Spring Game Recap: Offense

My apologies on the delay here everyone, videos were an issue and well whatever. Let’s get into it starting with the offense!

Quarterbacks:

For any of you that were wondering if the Jeff Sims talk was just fluff or was real, Spring Football Saturday should have left you feeling pretty good about what we have with our starting QB so far. The biggest issue coming from Georgia Tech was with his arm, as many people quoted how many INTs he threw there as reason for concern (including myself). But in talking to Satterfield, he brings up that “2020 was Covid year where he was thrown into the fire as a freshman with basically no practice, he had fewer interceptions every season, so we feel we can work with that.” Sims went 9/13 for 139 yards, and also showed off his legs with plays that we will post down lower.

The reality of the situation is Casey Thompson ran for negative yards last year, never threw for this staff, and is not even close to a run threat. People will say “he’s a bigger run threat than he gets credit for”, but he’s one of only a few QBs that ran for negative yards in a Husker uniform which includes Tanner Lee and others. Guys like Purdy and Smothers had more yards in much less game action.

You also have people for some reason worried about our depth now “in case Sims gets hurt” as if last year, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, or basically any other year if the starter goes down you’re not in trouble. This is much like when Frost got here and he had Martinez and his backups were Bunch, Vedral, and Masker. First years in transitions rarely come with a ton of depth. But the reality of the situation is that if you are ever counting or needing a backup to do well, you are probably in trouble anyway. You have to keep your starting QB healthy.

Sticking with depth, Haarberg basically just ran down to scout team last year, and we all saw what Purdy did the year prior. I happen to think Satterfield will do a much better job getting these guys ready than what we’ve seen the last decade or so. I’ve talked about this, but in college football 2023 you have your starter, and then your players jockeying for starting position when the starter leaves that you are developing. It just makes zero sense to think you would have Thompson AND Sims on the roster for 2023.

So why was I all in on Sims and telling people Thompson wouldn’t start? I think you saw it in the spring game, where we had a ton of QB run with plays like this:

Thompson just isn’t capable of that, and once it began to be a big part of what we needed to do (more on that in our OL summary) it was never going to Thompson. Again, CT ran for negative yards last year. You can say it was the offense, but Pickett never once ran for negative yards in the Whipple offense.

So that takes us to the #2 spot, once a running game was going to be involved for the QB, Haarberg started to insert himself as the clear backup to Sims (with Thompson out of course). And you saw more of the same with his plays:

They were willing to bet on being able to get his arm up to speed while they knew they had his legs to help him out. And to be perfectly honest, it wasn’t close between he and Purdy/Torres. But Rhule said something interesting this week:

Matt Rhule, talking QB depth, mentions he's OK with guys into portal. Says Chubba "really made a move" in the last week and a half.

— Sam McKewon (@swmckewonOWH) May 8, 2023

I actually would agree with that… Purdy looked much better. But my glass is half full kind of wonders if he is just saying things to prop up confidence with people he knows he might need (like our OL)? Or, did he really make strides and my glass is half full is that Satterfield was able to improve those guys in just 15 practices this spring thus leaving me a bit more excited for the fall and confident in our backups. Probably a mixture of both, as we lost Torres, Smothers, and Thompson to the portal, so you can’t have him leave or think he isn’t any good. But I do think they improved.

Runningbacks:

This room was crowded. We got a little spoiled when we had Burkhead and then three freshman backs in Abdullah, Heard, and Green… that just doesn’t happen unless you have a veteran and then three freshman jockeying for their spot once the captain leaves. This isn’t as bad as QB where you usually only have one guy with starting experience. But realistically, if you have players with starts and snaps, you can usually keep a couple but you aren’t keeping three of them.

Things pretty much stayed true to the prediction and what our coaches have been saying this spring. Ervin Jr was leading the way, and Grant/Allen were battling it out for the backup spot. I was happy to see Grant pull out of the doghouse and insert himself as a viable threat to get the starting spot. And quite honestly once that happened and Allens coach was gone, I just felt like it was almost a matter of time.

