Without Tillman –
Cedric came in with the 2018 class and for his first 2 years played behind 3 future NFL receivers in Callaway, Jennings, and Palmer. His 3rd year he was playing behind Palmer, Jones, and Hyatt. again behind 2 maybe 3 future NFL receivers. His 4th year, last year, he finally got his opportunity. The thing is I’ve never bought the idea that NOBODY knew about Tillman until last year because there have been at least a few people in this forum that thought Tillman could be a player based on the limited snaps he got behind our other guys at the time. I thought he flashed when he got on the field in those early years. I thought he was pretty athletic and looked the part. A lot of why I noticed that was, being a stargazer, I didn’t really expect all that much out of him when he first signed. I do agree though that not many people knew about Tillman or had any idea that he could be another NFL prospect for us. jmo.
Tillman is a big part of our offense, in the passing game. I think people think that’s determined by Hooker favoring Tillman among his other receivers but I think Golesh is calling the plays under Heupel’s tutelage so it may not be as much Hooker as it is the offensive intelligence directing the show. jmo.
Tillman has proved against the best teams in the league that he can either gain separation or win 50-50 balls. This year, at least in the Pitt game, he was our go-to guy. He had 17 catchable targets and made 9 receptions. He accounted for 6 first downs. On the year Tillman has 10 first down catches to lead the team. He had one TD reception in the Pitt game and that’s it for the year. So out of 9 TDs we’ve scored through the air so far this year, 8 have come from our other receivers. Overall, Tillman has accounted for one-third of our receiving first downs on the year. He’s also been credited with 4 drops.
Over one-third of the passes thrown to Tillman this year have been 50-50 balls. I think the staff may have been trusting him the most in those situations where separation is difficult for our receivers to come by. The thing is that Hyatt and McCoy have done well too so I think the staff will simply adjust and keep rolling.
We used a limited number of receivers against Pitt. If we are without Tillman the staff will have to pull someone else from our receiver room and send them into action against Florida. I think Merrill, Keyton, and Holiday are the likely candidates. We could see White and of course in the second half, Jimmy “fists of fury” Calloway should be available for duty. Here’s the thing about all those guys. They didn’t really play against Pitt but on the season we’ve thrown 102 passes, 11 of which were uncatchable, leaving 91 catchable targets. Tillman has a 68% catch rate on 25 of those targets. Hyatt had a 90% catch rate on 20. McCoy has a 73% catch rate on 11 catchable targets. Though it was against lesser competition our bench of Keyton, Merrill, Holiday, White, and Calloway, caught 20 of 21 of their catchable targets, 95+%.
We’ve had 14 catchable targets go to TEs, RBs, and walkons. I don’t think we’ll likely see any walkons in this game but we could target our TEs and RBs more this week than we have so far this year. jmo.
All of our receivers spent the offseason catching passes on the new jugs machine, by reports up to 10,000 passes per month (500 per day). I think that’s showing up in our catch rates. jmo.
Florida has a lot of “on paper” talent in their secondary, much more than Pitt. We should benefit from our scheme but whoever steps up to replace Tillman’s production is going to have to win one-on-one matchups against some pretty talented defenders. We have a number of talented guys behind our starters in our receiving room and those that have gotten onto the field so far this year have flashed. Now we wait to see who the staff rolls out there and what they have schemed up for the Florida secondary. I think we’re pretty well prepared and we have a number of guys in our receiving room probably hungry and salivating over the opportunity that they could have this Saturday. I think we’re probably good to go. jmo.
All stats referenced are from SECSTATCAT and where possible verified using CFBstats and CBS Sports game stats.
