Watching this 2020 UM team has me caught between "we're better than last year" and "we were so horrible last year that we can be better and still not be all that good." I watch about 10 full college games every weekend, and we are pretty average right now. We're ranked 11th, but if we played a weak SEC team like USC, I could see the game going either way.
Yesterday, we played a Pitt team without its best player and the heartbeat of its team, and it was another typical desultory ACC slap fight. Without Pickett, Pitt is total trash. Yet, they hung around the whole game, and their pop gun backup QB was making plays that he probably won't make against most of the other teams they play.
I make it a point to watch every ACC game, and, with the obvious exception of the super power Clemson and horrible Syracuse, all the rest of the teams are pretty interchangeable. GT lost by 300 to Clemson, who was clearly getting revenge for the 220 GT hung on Cumberland College, but that GT team could very easily beat us or any of the rest of the ACC.
Pros:
Our DTs got some push. Jade continues to be disruptive, and JHH is a future star.
Harvey stood out to me. He was active.
The freshman DB, Dunson, might have made the play of the game on the fake punt. He played that thing perfectly and snuffed out a potential game-changing moment.
Mallory stepped up. Still think he should be on the field a lot more and be a focus of the passing offense along with Jordan, Key Smith, and the RBs.
Don Jr. looked tough and fast before he got hurt. He's had shoulder issues, so I'm hoping he's not out for an extended time.
Restrepo at least looks confident and competent catching punts unlike Pope.
Cons:
Pretty much everything else. LOL.
King is either in a slump, or he's pretty much what I thought he was as a streaky passer. I thought he'd be a more dynamic runner though. Most of his best runs are off scrambles where he makes a couple great spin moves in the open field, but he's been completely ineffective in the read-option game. Seems slow in his get off and doesn't make great decisions in the read game.
John Campbell got disemboweled. By the end of the game, Patrick Jones was rendered less effective slogging through Campbell's entrails.
Wiggins and Pope continue to be weak. They're rapidly morphing into Khalil Jones and D'Mauri Jones without the artistic skills.
Our offense is slumping. We're all out of whack now that we're playing some competent defenses. We look disjointed and are very easy to defend. Teams are ganging up on the run game, which seems super basic, and forcing King and our WRs to beat them. And King and the WRs are failing pretty hard. Nice job by Lashlee sneaking Cam and Will out on those fake QB draws. Other than a couple big plays, we were pretty awful and couldn't sustain anything.
Defensively, we're just too easy to throw on. Guys are open all over the place. Old Yellen missed some wide open guys and they had some horrific drops when he did hit them. They bailed us out more than we stopped them.
Phillips has been nowhere near the pass rusher I thought he'd be. In fact, our overall pass rush is pretty weak.
Not disagreeing with you. Your facts are correct. We may draw slightly different conclusions at times, but I try not to get too high or too low on my Canes.
With Covid, King missed a ton of time to build his timing with WRs on the long ball. Not sure if they can do some extra-curricular practicing on that issue (given Covid), but we need to do something. What concerns me with King is the RPO decision-making, it seems like (over the last few games) King has made many decisions to hand-off-or-keep that were incorrect. Some of it is Lashlee, but it also looks like King may be suffering from a lack of confidence in himself or his OL that is ******** with his decisions.
Speaking of Lashlee, I don't like the oversimplicity of the running game right now. Outside of the brilliant "duck down and pretend that King is running, followed by a throw", which I have loved every time we do it, we keep throwing three different runners into the middle of the line over and over and over again. And maybe Cam and Burns are big enough to hold up under the pounding, but slamming Chaney and Rooster into the middle as battering rams reminds me of the play-calling genius that led to li'l Duke breaking his ankle when he was asked to smash into F$U's massive DL on 4th down back in 2013.
I'm not giving up on 2020 or 2020 players quite yet. Any of them can get better with coaching and the desire to get better. They lost all of spring practice and most of summer practice. I doubt that some of the older guys (like Harley) will ever reach their full potential, so I don't mind giving the younger guys more playing time (though guys like Harley may still contribute, like he did on the TD).
On defense, we are stuck with the players we have. I'd say we need better LB play, but I think we need better LBs.
We aren't a Final Four team this year, but I think we can match up with the teams in the next tier. #5 UNC just got beat by a team we demolished. And Notre Dame almost lost to another team we beat.
I think we go 5-1 or 6-0 the rest of the way, but we have to stay healthy, open up the playbook, and clean up missed blocking assignments and missed connections on long passes. But I agree with you, it won't be easy, we will have a battle in every game, even GaTech and Wake.
You are right about the big picture, though, we need to keep beating the bad ACC teams, clean up in recruiting, and then focus on being more dominant in 2021.
