Questions meant to arouse discussion:
1. Will Pierce Clarkson be an early enrollee/Spring Practice participant? The value of that should be pretty obvious. I don't think Teddy or Lamar were so Clarkson's becomes unprecedented if he is.
2. Will summer practices have a window open to the fans or is that TBD?
3. Steve Clarkson was saying that there were 73 players that were underclassmen on this year's roster. I looked at the roster and one semirelated feature of it leaped out to me...only three Juniors were recruited straight to campus. Evan Conley, James Turner and Marshon Ford who actually was a walkon. All of the other juniors--guys like Bryan and Tyler Hudson, Tiyon Evans, Kei'Trel Clark--transferred in.
...I don't know why I find that curious.
4. If you asked me who I think goes from underused or making a big jump in production for this season I would say Ashton Gillotte defensively and Huggins-Bruce and Jawhar Jordan offensively. I think Watkins and Harrell hitting the road for dreams of NIL coin and SEC West coeds has the unintended benefit of getting the ball into Huggins-Bruce's hands more. I want it to be Braden Smith offensively and Kei'Trel Clark and Montgomery on defense. I also am very curious about Trevion Cooley's role this year if for no other reason he appeared to have one foot out the door at the end of the regular season. He is VERY talented.
5. IF we have health from all of those players named above, I would hope we get some productivity out of our return units on special teams. Jordan gave us that lightning bolt against Air Force, but we lost alot in the kick return game when Braden Smith went down against FSU.
6. I'd like to know why there is optimism coming from the staff about the defensive line and why it isn't necessarily a priority in this recruiting class, at least according to TOS and Mark Blankenbaker. Gillotte I get and we will lose Diaby and Lole, as well as the wildly productive Abdullah as an edge guy; Popeye Williams was the feature guy signed this year and has a renowned motor. We seemingly need more really active gap splitters on the interior in the Lole mold.
7. At some point we have to shift our focus from this recruiting class to ACC matchups. There will be a temptation to gloss over Central Florida since it squats between two league games, and that leaves me a little uneasy. It's sort of funny how this schedule sort of mirrors Lamar's Heisman Year start where he lit little poor Charlotte up in front of an enthralled home crowd followed by the Historic Lightning Bolt at Syracuse to come home to the Florida State pummeling. This schedule gives us similar potential, but we really need that fast start against Syracuse to kickstart it into motion.
UCF with Malzahn's no huddle/uptempo down in the Orlando swampy heat in early September poses a unique test for our defense; I really don't want to go into the FSU game coming off two shootouts. Hell, I wouldn't care to have one. We won't make quick work of UCF on the road; that strikes me as a grind it out game where we REALLY need to take care of the football.
And last but not least...is there any chance Sean Moth is back behind the big mic at Cardinal Stadium and the YUM Center?
1. Will Pierce Clarkson be an early enrollee/Spring Practice participant? The value of that should be pretty obvious. I don't think Teddy or Lamar were so Clarkson's becomes unprecedented if he is.
2. Will summer practices have a window open to the fans or is that TBD?
3. Steve Clarkson was saying that there were 73 players that were underclassmen on this year's roster. I looked at the roster and one semirelated feature of it leaped out to me...only three Juniors were recruited straight to campus. Evan Conley, James Turner and Marshon Ford who actually was a walkon. All of the other juniors--guys like Bryan and Tyler Hudson, Tiyon Evans, Kei'Trel Clark--transferred in.
...I don't know why I find that curious.
4. If you asked me who I think goes from underused or making a big jump in production for this season I would say Ashton Gillotte defensively and Huggins-Bruce and Jawhar Jordan offensively. I think Watkins and Harrell hitting the road for dreams of NIL coin and SEC West coeds has the unintended benefit of getting the ball into Huggins-Bruce's hands more. I want it to be Braden Smith offensively and Kei'Trel Clark and Montgomery on defense. I also am very curious about Trevion Cooley's role this year if for no other reason he appeared to have one foot out the door at the end of the regular season. He is VERY talented.
5. IF we have health from all of those players named above, I would hope we get some productivity out of our return units on special teams. Jordan gave us that lightning bolt against Air Force, but we lost alot in the kick return game when Braden Smith went down against FSU.
6. I'd like to know why there is optimism coming from the staff about the defensive line and why it isn't necessarily a priority in this recruiting class, at least according to TOS and Mark Blankenbaker. Gillotte I get and we will lose Diaby and Lole, as well as the wildly productive Abdullah as an edge guy; Popeye Williams was the feature guy signed this year and has a renowned motor. We seemingly need more really active gap splitters on the interior in the Lole mold.
7. At some point we have to shift our focus from this recruiting class to ACC matchups. There will be a temptation to gloss over Central Florida since it squats between two league games, and that leaves me a little uneasy. It's sort of funny how this schedule sort of mirrors Lamar's Heisman Year start where he lit little poor Charlotte up in front of an enthralled home crowd followed by the Historic Lightning Bolt at Syracuse to come home to the Florida State pummeling. This schedule gives us similar potential, but we really need that fast start against Syracuse to kickstart it into motion.
UCF with Malzahn's no huddle/uptempo down in the Orlando swampy heat in early September poses a unique test for our defense; I really don't want to go into the FSU game coming off two shootouts. Hell, I wouldn't care to have one. We won't make quick work of UCF on the road; that strikes me as a grind it out game where we REALLY need to take care of the football.
And last but not least...is there any chance Sean Moth is back behind the big mic at Cardinal Stadium and the YUM Center?
