BillySee58

18 carries for 118 yards and 2 scores as his team advances to round 4.

He officially surpassed Dunbar in career scrimmage yards in their NFL careers. We haven’t had a skill player have this much success in the NFL since Ericc Pegram in the 90s, I believe. He’s representing us tremendously.

The funny thing is I thought the bowl game, without Darden, was Bean’s best passing game since MTSU. He completed 58% of his passes against a good defense despite some early misses and at least one bad drop on a deep ball to Ogunmakin. I don’t think Bean looked pedestrian at all. He wasn’t putting the team on his back by having a tremendous game by any means, but he played pretty well. 14 points each half, and Ogunmakin, Thompson, and Pirtle were the ones making the catches instead of Darden and Simpson. And like you mentioned with Shorter, we get Shorter, Simpson, Bryson Jackson, and Caleb Johnson on the field the next time one of these guys play QB. So if we can pass the ball decently without any of those guys or Darden, our passing game should be fine once we add those guys back in the mix.

I don’t disagree. I just feel like many on here who clearly only watch UNT games within CUSA were overly harsh on our QB play while lacking the perspective of seeing the week-to-week QB play across the league. Yes we should look to improve, and yes we should hope Gilmore and Drummond can beat them out, and yes if it’s Aune or Bean again we’d want better, but the play Aune and Bean gave us this year is an okay starting point at the CUSA level.

No, I meant from a fan perspective.

This is based on PFF’s grading on each player based on all of their snaps throughout the season. But like I said, based on stats Aune did also lead the league in QB rating. Bean was second, and I’m sure he was graded pretty well also. All conference selections are done based more on who had the most quantitative passing stats, not necessary who had the best qualitative stats. Aune and Bean both had better qualitative stats than O’Hara, who was second team, and arguably better than Wells, who was first team. Those guys just played more as the primary guys, which is why we led the league in passing yards/game, passing yards/attempt, passing TDs, QB rating, etc. Heck, they each had more passing TDs than O’Hara while having less INTs than him, and Aune averaged almost 2 more yards per attempt than O’Hara and Bean averaged 1.2 more yards/attempt than O’Hara. O’Hara was rewarded for having more passing yards. If we take a step back from our own finger pointing and trying to assign blame on this season, the QBs played pretty well for their 1st year and Bean played a good bowl game after some early misses. And if we really look at the other conference games, their quality of play is not below the norm in this bad conference. Did anyone watch Wells today or the two games prior? If that’s the guy setting the standard across the conference, we aren’t far from that (at worse).

No offense to Lifer or anyone else, but we’re definitely going to be disappointed if we’re hoping they go after specific transfers.

He led the conference in QB pass efficiency rating. Three 300-yard games with only three starts on the season. It was honestly a really down year for QBs in the conference, but just looking at the raw results he did fine. We can improve the position, but if not he has shown ability to be a top 5 CUSA QB. If we can have a top 7 or maybe top 8 defense, we should be able to win plenty next year.

Richie James at MTSU measured at 5’10” in 2018 and ran a 4.48. All of his other combine numbers were pretty in line with his 40-time in terms of percentile. His production was pretty similar to Darden’s given number of games played. He went 6th round, but was coming off of his worst season where he was injured for most of it.

We’ve landed 5 P5 transfers in last 6-7 months or so. Jacob Farrell from OSU, Amani Gilmore from Kentucky, Jordan Rucker from Purdue, John Davis from Texas Tech, and Logan Wilson from Kansas State. That’s probably about the same caliber guys we should probably expect, so G5 transfers, and FCS transfers need to be given strong consideration. Especially if they are proven, since most of the P5 guys don’t have much playing experience.

It’s becoming more common now. This guy did, but ended up committing to Duke this month.

https://247sports.com/player/zach-pyron-46059368/ State Champion QB. Teammate of 2021 OL signee Rayvon Crum.

https://247sports.com/Player/Aaron-Austin-46097924/

Definitely. Also went to the bullrush far too much and it didn’t work too well against guys 50+ pounds heavier. I remember when he committed he had some impressive comments about technique and film study so I think he’s teachable. I’m hopeful, but I would also like to see a transfer added who can legitimately push him or beat him out. Dotson and Jimmy Walker behind him haven’t given much indication that they are legitimate alternatives.

