I agree he hasn’t been the same since the injury, but that’s only in the run game. He lost a step and some athleticism, although he is still very good and elusive as a runner.
If you really want to see where things started to go south, it was the Clemson game. Idk why no DC before Brent V didn’t figure it out, but once Clemson exposed his flaws as a downfield passer, it was over.
I watched Mel Tucker’s post-game presser presser. He said the game plan was to make King a pocket passer. I haven’t watched the replay yet, but I think they were just firing the read defender to the mesh point every time and King didn’t process it quickly enough to beat them with a quick slant or by keeping it and running wide.
They had the flats covered too. Those roll out flood plays to the TE and the WR screens are getting blown up regularly. Without the threat of a deep ball, there is no reason to respect them. I watched about 10 different QBs yesterday drop dimes 60 yards downfield.. unfortunately Howell is the first one that comes to mind. This is an area we severely lack in and why I would bench king (or at least go to a 2 QB system).
On the other hand, we did get to see what a Lashlee offense could look like. I don’t get the hate for him yesterday - I thought that was the best game he called all year. Yeah, he probably should’ve got the ground game going more, and I wouldn’t have so many designed runs for King, but otherwise guys were open and King was in a groove. Take away the drops and We win this game going away.
2 random thoughts: (i) King mechanics as a QB are laughable. He does not look natural throwing the ball. (ii) Had chaney not gotten hurt last week, I think this was the week he was going to take over as the bell cow. Lashlee clearly sees Harris isn’t good. That sucks for Don.