OrangeBowlMagic
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- Joined
- Jul 13, 2014
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I wanted to look position by position and discuss REALISTIC best case/worst case on each individual unit, to try to project where we might fall (which is usually somewhere in the middle) this season. I tried to not go completely off the deep end, for example, worst-case is probably every single kid on the team suffering a season ending injury, and best case is we have 80 first-round picks on the team. I don't think either of those are very likely, so I wanted to take a look at realistic best-case/worse-case scenarios in trying to project where this offense will wind up this year. I think this will be fun to revisit after the season, at least for me, to see where some of this ended up.
Quarterback:
Best-case: Carson Beck regains his form that he showed in 2023, Shannon Dawson continues his ascension as one of the best OCs in the country, and Beck winds up in NYC as a Heisman finalist and becomes a first-round pick in April. I firmly believe this is absolutely in the range of possible outcomes. Beck was Top 5 in college football in QBR and EPA in 2023, and fell somewhat back to earth in 2024. Some feel it was due to the loss of superstars Bowers and McConkey. Some feel it was regression to the mean and he's not an elite player. Some feel it was due to him pressing, knowing it was his money year with lofty expectations. And some feel it was due to a very poor surrounding cast, including a putrid running game and pass-catcher group leading the entire country in drops. The answer is likely a combination of all of this. But make no mistake, a healthy Carson Beck is one of the most accurate passers in the country. Of ALL NFL prospects since 2017, Beck ranks 4th out of everyone in highest accurate throw rate from clean pockets. Joe Burrow is #1, at 69.7%. Shedeur is 2, CJ Stroud is 3, Beck is 4th at 66.9%. He's an elite thrower, if it all comes together for him this year, he can have a SIMILAR ascension to Cam Ward. Maybe not 1.1, but one of the very best QBs in the country and the leader of a violently potent offense.
Worst-case: Obviously him not being healthy is the worst case, but I'm not going to go into that. I'm assuming the elbow is 100%. Worst-case here, to me, is Beck plays more like 2024 Carson than 2023, continues to press, his lack of reps with the receivers this spring and summer as he recovered from his injury, and his propensity to turn the ball over all contribute to a middling season. I really don't see a kid with this much talent being "bad", but I do think it's possible we have a major step back from what we saw from Ward and Dawson has to go to a "game manger" mode. The supporting cast will be a contributor here as well. If the OL takes a step back and/or the receivers don't hold their own and Beck has to press a la 2024, this can go poorly, within reason. The lack of reps to this point do have me concerned. We heard Ward was a **** assassin from Day 1 of spring camp...and it showed in Week 1. The offense looked like he'd been running it for 5 years. Are we going to be that efficient right out of the gate with a QB who frankly hasn't played much with the kids around him? We need to be in order to beat ND.
Running Back:
Best-case: If I'm looking for ceiling here, I'm looking at Jordan Lyle. I am interested in seeing Mark Fletcher in Year 3 with a full off-season under his belt (remember, he didn't do much of anything last off-season coming off the foot injury), but I think we know what he is at this point. A good, all-around back, absolutely capable of helping us win games, but I don't think there's any run-out where he's a Doak Walker candidate or anything like that. He averaged 4.9 a carry as a freshman, and 5.4 last year. I think best-case that gets close to Damien Martinez territory (6.3), but likely somewhere in the high-fives. Best case is he plays a big role and is very good, scoring double-digit TDs, getting tough yards, and averaging ~5.8 a tote. Where this unit explodes is if Jordan Lyle becomes an NFL trajectory back. He has the skill-set for it. He averaged 7.4 yards a carry last year in a very limited sample (only 54 carries). But let's see what happens if we double that, or more. Can he still say close to that efficient? I don't think 7.4 on 120+ carries is very likely, but can he stay above 6? Can he break some explosive runs? We were very good on the ground last year, but not incredibly explosive (45th in 10+ yard runs, 29th in 20+ yard runs). I think the ceiling for this group is Lyle exploding in Year 2, Fletcher improving with a full off-season, and Marty Brown filling in for a few carries a game at max effort and gives us some of what Lyle did last year, albeit probably not as explosive.
Worst-case: Fletcher is maxed out, Lyle's efficiency comes back to earth, and then some, and Marty Brown looks like an FCS player. Again, much like QB, I don't think "worst-case" for this group is bad. It's going to be a good unit, no matter what, IMO. But instead of being maybe a Top 3 unit in the ACC, worst-case is it's a Top 6 or so unit. Also the OL of course factors into this, if we take a step back as a run-blocking unit and teams don't respect Beck, the numbers could suffer. But we were 5th nationally last season in YPC. I don't think worst-case is too much worse than that, especially if you look at just the backs and don't factor Beck's numbers in. I don't see any scenario where we fall totally off a cliff here. Even the 2023 offense was 20th in the country in YPC.
