Lack of Playmakers and SMU's Long Term Predicament

[RE Tycoon]

This 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.

[Mustangsabu]

You are kidding right?

GG....?
Jeremy Johnson?
Holman
Darius Joseph?

These guys are playing great. And we have JBT, JEremiah Gaines, for the future. We are looking good at WR.

Pope, Rambo and Sanders are outstanding LBs. We are not getting quite enough push up front from a young DLine but the future is bright.

The truth is we look like we will have a very good team next year with the big question mark being QB. We hear great things about NB but have not seen what he can do. If we had GG next year I would feel confident of 9 wins.

[gostangs]

abu - you catch hell around here for being a sun shiner - but I like your enthusiasm. we need about 15k more fans just like you.

[Mustangsabu]

I would rather have faith in a kid and be disappointed if he never reaches the potential that he seems to have than write him off because JJ recruited him.

[SMUer]

abu - you catch hell around here for being a sun shiner - but I like your enthusiasm. we need about 15k more fans just like you.

You 30-or-so guys better start breeding...

[davidpaul123]

I agree to some degree about our lack of playmakers.

WR: Jabryce Taylor looks good and so does Darrius Joseph. They are the only ones that get open/make catches consistently. K. Holeman has had a few nice catches but no consistency.

RB: How bad has our running game been this year. Prescott does not look anything like Zach.

D: Our whole defense has been a disappointment this year for sure.

[The PonyGrad]

The oline and dline were inexperienced at the start of the year. The oline seems to be stabilizing and the dline is coming along. No fan would have picked out Greenbauer before the end of last season. Yes it was a rough start to the season but let the season play out a bit before getting all weak kneed.

[Hoss]

Playmakers I see:

Garrett Gilbert remains one of the top statistical QBs in the country. That includes making plays.

Jeremy Johnson, Darius Joseph, Keenan Holman are making plays, although Joseph seems to be more of a possession guy. JaBryce Taylor sure looks like he'll be one. I'm still curious what Cedric Lancaster is going to be, and Halverson's wheels are cause for optimism.

Beau Barnes has made a ton of plays in the last couple of weeks. Zelt Minor made a couple of great plays against A&M before he got hurt. Harder to judge the NTs because their job is based so much on tying up blockers.

Sanders, Pope, Joyner are studs. Yenga nearly killed a guy at TCU and again against Rutgers. He looks like a major playmaker.

Acker is obvious, even to a novice like me. Teams don't seem that eager to test him, and he is really good coming up to play the run. I'd like to see more of him on special teams and maybe offense.

[Hoss]

Of course, you can't have too many. Hope more guys force their way on this list!

[Stallion]

SMU has receivers catching conservatively thrown balls. Garrett Gilbert has shown some flashes in the last few weeks but he is not close to being among the better QBs in America. I would say his first half performance was a great step in the right direction-he especially performed well in leading his receivers which turned shorter plays into big gains. The lack of great QB and the lack of "playmakers" is shown by the statistics on the other side of the coin:

Passing Efficiency-No 76 QB in the Country
Yards Per Catch-No. 103 in the Country

Its not just the Offense-there are many Air Raid QBs who have excelled in thoser stats in the past

[sbsmith]

So 2014 will be the season where all this depth, speed and size finally shows up? Will it be enough to beat any team that isn't junk?

[squire]

You are kidding right?

GG....?
Jeremy Johnson?
Holman
Darius Joseph?

These guys are playing great. And we have JBT, JEremiah Gaines, for the future. We are looking good at WR.

Pope, Rambo and Sanders are outstanding LBs. We are not getting quite enough push up front from a young DLine but the future is bright.

The truth is we look like we will have a very good team next year with the big question mark being QB. We hear great things about NB but have not seen what he can do. If we had GG next year I would feel confident of 9 wins.

Save it, Sunshine.

[Mustangsabu]

Powerful commentary.

[PonySnob]

So 2014 will be the season where all this depth, speed and size finally shows up? Will it be enough to beat any team that isn't junk?

It's the year all the "diamonds in the rough" will pan out........