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My biggest questions going into Fall Camp

We have a deep RB room and deep TE room.
I expect those players will be the focus of the offense.



Physicality should be intense. A lot of it is mental and how you practice.


The whole defense will probably surprise us because they will be more fundamentally sound. Hopefully on money downs like 3rd and 4th consistently.
Adjustments should be great too because we basically have two great defensive minds that have seen everything and know how to counter-punch anything thrown at them.
 
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Just being physical and tackling well wins the MSU and unc games last year. My biggest questions are: who steps up at WR, how improved will the DL be, and wtf we gonna do at LB? I'm trusting Gattis and TVD with an improved OL and a hella group of RB's to get the offensive job done. Steele and Charlie have their work cut out for them and will have a big impact on the season imo. I'm really excited for this year.
 
Biggest things I'm looking for:

1. TVD needs to let it rip. One of our insiders, I think it was @Brooklyndee, said TVD was still tentative in practice with his long ball. I want to see a more mature version of the TVD we saw last year.

2. Our OL needs to impose its will in the run game. We were fine last season in pass pro. But when we needed to pound the rock, it was a coin toss as to what would happen. This season, we need to win the "3 yards and a cloud of dust" battles.

3. Our LBs can't be washed out by opposing OL. That's on both the DL and the LBs, and is a combination of scheme, better coaching and more athleticism. I'm expecting BIG things from this front 7. Gil and Keontra need to step up. Chase needs to emerge.

4. Game changing turnovers. We had multiple opportunities on defense to force more turnovers, especially interceptions. Our secondary is full of guys who hawked balls in high school. Time to take it to the next level.
 
grover said:
Biggest things I'm looking for:

1. TVD needs to let it rip. One of our insiders, I think it was @Brooklyndee, said TVD was still tentative in practice with his long ball. I want to see a more mature version of the TVD we saw last year.

2. Our OL needs to impose its will in the run game. We were fine last season in pass pro. But when we needed to pound the rock, it was a coin toss as to what would happen. This season, we need to win the "3 yards and a cloud of dust" battles.

3. Our LBs can't be washed out by opposing OL. That's on both the DL and the LBs, and is a combination of scheme, better coaching and more athleticism. I'm expecting BIG things from this front 7. Gil and Keontra need to step up. Chase needs to emerge.

4. Game changing turnovers. We had multiple opportunities on defense to force more turnovers, especially interceptions. Our secondary is full of guys who hawked balls in high school. Time to take it to the next level.
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To ur 3rd point. LB play will be night and day better due to scheme. Manny for some odd reason didn’t protect his backers at all it was almost like he let OL get up to his LBs as a part of his scheme. DL will protect them better this year allowing them to fill and make Tackles like LBs should play. Not to mention our Lb coach is night and day better too
 
Ultimately we'll go as far as TVD and the trenches on both sides can take us. Establishing fundamentals and a new identity, standard is the most important thing for 2022. We still have roster holes, but we're pretty strong in other areas. For the first time in a long time we won't be at a coaching disadvantage which should pay dividends for this group.
 
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Empirical Cane said:
1. Season lives or dies on Gattis recognizing he doesn't have Michigan's OL and adjusts scheme accordingly.

2. We shall see how good the mustached tornado really is won't we?*

3. I believe S and LB rooms make a big leap if we are to believe what upgrades Steele and Strong bring over previous

*Side note: did you notice how many times Swasey was mentioned in Rolle's I am Athlete?
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Agree with your responses to all 3 questions.

The coaching on Defense and LB, plus OL absolutely will improve those units. I’m really excited to watch our Defense honestly. I said it in another thread but I think we have multiple guys with at least 5 sacks and our DL just keeps rotating guys.

DT is one of my top questions going into the year.
 
Cane6 said:
Agree with your responses to all 3 questions.

The coaching on Defense and LB, plus OL absolutely will improve those units. I’m really excited to watch our Defense honestly. I said it in another thread but I think we have multiple guys with at least 5 sacks and our DL just keeps rotating guys.

DT is one of my top questions going into the year.
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Mario wants to get big monster space eaters at DT right? I don't rhinknwe have one...yet...
 
grover said:
Biggest things I'm looking for:

1. TVD needs to let it rip. One of our insiders, I think it was @Brooklyndee, said TVD was still tentative in practice with his long ball. I want to see a more mature version of the TVD we saw last year.

2. Our OL needs to impose its will in the run game. We were fine last season in pass pro. But when we needed to pound the rock, it was a coin toss as to what would happen. This season, we need to win the "3 yards and a cloud of dust" battles.

3. Our LBs can't be washed out by opposing OL. That's on both the DL and the LBs, and is a combination of scheme, better coaching and more athleticism. I'm expecting BIG things from this front 7. Gil and Keontra need to step up. Chase needs to emerge.

