'25 Portal Thread

#16,453
#16,453
VOLumeS said:
I'd say its a 2 way qb battle between Merklinger and Aguilar, GM would benefit from sitting out and learning as much as possible. Merklinger has one thing going for him and that's familiarity the coach has to be able to trust you to run his offense his way. Then you add in QB to WR chemistry that doesn't happen overnight.
Click to expand...
They aren’t bringing Aguilar in to see if he can win it. Much like Milton. It’s who they want to have the job and he will be given every chance to take it and run. I doubt Merk can stop him and GMac is just more talented. Had to pay him (like I said before we took Aguilar) to get him to stay for depth purposes.
 
  • Like
Reactions: T2P_Priceless
#16,455
#16,455
SmyrnaATLVolisback said:
We shall see. I obviously disagree lol
Click to expand...

If Jake fails to start he mostly likely never plays meaningful snaps, I’ll agree with you there. Letting a dude come in and beat you out after a couple months in the system would be very concerning. Merk should be ahead despite being just a RS freshman
 
  • Like
Reactions: volfan__18, captainfalcon777, tnhunter 10 and 2 others
#16,456
#16,456
RDU VOL#14 said:
We had 2 unknown QB’s at the time . We didn’t actually think the 3rd one would be dumb enough to take a $2million paycut to play for a 3rd rate B1G school before the Spring game.
Click to expand...
Ouch, but accurate. I can't think of any of our transfers who have found themselves on a better team. I saw that Christian Charles landed with....Virginia. Squirrel is at FSU I think?
 
  • Like
Reactions: RDU VOL#14
#16,459
#16,459
T2P_Priceless said:
Swain sounded very disappointed in the WR situation today. We know the reasons we aren't adding in the Spring (depth WRs want starter money). I think he's even more down on the development. Talked about Thornton basically being one of the few WRs his size to run that fast...mentioned Calvin Johnson as one of the others. He was talking about how the passing game has went down since 22 and it wasn't all QB related...he's been saying how we need better WR play for the last couple years.

I guess this year will be Pope's prove it year. If they don't perform this year then I don't see any reason he should be retained.
Click to expand...
I’m not defending Pope…I think this is a prove it year for him too. But in the case of Thornton, he did develop. His problem was, if you cut your eyes at him, he was hurt. He’d catch a pass, get tackled with no incident, take himself out of the game, and we wouldn’t see him again.
 
  • Like
Reactions: captainfalcon777, tnhunter 10, PYSCHO and 3 others
#16,460
#16,460
SmyrnaATLVolisback said:
I don’t get this point. Hendon came in for an injured Joe and immediately the offense looked better and almost led us to a win against a good Pitt team. He got his opportunity and never gave it back.
Click to expand...
The point is, alot were down on Hendon after the spring game, also a counter argument could be Merklinger hasnt had his opportunity. And if Milton had never gotten hurt we may have never seen Hendon.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Lloyd_Christmas and SmyrnaATLVolisback
#16,461
#16,461
NighthawkVol said:
I’m not defending Pope…I think this is a prove it year for him too. But in the case of Thornton, he did develop. His problem was, if you cut your eyes at him, he was hurt. He’d catch a pass, get tackled with no incident, take himself out of the game, and we wouldn’t see him again.
Click to expand...
Just don't see Heupel firing anyone. Even if a guy leaves, he'll promote from within and hope it works out. He's got a kind of milquetoast aura about him. Likes the status quo and doesn't care for change even when it appears to be necessary.
 
#16,462
#16,462
VOLumeS said:
The point is, alot were down on Hendon after the spring game, also a counter argument could be Merklinger hasnt had his opportunity. And if Milton had never gotten hurt we may have never seen Hendon.
Click to expand...
Isn’t that terrifying? I like Heupel. But his unwavering loyalty is holding him back. IMO

His QBs (Joe and Nico) have both been head cases and didn’t do well with the mental side and our offense looked bland and boring. Defense and our running game won us games.

I’m not sure we ever see Hendon if Joe didn’t get hurt and what would we look like then? For us to take a big step, we have to make changes with evals and coaching on the offensive side. But I always see him winning 8-10 a year and how can you be too upset with that?
 