With Allen gone, Rahmir Johnson will fit in somewhere. What I don’t understand is how he fits in. Johnson is the typical “swiss army knife” guy and that may hurt him a bit. What I mean by that is he is good at a lot of things but not great at anything that Ervin Jr and Grant give us. He will figure in somewhere, which is good.

After that you have Emmett Johnson who I have never been that impressed with, and Kwinten Ives who I obviously didn’t get a look at this spring. But our RB room is in good shape.

Wide Receiver:

This is where I can’t figure out my thoughts on this. Here are the guys that are older than freshmen for us: Betts (took year off), Kemp (first-year transfer), Fleeks (first year transfer), Washington (second year transfer with best friend QB gone), and IGC (second year transfer with new lease on life).

Let’s start with the good… I think Kemp is going to be a really good slot WR (especially opposite Fidone), but typically slot WRs need some help to get open. Washington is a viable outside threat, but he doesn’t have the speed that a guy like Palmer. I do like what he brings and think he will have a very good year, but he just can’t stretch the field like Palmer could.

So with that said, when spring started I didn’t think we would have many freshmen WRs playing. But now that we need someone desperately in a “stretch the field” role… you have a ton of guys coming in with speed to burn. Who that ends up being is anyone’s guess. All of them have pros to them, but I can give you a red flag for almost all of them. Which is why I think Fleeks factors in somewhere as well. And if Betts can pull out of whatever he is going through, maybe he’s the guy for it.

We had a ton of WRs that we recruited and brought in, and WR is the easiest position to play early in college football. But we are going to need them to get up to speed in a hurry.

Tightend:

This room is really interesting. Thomas Fidone is your CLEAR #1, that guy is unbelievable. After that you have some options. I know everyone is excited about Gilbert, but I would say he’s #4 right now.

Boerkircher is our #2 in my opinion, a walk-on and all he does is make plays when he’s in. Further, the staff can trust what they are going to get out of him. A guy like Gilbert is pretty volatile and has some dropsies.

But our #3 in my opinion is the hybrid guy Bonner. While he is an H-back/fullback hybrid… I think Satterfield will really love being able to keep him in and have defenses not know if we have a fullback in there or another TE. Many defenses treat them the same, but it’s not that simple.

Appleget made the move to TE and he is doing what I thought he could. I was a little skeptical about the past staff not offering him sooner, as I was impressed with him at Lincoln Southeast.

I’m not sold on Androff, and i’m curious to see how Smith-Flores shows up to camp. Either way, we are in good shape here.

Offensive Line:

So… back to what we talked about at QB. Rhule has been pumping up the OL all spring. But let’s be real, we all saw what happened last year, the same coach is back, and we only brought in one transfer. Further, we had two transfers in (Rouse from Stanford) and he left us at the altar so it’s obvious we wanted more help.

Diving in more, i’ve brought this up before but when QB run becomes such a big part of the offense like it was for Martinez in 2021, it’s usually because you have to insert another player into the run game to give you a +1 when your OL is struggling. So this staff in my opinion knows we have some issues here, and wants a QB that can get out of it from time to time and is also big enough to take a bit of a pounding.

Let’s go with who we know is going to start. Ben Scott is our center. After him we are absolutely screwed so we need to keep him healthy for our center position.

Secondly, I would say Prochazka is almost assured to start at LT but they held him out a bit. But let’s just assume he’s our #2.

After that we are trying to figure out our guards and RT. Of course, Benhart is getting high praise and with Rouse gone and Corcoran unable to solidify being a tackle I think 54 is our guy.

At guard, Piper, Lutovsky, Corcoran, and Nouilli seem to be battling it out. As we talked about in our practice report, Nouilli seemed to be the whipping boy in the practices I watched, but he of course looked pretty decent in the spring game. Lutovsky impressed me at the practices but seemed to struggle in the spring game. I think Corcoran and Nouilli end up being our starters at guard, with Piper and Lutovsky backing him up. Piper is athletic enough to swing to backup center as well which is valuable.

Summary:

I think our offense is in a good spot heading into the summer. Unfortunately we have a few positions that get thin in a hurry, so Sims, Scott, Prochazka, they all need to stay healthy heading into Minnesota. I like what we are doing offensively, and I think our guys will continue to develop through the summer.

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