My sense of the receiver room is it is unsettled at the moment. Squirrel in our only real proven receiver, productive, healthy, and ready to go. If Bru is fully recovered by fall camp that’s an ace we have going for us. In the meantime we need Bru’s leadership and coaching for the young guys. If I had to hire a coaching staff from our roster Bru and Coop would be no-brainers. I think a number of fans thought Donte was coming along pretty good as the season progressed and it was unfortunate the injury bug sidelined him down the stretch. It’ll be important for him to at least pick up where he left off. jmo.
Chas and Kaleb will need to continue to progress and we may get to see Nate Spillman during the spring. The real interest though may be focused on newcomers Mike, Braylon, and Chris, along with maybe finally getting to see Nathan Leacock.
I know there were a lot of fans seemingly upset that Mike got dropped in the final update to the 247 ratings, presumably because 247 doesn’t think he’s a big play receiver. In the recruiting phase of the class I thought he’d be best on the outside but I tend to agree with Schumpert in suspecting the staff may start him in the slot, by default, meaning what are our other options to back up Squirrel?
During the recruiting phase I was thinking Mike and Ryan Wingo on the outsides and someone like Micah Hudson or Bryant Wesco in the slot, maybe even Amari Jefferson. I think both Mike and Ryan are or can be elite receivers but I thought Micah, Bryant, and Amari were all naturally more elusive with the ball in their hands. Mike has different strengths, in particular his ability to high point the ball and his knack (probably from his basketball background) for using his body to box out defenders thus protecting the ball. He also has elite speed but the services seem to see it more as straight line speed and apparently, at least to me, they’re looking for in addition to elite speed, stops, cuts, and acceleration more incorporated into a receiver’s running style. I think that’s what they think leads to big play ability. It’s their opinion. jmo.
The scuttlebutt on Nathan is he needed to work on his consistency catching the ball. I don’t know if that’s true. With Chris I checked his targets last year game by game at Tulane and he had a 60% catch rate which depending on his QB and the average depth of targets he was getting is winning more than his share of “50/50” balls. In looking at the data I’m guessing a high percentage of his targets were in fact explosive pass plays and we definitely needed help with that last year. We were #34 in explosive pass plays (20+ yards) in 2021, #19 in 2022, and #90 in 2023. Chris may be able to significantly help us out here as soon as he can get acclimated. jmo.
Braylon is really intriguing to me. While 247 in their final ratings update dropped Mike from 98 to 97, in the same update they bumped Braylon from 94 up to 96. That was a pretty big bump. I think he’s an outside guy too but I don’t really know. I can’t deny that I’m just as excited, maybe a bit moreso, to see him in action as I am any of the other receivers. jmo.
As an aside, and for the record, in the 247 final update, both our total class score and our average per recruit (not transfers) marginally increased after the update. I try to watch these things pretty closely and like many others I’m interested in why they may think what they think. I may not agree but sometimes, maybe not always, they turn out to be right and I turn out to be wrong. It is what it is. lol. jmo.
So as I see it right now we need to be a whole lot better in the receiving room this year. We have a couple guys with health issues that we hope will resolve timely and favorably and we have some young elite potential guys that should foster some really fierce competition for snaps this year. I’m not sure but we may not know who the winners are until we head to Oklahoma for our first SEC game this fall. I think you have to believe that Josh wants that game like none other so it’s likely going to come down to who can he trust the most. jmo.
summer is coming up kinda soon
and I’m trying to link up with anyone that’s cool with weekend summer time fun….apparently I’ve hung out with broke mfers my whole life and didn’t even know it
yes
