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Ranking every college football team regular season ends

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Ranking every college football team regular season ends

Postby indianmustang » Mon Dec 21, 2020 11:20 am

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Re: Ranking every college football team regular season ends

Postby AusTxPony » Mon Dec 21, 2020 12:35 pm

Surprised to find SMU so high, #31, but I see we are still receiving votes in the Coaches Poll as well. Cryin' shame about that ECU performance.
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Re: Ranking every college football team regular season ends

Postby indianmustang » Mon Dec 21, 2020 1:10 pm

should have been undefeated
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Re: Ranking every college football team regular season ends

Postby DanFreibergerForHeisman » Mon Dec 21, 2020 1:47 pm

31 sounds about right.
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Re: Ranking every college football team regular season ends

Postby SMU_Alum11 » Tue Dec 22, 2020 6:19 am

indianmustang wrote:should have been undefeated


Amen
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Re: Ranking every college football team regular season ends

Postby JasonB » Tue Dec 22, 2020 9:36 am

indianmustang wrote:should have been undefeated


I think we found out that we aren't as physical on the offensive line or in the defensive front 7 as we need to be to win a championship.

I'm looking forward to a full offseason with spring practice with our young players so that they will develop and be ready to compete for a championship in the fall.
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Re: Ranking every college football team regular season ends

Postby HubbaHubba » Tue Dec 22, 2020 10:15 am

We'll never be top 10 material or even win the conference until we get better on the defensive side of the ball. We have to have lineman that need to be blocked and are a physical presence. We need defensive backs who don't look lost and/or have the speed to make up for their mistakes. Some of this is being able to recruit the best players though a lot of this is coaching.
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Re: Ranking every college football team regular season ends

Postby JasonB » Tue Dec 22, 2020 11:22 am

HubbaHubba wrote:We'll never be top 10 material or even win the conference until we get better on the defensive side of the ball. We have to have lineman that need to be blocked and are a physical presence. We need defensive backs who don't look lost and/or have the speed to make up for their mistakes. Some of this is being able to recruit the best players though a lot of this is coaching.


It is the Jimmies and Joes. It isn't the coaching. I'll explain in detail below, but with the right transfers, this can be a really good defense next season, and 2022 looks very promising. High quality defensive players come from a much smaller pool than on the offensive side, so they are much harder to recruit. That is what makes this last recruiting class even more impressive.

At Corner, Stephens was highly regarded recruit, but new to the position. Crossley is a highly rated recruit and showed well. Westfall was a good recruit, but hasn't shown up. Massey was a solid recruit, who looks very promising. Everyone else is DITR, we got lucky with Armani but he has some limitations even though he is an instinctual player. With Stephens leaving, I would expect us to grab a transfer. Crossley should be one of the top corners in the league next season. Armani is okay as a number 2, but will get pushed hard by Massey. A quality transfer makes this a very good unit. I would expect improvement in 2021, and a really good unit in 2022. They could use a better pass rush to help them out.

At DE, we have two stud recruits (Samuels and Jones). Paul, Mastrov, Walls, Ndukwe all go into the "solid" category, meaning we should expect them to contribute as Jr/Sr. So Mastrov and Walls aren't going to be ready yet next season. Coxe and Wiley are DITR. Coxe is solid, Paul saw an uptick at the end of the season, hopefully he is really ready to do something next year, and I would expect that the frosh are going to play a role. I think they will be improved next year, but I think 2022 is going to be the year this group really takes a next level step up.

At DT, Eby, Williams, Dotson, Aho, and Levelston are all upper end recruits. Chatman is solid, while the others are more DITR. Chatman is contributing very well early. Aho showed a lot of flashes this year. Williams and Levelston I would expect to be significantly better next season. Chatman and Aho have both shown that they are going to be players that "need to be blocked", and Williams showed it at Stanford. I would expect this group to be upper level AAC next season provided everyone comes back. Aho is inexperienced in general and hasn't had a spring, but somehow managed to contribute last season. I would keep my eye on him.

At Fox, Jones, DeArman, and Thursby are all well regarded recruits. We should expect more from this group next season, but 2022 is going to be the year they mature. Jones needs to get healthy. If we bring in a transfer here, I think it says a lot about where the coaching staff thinks Jones is at.

