Speaking of Jennings:
I could be off base on this but here goes anyway. I know almost everyone says that our WR corps is our strongest returning position group but, and I don’t want to offend anyone, I’ve not been all that impressed with our guys. I think maybe the reason we’ve emphasized high pointing the football is that is almost the only way our receivers can get separation on defenders. I mean it’s a good thing we can high point the ball and at least in that regard we really improved in 2018 vs the prior year.
Without even looking at the stats it was my sense that Jauan Jennings and Ty Chandler were our best two receivers. There are of course others who catch the ball well enough but Jennings and Chandler have some ability to get separation and they dominate our receiving corps in yards after catch. For the most part much of the time with the other guys they’re stopped as soon as they catch the ball or they go out of bounds. CFB Film room used to track this and through the first 8 games last year before they stopped, both Jennings and Chandler compared favorably with other receivers at the top of the SEC with respect to yards after catch; the other guys were at the bottom of the stack. It could be just the way the plays were drawn up last year but I miss having receivers that could run after catch like Justin Hunter (pre-injury) or Josh Malone.
There are a couple of things that are puzzling about this. First, Callaway is a dynamic open field runner so I guess I don’t understand why we don’t try more often to get the ball to him in space. I’m going to blame that on Helton and expect to see something different from Chaney. The second thing is we only involved Chandler in the passing game against 4 opponents last year, all in the heart of our schedule, (UGA, AU, UA, & USC). He scored a TD in 3 of those games (UGA, AU, & UA) and ended the season tied with Jennings for the lead on the team for receiving TDs.
In one of the spring interviews, Chandler said he was excited about the offense that Chaney is installing and it might not just be player speak. Last year at Georgia Chaney got the ball to Swift in space almost twice as often as we did with Chandler. Swift only score 3 times so if we can double up the number of times for Chandler I figure that’s at least twice as many TDs. I wonder if receivers get embarrassed when a RB is the leading scorer in the passing game sort of like when the QB is the leading rusher and your RB just ups and decides to quit in the middle of the season.
Chaney, although it could be coach speak, has lauded the experience we have returning at the receiver position so I’m hoping he and Tee will be able to figure out a way to unlock more of their potential in the receiving game than perhaps his predecessor was able to do. I think having Jennings coming out of the slot is going to be a huge boost just by itself. Finding a way to get the ball to the perimeter guys so they can keep running and getting the ball to Chandler in space more often I think could go a long ways to helping us be more productive. Last year we were ranked #111 in pass attempts per game. We were #97 in passing yards per game and #34 in yards per attempt. We were #100 in passing TDs and 7th best in the nation with the fewest interceptions thrown.
While I think last year we saw a lot of Pruitt in the offensive philosophy in regards to running the ball, I think this year we may see a lot of Chaney in the offensive philosophy in regards to passing the ball and given our efficiency with regards to production vs attempts last year I’m inclined to think that this year that’s going to be fun to watch. jmo.
