DazeNconfused

Bo had a lower RTG than AB last year, threw lower completion percentage, less yards per completion, But Bo threw picks at about half the rate of AB and only had 3 picks last year. If Bo makes a jump this year and puts up 3400 yards, 32TD, 6 picks like Herbs did his last year then I think we will all be stoked with that. That said we all agree that Herbs talent was wasted that year and he had the talent put up another 1000 yards and 10 more TD's like MM did his last year. Bo's ceiling to me is Herbs wasted last year, if he makes a jump this year to that level. Rashada would be a nice get, there is a huge gap from the elite 5 stars to the 4 stars in the range of Butters and Shough

I have no doubt VA would have been in New Tork for the Heisman ceremony if he didn't get hurt. If I recall VA''s RTG was right, there with what MM had done the season before when he won the Heisman. MM had a little better completion percentage, threw picks at a lessor rate. VA threw TD's at a higher rate per completion than MM and still had 26 TD's in close to 200 less pass attempts. So if VA had played in all the games and got those missing pass attempts I'd think he would have had 42 TD's for the year like MM. By comparison Bryce Young had I think 47 TD passes last year, Stroud and Picket had over 40 TD passes and all 3 went to NY last year. Reflecting back on that 2015 season, if VA stays healthy, we are in the Playoffs. Also, of note is AB last year had a RTG some 30 points lower than VA-MM and a TD per completion rate around twice VA-MM on his 19 TD's thrown. You guys can go check the stats because I doubt you believe it, but AB averaged 27.8 passes a game compared to MM's 29.7 per game in 2014. AB had half the TD production and around 1/3 less yardage production than MM did in 2014. I said this a few weeks ago and I'll say it again. If Bo can throw 30 plus TD's and keep the picks thrown in single digits, we are going to have a great season next year. I don't see Bo having a 4000 yard, 40 plus TD, 9 interception season next year and ending up in NY. But with the higher talent level we have now and expected better defense we don't need a Heisman type season from a QB to have a shot at the playoffs.

UCS will have one of the elite offenses in the country in a group with Bama, The-OSU. I think it's a stretch to think Fresno St can outscore them. Grinch was a solid DC at Wazzu, and he will improve that defense. I think early in the season when there is the largest learning curve in learning Grinch's new defense that Stanford and Beavers are the early biggest threats. Thise two teams execute solid OL play, the USC DL and defending the run was last year's big weakness. Those two games in week 2-4 could really see the USC defense pounded on the ground setting up play action passes, with that comes lots of snaps, lots of time of possession and limiting of the number of possessions the USC offense gets. Certainly Stanford - OSU are going to gameplan for that style of game and avoid trying to win a shootout type game with USC. USC gets Utah week 7 and the Utes are physical and will have had a chance to see how the USC front 7 stood up against Stanford and OSU. I expect the USC defense to be executing Grinch's scheme better by week 7 after growing and learning the first 6 weeks, but are they going to stop the Utes 12 and 13 personal from racking up the first downs and eating the clock?

Venables is a quick study how to feed red meat to his base. I take what he said with a grain of salt. It's easy to crap on the last guy, I haven't heard any of that out of Lanning.

Back when Shaw took over, they won a Rose Bowl Gaffeny's senior year, and signed two 5-star tackles and a pair of 4-star interior OL in the same class. Contrast that 2021 when Mario signed Kingsley, Bram Walden, JPJ, and Jonah Miller. All 4-stars and the highest rated OL kids on the west coast, I think? For sure got the top two in Kinglsey and Bram. Then Lanning/Klemm got Connerly and Luli this year. The Ducks are OL U on the West Coast and I betcha Klemm keeps it that way.

That's down to K Whitt being a great HC and developing 3-star kids in his program physically/playbook smart. Scalley has been the best DC in the Pac for few years.