LB is a massive hole athletically. McBryde has limitations. Moore has been injured. Kelley and Sneed are good recruits, and Jolley is solid. But everyone else on the roster is a DITR. Delano has been better than projected, but we also need to recognize that his production is well behind what Kyron Mitchell did at that position. LB is incredibly important in today's defenses. If you watch the ECU game on the few plays Moore got, he is rusty and not in great position, but his speed pops on the film. That is what we need at all three of the LB spots. If we have Moore back healthy and can find one other player, that is a huge difference. Moore and a transfer starting with Delano and McBryde as backups would be a very good room and would completely change the complexion of the defense. This is the biggest immediate need on the roster.

S we have Calloway, Nwokbia, Clay, Taylor and McMorris as good recruits. Cromartie and Roberson are more DITR. Clay and Taylor pass the eye test athletically, although both are much better against the run right now than in pass coverage. There is actually a lot of talent here. Cromartie and Roberson I might not want starting right now, but if you tell me they are second team going into the spring and might fall to 3rd team in the fall, then you have really good depth. Nwokbia will challenge straight away to get in the rotation because he is physically ready to go. This group will take a significant step up in 2021.
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Re: Ranking every college football team regular season ends

Postby HubbaHubba » Tue Dec 22, 2020 1:50 pm

I'm glad you have such great faith in our secondary. Stephens was good given his lack of experience. 73rd in the country in passing yards allowed is not encouraging. On many plays it was hard to find an SMU defender within 10 yards of a receiver. The overwhelming majority of incompletions were do to bad throws on the opposing quarterback and not on good coverage. The interceptions we made seemed to be almost always thrown directly to a defender and/or the receiver fell down. You can blame the D-line for not putting enough pressure on the quarterback but with tighter coverage we could have had more sacks. Either the backs were not being coached in how to play the coverages, the players didn't listen or they did not have the physical skills to do what was asked of them. Maybe the coaches called lousy pass protection schemes. Yes it is hard to recruit great skill players on defense. We had the knack this year of making the most pedestrian of quarterbacks look like Heisman candidates. 2021 can be better but we better grab a quality transfer or 2 and we need to study some film and find some better defensive schemes we can execute with the players we have. If we don't, I hope we can break the top 50 in rankings the next couple of years.
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Re: Ranking every college football team regular season ends

Postby JasonB » Wed Dec 23, 2020 11:48 am

HubbaHubba wrote:I'm glad you have such great faith in our secondary. Stephens was good given his lack of experience. 73rd in the country in passing yards allowed is not encouraging. On many plays it was hard to find an SMU defender within 10 yards of a receiver. The overwhelming majority of incompletions were do to bad throws on the opposing quarterback and not on good coverage. The interceptions we made seemed to be almost always thrown directly to a defender and/or the receiver fell down. You can blame the D-line for not putting enough pressure on the quarterback but with tighter coverage we could have had more sacks. Either the backs were not being coached in how to play the coverages, the players didn't listen or they did not have the physical skills to do what was asked of them. Maybe the coaches called lousy pass protection schemes. Yes it is hard to recruit great skill players on defense. We had the knack this year of making the most pedestrian of quarterbacks look like Heisman candidates. 2021 can be better but we better grab a quality transfer or 2 and we need to study some film and find some better defensive schemes we can execute with the players we have. If we don't, I hope we can break the top 50 in rankings the next couple of years.


I think we had a problem with creating pressure, Stephens regressing, and a huge problem with S and LB in coverage.

Crossley and Massey pass the eye test, and Johnson has held his own. Westfall I don't know why he hasn't shown up after a positive first impression, but we do need another player to give us a 5 legit CB room because everyone gets banged up during the season.

S and LB are awful in coverage, and that makes your corners look a lot worse. S we have the athleticism, I think we are much better next season with experience. LB is the biggest gap in skill, and it is going to make the secondary look bad until we have more athleticism in that position. We need upgrades at all three LB spots. We get killed over the middle and at the transition points because of the lack of athleticism at LB and slow reaction at S.
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Re: Ranking every college football team regular season ends

Postby ponyboy » Wed Dec 23, 2020 12:20 pm

It’s crazy we’ve gotten to the point where we win 70% of our games and spend half the season ranked and there’s very little noise. Expectations have changed. So thankful for Sonny and his program.
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