Will UK experience a top 20 FB Season?
- Thread starter mtn cat1
- Start date
I mean.....we are right there on that cusp. You just feel like we gotta kick that door dowb soon.
With all of that being true, you can still tell a lot by watching the BWG. You can see which players react well, and which are assignment sound. You can get an idea about speed and quickness. You can see how a quarterback reads the secondary and whether his throws are accurate. You can see how a running back makes his 1st cut and runs to the 2nd level. You can see which receivers run good routes and catch the football. You can see which defenders are consistently getting into the backfield. You can see form tackling and arm tackling. Let me repeat something I said earlier. Many posters presume to know something about our football team, but I can roughly draw an imaginary line down the middle of our little group here. On 1 side of the line are fans who attended the BWG. Those fans generally know more about players up and down our roster. On the other side of this line are fans who did not attend the BWG. They are generally less knowledgeable about our roster, particularly about our younger players.
There are all kinds of ways to form expectations. Some posters can’t envision success. Some are so negative toward Barnhart and Stoops that they are unwilling to contemplate any aspect of the program’s future without using the discussion to attack UK’s administration and coaches. They can’t believe in success until they have no other choice. On the other side, some overestimate our chances without a good reason. I like optimism, but I base my own expectations on what I observe. Although I often get lumped in with the “sunshine pumpers”, my only fondness for Stoops is based on my instinct to support UK’s coaches unless I see a firm reason not to. So this is what I know. Stoops’ recruiting classes have been solid. His 2016 and 2017 classes were particularly strong. This year, 17 starters are back, including Benny Snell. Most of our significant depth is back. Because I attend the BWG, I know Gunnar Hoak has a higher ceiling as a pure passer than SJ had. The winner of the quarterback competition will be able to move the sticks, if Coach Smith has our receivers ready too play. My only serious concern is losing Austin MacGinnis. Coach Stoops’ records here have been 2-10, 5-7, 5-7, 7-6, 7-6. At some future point, the upward trend line will inevitably get interrupted. But that’s unlikely to happen when 17 starters and almost all of the depth are back. So I look at our schedule, and I see 8-9 regular season wins. Of course, key injuries could rain on the party, or key overachievements such as a bust-out season from Josh Paschal could accelerate the program’s rise. There will always be unexpected variables. That’s the nature of competitive sports.
Well, kinda. Things get distorted a lot. A DB may look like they react quickly to play, but the offenses are very vanilla and predictable in Spring games. Defenders may rush the passer but they don’t have to worry about doing stunts, shifts, or variation of offense. RBs May look good but defenses are very vanilla. And often times everyone is told to slow down a little and to avoid injury.
I’ve been to a good number of practices throughout the yrs.....as well as Spring games. Yes, you can make a few assumptions from the game but not many. And any assumptions you can make you have to be careful since the actual season is still a half year away.
Yes, I get that. I’m not saying that the BWG simulates the conditions of an October SEC game. But it wouldn’t be correct, either, to say all impressions from the BWG fall under the category of assumptions. You can tell a lot about certain players from the way they play in the spring. Take Jamin Davis, for example. I know that Davis has an outstanding football IQ and is a quick twitch athlete who needs to fill out. Fans who have not attended the BWG know nothing about Gunnar Hoak. But I know that Hoak is efficient in his pre-snap reads and running through his receiver progressions. I have seen that Hoak is very accurate, with enough arm talent to throw the passes in Eddie Gran’s primary play book. So that’s the baseline. If Terry Wilson can beat out Hoak, then he will also be able to do those things. And when we see Wilson play in the BWG, we will know that much about him too. But we will not know how either quarterback stands in the pocket under the heat of Georgia’s pass rush. That’s 1 of the differences between the BWG and a real SEC game.
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Also IMO, this is the strongest group of assistant coaches we have had here under Stoops to date, and that should start showing up on the field some this year as well.
Correct but they are assumptions. Hoak is able to be accurate and quick progressive in a very much altered laboratory environment. It is assumed that he will be able to do it in a real game.
The point of all my posts is that every yr scores of fans watch the game and extrapolate waaaay more than they should. Hoak has impressed so much in prior BWG’s that you’d think he’s a Manning to hear people talk.
Everyone healthy gets reps in the BW game simply due to having only 60-65 ss players available so some folks that 'show out' in the game will be buried on the depth chart when the additional 20+ guys show up in the fall and their talent places them above the BW stars. BW performances should always be taken with a grain of salt but I would agree with Decade that there are valuable items to glean from watching the game.
![[winking]](http://l.yimg.com/j/assets/img/emoticons/classic/wink.r191677.gif "Winking [winking]")
How can you tell that when they are running against some people who won't see the field in the fall? Walkon RBs will look good in the spring games and likely be the leading rushers that game, coaches just are willing to risk an injury to their top players in what is nothing more than an open scrimmage with tackling to the ground.