I wouldn’t give up on Mccrae so easily. I think we should definitely bring in a traditional DE who can push him and maybe beat him out, but it usually takes transfers a season to start settling in. Even Trice wasn’t a star in that first season. I think Mccrae will be better, but how much is a legitimate question because he’s got a ways to go to be considered a good CUSA level player.

You still play 2 defensive tackles in a 3-man front though. One’s a nose and one’s a 3-Tech that is called an end. That’s basically what the situation was in our 4-3 we ran under Skladany.

So, again, coaching issue. Not on the players dictate identity. I don’t completely disagree, but also at the beginning of that App State game it didn’t look like a huge talent disparity. They weren’t doing whatever they wanted to us. We were stopping them and it didn’t look like luck or unforced errors. Then the long runs started where we just looked completely out of position. There was just no one in position to make a play on the second level and it looked like there were no third level defenders at all. You miss tackles, you get juked out, you get manhandled, that’s definitely a talent issue. And there was some of that. But all season it just looked like we were continually out of position, with no one able to provide resistance. I agree you can’t look at the team and say our starters are better. But our recruits certainly were and the coaches need to make sure it starts looking like they’re at least on equal footing against CUSA foes.

Again, then why didn’t we go out and get more transfer help this past offseason? Why were the ones we did get in here largely ineffective? We’re bringing in a bunch of guys who P5 coaches thought could play at the P5 level, and our defense is playing at an FCS level. Sounds like a development issue to me. Coaches don’t get to just sit there and say “welp, none of my guys can play. Not my fault we’re the 3rd worst defense in the nation.”

Oh it is definitely player related to a degree as well. But my point is when the on-field issue is player related, there are still reasons to point the finger at the coaching staff. I’ll try not to be nice and not name names, but we had multiple guys who were starters in 2019, performed at very subpar levels that year, and were still starters in 2020, once again performing at subpar levels all the way through this last Bowl Game. Why were these guys not replaced by the younger, potentially more talented players? If the answer is “those guys weren’t ready or better,” then why didn’t we go out and get guys who were ready and better this offseason when we knew those would be our starters again? Or why weren’t we better developing the young guys to step up and take those spots? We also have a lot of guys who were very highly recruited out of high school. I get that being highly recruited out of high school doesn’t mean you’re going to have a successful college career, but we have a lot of players in each position group to choose from who had big offer lists out of high school, yet our defense looks like an FCS defense. By my count we had 6 guys in our secondary this season who had offers from P5 schools when we got them. We can’t get 2 or 3 of those guys to be solid G5 players? Seems like a development issue or putting players in poor position to succeed.

This is huge. He has a legitimate chance to win the starting job now.

It’s going to be frustrating watching guys commit to other schools, but there could be some good options left without a home after a lot of the dust settles. Get guys you think can help and will be here for spring, but make sure you’re in position to benefit when solid guys who maybe wouldn’t have previously considered you are forced to listen. Teams still only allowed 25 spots per class.

He is definitely embracing it more than he did early on. We had essentially 3 P5 transfers playing on defense (one by way of JUCO in Mccrae), plus we’re bringing in another in Logan Wilson coming in at DB. Offensively we brought in Gilmore at QB and Jacob Farrell who just started at LT as soon as he became eligible, which implies he’s our guy there going forward. Plus, most of our skill guys offensively had P5 offers, which that’s essentially the caliber transfer we’re looking at. Guys who chose one of their 2-4 P5 offers but it didn’t work out, so I don’t think the “not enough transfers” thing is all that big an issue. Development, like you said, is the issue here.

I think JayD’s implying he doesn’t buy those listings. Which is fine, but I think they’re big enough with an offseason and more practice in that role. Joshua Wheeler played that role pretty well in 16 and 17 and he was listed at 6’3” 229 lbs. Ozougwu and King were similar sized on the 2018 defense which was really good. The issues lie elsewhere IMO.