Pass-Catchers:
Best-case: The biggest question mark on the offense, obviously. I think best-case is CJ Daniels is fully healthy and replaces Zay Horton fully, Jojo Trader blows up into a true borderline 5-star talent and becomes WR1, Elija Lofton is the next installment of the TEU assembly-line, and someone steps up into the slot. We're not going to have 4500+ yards passing this year, almost certainly. So the numbers overall will look a little down. But there's talent here, and we've discussed this spot ad nauseum on this board. Realistic best-case is Daniels gets Horton's numbers, Jojo gets George's numbers, and some combination of Baby Jesus, Ray Ray, Johnson, and Lofton get maybe 80% of Restrepo's numbers. But, IMO, the range of outcomes from this group determines the effectiveness of the entire offense. If some of this comes together, I think we push for a Top 10 offense again. If it doesn't, well, see below.
Worst-case: This unit falls flat on its face after losing its top 6 pass-catchers from a year ago. I think there's far too much talent here to be 2022 bad, but there are enough question marks to make me wonder what the true floor is. Daniels isn't fully recovered from the injury and can't separate. Jojo doesn't turn the corner. We rely on a true freshman in the slot who makes mistakes. Johnson is JAG. The freshmen aren't ready. Carr is JAG. Lofton can't replicate what Arroyo did in the slot. Is all of this probable? No, but some of it is possible. This offense goes as this group goes, IMO.
Offensive Line:
Best-case: This is a Top 3 unit in the country. Mauigoa truly blossoms into a legit Top 10 pick, Cooper is an NFL player, Bell puts it all together and is on his way to being a high-draft pick, Brockermeyer is at least as good as Lee, and we take the 10 other bodies we have to play LG and find an All-ACC type player. This is definitely possible. IMO this is the best line Mario and Mirabal have had here, simply because I expect the right side to be the best in America. I heard David Lake's pre-season pod the other day and he said he thought this was a Top 15 OL last year, and I agree. It was excellent, but it wasn't one of the very best in the country. I think that is definitely in the realm of outcomes this year, there is talent and cohesion here to be talking in December as Miami having the very best, or at least close to the very best OL in America.
Worst-case: Again, much like QB and RB, I think the floor here is very high. If Brockermeyer is a down-grade, if we can't find a suitable LG, and if Bell doesn't improve, this line isn't going to be great. But even if all that happens, I don't think it can be bad. I think last year's line is probably the floor, honestly. I can see if someone wants to argue with me that losing Rivers lowers the floor, I can somewhat see that. But I think, worst-case, with the coaching here, there has to be at least some natural progression from the holdovers, which can offset losing Rivers. If all goes wrong here, I see a Top 15-20 unit in America. That's a really good spot to be in.
Overall Offensive Outlook:
Best-case: We hit our ceiling on all these position groups, especially WR, Beck is healthy and refreshed and the offense is a remorseless killing machine once again. I *seriously* doubt we see what we saw last year, simply because there's almost always regression to the mean in sports, and what we saw last year was pure *** on grass. 42.9 PPG, 7.56 yards per play and 55.4% on 3rd down is orgasmic. I just don't think we can expect that again. But, I genuinely believe there's enough talent here to where, if we approach best-case on all these units, we field a Top 10 offense in the country again. Maybe push for Top 5. We have an NFL QB, an absurdly good line, very capable backs, and a talented (albeit unproven) WR/TE room. Our OC just fielded the best offense in America and school-history, and all of his coaches are back. This unit can absolutely smash once again.
Worst-case: Well, if the QB floor is high, the RB floor is high, and the OL floor is high......the floor for the offense has to be pretty **** high. And I fully expect that. So, worst-case here, Beck is just pretty good, and the WRs are mostly just OK. I still think that puts us in the ~Top 30 in the country. Remember, 2023 with the corpse of TVD and a true-freshman Emory Williams, in Year 1 of Dawson, this offense was 28th in yards per play, and 38th in scoring. We got 30.1 a game that year, and we weren't very talented (training room legend Henry Parrish, true freshman Fletcher, true freshman RT Mauigoa, Don Chaney had 100 carries, Colbie Young was getting 5+ targets a game.....still had a decent offense). I think the floor of this one is MUCH higher than that, obviously assuming some decent injury luck.
