DRC: UNT offseason questions series No. 1 -- Does Austin Aune continue his rise as a player?

[Brett Vito]

 

[Wag Tag]

It will be shocking if we have below average qb play as we did last year no matter who starts. 

[edcollopy]

I liked his decision making the last half of the year when he kept the ball running more. Just gotta make the simple throws!

[greenminer]

1 hour ago, edcollopy said:

I liked his decision making the last half of the year when he kept the ball running more. Just gotta make the simple throws!

We can be cautiously optimistic, but with a heavy does of caution.  Keep in mind a ton of that success Aune enjoyed was against dog shit competition and/or teams that just played very poorly.

[greenjoe]

#15 team in the nation.

[Cr1028]

48 minutes ago, greenminer said:

We can be cautiously optimistic, but with a heavy does of caution.  Keep in mind a ton of that success Aune enjoyed was against dog shit competition and/or teams that just played very poorly.

That success was also without any one of our top 3 receivers.

[NT93]

On 4/21/2022 at 9:25 PM, Cr1028 said:

That success was also without any one of our top 3 receivers.

I wonder how many of his bad passes were the receivers fault?  (Serious question, not being a jerk). Sometimes it was obvious that he and the receiver weren’t on the same page, but sometimes I was just scratching my head wondering how he could throw such a bad pass.  Maybe some of those instances were the receivers fault as well.

Edited April 23, 2022 by NT93

[UNT18Grad]

1 hour ago, greenminer said:

We can be cautiously optimistic, but with a heavy does of caution.  Keep in mind a ton of that success Aune enjoyed was against dog shit competition and/or teams that just played very poorly.

Success is a very bold word to use, he threw just 3 touchdown passes during our 6 game win streak.  If anything you could say that our team success came once we took the ball out of his hands more often.

I think a lot of that can be attributed to our WR/TE talent as well as others have mentioned.  I think that group should be our most improved position next season.  

Edited April 22, 2022 by UNT18Grad

[Cr1028]

29 minutes ago, UNT18Grad said:

Success is a very bold word to use, he threw just 3 touchdown passes during our 6 game win streak.  If anything you could say that our team success came once we took the ball out of his hands more often.

He also ran for 2 touchdowns while only throwing 1 pick during that 5 game stretch.

[meanrob]

32 minutes ago, Cr1028 said:

He also ran for 2 touchdowns while only throwing 1 pick during that 5 game stretch.

Edited April 22, 2022 by meanrob

[greenminer]

1 hour ago, texx2818 said:

He’s 30. So, there is no rise. What you see is what you get.

Not sure this is relevant.  The difference between what Aune is and what we want out of an elite CUSA QB performance is not the difference between a 22 year old and a 30 year old.

I think athletically he's fine.  His problems are reads and timing.

Edited April 22, 2022 by greenminer

[BillySee58]

10 hours ago, greenminer said:

We can be cautiously optimistic, but with a heavy does of caution.  Keep in mind a ton of that success Aune enjoyed was against dog shit competition and/or teams that just played very poorly.

You cuss?

[Wag Tag]

YAC yardage was non existent. I'm still pissed with the poor mid range throws over the middle to the TE! This is a major play against stack the box.

[Mike Jackson]

10 hours ago, greenminer said:

Not sure this is relevant.  The difference between what Aune is and what we want out of an elite CUSA QB performance is not the difference between a 22 year old and a 30 year old.

I think athletically he's fine.  His problems are reads and timing.

I think you are just solidifying “what you see is what you get” when it comes to Aune.  Reads and timing for him should be virtually instinctive at this stage in his career.  Him starting 2022 should not have been a question 2 days into Spring Practice.  That isn’t impression I got from practice reports.  And even now while he is the favorite to start nothing reported so far indicate that Ruder won’t have a shot of winning the job come fall camp.  Aune and Ruder should look awesome in practice now because of all the FBS level practice they have been in. 

[meanrob]

“Rise”

 

Having said that I’ll gladly take a repeat of 2019 stats over a full season. 

Edited April 22, 2022 by meanrob

[greenminer]

2 hours ago, Mike Jackson said:

I think you are just solidifying “what you see is what you get” when it comes to Aune.  Reads and timing for him should be virtually instinctive at this stage in his career.  Him starting 2022 should not have been a question 2 days into Spring Practice.  That isn’t impression I got from practice reports.  And even now while he is the favorite to start nothing reported so far indicate that Ruder won’t have a shot of winning the job come fall camp.  Aune and Ruder should look awesome in practice now because of all the FBS level practice they have been in. 

We'll see.  I think reads and timing are more about coaching/preparedness, and less about instinct (though, the latter is still a part of it).  and did we not have a QB coach last season?

I'll defer to you, because you've seen them in the spring. I have not.

I'm rooting for Ruder, personally.

Lastly, would be interesting to look at the practice reps Austin and Ruder have over their careers, and compare it to in-game reps.  Practice only goes so far; would rather be talking about lots of in-game reps.

[greenminer]

5 hours ago, BillySee58 said:

You cuss?

ha! Sometimes.

"Dog poo" just doesn't hit the same.

[NorthTexan95]

“Continue to rise” ???

I’m still waiting for him to begin to rise.