Yes, UW had talent and Jimmy Lake was a Top Shelf DB coach and recruiter. I don't rate him very high as a DC or HC, but he is a home run hire as a DB coach. USC's problem was Helton's recruiting and culture. USC has only like one 4-star OL recruit or 2 max, and Helton didn't recruit the DL well. Helton got heavy blue-chip skill and DB kids where Mario had more balance and depth to his roster. Mario also really hurt Stanford as the west coast school OL recruits were going to with that pro style run heavy, play action offense. Shaw wasn't getting the elite OL kids he needs to make that offense anymore like it did. Gaffeny, Gerhart, Taylor those teams pounded the rock. Didn't Stanford run for like 300 plus yards in Helfs last year with Hooke as the DC? They must have been 3rd and 1 or 2 yards a dozen times and converted. That year was brutal to watch.

The 247 Composite dumbs it down for me. Rivals Top 250 goes from a 6.1 to 5.8 Top 247 goes from a 99.9 to a 91, using that I can process where a kid stacks up better. There are lots of Factors, I've seen a high school kid can't play a lick of baseball have a great SPARC score and be a Prospect. Manning was a 98 grade 5 star on 247, and this will be his third year. I'm looking for him to do justice to his ranking this year and that means halfway through this year we start talking about him being a lockdown corner. If he doesn't then I'll start to wonder if he was one of those Camp Tour kids with the high SPARC score that carried him to a 5 star and not his ball skills.

That doesn't surprise me one bit. I'd like to see Noah stood up at end on 3rd down and LaDuke come in at LB. Noah is bigger, stronger and just as fast as Swinson! Funa while he sets a great edge in the run game seems below average with the pass rush. I'd love to see Noah going one on one with the tackle standing up off the edge, working the speed, bull, swim moves Think about DJ and Noah coming off the edges on 3rd and long with Flowe, LaDuke running one of Lanning's blitzes.

I don't consider Jimbo Fisher Elite and they just had the #1 class with 8 kids who are 5 stars and a bunch other top 100 kids. Correct me if I'm wrong but our football chief of staff Malchow was at Texas AnM last year and was hands on with the recruiting supervision of the staff? Some schools have a guy watching the Portal daily for two years now. I think Lanning and his staff are good recruiters, but I think Malchow/recruiting coordinator staff make the game plan for Lanning to oversee. I think going forward what makes a HC and Elite recruiter will be the Recruiting Staff he has, that can set up the game plan for the entire coaching staff to execute. Lanning will also use some of the Georgia recruiting style, marry it with Malchow and I expect the 2024 class is going to be amazing as they have 2 years to build relationships with recruits. The wildcard is also NIL and how loose it gets to be ran.

That just under 91 grade is saying the overall roster rates out as a lowish 4 star the way the 247 composite works. I would be interesting to see what our 1st team offense and defense units rate out. The defense with Flowe, Sewell, Manning, Funa, DJ all being top 100 guys might rate out to 94 or so? The 247 composite has 32 kids who are 5 stars and considered 1st round draft picks, they are all 99-98.5 grade or so A 98.5 to a 97.5 or so is a 2nd rounder - 97.5 to 95.5 3rd rounder A 91.5 is late 7th round and the 225th player or so. (side note the ASU DL in the Portal coming to visit us has gone from a HS 3 star to a 91 grade as a transfer, so he is rated as being close to a 7th round pick) I look at it as if the NFL looks at all the 90 grade ( A students) but the low A students don't make to the NFL where they take the best. The 247 Composite goes down to around the #350 player being a 4 star. Or about 10 draft rounds of 4 stars with 89.5 grade kids making the 4 star cut, trey round up I guess. The number of kids who are elite in the 99-98 range pales in comparisons on the amount of top end 3 stars. 89.4 - 87.5 will be 200 some odd players in that range, the #351 to 550 or so. The gap from a low 4 star to high 3 star isn't that big and there are probably 100 kids in that between a 89.9 to 89.1. Veron Mckinnley was an 88 grade 3 star, Mykel Wright was a low 98 grade 4 star and neither got drafted. Justin Herbert was a 85 grade rated around the #650 player and went 1st round. The rating are all educated projections, but they have flaws. Some kids peak early and don't progress, others progress tons in college. Plus a kid like Herbert played summer baseball and didn't do the all the Camps that scouts could see him at and he was hurt in HS.

