Recruiting Football Talk VIII

#109,453
#109,453
UTK said:
All I really know is Nico and his family had a meeting with people wanting to know what the plan in the portal would be. Nico never really entertained any money offers elsewhere because he makes plenty here and loves it here. Then suddenly we’re in the mix for Branch, then suddenly murmurs of USCs WR coach jumping ship. I don’t know anything concrete but am hearing rumblings of pope perhaps being let go. I think staff likes his recruiting, but there’s been a clear lack of production at the position the last 2 seasons. Maybe he’s back, but just connecting dots here…Nico and Branch have played together before in the Polynesian Bowl, maybe that and money is simply the reasons Branch seems like to be trending towards us. I still don’t think it’s a lock we get the Branch brothers atm, but maybe if Zach has a good relationship with the USC WR coach, it could be a ultimate deciding factor in landing them.

Plus you can say “Any player that gets no playing time will dislike their position coach”. Sure. But I think there’s something to it more than that. I don’t think guys feel like they’re being developed. Mike Mathews almost certainly has a starting spot locked down next year by coming back, why would he flirt with the portal? Sure there’s truth to “it’s an easy way to make more money because he has more leverage now” and I won’t disagree with that entirely. But I’m telling you right now, despite being injured some early in the season, Mike Mathews had no business being on the bench as much as he was. He saw snaps in the majority of them but never played a ton of snaps in meaningful moments outside of Vandy, and that only happened due to numerous injuries. WR is the easiest position a freshman can come in and be a factor right away. Opposing staffs already negative recruit is with the whole “their offense is just a gimmick, you don’t get developed for the next level”. We had ammunition to combat that by putting Hyatt, Ced, and Venus in the league. Keyton somewhat. But any WRs failing to break out since those two certainly haven’t helped either. Plus now you add in those three that got sent not doing a whole lot in the league,… So you’re Mike Mathews and you get here expecting a breakout because you saw a unit that didn’t really flash last year, but your butt is on a bench the majority of time after watching the same guys failing to make plays on a consistent basis out there time and time again, yeah it’s easier to see why MM would have second thoughts.

Pope is a solid recruiter. But let’s really look at the three that have been sent to the league under him.

Hyatt. He’s fast. Not exactly the best pure WR in terms of route running ect. Our offensive scheme and eyes with Golesh just were really good at putting him on mismatches. And credit to Hyatt himself who fixed his drop problem by catching a million balls in the offseason. Hyatt succeeded more so dude to Golesh/CJH schemes and his want to himself.

Ced. Maybe the one you can tip your hat to towards Pope. Ced made a few plays this current NFL season and could still turn into a solid NFL WR I believe. There’s not doubt Pope made him better imo, however let’s not forget that Ced was starting to break out at the end of that disastrous 2020 season. Started playing more. Made a couple crazy catches ect.

Velus. Velus was a match made in heaven for the scheme. A lot of his success came similar to Hyatts, we just schemed him open or gave him the ball in open space to take advantage of his strengths. Wasn’t much of a pure WR. Has been pretty infamously bad in the NFL.

So how much negative refuting is happening towards of WR unit/offense. Probably a ton. But now leaks are coming out that no one really likes him, yes it can be chalked up to “well they didn’t play” and sure I can buy that. But it’s still going to be used negatively against us now. “Players don’t even like their position coach there. Blah blah blah”. I think the lack of production 2 years in a row is enough reason to can him. Staff knows they have next year and MAYBE the year after with Nico. They need to Capitalize. At times the oline sucked this year and Nico simply didn’t have time. But I think you’ll find, oline generally improved over the season (sure they still struggled with UGA and OSU at times of course) and Nico started having cleaner pockets. But more times than not Nico would still take a sack or scramble and make a play with his legs. Why? Some of it is Nico being a freshman and missing a guy, sure of course it is. But I think watching a lot of film back, guys just did not get open consistently. And that’s a problem.
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Literally 😁
 
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#109,475
#109,475
Tennessee Golfer said:
Why would Branch come here with the coach he just portaged away from? We are assuming our receivers are leaving because they hate Pope.
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I think 4 of those WRs were told to hit the portal or a mutual decision. I think we wanted to keep Squirrel but he wanted big money and we declined to pay it. Wish him all the best, except when they play us because he is likely a Gump now. Matthews is the one that we definitely want to keep, and by all I can gather he will remain a VOL. Several posts have mentioned a serious rift between MM and Pope though...and that unit REALLY underperformed this season. It was posted here that our WR corps was bottom 10 nationally in dropped passes, and bottom 10 in getting separation. The 2nd claim is kinda hard to believe, because we left probably 10 long TDs on the field this season between Nico overthrowing 4-5 of them badly, and the WRs dropping 5-6 of them. Those guys were wide open, we just couldn't execute.

* also Nico had 19 passing TDs and 5INT.
Add just half of those long TDs to his total and its an entirely different season for him AND the team. 24 TDs 5INT is a good season. If Nimrod just catches the 2 wide open TDs against Arkansas we finish 11-1, play in the SEC Champ game, and have a home playoff game vs SMU etc. A couple plays can define a season.
 
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