Spring preview: roster outlook on offense

[W.E.D 11,070]

52 minutes ago, 80Tiger said:

Problem is, there does not seem to be any indication that person is on campus. Finley showed what he was down the stretch; Calzada ranked worse than Bo in every statistical category (worse completions %, worse yards per attempt, threw more interceptions and was sacked more times); DD did not take a snap last year when there was plenty of opportunity, Ashford has not sniffed the field while at Oregon and we have an incoming freshman.

I just do not feel very good about the QB position at all.

I agree with you a lot in Calzada, but I'm going to give him the same benefit I gave Bo.

He's not done developing. He's been a starter for one season. Another spring, I didn't see why he can get better and still improve.  If he doesn't he'd about a push vs Bo. They do different things better/worse than each other.

How much can he improve decision making and on shorter/intermediate accuracy & touch?  Take a few steps forward and he's easily middle of the pack and starting to push to maybe the second tier behind the elite QBs.

[McLoofus 35,182]

16 minutes ago, W.E.D said:

I agree with you a lot in Calzada, but I'm going to give him the same benefit I gave Bo.

He's not done developing. He's been a starter for one season.

Yup. Comparing a first year guy to a third year guy... not exactly fair. Especially when it's not like Bo was *significantly* better. 

[oracle79 3,569]

[DAG 34,126]

1 hour ago, W.E.D said:

We dont have a difference maker like Brock Bowers or any other top TE in the country.

Can Landon King become that? He had some very brief moments, but only 5 total catches even after "moving" to WR. He doesn't need to become the top TE in CFB to become a playmaker, lots of room between what he is and Bowers.

Brock Bowers is disgusting. He is the perfect hybrid for those TEs at the next level. 

[W.E.D 11,070]

1 hour ago, McLoofus said:

Yup. Comparing a first year guy to a third year guy... not exactly fair. Especially when it's not like Bo was *significantly* better. 

Calzada has been in a system for 3 years, so that has a lot going for him more than just a "first year" guy

[W.E.D 11,070]

9 minutes ago, DAG said:

Brock Bowers is disgusting. He is the perfect hybrid for those TEs at the next level. 

He really is. Guy does jet sweep end arounds. Not really fair

[McLoofus 35,182]

5 minutes ago, W.E.D said:

Calzada has been in a system for 3 years, so that has a lot going for him more than just a "first year" guy

And still a hell of a lot less than three years starting.

[W.E.D 11,070]

4 minutes ago, McLoofus said:

And still a hell of a lot less than three years starting.

I do agree, but 2.5 years w/in a college throwing program I'd hope his short/intermediate accuracy would be a little better.  Don't have much to compare against & I haven't exactly followed his development.

[GunsmithAU 383]

That's a lot of words to say we either downgraded or stayed equally bad at every position but RB and TE. The only positions which hold quality SEC players. 

[GunsmithAU 383]

Bo was a baller who made plays. He had the it factor. 

We downgrade at QB by losing him. We picked up a bunch of guys who were not QB1 last year, and who don't show the potential to be special. 

[Tigerpro2a 5,650]

3 hours ago, W.E.D said:

He's not done developing. He's been a starter for one season. Another spring, I didn't see why he can get better and still improve.  If he doesn't he'd about a push vs Bo. They do different things better/worse than each other.

 

Best take of yours I have seen on the subject. Good post.

[W.E.D 11,070]

1 hour ago, GunsmithAU said:

Bo was a baller who made plays. He had the it factor. 

We downgrade at QB by losing him. We picked up a bunch of guys who were not QB1 last year, and who don't show the potential to be special. 

He made plays scrabling around like a chicken with it's head cut off behind a meh OL, yes.  But he rarely made plays downfield and was pretty horrendous at it.  All but the Arkansas game he missed a few game changing plays.

Calzada can't scramble like Bo, but he can stretch the field a lot better.  They are different QBs.  Revisionist history on Bo being QB1 and some "it factor" is complete nonsense. 

[Tigerpro2a 5,650]

1 hour ago, GunsmithAU said:

Bo was a baller who made plays. He had the it factor. 

We downgrade at QB by losing him. We picked up a bunch of guys who were not QB1 last year, and who don't show the potential to be special. 

Bo made a lot of plays with his athleticism. He also missed a lot of wide open guy, deep passes, and just down right crazy mistakes. 

