Our staff all act like they got their training in Washington, DC!
All their comments are soo careful and even when we stink up the place we say nice things to cover it up! Time for us to admit our failures and go to work fixing them!
What are the other options at safety? Does Nate Dalton have SEC speed? How about Deon Edwards or Micah Smith - are they an upgrade from a speed/athleticism standpoint?
I wouldn’t burn a redshirt but I would play a CB at safety before Josh Liddell would get big reps. He’s a major liability and if it hasn’t clicked by now for him it probably never will.
But, you’re right. There aren’t a lot of safety options. Coley needs to play. I know he had to sit a half.
He has had 2 (1 particularly) weak ejections. He at least appears to have some ability and desire.
I get that they want to reward seniority and doing things the right way but Ramsey, Agim, Scoota, etc need to play.
Playmakers or even potential playmakers need to play. Safe and steady aren’t getting it done.
Wise just disappears in some games. I said that before the season and it’s why I was surprised that his name was appearing on all those first-round projections in the preseason. He has had some great games, but he has had some stretches where his stats are pedestrian. Some have pointed to his hand injury, but I have a hard time believing that is affecting his ability to rush the passer. Maybe I’m wrong. I only played defensive line in seventh grade, after all.
It seems to me he plays best against offenses with traditional dropback passers, like Ole Miss a couple of weeks ago. His breakout last year came in the last five games when Arkansas played Ole Miss, LSU, Missouri and Kansas State. There are a lot of those type teams in November, so it’ll be interesting to see if his production picks up over the back half of conference play.
A big part of it is scheme. They’re playing gap control and mostly asking their DLs to bull rush. The Lbs are supposed to make lots of plays and big plays are supposed to be limited if they fit right,
But none of that is working. O lineman are getting to the second level and completely covering up the LBs. Our yards allowed before contact is astounding.
They don’t run a lot of stunts and line games. It seems like when they do they get a lot more hits on the QBs. They prefer to play safe and limit big plays. How’s that working out?
I think Ellis has played fine. He has to do too much. Has no lb’er help now that Greenlaw is out. I suspect the staff would say Ellis will sorely be missed next year. On the other hand I have never understood the hype on Wise. He is big and fast. But not especially agile. Nor does he have a quick first step.
I think this is Ellis worst year. I really see him being targeted by the offense. I think he plays hard, but he just doesn’t have the talent. His biggest problems are getting off the block and speed. He isn’t fast enough to get to the running back on the sweep and he gets killed when trying to cover the slot receiver.
You are supposed to be an expert? Wise has extremely long arms that are an advantage IF he can lock his hand onto the Olineman. His long arms are longer than most Olineman’s arms so they can’t lock on to him. It is impossible to gain an advantage with one hand to lock on. How can you say his hand injury is not affecting his ability to rush the passer?
Ellis is put on too high of a pedestal. He has weaknesses that we all need to admit and stop glossing over the deficiencies. We need more speed at his position especially when the Dline is allowing Guards to get to the LB’s way too much. Our Dline has attacking talent but they are asked to hold gaps they are not built for.
Wise had an injured knee to start last season. He finally got healthy after about five games and was terrific after that point. He looked good in the spring in the seven practices I saw. Terrific. His strength is his ability to use his long arms and strength in those arms to lock you out and toss you. With the hand injury (and I don’t think it’s a break, more some kind of a tendon injury) there is not the ability to use that strength. I do think it is a factor in what is going on with him. But, he made eight tackles against Auburn. I saw great effort from him. He was almost to the QB on the wheel route. Pretty good rush on that one. I saw a couple of more where he did his job on the rush, but was chipped. But, I see most of the plays going away from him. Not all, but more seem to go to that other side with Beanum or Roesler. Right now, you’ve got Dwayne Eugene playing behind Wise on the weakside. I don’t see Eugene making the plays he should get from the attention that Wise gets. That should be a place where the linebacker scrapes and cleans up.
I can only hope that last year’s haul at LB will give us the size & speed to compete with the big boys. What do we have redshirting at S & CB? it’s already been said on this board that Dalton is not ready to contribute.