[Moobs]

I saw a lot of the same from him at the spring practice. There were a few nicely thrown balls. But I saw a lot of receivers slowing down to catch his balls too. And this isn’t much different than we saw last season. He always has a few flashes to give you some hope he could be good and a lot of underthrown balls that made you say, “WTF?”

 

I won’t believe any positive reporting about Aune until I can see it in games. I’m not falling for that crap again. Been fooled by it too many times before. 
 

I’m still hoping someone else steps up and gets a chance.

[Got5onIt]

We’ll all be bitching about QB play after week 2 and questioning Seth’s coaching ability all over again. 

[emmitt01]

Just thinking out loud here, but don’t you have to start something in order to continue it?

[SilverEagle]

On 4/22/2022 at 12:58 PM, greenminer said:

We'll see.  I think reads and timing are more about coaching/preparedness, and less about instinct (though, the latter is still a part of it).  and did we not have a QB coach last season?

I'll defer to you, because you've seen them in the spring. I have not.

I'm rooting for Ruder, personally.

Lastly, would be interesting to look at the practice reps Austin and Ruder have over their careers, and compare it to in-game reps.  Practice only goes so far; would rather be talking about lots of in-game reps.

Reads are more about preparedness and your peripheral vision. Too be a good-to-outstanding QB you must have good-to-great peripheral vision. As much as I was unimpressed with Johnny Manziel in the one clip that I saw of him (I was however incredibly impressed with his WR corps) I was very impressed with his peripheral vision. On one play it appeared that he had eyes in the back of his head when he escaped being sacked.

Timing is all about repetition.....eventually good repetition.........then, lots of it.

In saying that, I am reminded of a marching band practice that I was part of whilst in HS. The practice seemed to be particularly grueling that evening, when our director called a temporary halt to it all. "How many of you believe the old saying "practice makes perfect" he asked. Well, we all thought that that was a safe thing to agree with, so we all raised our hands. "Well, you're all wrong" he yelled. :"Good practice makes perfect" he said, and then he declared that our practice was one of the worse he ever witnessed. We did better after that.

 

[UNT Texas Hooligan]

On 4/22/2022 at 11:39 AM, meanrob said:

“Rise”

 

Having said that I’ll gladly take a repeat of 2019 stats over a full season. 

 

Yup, those stats show literally the opposite of a rise. What the hell was the staff doing all offseason if they couldn't recruit at least one QB better than a barely over 50% career passer?

I think most of us have learned better than to believe that Aune is finally the answer. We get spoon-fed this "Things are awesome in camp" crap all off-season just for the wheels to fall off right when the season starts. 

[meanrob]

1 hour ago, UNT Texas Hooligan said:

 

Yup, those stats show literally the opposite of a rise. What the hell was the staff doing all offseason if they couldn't recruit at least one QB better than a barely over 50% career passer?

I think most of us have learned better than to believe that Aune is finally the answer. We get spoon-fed this "Things are awesome in camp" crap all off-season just for the wheels to fall off right when the season starts. 

Is it possible that we have a run-based offense that is successful with the run so much that Aune only has to throw 12-18 times a game and he makes enough throws that he doesn’t get exposed? Yes, it’s possible. 
 

But even in that scenario (our absolute ceiling) we probably go 7-5. I don’t see us winning enough of the tough games doing that and probably dropping a 50/50 game along the way. Any salty defense will stop this. And I don’t see Aune performing late game heroics like Fine. We fall behind, we might be toast. 
 

As far as the D, I’m expecting a repeat of last year. Frisky at times, able to play well in spurts but a good QB/coach can still work us over
 

This shouldn’t be where we are at with a senior quarterback and a sixth year coach. I get G5s have to rebuild/reload but this isn’t where we are as a program. It feels like we are treading water, at best. 

Having said that, there’s so little info on this team and CUSA is such a good year/bad year conference (in regards to the other teams) we could win nine (highly doubt it) or win three. Wish I could have more hope and confidence in this team, but I don’t.
 

 

 

[MeanGreenTexan]

17 minutes ago, meanrob said:

Is it possible that we have a run-based offense that is successful with the run so much that Aune only has to throw 12-18 times a game and he makes enough throws that he doesn’t get exposed? Yes, it’s possible. 
 

But even in that scenario (our absolute ceiling) we probably go 7-5. I don’t see us winning enough of the tough games doing that and probably dropping a 50/50 game along the way. Any salty defense will stop this. And I don’t see Aune performing late game heroics like Fine. We fall behind, we might be toast. 
 

As far as the D, I’m expecting a repeat of last year. Frisky at times, able to play well in spurts but a good QB/coach can still work us over
 

...

In that scenario, like you said, you're putting a ton of pressure on the defense to keep scores low.  Because if your offense is predicated on just plowing for 3-5yds/down, and can't explode (Littrell is constantly talking about "explosive" plays), and the other team can explode, we're in trouble.  Especially if we can't find guys who can produce the QB pressure that the Murphys did (we'll see about Trieb).

You're also putting a ton of pressure on Adaway, Ragsdale, Johnson, & Adeyi to replace Torrey's production.   I know we all love Adaway's potential, but as they say... the best ability is availability, and we haven't seen that from him yet, sadly.    The rest of those guys were bottled-up for virtually nothing in the Frisco UNT Home Game Classic against Miami OH.