Random Observations on the scrimmage. These are things I think I saw but I was not taking notes.
Aveon Smith was qb for first team offense. Henry Hesson QB for second team. Brett worked out on 7x7 but no need to see what Gabbert can do. Priority was clearly to get game-type reps for the second and third guys.
Most of the transfers were playing on 1st and 2nd teams. I noticed Marshall at WR. Brekke at OG. McKee at DB. Ty Wise at LB. Jordan Brunson at RB. Suttle at DL. Ugwu at DL. I don’t remember seeing Dowell at DB but might have missed him. Brunson looks like he has potential to be the power runner with have been lacking. MicKee had a pic but also got flagged for a couple of INT calls. Suttle looked like he was causing some disruption along the DL several times.
*I saw a few true freshman playing on the 1st and 2nd teams. Reggie Virgil and Javon Tracy both looked pretty good at WR. I saw Grant Lyons in at LB.
A few names I saw playing that I have not heard much about previously included Silas Waters at DB, Scotty Nieman saw a number of reps at TE. Luke Bolden also saw quite a few reps at TE after moving from LB. Blaine Riley got a lot of plays at LB.
Kolby Borders is the only guy I saw go down with an injury. He had an ice pack on hit ankle after the game. Hopefully, it is just an ankle sprain.
Thanks for the report. Glad the backup QB got some work. I’ve been watching some of the bookmaker shows on YouTube this weekend. They all seem to be higher on Kent and Sean Lewis than on Miami and Chuck Martin. Lots of comments about Brett bring injury prone and the fact that other than for him our entire QB room has thrown a total of one pass in a game situation. Most are sticking with 6.5 as a likely over/under win total. A couple made “I don’t trust Chick Martin” comments.
They don’t seem to be aware of our deep stable of RB. Maybe Brunson is our Lew Nichols. Hopefully we can get both Avion and Henry some meaningful second half PT vs RMU. If Brett goes down early - God forbid - there probably is reason for serious concern.
LaxDaddy, You picked up a lot more than I did. I spent too much time talking with friends I had not seen for awhile. For most of the scrimmage we were running plays at a frantic pace ( faster than Kent last year). Not much time between plays to look up numbers. They took Gabbert’s helmet away. Hippenhammer was not in uniform but seemed to be moving freely. Bestor looked fully healthy in his carries, but Shelton did not play.
Theman ( Greggie) had a pass and was walking the sidelines. He rates higher that the rest of us Hawktalkers!
DB’s got called for 4 or 5 pass interference calls and we could have called them from the stands. That is going to be a big concern heading to Kentucky. Offense will be good.
Even with lots of experience our secondary played a lot of loose coverage last year and got burned a few times more than they should have. I think QB depth and a young and unproven secondary are my biggest concerns.
When Miami played ND a few years ago, true freshman Jaylon Bester may have been the only skill player Miami had who looked like he belonged on the field. Getting him healthy would be a huge benefit.
Yeah. But that was probably a unicorn we found that year in Brett. He’s the only true freshman ever to start at QB for Miami.
Our backup Brett’s freshman year was an unproven and inexperienced Jackson Williamson who was thrown into the Ohio State game and became Chase Young’s featured highlight reel for that season. The poor kid came away from the shoe shell-shocked, failed in a subsequent outing and transferred to D2 Newberry. He never cracked the lineup there and quit football prematurely.
On paper all our current backups are far more talented but very young and inexperienced. The key to this season’s success is keeping Brett healthy.
We are a long way from the OSU result you speak of. We have at least 3 QB’s who could prolly be ok. At least to hang in MAC games. If we stay injury free, we have a real star who gets us to 9,10 wins.
More talented yes.I still wouldn’t want to throw any of them into the Kentucky game or even into the UC game. Glad to see they sat Brett today in favor of getting the young guns some reps.
Since Brett is the top QB in the conference and we have no idea what we have behind him - I would rate that as the biggest concern. I agree if Robert Morris goes well I would love to see some real offensive plays for our backups instead of kill the clock
Without massive NLI money to keep someone on the bench, it seems all schools in our financial situ face a bit of this. Even the big guys do with their money. South Carolina was at like QB 4 last year. A grad student suited up at one point.
It was actually a graduate assistant coach at SC who had one year of eligibility left. It’s going to be hard to keep the QB cupboard well-stocked like ours is now because only one or two of them will probably get any meaningful pt. I expect constant portal musical chairs.
100% agree. The one thing that still gives me hope we will do better than many is that our school experience and degree value will make it compelling to stay sans any NLI money of scale. This will put pretty clear parameters on who we recruit. In some ways, not the worst thing.
I’m always fascinated by why players pick the schools they do. Case in point, we went after a kid who had it down to Miami, Duke and Liberty. He picked Liberty. Now, I know we don’t know what was said about playing time promises or the like, or any NLI money given, but if I had a chance to go to Duke or Miami and it was paid for, I don’t pick Liberty because my personal perception is that Duke or Miami sets you up better post football. I bring this up not to disparage Liberty, but to play Devil’s Advocate to my earlier logic. The thing I value about Miami clearly isn’t for everyone. The sales side of landing talent is fascinating to me.
When it comes to Liberty you also have religion and their honor code coming into play. For some recruits that’s a non-starter, for others it’s a point in their favor. LU isn’t for everyone that’s for sure.
The whole NIL and conference realignment stuff going on is an arms race. Not exactly the same, but even blue bloods ND and Oklahoma just got poached for head coaches. No one is safe, and the MAC is in a position where the best Miami can likely do is be the tallest midget.