Of course losing him hurt us overall, but I think there are 1-2 guys on roster that could potentially be just as effective if not more in this offense.

[W.E.D 11,070]

4 minutes ago, Tigerpro2a said:

Best take of yours I have seen on the subject. Good post.

I'm always right.  Just trust me.

If I'm wrong, i was trolling

[GunsmithAU 383]

1 hour ago, W.E.D said:

He made plays scrabling around like a chicken with it's head cut off behind a meh OL, yes.  But he rarely made plays downfield and was pretty horrendous at it.  All but the Arkansas game he missed a few game changing plays.

Calzada can't scramble like Bo, but he can stretch the field a lot better.  They are different QBs.  Revisionist history on Bo being QB1 and some "it factor" is complete nonsense. 

 

1 hour ago, Tigerpro2a said:

Bo made a lot of plays with his athleticism. He also missed a lot of wide open guy, deep passes, and just down right crazy mistakes. 

Of course losing him hurt us overall, but I think there are 1-2 guys on roster that could potentially be just as effective if not more in this offense.

Bo missed some easy passes. But just as often bo had easy passes dropped. This was especially the case this last year. Bo made a big leap in his play all while having a Sunbelt level line and WRs. 

No player in the team currently has shown any propensity to be even equal to Bo. 

Calzada who is a backup who couldn't succeed with a loaded team at A&M, we all heard the turnover issue with Davis, the kid from Oregon hasn't even seen the field in 2 years and a true freshman are our options. That's not a good set of options. Especially considering out WR group is somehow even worse than last year. 

 

Bo wasnt the 2nd coming of tom Brady, but he did pretty good considering he had no line his entire career and bad coaching for the majority. 

[Tigerpro2a 5,650]

50 minutes ago, GunsmithAU said:

 

Bo missed some easy passes. But just as often bo had easy passes dropped. This was especially the case this last year. Bo made a big leap in his play all while having a Sunbelt level line and WRs. 

No player in the team currently has shown any propensity to be even equal to Bo. 

Calzada who is a backup who couldn't succeed with a loaded team at A&M, we all heard the turnover issue with Davis, the kid from Oregon hasn't even seen the field in 2 years and a true freshman are our options. That's not a good set of options. Especially considering out WR group is somehow even worse than last year. 

 

Bo wasnt the 2nd coming of tom Brady, but he did pretty good considering he had no line his entire career and bad coaching for the majority. 

Bo also had a habit of making a clean pocket look like he was getting horrible pressure because he never fully got comfortable stepping up into a pocket. Our Pass blocking was not as bad as so many here like to think. On the other side of that conversation, Texas AM's Pass blocking was horrific and WRs had more drops than us.

[GunsmithAU 383]

1 hour ago, Tigerpro2a said:

Bo also had a habit of making a clean pocket look like he was getting horrible pressure because he never fully got comfortable stepping up into a pocket. Our Pass blocking was not as bad as so many here like to think. On the other side of that conversation, Texas AM's Pass blocking was horrific and WRs had more drops than us.

Bo was good not great but he is better than any QB currently on the team. 

[Tigerpro2a 5,650]

3 hours ago, GunsmithAU said:

Bo was good not great but he is better at certain things than any QB currently on the team. 

 

FIFY

Bo also has 2 full seasons worth of starting experience over them. 

[Mikey 16,781]

Incoming freshman Holden Geriner probably has the highest ceiling of any QB on the team. Will he be ready to take over? I guess we'll see.

[GunsmithAU 383]

7 hours ago, Tigerpro2a said:

 

FIFY

Bo also has 2 full seasons worth of starting experience over them. 

You didn't fix anything but prove my point. Bo was at least a true starter. We have no one on this team who has ever won the job. 

Plus we aren't talking about some specific quity of being a QB, but rather the overall ability of the QB to be successful. Every QB we have outside HG has 2 or more years of being in college and failing to be named QB1. 

[Hank2020 3,233]

2 hours ago, GunsmithAU said:

You didn't fix anything but prove my point. Bo was at least a true starter. We have no one on this team who has ever won the job. 

Plus we aren't talking about some specific quity of being a QB, but rather the overall ability of the QB to be successful. Every QB we have outside HG has 2 or more years of being in college and failing to be named QB1. 

