Competitive performance could have been improved with more live game reps during the season for Mestemaker, which is the fault of the coaches. There were several times we had large leads or Chandler was gimpy and Mestemaker could have played longer. Also for in case CM bailed on us in the portal before a Bowl...duh.
With both Rogers and CM leaving us after one season, I hope this has opened coaches eyes. Give backup QBs and other players more live reps when able during the season.
Honestly, this is probably the least significant thing you wrote. I stated in a thread a week or so ago that losing a bowl game only really matters to the diehard fans of the school. What most people will remember (because the announcers said it a hundred times) is that North Texas started a freshman walk-on QB who hadn’t started a game since his freshman year in high school on the B-team and he passed for almost 400 yards and almost led them to victory. I almost feel bad for TxSt because their win was the 2nd biggest story of the game.
“If you have two quarterbacks you have none”. —John Madden
*though I’m not opposed to a package of plays for Jimmerson if he’s as advertised and if he’s not the starter. It’s a looooong time until August though. Our starting QB may not even be on the roster and it’s possible that neither will Mestemaker or Jimmerson. It’s just the sad reality of college football today.
Our Bowl was a loss, as most here thought it would be, because of the players that left.
But because of the players that stayed it was an exciting game, better than most believed it could be. And the side story of our new, inexperienced QB gained us extra National media.
We got a month of extra practice for the team and found a surprise player.
In 2009 Darius Carey had a standout true freshman season racking up 509 receiving yards. Not sure what the record was before that but here are the top true freshmen seasons in terms of receiving yards since, by my research:
378 - Miles Coleman 2024
363 - Landon Sides 2023
295 - Wyatt Young 2024
281 - Jaelon Darden 2017
253 - Carlos Harris 2012
240 - Deonte Simpson 2019
151 - Darvin Kidsy 2013
146 - Tyler Wilson 2016
97 - Rico Bussey 2016
These guys on our roster are in really good company being atop some real ballers on this list. NFL guys, 1,000 yard seasons, etc.
Two takeaways here are that you can make an impact early here, especially at receiver, and that even in the transfer portal it’s still important to sign top high school talent as they seems to be the guys more likely to remain loyal when they otherwise would have good stock in the transfer portal/NIL market.
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