Correct. Butch is a legend to Maimi fans for bringing the program out of sanctions., they were down 30 scholies at the start if I remember right. He bailed for the NFL after 2000 and Larry Coker won the natty the next year in the Rose Bowl vrs Nebraska if i remember this right? That was the year McKarthy at Colorado put a 38-17 or something beatdown on Nebraska the last game of the season? The stupid BCS put Nebraska coming off that bad lose into the Natty vrs the Canes. How do you get blow out and that gets you a ticket to the Natty? It was probably the year Eric Crouch got the Heisman and then didn't get drafted I think the Ducks landed #3 in the BCS and beat Colorado in the Cotton Bowl? That was Joey Harrington team? If my years are correct the Ducks got screwed out of being in the Natty that year! What a JOKE

Edge- Jermine Johnson transferred from Georgia to FSU last year and he went late 1st round also.

No, I'm not overlooking that Bo will be in the Pac and not the SEC. I 'm just not confident he is going to break out and make a jump to elite. I thought AB lead the Pac in passing yards last year? If Bo matches that with 100 fewer pass attempts and 11 more TD's than I will be Thrilled! If Bo puts up 3900 yards and 30 TD's I will kiss a pig and love it, maybe he has it in him. Bryce was 4900 and 47 TD's. AB was 2900 and 18

Miami had the 13th ranked team talent last year, Mario has more to start with than he did at Oregon when he took over. He had the 16th rated class this cycle, not too shabby in a transition year. He has Gattis the Broyles award winner as his OC. Kevin Steel as his DC and Charlie Strong as his LB coach. He has a higher rated staff than he did here, and better Lanning has now. It's a top 5 coaching staff in nation I'd guess, these guys can teach and call plays. Mario can recruit nationally. Florida has around 25% of the top 125 players each year in the nation, go check that if you want. All right in Mario's backyard. He has Garcia the top 100 QB who flipped from USC waiting to take over for TVD who is the best QB in the ACC this year. Mario's overall coaching record is a red herring argument. He took over a trash FIU team that had a 12-game losing streak and lost his first 11-games to end a 23-game losing streak at FIU. After that Mario went 27-36 for the rest of his time at FIU. Butch Davis coaches FIU right now and is 22-34, Butch won two SB rings as the Cowboys DC under Jimmy J. Mario was 35-13 the second highest winning percentage only to Chip at Oregon. There are very few GREAT coaches. Urban, Saban, Carrol, Jimmy J, Osborne, Switzer Butch and Chip are good coaches but not GREAT coaches, by comparison Mario is a good coach. Mario's Covid team stopped and then started back up, Campbells team played through. Mario had star player opt outs, Penie, Holland, Graham, Breeze, Flowe got hurt. Clemson lost it's AD, OC and DC this year, Mario has the best staff in the ACC hands down. I agree with you that Mario has his flaws but to think he can't get Miami to the ACC title soon is something we can disagree on.

Chip hung 60 on the USC defense, Stanford ran the ball down their throats. But hey loaded up on offense so everyone is hyping them. The DL is bad with no depth. The LB's added 3 transfers one being Lee the Bama 4 star and highly rated Rajean Daivs should play, guess they are better there? SC lost starters off the backend from last year, Donte Williams has 3 kids 90 plus grade who appear to be a bust. One might start at the nickle and the other two won't start. They got Buff 3 star CB Blackmon in the Portal to start and Domani Jackson the 99 grade 5 star enrolled for spring ball and will start the other comer. The safeties aren't special. SC gets Stanford and Beaver game 2 and 4 with OL's who play very well as a unit, and SC isn't going to stop them. SC is going to play a bunch of Big 12 type 51-48 shoot outs this year.

