What is wrong with our WRs??

[BigOrangeTrain]

Title says it all. What do you guys think? They have not been good all year. What amazes me is how slow they all look. Maybe I am missing something but Bru looks much slower now. Even Squirrel looks slower. Looking at Bama and UGAs WRs at least to me theirs look faster and quicker than ours.

Is it all coaching? Or are we not recruiting the right type of receivers?

 

[ERICtheBERRY]

I think a lot of our problem is predictability on offense

 

[207 others]

I think Nico often throws laser NFL passes when he's accurate on a strike and honestly our WR are D1 athletes and nothing else. The balls are often overthrown on lobs and too fast on darts. That sounds stupid, sure, but it is what it is, it takes special WR to catch some of this chit. Our routes are predictable, our WR overall are slower than competition and the ones who aren't slow all have major weaknesses, like lack of quickness vs speed and vice versa, butterfingers, average agility, theyre good blockers for the spread rush though. Sorry for the honesty in advance

 

[UTK]

They are mediocre. Pretty much all there is to it

 

[Volbrando]

I’m more concerned about our secondary at the moment. They got completely exposed

 

[Eastknox865]

Stop overthinking it. They can't get open and when they do they can't catch.

 

[MurphyVol]

I think the problems with the passing offense are multiple...

-a lot of "drops" are pretty tough looking catches. Yes, some drops are right in their hands, but others are behind, in front, high fastball, with a defender on top of the player etc. The WRs just look a bit awkward sometimes trying to adjust to what Nico is throwing them. Again, yes some are truly just bad drops.

We don't throw to our WRs often. Last night, WRs not named Squirrel or Bru caught 1 pass. Squirrel is a good player, but he's almost in that TE or RB category. He's not what you think of as true deep threat. I don't feel like we put Bru or Thornton into aituations where they can best be utilized

- we're often throwing to WRs right around the LOS and asking them to run through people to get yardage. There are a lot of long, slow wait on the ball forever plays in this offense. When perfectly blocked they can be effective, but we rely on those plays way too much. Last night we averaged 5 yards per attempt passing.

-we've slowed down the offense tremendously. This allows the dbs to get set and lined up comfortably. In the Hooker/Hyatt version of this offense we made a lot of plays by simply going fast. Obviously we feel like we don't have the personnel to do this right now but we don't seem to have adjusted for it.

And of course there are other factors like the line being inconsistent, play calling that often puts us behind the sticks, etc

 

[SamuraiVol74]

I think the problems with the passing offense are multiple...

-a lot of "drops" are pretty tough looking catches. Yes, some drops are right in their hands, but others are behind, in front, high fastball, with a defender on top of the player etc. The WRs just look a bit awkward sometimes trying to adjust to what Nico is throwing them. Again, yes some are truly just bad drops.

We don't throw to our WRs often. Last night, WRs not named Squirrel or Bru caught 1 pass. Squirrel is a good player, but he's almost in that TE or RB category. He's not what you think of as true deep threat. I don't feel like we put Bru or Thornton into aituations where they can best be utilized

- we're often throwing to WRs right around the LOS and asking them to run through people to get yardage. There are a lot of long, slow wait on the ball forever plays in this offense. When perfectly blocked they can be effective, but we rely on those plays way too much. Last night we averaged 5 yards per attempt passing.

-we've slowed down the offense tremendously. This allows the dbs to get set and lined up comfortably. In the Hooker/Hyatt version of this offense we made a lot of plays by simply going fast. Obviously we feel like we don't have the personnel to do this right now but we don't seem to have adjusted for it.

And of course there are other factors like the line being inconsistent, play calling that often puts us behind the sticks, etc

Good post, Murphy.

The only thing I do not agree with is the drops and how you are stating the reasons for them. They are wide receivers. They are paid to make all those catches (feels stupid saying that at the collegiate level) and make very few of them compared to other teams. You are spot on it when you talk about the schemes they are running. A passing game averaging less than 10+ per attempt is a ****** passing game. That is on Heupel and the coaching staff.

Bottom line is receivers need to make the catches. Not all of them, but most of them. Last night they had 3 drops that occurred in critical situations. The rest of the time, its on play calling and coaching. They run zero slants......FOR WIDE RECEIVERS! That is just stupid and they are not gonna win a thing doing that. They also underutilize the tight ends, who apparently are open every game and thrown to for one series before being "disappeared" by the play calling. The passing game is 100% on the coaching staff.