Davis has 2 full years? I thought he was a incoming freshman last year just like HG is this year. 

Edited February 24, 2022 by Hank2020

[McLoofus 35,182]

3 minutes ago, Hank2020 said:

Davis has 2 full years? I thought he was a incoming freshman last year just like HG is this year. 

He was.

Also, even though Calzada won the job because of injury, he took over early in week 2 last season and started every game after. The fact that he wasn't initially named the starter at TAMU has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not he can perform at a higher level in 2022 than Bo Nix did at any point in his very mediocre career here.

And if we're going to pretend that stats are some sort of meaningful indicator here, Bo's true freshman season wasn't meaningfully worse than his junior season. So it's *entirely* possible that Holden Geriner is a better QB in 2022 than Bo was in 2021. Especially with so many other variables in play. Those variables being why, of course, stats don't actually mean much unless they can be used to show trends. 

[au302 2,669]

4 hours ago, GunsmithAU said:

You didn't fix anything but prove my point. Bo was at least a true starter. We have no one on this team who has ever won the job. 

Plus we aren't talking about some specific quity of being a QB, but rather the overall ability of the QB to be successful. Every QB we have outside HG has 2 or more years of being in college and failing to be named QB1. 

Imo you're going about it wrong comparing Nix to these guys. It's two totally different styles because Harsin and Nix were a bad fit style wise. I'm watching Boise film of Rypien and Bachmeier when looking at Geriner and Calzada film. That's who we need them to play like, not Nix. This has nothing to do for or against Nix either. It's just a turning of the page QB wise. If they can be game managers that hit deep balls we'll be ok. We don't need major scrambling or super star moments

[Tigerpro2a 5,650]

6 hours ago, GunsmithAU said:

You didn't fix anything but prove my point. Bo was at least a true starter. We have no one on this team who has ever won the job. 

Plus we aren't talking about some specific quity of being a QB, but rather the overall ability of the QB to be successful. Every QB we have outside HG has 2 or more years of being in college and failing to be named QB1. 

Johnathon Wallace once won the QB1 job here at AU. Was he a true starter? Does that make him better than any one of these guys? That argument is severely flawed. - I realized after typing this that JW didn't actually win it, but the point is the same. MAny lousy QBs have won starting jobs. That is no testament to them being an actual good performing QB in a season.

Not winning a starting job at another school doesn't always mean anything. I won't go into examples because I am sure you know them. 

I am also fully aware we aren't talking about some specific quality of a QB. You said Bo Nix is a flat out better QB than everyone on our roster. I am stating that Bo Nix was probably a little better only due to experience.

Bo couldn't hit a deep pass to save his life. He shat his pants at every sign of pressure. He did make bounds of improvements his 1st year under our current coach. Is Bo the only QB that is capable of improving?  

I will put it on record. As a QB...Zac Calzada has a higher ceiling than Bo Nix because he has a better, more accurate arm. He also has much better pocket presence. 

Edited February 24, 2022 by Tigerpro2a

[Tigerpro2a 5,650]

3 hours ago, McLoofus said:

He was.

Also, even though Calzada won the job because of injury, he took over early in week 2 last season and started every game after. The fact that he wasn't initially named the starter at TAMU has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not he can perform at a higher level in 2022 than Bo Nix did at any point in his very mediocre career here.

And if we're going to pretend that stats are some sort of meaningful indicator here, Bo's true freshman season wasn't meaningfully worse than his junior season. So it's *entirely* possible that Holden Geriner is a better QB in 2022 than Bo was in 2021. Especially with so many other variables in play. Those variables being why, of course, stats don't actually mean much unless they can be used to show trends. 

Say it louder one mo time for the ones in the back. Stats do not paint a full picture, period. They can be a strong indicator like with Bo Nix having sub 60 percent completion % going back to highschool. That is an indicator of him not being super accurate. It isn't a full story though. Looking at one season of a guy's stat and making a declaration that he is what he is for the rest of his career is a disservice to every coach out there and every player out there. 

I may be the only one here that believes it, but I firmly do believe that we are in better shape at QB with ZC than BN. It isn't a knock on Bo Nix either. I would love it if he was still here. I just think from what Harsin wants ZC has much more of those qualities. Stats didn't tell me this. Watching every play of every one of his games this past season told me this. We will absolutely be fine with ZC if we can pick up some pieces around him.