Lack of Playmakers and SMU's Long Term Predicament
Posted: Sun Oct 20, 2013 10:04 amThis is stating the obvious but SMU completely lacks playmakers on both sides of the ball and special teams. Going through the offensive side of the ball I can only pick out JaBryce Taylor as a possible playmaker (18 yards/catch and 18 yards/rush), but with such a limited sample size even that's not a given. Regardless he needs a majority of the snaps.
Other than Taylor I've got nothing on the offensive side. I personally think Nlemchi is our best RB option, and he is the most explosive (5.3 yards/carry), but again very limited action (19 carries).
The defensive side is even more barren, can't think of any playmakers. Acker? Not since his sophomore year would I consider him a playmaker. DE's, LB's? Not making plays against decent teams, someone has to rack up tackles, so don't use that as proof a playmaker.
And that goes to the point about the definition of a playmaker, it's not purely about gaudy stats. It's not about catches, it's about YAC and avg yards per reception. Our WR's merely catch balls and fall down or step out of bounds. They rarely break tackles or make a guy miss. When was the last time a safety baited a QB in to an INT or was in the right place for deflected INT? Our guys are rarely in position to do something spectacular or "make a play". Coaching is surely to blame, but athleticism is at least half the battle.
Which is why I've come to the conclusion we are entering a major rebuild because we may have 1-2 playmakers on our current roster and looking at our 2014 recruiting, zero in our next class. Assuming the next coach can recruit and hopefully does at a higher level, we are looking at 2015 for our first infusion of playmaking talent but most likely 2016 before any quality (albeit young quality) shows up in force on campus.
Watching the missed tackles, half [deleted] receiving and running, complete lack of special teams playmakers and even blockers yesterday really put me in a further funk on the state of this program. We are in the biggest talent drout since the 03-04 Bennett years, and it's only going to get worse before it gets better.
Thanks JJ.
Other than Taylor I've got nothing on the offensive side. I personally think Nlemchi is our best RB option, and he is the most explosive (5.3 yards/carry), but again very limited action (19 carries).
The defensive side is even more barren, can't think of any playmakers. Acker? Not since his sophomore year would I consider him a playmaker. DE's, LB's? Not making plays against decent teams, someone has to rack up tackles, so don't use that as proof a playmaker.
And that goes to the point about the definition of a playmaker, it's not purely about gaudy stats. It's not about catches, it's about YAC and avg yards per reception. Our WR's merely catch balls and fall down or step out of bounds. They rarely break tackles or make a guy miss. When was the last time a safety baited a QB in to an INT or was in the right place for deflected INT? Our guys are rarely in position to do something spectacular or "make a play". Coaching is surely to blame, but athleticism is at least half the battle.
Which is why I've come to the conclusion we are entering a major rebuild because we may have 1-2 playmakers on our current roster and looking at our 2014 recruiting, zero in our next class. Assuming the next coach can recruit and hopefully does at a higher level, we are looking at 2015 for our first infusion of playmaking talent but most likely 2016 before any quality (albeit young quality) shows up in force on campus.
Watching the missed tackles, half [deleted] receiving and running, complete lack of special teams playmakers and even blockers yesterday really put me in a further funk on the state of this program. We are in the biggest talent drout since the 03-04 Bennett years, and it's only going to get worse before it gets better.
Thanks JJ.
