, is something special.

Mark Logan and Darius Williams each had catches of a lifetime last year against Auburn. They clearly have the talent, but we haven't been able to see in on a regular basis.

Nobody thought we had a tailback because we had to resort to some unknown DB like Tony Hollings 2 years ago. To say we have a special group at WR, like Tony was at RB, is a little much to prognosticate, but I do think we will have a pretty good WR group. At a minimum, the WR's will be better than advertised, but maybe they really step up.

Levon, X-Mac, or CJ, or Bilbo are ALL X-Factors. If only one or two of those guys step up we have 3 wides or even 4 wides where everybody has to be covered and the field is spread pretty thin for the defense. And Bilbo, X-Mac, and CJ each have significant size advantage over a 5'10" DB, which most are. There is no way 2 of that group of 4 desn't show up wanting a job.

We are talking big guys with speed and lots of them. If you ae a D Coordinator, who do you expect to go deep, and who do you expect to go across the middle? All four of these guys will excell at either. And if they simply catch the ball, it's a D Coordinator's nightmare with these guys all on the field at once. I think we can count on a minimum of 2 playmakers, and could reasonably expect all 4 to show up.

Then what about Pat Clark, James Johnson, and our already seasoned guys? I think we are going to be in pretty good shape. How about Pat Carter in certain packages, just to give the defense a headache, whether we even throw to him or not?

Most importantly, don't take for granted that we have guys who simply consistently catch the ball, if they do it, regardless of our speed and seperation. Simply catching a consistent ball is more rare than you think and we've had that for quite a while.

I think we can look forward to a pretty good crew at WR.

Reggie's ability to spread it around should be our biggets concern, not the WR's themselves, but I think Reggie will be pretty good this year, also.

Of course, our offense is very different than the Friedgen O, so that will have an impact, but I truly believe Chan himself will open up the O a bit for a few reasons. The Defense is not as thin, so they can go longer, meaning a quick strike isn't the end of the world anymore for the D. He also has a more experienced QB to make more complex plays, and an OL that is talented, but not as deep, which means he might want to give them more rest, than last year.

I would expect a more open offense with more production from a better than advertised group of WR's. I would expect a much more balanced attack this year than last.
 
Correct

We have been spoiled at WR (Middleton, White, Campbell, Watkins)...and we certainly have been spoiled at QB with Hamilton and Godsey. Those two almost never made a bad read or over/under threw a single ball.

I think this will be Nate Curry's year if someone else steps.

That person probably would have been Bridges...but we all know that story.

Big if...but if Levon steps up and uses his fingers he could be All-ACC.

I think Calvin will be the first freshman WR to contribute at GT since...since...I cannot remember the last one.

To me there are two players who may surprise us the most at that position this year...one is Chris Dunlap and the other James Johnson. I have heard great things about Dunlap. If just one of the two can be big it would help tremendously.

I also think there is a good opportunity for another big WR recruit this year....Carlos Thomas, Daryl Jones, Gregory Smith, etc.

Lets not move Pat Carter for another 6 games and see if Ball gets the learning curve cranking again. If not...I am not afraid to see Carter come in at all...I love his throw on the deep ball.
 
From your post, I think you understood this, but I'll clarify just in case.

(WR) Pat 'Clark' is an incoming freshman that could contribute at WR. Looks like a great athlete.

A seperate thought was that I would 'not' propose a permanent move for (QB) Pat 'Carter' to WR, but 'would' line him up there a couple of times, just to basicly cause another wrinkle for opposing D Coordinators.
 
Have to disagree some techfowl. We have had some great WRs in our history, and we've had some of them recently, but I say the weakest link of our offense last year was WR. JSmith was our go to guy obviously and he was a threat underneath and after the catch, very consistent and with good hands. But he wasn't a real deep threat.

Other than that though we had very little production from the WR position. We had way too many drops, poorly run routes, little separation from DBs and very few catches where the ball didn't hit the receiver in the hands (didn't go and get the ball). Watch your tapes and you will see why Reggie always seemed to be looking for JSmith.

That is the position we need to step up this year. I think all the freshmen will get a look and the upper classmen had better show up ready to play if they want to get on the field. Don't get me wrong, I think the talent is there, but we were way to lackadaisical last year.
 
NC Jacket nailed it as he has previously.Smith was the man because he could and would do it.ALL the others were erratic to be kind.
The passing game is a fragile thing.If the QB is perfect on a throw and the receiver drops it his confidence takes a hit.The next throw is that much harder.If that is incomplete ,the receivers don't have a chance to get in a groove either.--and so on and so on.then the Defense starts loading the line even more stopping the run and giving even less time to throw.etc,etc.
I believe the most we can hope for is a reasonable passing threat so we can keep the running game going.I have no illusions about this being a consistent challenge for a defense at this point.
 
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