No, those are fair questions.
The lack of rotation is a blessing and curse.
Honestly that's probably why our WR recruiting seems held back a little. But defensively we're adding all kinds of depth.
If you're a starter in our offense then you're in for a good time! But if you're the 5th guy...then you won't play until we're up by 4 scores.
Many offenses these days rotate 8 WRs throughout the game. Not.us
other teams may get their 4-10 WRs more playing time than us, but the # of catches is pretty equivalent. Does it really help our team, or the WRs, to slow down the game and have them just run a route with no ball coming to them?
We also don't throw it as much as people assume we do. I have been over the stats before, our starters typically catch fewer balls, both as a total and as a percentage, compared to the teams we want to be compared too.
UT: 290 completed passes. our top 2 caught 41%.
our top 8, 89%
Bama: 280 completed passes. top 2 caught 28%, they lacked any top end WR this year.
top 8, 86%
Ohio State: 274 complete passes. top 2 caught 55%,
top 8 92%.
Washington (#1 passing offense), 373 completed passes. top 2 caught 41%.
top 8, 86%
Georgia 336 completed passes. top 2 caught 36%, they don't have any top end WR either, their 2 of top 4 were TEs.
top 8, 82%
-for what its worth that 7% difference between UT and Georgia is 20 completed passes, or about 1.5 passes per game difference. if our WR and fans have an issue with 1.5 fewer passes per game going to the other guys, you are picking some serious nits.
and it looks even better when you look at the relative health. We were pretty healthy, with only Tillman missing significant. Every other school's top 8, had at least 2, miss multiple games, which allowed them to spread it out more than they probably wanted. and having top end talent, of course they are going to get targeted more, and the only school on that list with equal/better WR talent than us is Ohio State, and they targeted their top guys more than we did.
and I very seriously doubt any of those schools were tossing a lot of balls at their #9 guy in high profile games or moments either. Every team is padding their third string stats against whatever directional schools they play.
we compare very similar to the schools we "want" to be compared with. Its a bad argument to say we play fewer WRs than anyone else, or use them significantly less to the point its a substantial problem.