Mario's offense was definitely limiting factor to the ceiling he could reach here. Think Tood Monken at Georgia's offense. Lanning has had to defend Bama's Jones/Young at QB and all those WR's, he has seen all the film also game planning for them. Obviously, Lanning knows what that type of offense paired with his defense gives him. Lanning mentioned the talent here is why he came; he knows he has something to compete with out of the box. But it all comes down to the QB play in the end. Bo Nix hasn't showed me he is Bryce Young mentally or dropping dimes. I think how explosive the offensive will be is going to be QB play dependent. The other huge factor is how good is Lanning's defense next year? With Dorlus, Popo, Taki in the middle, DJ, Funa, Swinson on the ends, Sewell, Flowe, Gonzalez, Manning, he has solid talent 5 of those who are top 100 guys. If the Defense, is shut down and the QB isn't taking care of the ball well then offense will be dialed back. My prediction is we are going to see lots of Todd Monken's offense he runs at Georgia with Stenson in 2021 when he took over. Lots of 11, some 12 personnel and not so much empty to start out. I'm sure there will be some shot plays taken but controlled how Monken did it. They ranked 26th in total offense, had about a 55% - 45% rush to pass, pretty good on 3rd down, took care of the ball in 2022. Go look at AB's. Bo's and Stensons stats last year. Stenson threw for almost the same number of yards as AB with over 100 less pass attempts, 11 more TD's and higher QBR than AB or Bo. There is no reason to think Bo can't some in and match the type of numbers the Walk on Stenson did last year. But let's not kid ourselves and expect Bo is going to throw for 2000 yards more and 20 more TD's than Stenson this year like Bryce Young did last year. We can expect better QB play, but I still think our offence is going to be QB limited.

The Miami fans know all about Mario's time in Oregon, and they have the boards with no decorum. There is a camp in that fan base that wanted to go after Mario when Mark Ritch resigned at the end of 2018. Mario had just gone 9-4 and won a bowl game in his first year with the Ducks. The Miami AD promised national search and then hired Manny 3 days later creating an uproar among the fanbase. Ad nauseam their boards have fought over not hiring Mario and used him as a benchmark for Manny. How Herbs was wasted by Mario, CJ's late fumble at Stanford when we could have just taken a knee and killed the clock. 2019 Auburn game we choked up the lead late and the bad ASU loss, 4-3 Covid year, The Utah Beatdowns. The Maimi boards have gone over all that between the pro and anti-Mario camps as much as the Ducks boards. Heck they even bring up the Redbox Bowl Mario called time out before we ran a play. There is a loud Never Mario crowd. Mario has hired a great staff, poaching Gattis the Broyles award winner away from Michigan as his OC. He hired Kevin Steele longtime SEC DC and Charlie Strong is his LB coach. There is a large part of that fan base just waiting for Mario to Mario up the game management and cost a game, or when it appears he is holding the Offensive scheme back. As soon as that happens there will be wars on the Miami boards with lots of, I told you so, he did the same thing at Oregon. It's expected TVD will be in NY for the Heisman ceremony and if he isn't it's going to be Mario's fault. The pro-Mario crowds going to point to his staff hires, ace recruiting, roster depth, physical culture all things that program had lacked. If Mario doesn't fix his coaching flaws, it's going to be a carbon copy of the pro vrs anti-Mario Ducks fan felt. If Mario can't get over the hump and into the playoffs in year 4-5 and 12-2 feels like not reaching the teams potential lots of fans will want to move on.

Fair enough. Belli is better in game guy and the play caller that Mario isn't.. How about Mario roster with Belli coaching it? I've made my points about Mario on this thread and I've used the butt cream on my butt hurt over Mario's faults and moved on. He left us better than he found us by far.

Ya Franklin ran away from him on a cross and took it to house for his 2nd TD of spring game. I think we are seeing change on back end with Lanning inserting his D. He likes to man up and bring 6 rushers at times and Bridges/Adisson have that size to body up big WR's on 50/50 balls. Bennet and Stephons started last year and ran with the two this spring. All i know is I'm not gonna knock Lanning, I turst him

We still have Stephens, Bennet and Jamal (got burnt) Hill, Greenfield who was away from team last year and lost his scholly, plus williams coing in. 7 deep at safety. gonzalez, manning, dickerson, florance, tucker, barkins ar conrer and the 3 star texas DB coing in Kahil? We aren't thin in the back end and mostly 4 star dudes, 10 out of 15 back end guys are blue chip

That sucks, but it's the Portal we have Florance and Tucker coming in CB and the safety Trejon Williams the Jefferson kid out of the PIL. We got talent coming. Daymom was 4 star top 247 kid with 90 plus grade, solid rated kid. Think he as from Maryland like Franklin so I bet he moves back to ACC school. We are running Trikweeze Bridges and Braylon Addison as the ones this spring at safety, tall and long. They say Bridges had 7' wingspan and Addison is 6'4.5 " tall. Looks like Lanning covets that length and rightly so. Daymon might not be a fit at safety.