Last spring, Hoak looked like UK's best QB, how much did he play last fall? Playing QB when he is basically playing in shorts and when 300+ lb guys are trying to bury him are 2 different things. I am not saying that is an issue with Hoak, but with all the nicks and dings Johnson had the coaches didn't show much confidence in the backups by putting Johnson back in as quick as they did. I think Jones shoulder was much worse than many here thought it was and was a big reason for the drop in his play. A LB just can't do his job with one arm and he sure can't wrap up and make tackles, I think some of his actions was caused by frustration on not being able to play at the level he expects to play.. Roquan Smith missed spring practice after getting his shoulder fixed last year, didn't hurt him missing the spring, if Jones has something cronic going on with his, he should have done the same.
Agree, at best the spring game can showcase potential, but as they say potential just means you haven't done it yet.
Example last year Feleipe Franks had a stellar spring game for the Gators while Nick Fitzgerald stunk the place up for the Bull Dogs with 4 picks. We all know how their respective seasons turned out.
I also don’t want to come across as gloomy. It just seems like every yr there are far, far, far too many people who read more into a Spring game than they should....either positive or negative.
But that wasn’t the point of my post at all. Basically, then, those are your assumptions. I stipulated that the BWG is not the same as an October SEC game. But with that caveat, I can tell a lot about certain players by watching them in the BWG, and I know this from trial and error since I have watched the same players play the following October in many cases. I never compared Hoak to other quarterbacks. I didn’t even predict Hoak will start. I only said he is efficient and has arm talent. I believe you said you have a football background, so you certainly understand that much can be determined from his BWG performance. I suppose you can say everything a coach learns about his players by watching them in practice would be “assumptions”. That isn’t my view though. Evaluation is a skill. If you were to say that some fans leap to too many assumptions, I can agree with you there.
I've seen a lot of people discount Hoak in many different threads, based purely on his lack of snaps last year. I'm not so sure that wasn't the result of roster management by Stoops. If he starts giving Hoak the mop duty it almost definitely drives Barker off. I'm not sure that's what went on but it's plausible.
Sorry Blue, I still haven't mastered posting over here, didn't intend to quote you.
All of my posts have mainly been directed at the general public. It’s not necessarily at you. I too don’t feel you and I are too far apart on our opinions.
I will say that after being a part of 3 different programs throughout D1 ball, the coaches don’t even put much stock in evaluating Spring games. 99% of their evaluations come from practices over and over. I’ve heard many coaches say, “ok, play at 75% and don’t get hurt. Don’t lay anybody out, don’t undercut jumping WRs, don’t make blind blocks, etc”.
Spring games are exhibitions for the fans. In fact most coaching staffs hold closed scrimmages during the Spring season. It’s all about keeping up fan support and excitement. It’s about getting fans to spend money on the number 1 revenue sport.
No I read it, you can't tell anything when they are not running against top competition,and that doesn't happen often in spring games. QBs are comfortable because they aren't going to be hit, RBs look great when they break some scout team S ankles with a cut. Eason looked all world for us when he knew he wasn't going to get hit, quick release, confident, but as soon as there was a chance he was going to get hit he wet the bed. You can't use spring games for much of anything but to give the fans a dog and pony show because spring games and fall football are 2 different things.
If you actually saw what I said, you would know I was not comparing the spring game to a regular season conference game. I went to some lengths to explain this.
What’s wrong with that? At the end of the day, the spring game is for the players. They work their butts off in the gym and in practice throughout the offseason. The spring game provides an exclamation point and motivates the players to keep working hard over the summer. Just for the record, let me say 1 more time that there are limits to what can be deduced from the BWG, because the defense plays base doctrine without blitzing. So maybe we are saying the same thing. But I can watch a young player in the BWG and assess his reactions. I can tell whether a receiver has good hands. I can see how a linebacker fills and tackles. These aren’t assumptions. Evaluation is a skill, not an assumption. But I agree with you that some fans make too many assumptions.
^Very true that evaluation is a skill not an assumption. But are you truly evaluating a lot during a Spring game?
For an extreme example. Ever watch a college basketball player mess around with HS basketball players. They go half speed, make everyone look silly, juke everyone out their shoes, make 90% of their baskets.
Another example is the NFL Combine. Most NFL evaluators will tell you that assessing the ability to run, jump, and do simulations have some value but not a lot. It’s a small piece of the puzzle. Now imagine if many of the guys in the combine ran at 75% and goofed off a lot.
For an extreme example. Ever watch a college basketball player mess around with HS basketball players. They go half speed, make everyone look silly, juke everyone out their shoes, make 90% of their baskets.
Another example is the NFL Combine. Most NFL evaluators will tell you that assessing the ability to run, jump, and do simulations have some value but not a lot. It’s a small piece of the puzzle. Now imagine if many of the guys in the combine ran at 75% and goofed off a lot.
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Sure I did, you said your past experience from watching spring games allowed you to determine how certain players would do in the fall. I have as much experience evaluating as probably anyone here and I can't come close to doing that. You can get an idea on their mechanics, their techniques and fundamentals, but that's all I can do. To even think you can evaluate after one observation is a little over the top.
I will very much look forward to any comments you share after watching this spring’s game!
Don't argue with him, he is either a retired NFL head coach or works for mitch.
I'm not sure which but I lean toward working for mitch.
LOL! Because another poster correctly points out that you haven’t been to Lexington in decades, and that you are badly misinformed, that leads your idle mind to conclude that the other poster must work for Mitch. You are really getting close to the edge there, bro.
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