Injuries and staff had him playing the wrong position. In today’s college football, players are gonna have to accept that now, more than ever, you have to earn your playing time. Just like with Brazzell. Is there any guarantee that he walks in and is the starter next year? No. He has to earn it.
And Thornton wasn't playing poorly in the slot either. He played pretty darn good in ths Florida game but broke his finger/hand before the South Carolina game.
Not sure I'd call him "dynamic". He's solid tho. I kinda look at him like Keyton and maybe a tad better, but he's not Tillman or Hyatt. I'm hoping Stewart can by that guy. From the film I've seen, he appears to have speed and quicks. Very elusive. Now we all know you can't make an assessment based on highlights. Does he block? Does he understand the offense? Is he a solid route runner? Is he a worker or prima donna? Let's be real. He's in the portal for a reason, but decent enough stats and he's done it in this league. That certainly would earn a strong look by our staff I suspect. Then again, maybe there's someone else who's yet to enter the portal that we've been in contact with about joining? Never know. Still over a week left.
Absolutely Thornton was playing poorly. He had several drops and disappeared when he was on the field. He did play better when he was moved to the outside but even in that it’s not like he was lighting up the world.
Really hate when people make decisions about players based on the first 2 or 3 games they play… it’s really dumb. There is this thing called player development… last year Thornton came in and had to learn a whole new offense. He got better as the year progressed. I’m glad the coaches are the ones who decide who plays & who doesn’t… they don’t write someone off after not performing well right from the jump.
For some reason I thought I’d seen that one of the top performers for Oregon in 22 was a Freshman. In 2022 he was a sophomore and was out produced by 2 sophomore WRs and a sophomore TE. He was passed by 3 peers in his class and was Oregons 4th+ option in their offense. He was transferring because he got passed up and wasn’t seeing the field often. Our fan base got all excited over him because he was a massive frame that ran like a deer and was a former top 100 recruit. He was transferring for a reason and in Vol fan fashion we built him up like he was going to be the next Jalin Hyatt. In reality he couldn’t beat out Keyton for one of the outside spots, he couldn’t compete with squirrel in the slot and ultimately just got recruited over with Brazzell. All this with hurting other players development by taking away game reps. Bringing him in was a poor overall decision by the staff.
The guy is a rising senior he has had more than a couple games to show he can get it done. There were several last year who were ready to send Keyton to the bench and hand the position over to Thornton the minute we signed Thornton.
The guy is a rising SR and if he were seen as turning the corner and the man on the outside we wouldn’t even know who Brazzell is. The same was said about Keyton last year and I argued for Keyton. One thing for Keyton is that he had over produced vs. Thornton. In this case we are bringing in a Freshman AA who had almost as many yards and more touchdowns in his Freshman yr than Thornton has had in his career.
I appreciate what Keyton did. He came up big in 2022 when Tillman got hurt. And he played through some ailments this year. That said, he was limited. Limited speed and very limited in his ability to track the deep ball, which is an integral part of this offense. I don’t know how many times I saw him slow down on a well thrown deep ball because he misjudged it, only to come up just short. MANY of Milton’s alleged overthrows weren’t overthrown, at least to Keyton.
I agree. I had high hopes for Keyton this past year and he had some moments but you are correct in that he did pull up on several vertical routes that would have been on target. I believe Brazzell has shown better ability in that area. I will be curious to see how Brazzell does in the blocking game.
Brazzell is what we haven’t had (except for Thornton in limited instances) since healthy, prime 1000 yard+ Tillman. Long, strong athlete who can go up and get the rock. Bru has been more the Jauan Jennings type of catch it in traffic and overpower the defender. Both types work in the red zone (where we struggled last season), but Brazzell is more of a matchup problem that opposing defenses will have to account for.
