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Let’s talk wide receivers

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One thing some of you guys miss with Gattis' time in Ann Arbor, he coached to his teams strength, which was the run. I've watched a couple of last years Michigan games (just to see what we can expect), and I saw an OC that called plays to his strength. He had an average QB, pedestrian WR, and a solid RB (#25). Gattis fed #25 the ball but set up opposing LBs in the run and pass. And from most accounts, he called games with his hands tied as Harbaugh made sure his input was reflected in calls. I was impressed by his creativity on 3rd down. He called alot of time-consuming, physical, drives.

I don't ever expect an "air-raid" type of offense with Mario as our HC. He's not recruiting the best OL nationally just to play paddy cake. And, I don't mind this cause, when I watch the playoffs, those "air- raid" teams get brutally out-physicaled.

We are going to be a run-heavy team because it plays to our strength. Our RBs and TEs should get work, as one of our best position rooms on the team. The true test, for Gattis, will be creating opportunities for our WRs, once teams adjust to our RBs and TEs. Luckily, he was a way more talented QB to work with than at Michigan.
 
Just continue to work hard is the only thing the WRs need to do. The group is young and going up against a very physics and more experienced defense. It will only help them in the long run.. our WR group has multiple future impact players not worried

:backyard-pool:
 
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jsy said:
Exactly it’s excuses
Either gattis is a poor teacher, our players were coached absolutely no fundamentals by manny which is possible seeing that his best wrs were transfers, our the players are just not that good
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I believe it's the bolded. If they're that far behind in fundamentals, it may take some time before the movements become fluid and automatic.
 
NorthEastCane said:
I believe it's the bolded. If they're that far behind in fundamentals, it may take some time before the movements become fluid and automatic.
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Lashlee ran that offense.

I think it was a combo of horrible culture (no work ethic), simplified scheme, and the main three guys securing most of the reps so the others weren’t pushed to produce.

Gattis is all over them now. Certainly won’t fail for lack of focus on catching the ball.
 
IMO it’s pretty simple. We supposedly have one of the best assistants in America calling plays and coaching this group. So either Gattis isn’t worth what he’s getting paid, or the potential/talent in the room is a lie. Or he coaches them up, schemes them open, and they get the job done. One of those three is the correct answer. We’ll find out shortly.
 
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cway313 said:
@Da Jumbo Mutombo will, just give him a second to get caught up first.
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Haven't read the last 12 pages of this thread, has anyone mentioned it?

Jeff Thomas would be WR1 right now without a doubt :sideeyes::sideeyes::sideeyes:

@RVACane he is stepping up his game. My mentorship is already paying dividends. He just baited me into thread derailment topic that is technically on topic "lets talk wide receivers". I'm proud.
 
H dycane:
It’s a huge area of concern. It could mitigate your best weapon.

This is the most significant issue. This weakness at WR depending on how severe it is could end up handcuffing this offense and as was stated, mitigate our greatest weapon TVD. Every new staff, no matter how good they are will go through issues of transition where adjustments to the staffs philosophy may need to be made. This "potential" issue at WR is a perfect example. Josh Gattis really had no way of knowing how long it would take for his WR group acclimate themselves to his offense, his route tree, his style.


Now that we are 2 weeks away from the opener there are many adjustments that the staff has the option of making as previously discussed by @Cribby @Rellyrell @Liberty City El and others. I have nothing but the utmost confidence in Mario Cristobal, Josh Gattis and the entire staff and their ability to address this issue. The fact that we open the season with 2 teams that we should beat convincingly cannot be overstated. That gives this team and staff 2 full games to figure out how to attack the issue moving forward vs ATM and in ACC play.


In no way am I insinuating that this issue will be resolved or mitigated to an acceptable level during that 2 game span. I am saying however that those 2 games will be invaluable in terms of evaluating the WRs during live action as there is no substitute for real game experience. This is likely something that will evolve over the course of the entire season. In other words, expect for the WR/passing offense to get better as the season progresses. With all that being said do not underestimate TVD as a leader and his ability to elevate the level of play of everyone around him. True leaders demand excellence and his WRs will raise their level of play because of the respect TVD commands.
 