My official prediction is this offense ends up around 10th in America. The defenses we play are tougher this year, and I think we take a step back, but I still feel like we will average 35+ points per game, and be one of the best offenses in the country. Will that be good enough to win the ACC? If the defense holds serve, absolutely. Stay tuned for this same exercise on that side of the ball.
Quarterback:
Best-case: Carson Beck regains his form that he showed in 2023, Shannon Dawson continues his ascension as one of the best OCs in the country, and Beck winds up in NYC as a Heisman finalist and becomes a first-round pick in April. I firmly believe this is absolutely in the range of possible outcomes. Beck was Top 5 in college football in QBR and EPA in 2023, and fell somewhat back to earth in 2024. Some feel it was due to the loss of superstars Bowers and McConkey. Some feel it was regression to the mean and he's not an elite player. Some feel it was due to him pressing, knowing it was his money year with lofty expectations. And some feel it was due to a very poor surrounding cast, including a putrid running game and pass-catcher group leading the entire country in drops. The answer is likely a combination of all of this. But make no mistake, a healthy Carson Beck is one of the most accurate passers in the country. Of ALL NFL prospects since 2017, Beck ranks 4th out of everyone in highest accurate throw rate from clean pockets. Joe Burrow is #1, at 69.7%. Shedeur is 2, CJ Stroud is 3, Beck is 4th at 66.9%. He's an elite thrower, if it all comes together for him this year, he can have a SIMILAR ascension to Cam Ward. Maybe not 1.1, but one of the very best QBs in the country and the leader of a violently potent offense.
Worst-case: Obviously him not being healthy is the worst case, but I'm not going to go into that. I'm assuming the elbow is 100%. Worst-case here, to me, is Beck plays more like 2024 Carson than 2023, continues to press, his lack of reps with the receivers this spring and summer as he recovered from his injury, and his propensity to turn the ball over all contribute to a middling season. I really don't see a kid with this much talent being "bad", but I do think it's possible we have a major step back from what we saw from Ward and Dawson has to go to a "game manger" mode. The supporting cast will be a contributor here as well. If the OL takes a step back and/or the receivers don't hold their own and Beck has to press a la 2024, this can go poorly, within reason. The lack of reps to this point do have me concerned. We heard Ward was a **** assassin from Day 1 of spring camp...and it showed in Week 1. The offense looked like he'd been running it for 5 years. Are we going to be that efficient right out of the gate with a QB who frankly hasn't played much with the kids around him? We need to be in order to beat ND.
Running Back:
Best-case: If I'm looking for ceiling here, I'm looking at Jordan Lyle. I am interested in seeing Mark Fletcher in Year 3 with a full off-season under his belt (remember, he didn't do much of anything last off-season coming off the foot injury), but I think we know what he is at this point. A good, all-around back, absolutely capable of helping us win games, but I don't think there's any run-out where he's a Doak Walker candidate or anything like that. He averaged 4.9 a carry as a freshman, and 5.4 last year. I think best-case that gets close to Damien Martinez territory (6.3), but likely somewhere in the high-fives. Best case is he plays a big role and is very good, scoring double-digit TDs, getting tough yards, and averaging ~5.8 a tote. Where this unit explodes is if Jordan Lyle becomes an NFL trajectory back. He has the skill-set for it. He averaged 7.4 yards a carry last year in a very limited sample (only 54 carries). But let's see what happens if we double that, or more. Can he still say close to that efficient? I don't think 7.4 on 120+ carries is very likely, but can he stay above 6? Can he break some explosive runs? We were very good on the ground last year, but not incredibly explosive (45th in 10+ yard runs, 29th in 20+ yard runs). I think the ceiling for this group is Lyle exploding in Year 2, Fletcher improving with a full off-season, and Marty Brown filling in for a few carries a game at max effort and gives us some of what Lyle did last year, albeit probably not as explosive.
Worst-case: Fletcher is maxed out, Lyle's efficiency comes back to earth, and then some, and Marty Brown looks like an FCS player. Again, much like QB, I don't think "worst-case" for this group is bad. It's going to be a good unit, no matter what, IMO. But instead of being maybe a Top 3 unit in the ACC, worst-case is it's a Top 6 or so unit. Also the OL of course factors into this, if we take a step back as a run-blocking unit and teams don't respect Beck, the numbers could suffer. But we were 5th nationally last season in YPC. I don't think worst-case is too much worse than that, especially if you look at just the backs and don't factor Beck's numbers in. I don't see any scenario where we fall totally off a cliff here. Even the 2023 offense was 20th in the country in YPC.