4. Game changing turnovers. We had multiple opportunities on defense to force more turnovers, especially interceptions. Our secondary is full of guys who hawked balls in high school. Time to take it to the next level.
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For me his deep ball is his strongest asset. So that wasn't me who said that. Myself I need to see him develop the other parts of his game. Especially the intermediate routes. The deep posts,the outs,less so hitches. I wanna see his 15-20 yrd routes go to a different level. Not just chunk it as an out.
 
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the biggest question on this team is whether our receivers can get open downfield and catch 50/50 balls. if they can run the ball effectively and the defense improves we can be very good.
 
I want to see who we trot out there at LB....

Will Bissanthe see the field?
What will Gil's role be?
Has Steed really taken that next step?
Keontra gonna put it all together with push for some end of year accolades?
 
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LuCane said:
Going into this Fall and season with managed expectations. Optimism for the future, but some level of caution as well. Perhaps that’s just PTSD. Maybe it’s founded on the reality of where I know we were and how much needs to be done to jolt our program in the right direction.

Here’s what I’ll look for during Fall camp (and the early parts of the season):

1. Will Coach Gattis’ offensive ‘identity’ formation lean toward TVD’s downfield and opposite hash abilities?
In his interview today, he mentioned he’ll run a personnel-driven offense. A few moments later, he said the Fall was about establishing the identity of the team through the offense. I don’t think it’s difficult to interpret his comments as wanting a physical brand of football. He mentioned how, while they may not have the depth they want on the OL, they’ve got the potential to be as good as anyone (or something to that effect). We’re all wondering what the offense will look like. The Fall will only give us some hints. Let’s see how TVD-driven it might look.

2. How will we hold up physically?
I must’ve spent the better part of the last two seasons complaining - in subtle and not so subtle posts - about our tackling and hitting in practice. People close to the program continuously mentioned how we hit less than they ever expected. It became obvious on gameday. I fully expect Mario to ramp up the physical nature of our practices. The way it needs to be done. We shall see what happens, but it’s exciting to be prepared for actual football again.

3. Which 2-3 defensive players will surprise us?
Everyone I’ve heard from says the players are *fully* bought into Coach Steele. They are genuinely excited. Stephenson and the Safeties are good bets to be at least solid, if not more, but we need at least a couple of surprise ‘leaps.’ One of the DTs? One of the Edge players? A surprise LB or CB?
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I hope the safeties and Stephenson are at least solid because if not that would be a step back from last year.
 
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NC_Canes_11 said:
Gattis loves to run the ball. Mario loves to run the ball. Until proven otherwise, y’all need to stop assuming TVD is gonna throw it 35 times for 300+ a game. There’s zero proven receivers on the roster. So unless we absolutely cannot run it, you’re more than likely gonna get your feelings hurt.
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lol Maybe it's you who'll get his feelings hurt when TVD extends his 300+ streak to 15+ games. :nice:
 
Gattis loves to run the ball. Mario loves to run the ball. Until proven otherwise, y’all need to stop assuming TVD is gonna throw it 35 times for 300+ a game.
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Here's my hot take. I don't buy the Gattis diminishing our passing offense stuff at all.

If you plugged Van Dyke into Michigan's offense last year and gave him Michigan's number of passing attempts but used Van Dyke's completion percentage/yards per completion he would have thrown for 3,600 yards in that offense. That would put us at 20th in the country in passing yards. And that Michigan QB was awful, which likely influenced play calling.

I think Van Dyke averages 300 ypg and gets to 4,000 yards this year, including the bowl game, and throws for 35 TD's.
 
Canefancarlos2 said:
I hope the safeties and Stephenson are at least solid because if not that would be a step back from last year.
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Agreed. Additionally, it appeared to be a gigantic pain in the *** to play Safety in the previous system. Players out-leveraged consistently. What seemed like minimal communication between zones. And, lots of pressure to clean up front 7 chaos. Kevin Steele has previously approached it differently. So, if anything, I expect progression with this group.
 
NC_Canes_11 said:
Gattis loves to run the ball. Mario loves to run the ball. Until proven otherwise, y’all need to stop assuming TVD is gonna throw it 35 times for 300+ a game. There’s zero proven receivers on the roster. So unless we absolutely cannot run it, you’re more than likely gonna get your feelings hurt.
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Personally, I'm not assuming anything. I have legitimately no idea what our offense will look like by TAMU. Our QB throws a great deep ball and can sling it from the opposite hash to the sideline, so my question will be how much we utilize those tools. I'm gonna take the coach at his word and expect him to tailor the offense to his personnel. We shall see.
 
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