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I’ve mentioned this before. I am not an insider and all I have seen is what the typical fan has seen is short clips. What I see with Gattis is an overbearing bit picking perfectionist. The kids can’t go through drills without being critiqued on every single thing. I could be wrong and it’s a very short sample of what I have seen on clips everyone else has seen but that is my take. The kids need tough coaching for sure but he seems to be over the top trying too hard to be the expert.
So my guess is they are thinking entirely too much about the route/foot work etc and not entirely focused on playing ball. That’s my opinion.
 
canadianhurricane said:
One thing some of you guys miss with Gattis' time in Ann Arbor, he coached to his teams strength, which was the run. I've watched a couple of last years Michigan games (just to see what we can expect), and I saw an OC that called plays to his strength. He had an average QB, pedestrian WR, and a solid RB (#25). Gattis fed #25 the ball but set up opposing LBs in the run and pass. And from most accounts, he called games with his hands tied as Harbaugh made sure his input was reflected in calls. I was impressed by his creativity on 3rd down. He called alot of time-consuming, physical, drives.

I don't ever expect an "air-raid" type of offense with Mario as our HC. He's not recruiting the best OL nationally just to play paddy cake. And, I don't mind this cause, when I watch the playoffs, those "air- raid" teams get brutally out-physicaled.

We are going to be a run-heavy team because it plays to our strength. Our RBs and TEs should get work, as one of our best position rooms on the team. The true test, for Gattis, will be creating opportunities for our WRs, once teams adjust to our RBs and TEs. Luckily, he was a way more talented QB to work with than at Michigan.
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Heavy run isn’t the strength because we don’t have the dominate o-line for it
 
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Da Jumbo Mutombo said:
Haven't read the last 12 pages of this thread, has anyone mentioned it?

Jeff Thomas would be WR1 right now without a doubt :sideeyes::sideeyes::sideeyes:

@RVACane he is stepping up his game. My mentorship is already paying dividends. He just baited me into thread derailment topic that is technically on topic "lets talk wide receivers". I'm proud.
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Ya gotta let him win sometimes. Otherwise it’s unmanageable.

5228A5F1-07E8-4597-90A6-630A61C800BB.gif
 
calinative umstudent said:
I'm really not worried about WR all that much - or at least not worried about the drops aspect of our WR group that much. First of all our WRs will be better as a whole than all but like 2-3 teams DB group that we face this year? Right now I'll be more worried about the overall speed and deep threat ability of our WRs than them dropping passes. Like if you gave me two options to choose from:

A) Your WRs don't drop any passes but you don't have a deep threat and the WRs aren't fully understanding the offense
or
B) Your WRs are fully understanding the offense and you do have a real deep threat step up, but you're dropping more balls than average..

I'm going to choose B right now. Catching the ball is a basic aspect of being a WR, but ultimately if you have these guys go and catch 100-200 passes after every practice and during summer, they WILL improve unless they just naturally suck **** at catching. Either that or it's just a confidence think or lack of concentration. That stuff can improve quickly.

It's more important having the full offense in place and someone stepping up as that deep threat. Cause look, if you have a deep threat and maybe he drops a couple of the bombs (and catches a lot of others), at least the defenses will have to respect it. If you don't have a deep threat, then the defenses won't even have to respect that aspect of the offense and it makes everyones job more difficult.

I'm more concerned with the OLine in general and whether TVD is going to be elite this year. IF TVD is elite and our OLine is good, I really don't think our WRs dropping a couple more balls than average is really going to hurt us all that much.
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Great post. Very well reasoned and articulated. I agree in principal but do we have that deep threat right now and if so who is it? Also I believe one of @Cribby main points was that this group as a whole is having some difficulty fully understanding the offense and this is where the concern is. Right now it would seem that we are having issues in all of the phases you spoke of above.............

1. We are having trouble with drops especially in contested catches.

2. We seem to be having difficulty fully understanding the offense. This leads to playing slower and more tentatively because they are thinking instead of playing.

3. Having a deep threat is crucial but if we have a legitimate deep threat then I haven't heard of it yet. That isn't to say that our overall speed at the position is pedestrian, just that there has not been any one player who has established himself in that role as being that guy.
 