Pass-Catchers:
Best-case: The biggest question mark on the offense, obviously. I think best-case is CJ Daniels is fully healthy and replaces Zay Horton fully, Jojo Trader blows up into a true borderline 5-star talent and becomes WR1, Elija Lofton is the next installment of the TEU assembly-line, and someone steps up into the slot. We're not going to have 4500+ yards passing this year, almost certainly. So the numbers overall will look a little down. But there's talent here, and we've discussed this spot ad nauseum on this board. Realistic best-case is Daniels gets Horton's numbers, Jojo gets George's numbers, and some combination of Baby Jesus, Ray Ray, Johnson, and Lofton get maybe 80% of Restrepo's numbers. But, IMO, the range of outcomes from this group determines the effectiveness of the entire offense. If some of this comes together, I think we push for a Top 10 offense again. If it doesn't, well, see below.
Worst-case: This unit falls flat on its face after losing its top 6 pass-catchers from a year ago. I think there's far too much talent here to be 2022 bad, but there are enough question marks to make me wonder what the true floor is. Daniels isn't fully recovered from the injury and can't separate. Jojo doesn't turn the corner. We rely on a true freshman in the slot who makes mistakes. Johnson is JAG. The freshmen aren't ready. Carr is JAG. Lofton can't replicate what Arroyo did in the slot. Is all of this probable? No, but some of it is possible. This offense goes as this group goes, IMO.
Offensive Line:
Best-case: This is a Top 3 unit in the country. Mauigoa truly blossoms into a legit Top 10 pick, Cooper is an NFL player, Bell puts it all together and is on his way to being a high-draft pick, Brockermeyer is at least as good as Lee, and we take the 10 other bodies we have to play LG and find an All-ACC type player. This is definitely possible. IMO this is the best line Mario and Mirabal have had here, simply because I expect the right side to be the best in America. I heard David Lake's pre-season pod the other day and he said he thought this was a Top 15 OL last year, and I agree. It was excellent, but it wasn't one of the very best in the country. I think that is definitely in the realm of outcomes this year, there is talent and cohesion here to be talking in December as Miami having the very best, or at least close to the very best OL in America.
Worst-case: Again, much like QB and RB, I think the floor here is very high. If Brockermeyer is a down-grade, if we can't find a suitable LG, and if Bell doesn't improve, this line isn't going to be great. But even if all that happens, I don't think it can be bad. I think last year's line is probably the floor, honestly. I can see if someone wants to argue with me that losing Rivers lowers the floor, I can somewhat see that. But I think, worst-case, with the coaching here, there has to be at least some natural progression from the holdovers, which can offset losing Rivers. If all goes wrong here, I see a Top 15-20 unit in America. That's a really good spot to be in.
Overall Offensive Outlook:
Best-case: We hit our ceiling on all these position groups, especially WR, Beck is healthy and refreshed and the offense is a remorseless killing machine once again. I *seriously* doubt we see what we saw last year, simply because there's almost always regression to the mean in sports, and what we saw last year was pure *** on grass. 42.9 PPG, 7.56 yards per play and 55.4% on 3rd down is orgasmic. I just don't think we can expect that again. But, I genuinely believe there's enough talent here to where, if we approach best-case on all these units, we field a Top 10 offense in the country again. Maybe push for Top 5. We have an NFL QB, an absurdly good line, very capable backs, and a talented (albeit unproven) WR/TE room. Our OC just fielded the best offense in America and school-history, and all of his coaches are back. This unit can absolutely smash once again.
Worst-case: Well, if the QB floor is high, the RB floor is high, and the OL floor is high......the floor for the offense has to be pretty **** high. And I fully expect that. So, worst-case here, Beck is just pretty good, and the WRs are mostly just OK. I still think that puts us in the ~Top 30 in the country. Remember, 2023 with the corpse of TVD and a true-freshman Emory Williams, in Year 1 of Dawson, this offense was 28th in yards per play, and 38th in scoring. We got 30.1 a game that year, and we weren't very talented (training room legend Henry Parrish, true freshman Fletcher, true freshman RT Mauigoa, Don Chaney had 100 carries, Colbie Young was getting 5+ targets a game.....still had a decent offense). I think the floor of this one is MUCH higher than that, obviously assuming some decent injury luck.
My official prediction is this offense ends up around 10th in America. The defenses we play are tougher this year, and I think we take a step back, but I still feel like we will average 35+ points per game, and be one of the best offenses in the country. Will that be good enough to win the ACC? If the defense holds serve, absolutely. Stay tuned for this same exercise on that side of the ball.