Mario and Arroyo were Co OC's under Willy T. Then Mario got the HC job and adopted the Pistol, Maestro was a Nevada guy when they ran the pistol with Kaperdicdt. I think Mario wasn't sold on Arroyo having free reign but didn't want to demote him, but Mario had much mote respect for Mastro than the Kid Aroyo.. so he lost the Gulf Coast and went Pistol. Mario just needs to get out of Gattis way this year and let him run the O he wants. I read the Miami boards and the fan base is aware of Marios prevent offense. They have TVD the best QB in the ACC and they will flip out if he don't air the ball out. They are a brutal fan base

Let's put some respect on Marios name! The Ducks program was a dumpster fire when Mario got the job. Helf didn't recruit worth beans and if they say a team takes on a coach's persona, then we were soft as baby poo. We are lucky Willy T poached Mario away from Bama to come here and we are lucky Mario got the job. Mario was a relentless worker and built a culture where this team stacked blue chips who were down to put the work in to be a Playoff Team. Mario left this team stocked with talent like we have ever has had and he set a high recruiting bar for Lanning to meet. Mario brought this program back from irrelevant to relevant. Mario was 35-13 here for his career with 2 Pac 12 title and a Rose Bowl win. Helf has us 4-8 in 2015 and Mario put 9 wins on the board in 2017 his first year! In 2019 Mario was 12-2 and won the Rose Bowl, how many Ducks coaches have a Rose Bowl win? He put 10 wins on the board in 2021 and had us in the Pac 12 Championship game again. Only Chip, Helf and Mario won a Rose Bowl and Mario built up to get there. Bellotti won 67.8% of his games Chip won 86.7% of his games after taking over a team that went 10-3 Helf won 67.8% of his games after taking over Chips team and ran it into the ground with a 4-8 final season and 2-7 in the Pac!!! Mario won 72.9% of his games after taking over a 7-5 team and has the 2nd highest winning percentage among Ducks coaches! Those are the facts of Marios record, they aren't open to dispute, look it all up. Mario is a program builder, hardworking culture guy, he is elite in those areas. That said he is far from perfect, as most coaches and people are. His glaring weakness is his offensive philosophy is akin to a penny slot gambler who minimum bets. Mario wanted to control the ball with his running game, play solid defense, limit turnovers, run the clock, possess the ball, limit the other teams' possessions and was happy to win the game by one score. In doing this he overlooked he had the offensive talent to just plain out score the other team, and his offensive skill players felt that wasn't the scheme Mario sold them. Mario's scheme also led to a lack of offensive production and put his defense on the field for more snaps and in closer games than if he had just turned his offense loose. The 2019 was a PLAYOFF TEAM and Mario held it back Herbs last year. Chip, Kiffin, Herman being offensive types would have taken that team to the playoffs i have no doubt. Mario BULIT that team and led it to 12 wins but he also kept it out of the playoffs, not many coaches even accomplish that. I give Mario all due credit for thar and all the other great things he did, but he could have done even more if he wasn't married to his prevent offense. Mario had the class to come back and meet with the team unlike Kelly when he bailed for LSU. Mario had a leaving town interview with John Clownzanno and that shows class. Mario isn't a bad coach he just has a weakness he needs to see and fix it. Mario has left this team LOADED with more talent than Chip left when he went, Mario did not fail with his stewardship of this program. But Mario did fail to get the maximum potential reached in his time here. If we want to call Mario a failure, then his failure exceeds everyone else sucess than Chip. If you want to hate on Mario maybe, we need to consider that Ducks Privilege? I have no doubt Mario is going to load up the U and win the ACC soon.

Thats a really, really solid point I haven't pondered as much.