I’m not quite as high on our WR corps as most in here. A lot of talent, but no real experience. Same goes for the qb and rb rooms, which is probably going to lead to a very inconsistent offense. I think they’ll be spurts where we look great, combined with a lot of 3 and outs
I hope Velus breaks out, just not too many 5th/6th? year seniors having breakout years.
I agree, I think the RB room though will "show up" first. There is a lot of variety of talent in that group. Wright shows up first day on campus and is one of the fastest dude's on the team, he's got all the potential in the world to be a beast. Small looked pretty good in his limited action. Still got Whitehead and Hodge who we've not seen yet cause of injuries. Not to mention a monster in Beckwith. Also Evans coming in as one of our highest rated recruits from last class.
The offense will have plenty of opportunity for the WRs, and it'll come down to seeing the guys that take advantage really showing out. I mean we've not seen Velus get more than 25 receptions in a season yet. I think with the volume increase he's just too talented not to have a breakout year, doesn't mean he'll have 1k+ and 10 TDs or anything...but hell 400+ yards would be breakout for what he's done thus far.
I am worried about WRs the most though...our upperclassmen aren't exactly returning a ton of production in Keyton/Tillman and Payton is a new face.
Right now I'd rate our Offensive groups like this:
OL - despite losing Trey & Wanya ya return Cade, Carvin, Wright, Calbert, Spraggins etc. with one of the most proven of our positional coaches teaching them.
TEs - Freak talent/size, production, good mix of veterans and young bloods and another great positional coach
RBs - I reallllly think Mack is a special coach and I think the RB position benefits more from pure talent/speed than any other group so despite a lack of experience I love the depth and variety of talent in this group
QBs - I mean we have no one proven and two of the guys competing spent their careers unable to win jobs at other P5 schools...I think they have the best coaching available but will it click this year or next for some of these guys?
WRs - I mean we return guys who for their career at UT (combined) have less than 60 receptions...and it's a new style of offense with a new positional coach who is a bit less experienced that's new to this offense/staff. Not to mention no real built-in rapport with any of the QBs