Impressions You Had of the O&B Game

The question for me is, who's being unfair to whom. FTR, Nick was adamant in his criticism of the OL, throughout the spring. He flat-out stated late last week that although multiple sources had assured him that there was improvement on the OL, he wasn't buying it. He flatly refused to believe any progress was being made and basically said he didn't want to hear about it. Period. How's that for being open minded or fair - especially coming from a guy who is ostensibly paid to deliver accurate, well-informed analysis? Then he specifically went after George for not having the physical tools to succeed no matter where you put him on the line. Admittedly, Nick did have the self-awareness to appear just a little sheepish after the game when George had actually made a pretty decent account of himself. He's also now calling himself "Positive Nick, instead of Negative Nick", which is a roundabout way of calling himself out I suppose. As for the dismissive attitude some have toward taking anything of value away from a spring game, it's a hell of a lot more entertaining and potentially informative than much of the claptrap coming out of the blogosphere. And that's my carefully considered, exhaustively researched, completely reasonable opinion.

 

I wanted us to go after another portal OL too. I'm not sold on the recruited talent we have or George for that matter. I'm going based off of last year. Should we be better? Yeah. But we are an injury away from some issues.

 

If he isn't putting eyes on the line, then he shouldn't be have such a hardline stance. I'll agree there, but I just can't think we went from what we were last year to a strength. If there is an opportunity to grab another portal lineman, even if just for depth, I would like to see us do it.

And I agree with your last point. I'll never forget (maybe 13 years ago now) when Latroy Pittman was gassed on this board and in spring practice reports as if he was some breakout stud. Kid barely saw the field when the season rolled around.

 

I don't honestly see the OL as a team strength at this point. I just didn't see the unmitigated blocking disaster that characterized the play of the OL for much of last season. If there had been no infusion of talent and coaching on the OL, I'd be ranting, sight unseen too. But I've been quiet about expectations on that unit because I hadn't seen much on several new players until yesterday. I'm certainly not overwhelmed by the level of progress, but I am guardedly optimistic that we have some tackles who can play and some of the young guys seem to show promise. There is reason to expect some additional growth there and that sure beats the alternative.

 

From what I saw, there seems to be improvement over last year on both sides of the ball. There seemed to be somewhat better execution; especially on offense. Last year, the O&B game looked very disorganized. Baugh (sp?) is going to be a player. DJ didn't look out of his element for someone who just got here in Jan. Defensively, I saw players who looked like they were playing technically sound techniques and making tackles. I'm not declaring we'll win a national championship but I'm optimistic we'll see us play a better brand of ball. It may not translate into a 10 win season because the schedule is so brutal but I would be happy to see us play fundamentally sound football every game. Hopefully, the guys will continue to improve their knowledge, techniques, and bodies over the summer and come back ready to go in the fall. Go Gators!

 

Might have missed one of the kick returns but I don't remember Hawkins returning a kick. Given both players' speed, they'd make a great pair back on kick returns. Hawkins' quickness makes him a great choice for punt returns.

 

He was critical of the OL last year too, turned out to be correct. Does that mean he is correct again, no, but no one will know for about 7 months or so. Generally speaking I thought the OL did at the very least look better than it did last spring, so hopefully that is indicative of an improvement. Based on their PFF grade, second worst if I recall correctly, it would be almost impossible to get worse.

 

Also, realize we still have not seen our starting 5 offensive lineman play together yet, and there is still another 4-5 months of competition to go.

 

I would snag a seasoned OLman in the portal. Just me, but it makes sense- we need all the insurance/backups we can get. Another LBer, while the boys recover. Is there another kicker somewhere? Our backup missed everything. Does that dentist still have eligibility? (I think he broke his leg too).50,000 students, someone must be able to kick!

Great spring game. Just a spring game. Sure has me feeling better.

Go Gators.

 

I haven’t been following, but how could any of these beat writers come to any conclusions based on the limited exposure they had to spring practices?

 

I hope this is true and the kid can do it. I will cheer for him in his effort to succeed

 

reminds me of....Derrick Henry the linebacker?

 

Not to mention we had spring games in the past with OL playing for both teams to be able to have a scrimmage. CBN threw all the OL out there and they still produced some offense.

 

The stadium was rocking. The campus was electric. Former players like what Napier is doing behind the scenes.

On the field this spring game looked better than last year’s spring game. Certain players did show out as of this were a real game, with Jadan Baugh and LJ McCray being most notable. Dameion George looked better at guard than tackle, but he got away with at least two holding calls.

It goes without saying that DJ Lagway is worth the hype. GNFP noted that Lagway reads high to low and is more likely to throw deep because that is how he learned to play football in high school. GNFP did note that Lagway’s throwing motion could be tightened up to increase his accuracy. Looking at the game, he looks fine—further along at this stage than, dare I say, Tim Tebow.

It is hard to tell if the explosive plays on offense were good for the offense or bad for the defense. I get the impression that the defense is rather complex and we are going to see opposing offenses exploit the confusion. The pass rush looked much better, or the offensive line is that bad. Technique wise, the offensive line looked better other than Dameion George’s holding calls and the freshman Fletcher Westphal getting bull rushed. The linebackers looked much better than last year. The spring tackling drills paid off. The secondary grabbing two interceptions was great. Mertz’s interception was just a reminder to him that he should never try to jam a ball into a tight window with that kind of excellent coverage. On the other hand, I like that he took the scrimmage session as an opportunity to take some risk. Lagway’s interception was a teaching moment because he was baited into it by Nunnery. Good on Nunnery for confusing the opposing QB.

I will leave my earlier thoughts on the secondary up there and counter them by saying that it is possible that the appearance of confusion at times did force more communication from more players than I remember seeing in past years. I hope that is a sign that communication duties are spread amongst more players than in previous years. It was hard to tell. Maybe they really were confused and this was a bad sign. I hope my more optimistic outlook is the correct one.

Finally, the overall offense did not look much different at all. It looked as if it were being run more efficiently but with the same play book. Maybe there was less pre-snap motion. I need to check the game film. There were times last year when all that motion was not necessary and I was hoping to see some situations in this scrimmage where they would skip the motion or at least shorten it. I would hope that Russ Callaway is allowed to install some tendency breakers, like flowing the offense to the left instead of nearly always flowing to the right.

 

Good point. Dike fielded a punt. Special teams has become high risk and low reward with the kicker/punter abilities and Australian kicks, so coaches seem to prefer sure hands in the SEC.

 

I don't disagree at all about wanting another guard, that was never an issue for me regarding Nick's pre-game comments. But I do have to take issue with the point about Nick being forced to rely on sources due to the lack of direct observation. NICK SPECIFICALLY STATED THAT HE CHOSE TO IGNORE POSITIVE INPUT FROM HIS SOURCES REGARDING PROGRESS ON THE OL. He gave no actual justification for doing so other than that if he didn't see it, it didn't happen. You may view that as an honest attempt at unbiased journalism, I do not. IMO, Nick has planted his flag as the hot-take contrarian "show me guy" in that crew, which is fine as a talking-head blog tactic. In this particular instance however, I'm not impressed much by the journalism piece.

 

It's a lot easier to ignore them if you've never heard of them. Trust facts and your own eyes.

 

I wholly agree with you, Fox
But haven’t we been told there has been no access to practice by anyone other than insiders so how does he get info and form an opinion?