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Who's a past player you wanted/thought would be great?

plantcity3 said:
Im sure you can make a laundry list of players that fit this topic.

Marcus Fortson- it just never clicked

Tyrone Moss- There was so much hype behind him because he was breaking records in high school. Don't really know what happened.

Aldarius Johnson- just wasnt productive after his fresh. yr.

Robert Marve- Played against him while he was at Plant. He was the main piece in Plant's rise to a powerhouse. He didn't have a better arm then Aaron Murray but was a bonifide playmaker. I never seen anyone sense pressure from their blindside, spin back out around the pressure, then throw a strike on the run as better as he could on the high school level. I hated him up until he committed to Mia, because Plant is one of our biggest rivals. I really believe he could have been at least decent if not for Shannon pulling that duel QB crap. Plus, Marve head wasn't on all the way.
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Tyrone Moss really let me down. I watched him play a few times for Ely and thought he was going to be Frank Gore 2.0. Dude was unstoppable. Last I heard he was a security guard or something.
 
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Going back a ways, I always thought Chris T. Jones was gonna blow up and be a monster. He was a legit 6-5 guy and was bow-legged. He had the frame of a taller guy. He could run, he was big and he could catch. He had 1 decent year but had a crater like disappearance after that.
 
So many of the other guys have already been mentioned.

In the more "underground" or "forgotten" categories...

Offense:

Andrew Bain and Tyler McMeans (to a lesser extent): Highly-rated recruits. Great in the weight room. Decent feet. Didn't put it together.

What I learned: Offensive Linemen are virtually impossible to project out of HS and even JC until you can see them in live action against all D-1 DL. Even then, so much of an OL's trajectory will depend on technique issues that we are not privy to seeing unless we're watching a lot of practices.

Defense:

JoJo Nicolas (R.I.P.): thought he would be a diamond in the rough that ended up being a potential NFL player. He had a lot of the tools to do so, but never put it all together.

What I learned: Safeties, specifically, are increasingly more dependent on mental aspects (anticipation, feel) that an outside perspective is rarely going to be able to access. After Nicolas, who was plenty athletic, had enough speed and decent enough feet (as evidenced by the fact he even played CB here some), I qualify any perspective on a future Safety with "…but I haven't talked to him personally or watched film with him, so this is just from a physical standpoint."
 
Willie Williams

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To name a few:

Martin Patton - this dude had all the tools to be an explosive running back in DE's one back offense.
Kenny Kelly - I often think he would've been more productive had Coker/Davis geared the offense more toward his strengths.
Willie Williams - I might be the only one who believes that under Jimmie Johnson Williams would have been a monster rush DE.
 
This may be off the intended question a bit, but one guy I always wished Miami had pulled that did great things elsewhere was Warrick Dunn. When the Halfnoles weren't playing Miami, I used to love to watch Dunn do his thing. Always wished he had been in Orange/Green instead of a Halfnole.

As for a guy who I thought would be great? I thought that Richard Gordon was going to be a one-man wrecking crew. Never lived up to his potential at all.
 
SFbayCane said:
Kyle Wright. I saw him play a handful of times in high school. I thought he would be a dominant QB here. Im still not sure why it didnt happen. Lots of little reasons rather than one issue IMO.

Happily and scarily - Brad Kaaya is the closest thing Ive seen at the high school level to Kyle Wright.
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Wright had a very solid sophomore season under Dan Werner--2,403 yards passing, 58.7% completion percentage, 18 TDs, 10 interceptions. Werner did a very nice job with Brock the year before. Then Werner gets fired for that idiot Rich Olson. Then he gets fired and Shannon brings in another incompetent in Patrick Nix. Nobody is surviving that.
 
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Pentagon Cane said:
SFbayCane said:
Kyle Wright. I saw him play a handful of times in high school. I thought he would be a dominant QB here. Im still not sure why it didnt happen. Lots of little reasons rather than one issue IMO.

Happily and scarily - Brad Kaaya is the closest thing Ive seen at the high school level to Kyle Wright.
Click to expand...

Wright had a very solid sophomore season under Dan Werner--2,403 yards passing, 58.7% completion percentage, 18 TDs, 10 interceptions. Werner did a very nice job with Brock the year before. Then Werner gets fired for that idiot Rich Olson. Then he gets fired and Shannon brings in another incompetent in Patrick Nix. Nobody is surviving that.
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Wright had as much comfort in the pocket as Stephen Morris. In an eerie similarity, those are two of the only UM QBs I've ever seen step out of bounds a yard before the 1st down in a big game (Wright during a Bowl game and Morris during FSU '13) - both during 3rd downs. It really illuminated issues with awareness.
 
So many names but for me, I would probably say this monster...

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Had a decent career but I really thought he might kill (and eat) an opposing player at some point.
 
Going way back Greg Anderson was supposed to follow Ottis Anderson as next great RB but back injuries limited him to 1 carry.
Bill Turkowski was a big Left Handed QB who was supposed to follow Kosar and Testaverde but never took a snap.
Chris Walsh was supposed to be better than Steve but never took a snap at Miami
 
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