Dwinstitles said:
Easy answer the wrs we recruited are jags. If I was an NFL guy I ain't drafting none of em. Can't wait till we start getting savages again Julio Jones Andre Johnson types. I expect this group to struggle never understood why everyone was in love with most of em like they were godly. I do like X and B Smith that's it. I want wr recruits from HS that OSU and Bama want. Bring me that
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@Dwinstitles Bro you know I agree with you like 99% of time. You make some valid points here but I have to disagree with your premise that they are all jags.

Do we have a Calvin Ridley, Amari Cooper, Jameson Williams, Ja'marr Chase, Tee Higgins or Devonta Smith? No we likely don't but it isn't necessary to have a WR corps consisting of those types to have an explosive high scoring college offense. The guys we have may nokt be Andre Johnson or Ahmon Richards but they are plenty talented and certainly not jags. I'm not saying that I don't agree with you in that we need to get better there and recruit the 5 star AA type guys. We do need to and we will. My point is that the guys we have should be more than enough to run the type of offense we want to see.

Jacolby George
Romello Brinson
Brashard Smith
Frank Ladson
Michael Redding
Xavier Restrepo
Keyshawn Smith
Isaiah Horton
Colby Young

There is plenty of talent on this list but for the most part this is a young and relatively inexperienced group who are being asked to learn a fairly complex college level system after being in Lashlee's very simple and basic offense. Now for the first time in most of their careers they are being asked to think and process a good amount of information. Like @Cribby explained, the offense Gattis runs is much more complex and puts the onus of getting open much more on the individual receiver as opposed to the scheme. It was bound to take some time. Now, the question of whether or not this offense is a good fit for UM remains to be seen. I think it can work very well but there will be growing pains. Gattis has been described as an OC who tailors his approach to his players. We will see what types of adjustments that Gattis believes are called for.
 
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MizCane said:
I’ve mentioned this before. I am not an insider and all I have seen is what the typical fan has seen is short clips. What I see with Gattis is an overbearing bit picking perfectionist. The kids can’t go through drills without being critiqued on every single thing. I could be wrong and it’s a very short sample of what I have seen on clips everyone else has seen but that is my take. The kids need tough coaching for sure but he seems to be over the top trying too hard to be the expert.
So my guess is they are thinking entirely too much about the route/foot work etc and not entirely focused on playing ball. That’s my opinion.
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Tell that to Nick Satan. Dude is relentless in practice. His DBs can’t do anything right.
 
k9cane said:
Last season after Michigan's #1 WR went down, they ended up with their five leading receivers (not necessarily just WR's) with between 40 to 22 catches.

I can see a similar scenario this season at Miami, with X having much more than 40 grabs
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I shared this in another thread but here are Michigan's stats from last year.
RB red
WR blue
TE orange
We have a MUCH better QB
TE’s better too
RB I think we are better
WR not sure yet but I’d take X over any of theirs last year
OL goes to Michigan
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I have a lot of faith in the wr room. Maybe naive but I do. Think our scheme is going to present some major problems for opposing defenses. Backs and TE's will "free" our wr's up to make plays.
 
TLOC said:
That’s why I was skeptical with bringing in a OC like Gattis. The same **** happened with Enos, any OC that wants to run a pro style and complex attack at Miami should be fired immediately. I went to the first spring game with Enos and 80% of the players were lost and having to be guided to their spots by position coaches. This years spring game wasn’t as bad but the offense was boring and slow as fck. No explosion whatsoever.


Gattis is a great OC and coach no doubt, but he’s definitely not a fit here in my opinion. At Miami, it should be a no brainer to run a simple spread yet balanced offense predicated on space and speed. We were clamoring for the spread for a decade and we finally got a glimpse of its effectiveness last year when King went down and Lashlee decided to let TVD air it out. We were winning games by simply outscoring our opponents. Now when Mario comes in everyone suddenly forgets about it and decides to give Mario the benefit of the doubt just because. I’m just letting y’all know now, this offense will not be very good and expect the defense to carry the team. Thankfully we have an outstanding QB, because if it wasn’t for that we would really be doomed.
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Gattis will figure it out. The old A.I. quote "your talking PrctiSe comes to mind. " Catching the ball should be the easy part. Every other position is excelling with new coaching except the WR'S. Thats crazy. Miami does not have Bama or OSU WR's but they should be better this year. We find out on game day.
 
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