Trent Whittemore enters the portal

Is that you Shorter?

 

Yeah, we are still a little sore about Clinton Portis playing for the Canes.

 

Coming into this year he was our #3 receiver in terms of yardage from 2021, behind Shorter and Henderson. And he was fewer than 70 yards behind Henderson. To go from #3 to 87 yards is indicative that maybe his decision was made before the season started.

 

But Wells stuck with it and did not bail. Which should earn our respect. It does mine anyway.

 

Or perhaps something else happened... Like freshman Caleb Douglas. Hearing lots of good things about him including from Napier @PCs. My guess is that Douglas earned snaps and they have to come from somewhere.

 

I was responding to the folks wondering why he is transferring and expressing that this was "lame" by the coaches. Is it "curious" as you say? That I would accept. But the coaches see him every day and the kid was not playing. Just my take: his modest production (10 catches year 1, 19 in year 2) combined with precipitous drop in his PT this year when we need receivers doesn't make this seem like a huge miss by the coaches worthy of criticizing the staff.

Maybe the fans saying he should be playing are right, and hopefully for him he finds a place that fits him, plays great, and is happy. I feel great about our staff and the players that are coming in, staying, and playing.

 

I admire the creative wording, "70 yards behind Henderson" seems impressive. When the reality is that Whittemore was our 8th leading pass-catcher last year with a total of 210 yards receiving. That's not a lot of production. Henderson wasn't all that productive last year either, so using him as the benchmark isn't very informative.

 

Exactly. Last year's team was more of a passing team than this years. This year's team is only averaging 15 pass completions per game, while the 2021 team completed 20 passes per game. In 2021 Jacob Copeland and Justin Shorter led the team with 41 catches each. Kenmore Gamble had 31, Xzavier Henderson had 26 for 277 yards, Rick Wells had 24, Malik Davis had 23, while Dameon Pierce and Trent Whittemore had 19 each, Whittemore for 210 yards. While only Shorter and Henderson are the only 2 returning players who caught more passes than Trent, we now have Pearsall, Zipperer, Zanders, Johnson, Douglas & Etienne along with Shorter and Henderson who have caught more passes than Whittemore, with Fraziers, Reynolds and Burke seemingly earning more playing time as the season has progressed. As much as I like Whittemore and the fact that he's a local kid with strong UF family ties, I have to believe that the coaches want to put the players on the field who give them the best chance to win games and in their scheme of how they want to run the offense, other guys have just passed him by. Wish him only the best and Go Gators!

And an FYI - Jacob Copeland currently has 22 catches for 331 yards and 2 TD's for the Maryland Terps.

 

‘Good’ players get you to 7-5. I don’t think most fans wii accept this. Ike and reidel get you to 9-2 or 11-1.

 

I think you did some creative reading

I said #3 receiver, which is important here because we're wondering why he didn't get on the field much.

He was #3 in production that returned from 2021. In most cases that guy is getting on the field. 5 of the players in your #8 (if we include RBs) are gone. Any way you slice it, he was one of the most experienced wideouts on the team.

 

I think pretty much everyone would like to have Ike and Redidel, but ... I hate to break it to you, but we don't have them. And I hate to further break it to you, but we're currently 6-4.

So operating in the reality that we're in - which has been shaped a lot by a lack of WR production - it would have been better to have him on the field than not. But for some reason he wasn't. I truly believe that reason is he was out the door pretty early this year and Napier didn't want to give reps to a guy who was leaving.

 

Exactly. He, as a second year player, was out-produced in the passing game by 5 other receivers, a TE and a RB. 210 yards is not a lot, any way you slice it. We will be fine without him. He saw that and so did coach Napier.

 

The guy got his degree, so he can do what he wants.

Looks like he will go to Miss State to play with his brother.

He’ll probably get the ball thrown his way more there.

 

I agree. It’s ok to trust the coaches when Nayquan gets less playing time, but if whittemore gets less snaps, it’s some kind of bias, all of a sudden.
Napier is progressively playing the best players, and I’m all for it.

 

Our WR production is lacking this year - we all agree. But you posit that having TW on the field would have improved it. You hypothesize that limited PT for TW was premised on him planning on “leaving” early in this year. I would be interested in understanding:
- Why did tW decide to leave early? Is this fact or an opinion?
- Why if he was better than what we have did Napier not play him in hopes he would stay (seemingly presumes Napier is not playing our best or TW bailed on him and the team early and leads back to question 1 and why?).
- Napier is playing younger running backs over older guys. Why if TW was better does he break the obvious fact that this staff plays better players?

If TW was “out the door early this year” as you posit, gotta say I’d be hard pressed to play him too. Sounds like he was not committed (though this is only from your hypothesis so may be wrong and he was all bought in to BN but just is not happy).

Ultimately, I trust that if the kid was “better than what we have” then BN would have played him. You disagree. All good, and again, wish the kid well.

 

4 other receivers, 2 of which left. The other 3 at other positions left.

We had a much stronger WR corps last year and he got more catches.

Curious who said this. It's absolutely not my stance.

Yeah, I think that Billy is interested in building a program. If Trent came to him right before the season started and said he was going to be leaving, I think Billy's looking to the future. They probably had an early and frank discussion about respective futures. Perhaps Billy saw what we've all seen this year at WR and concluded we'd be better suited with a 4-year plan.

It's all conjecture, of course. But we've seen the product on the field. Thank god Pearsall came over, because they'd be triple teaming Shorter and Henderson and shutting our passing game down entirely otherwise.

 

Agreed, although that doesn't mean that we should take his word that Whittemore only got on the field because his Dad and Mullen were buddies. Just using my eyes, Whittemore was more productive when on the field than Wells.

 

Not based on stats he wasn’t.

 

I don't. There are open receivers on most passing plays. The issue is that we have a QB whose accuracy is basically a coin flip.

 

These are not mutually exclusive. Yes, AR has accuracy and recognition issues (as noted on GNFP, taking his checkdown route when the deep route is covered). And we do not have any "special" receivers - like a Toney, Hilliard, etc. No receiver on our team makes a defense think they need brackets or help over the top every play.

I think many underestimate the work BN has done with a young, inaccurate QB and a decidedly mediocre WR room (in my opinion).