  • Like
Reactions: VOLumeS
#16,463
#16,463
CAVPUT said:
Just don't see Heupel firing anyone. Even if a guy leaves, he'll promote from within and hope it works out. He's got a kind of milquetoast aura about him. Likes the status quo and doesn't care for change even when it appears to be necessary.
Click to expand...
He's promoted from within most of the time, but he did go out and hire Inge.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Orange.
#16,466
#16,466
UTK said:
If Jake fails to start he mostly likely never plays meaningful snaps, I’ll agree with you there. Letting a dude come in and beat you out after a couple months in the system would be very concerning. Merk should be ahead despite being just a RS freshman
Click to expand...
Should be...but, I just can't see them paying JA over a million to come sit the bench. I think they already know they're gonna start JA. Kind of like it didn't matter what HH did in practice that first year. Milton was always going to start.
 
  • Like
Reactions: YankeeVol
#16,467
#16,467
cherokeeeVOL said:
Ouch, but accurate. I can't think of any of our transfers who have found themselves on a better team. I saw that Christian Charles landed with....Virginia. Squirrel is at FSU I think?
Click to expand...
Have we seen any of our transfers go somewhere else and be really successful? Henry T made the League, but that’s a different circumstance. It doesn’t really seem like a lot of guys that go elsewhere find that much on the field success.

I think we’re all a little surprised/disappointed in how this Spring portal season has worked out, but I will defend Heupel to the point that he’s proven to have a good mix of portal additions in the past who have been contributors. I do trust his formula, but I think this Nico situation really put us in a helluva bind trying to add a good receiver. I still think JA can be a good player for us, or even Merk or GM, but we have nothing to sell other than previous successes of Hyatt and Tillman . Unfortunately, that’s not getting it done.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Derek Reese's jumpshot and cherokeeeVOL
#16,468
#16,468
RDU VOL#14 said:
Have we seen any of our transfers go somewhere else and be really successful? Henry T made the League, but that’s a different circumstance. It doesn’t really seem like a lot of guys that go elsewhere find that much on the field success.

I think we’re all a little surprised/disappointed in how this Spring portal season has worked out, but I will defend Heupel to the point that he’s proven to have a good mix of portal additions in the past who have been contributors. I do trust his formula, but I think this Nico situation really put us in a helluva bind trying to add a good receiver. I still think JA can be a good player for us, or even Merk or GM, but we have nothing to sell other than previous successes of Hyatt and Tillman . Unfortunately, that’s not getting it done.
Click to expand...
Da'jon Terry i don't think was too bad, Recently doneiko slaughter and Tyler Baron. Just to name a couple who played well after transferring.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RDU VOL#14
#16,470
#16,470
VOLumeS said:
Da'jon Terry i don't think was too bad, Recently doneiko slaughter and Tyler Baron. Just to name a couple who played well after transferring.
Click to expand...
Baron did well and got drafted. I think that was a forgone conclusion though. Every time I watched Slaughter play I felt like he was doing the same thing there as he did here, lots of penalties. I think we’ve done pretty well overall managing gains and losses in the portal . I think we all know that we need a big year from the WR group this season for a lot of reasons . I really don’t know that it’s a stretch to think that JA could come in here and run the offense more consistently than the previous 2.
 
  • Like
Reactions: captainfalcon777
#16,471
#16,471
RDU VOL#14 said:
Have we seen any of our transfers go somewhere else and be really successful? Henry T made the League, but that’s a different circumstance. It doesn’t really seem like a lot of guys that go elsewhere find that much on the field success.

I think we’re all a little surprised/disappointed in how this Spring portal season has worked out, but I will defend Heupel to the point that he’s proven to have a good mix of portal additions in the past who have been contributors. I do trust his formula, but I think this Nico situation really put us in a helluva bind trying to add a good receiver. I still think JA can be a good player for us, or even Merk or GM, but we have nothing to sell other than previous successes of Hyatt and Tillman . Unfortunately, that’s not getting it done.
Click to expand...
Right. I can only think of a couple offhand but that's if I go back a year or two ago. The current ones have gone to either lesser conferences and/or lesser teams as far as I know. And good point on the QB/WR conundrum.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RDU VOL#14
#16,473
#16,473
BigOrangeTrain said:
Merk is gonna surprise people this year. Why some fans are sleeping on him is baffling.
Click to expand...
Some might have doubts about our staff evals. Others might have lost faith in the QB coach. And there seems to be a growing sentiment that the Heupel "system" was a gimmick and has been figured out somewhat negating the theory/hope that Heupel can do more with less.
 
New posts
You must log in or register to reply here.
Advertisement



Back
Top