I would not have thought a team could be "rebuilt" through the portal. We thought of sMullen as a portal genius but he only brought 4-5 a cycle through the portal. Until after the LSU game, when we were trying to come to terms with the loss, I had no idea LSU and Kelly had been so active in the portal.
Fact is, although he may have been not a very good recruiter, he did develop some very good running backs and they look well coached at all times
Okay, since we never debated his coaching "prowess" as our running backs coach. I will give you examples of why, IMHO, Knox was NOT a good running backs coach. For the whole time he was our RBC I saw our backs run straight into the backside of our O-lineman... even if they engaged and stalled at the line of scrimmage, and in the middle of a scrum... over and over, again and again, our backs were running right into the backside of our own O-lineman, when I noticed that on either side of said lineman there were many times a gaping truck sized hole to run through. I saw that far too many times. It was frustrating to see. No jump cut to the open field? Now, I don't blame the backs for that, because that had to be something that they were ALL taught do. From Pop Warner though high school my coaches told ME to hit the hole... the 1,3,5, hole or the 2,4,6, hole, but they also told us the "RUN TO DAYLIGHT" as well. Our backs hit the hole which was fine, but not when there's a huge scrum of bodies piled up in front of them. This happened far too many time for me to think it's on the backs, that was taught to the point of stupidity. That was on our RBC, and NOT on our backs. Another thing I noticed was the we never taught our running backs, at least not enough to see it implemented in games, the spin move. That's very good technique to use when you want to use the defender's momentum against him. The spin move is underrated and a very teachable tool that all good running backs use. How do I know Knox never taught it, or spent enough time developing that technique? It's simple, our backs never really used it or took advantage of that technique. Not much, if ever in games, and that's something that has to be practiced over and over to get it right. So how do I know this... It simple, on the defense side of the ball, in games, our secondary and sometime our LBs had a hard time tackling good running backs that used the spin move. I noticed that the best teams always had backs that mastered that move, and we had a hard time tackling those backs that mastered that move. So, if we had actually taught that very important spin move technique than we would have been practicing it and using it often. Often enough for our DBs to see it in practice and for them to learn how to counter it. So it we had practiced it our defense would be able to tackle the running backs that used the spin move. I used that move all through high school... loved it. So, Knox could not recruit... didn't teach very important techniques in the running game and his over all numbers/statistic bear-out his shortcomings as a RBC.. Juluke is light-years better at teaching our backs techniques like the spin move... the jump cut... and running to daylight... Knox? Not so much.
To hit to designated hole instead of finding the open hole, yes... go back and see how many times our running backs just ran up the backside of our own linemen. You may not remember it happening far too often, but that's something that I do remember. It happened so often that I remember it vividly.. and I was confused as to why they would do that. Not a problem anymore with Juluke as our RBC.
He did good but he only got 2 or 3 at a time... we might need 5 or 6 good transfers depending on the class we sign... the talent level on our team... position of need... 'ships available. But Mullen did fine for the few that he did get out of the portal.
Lol... got on a bit of a tangent with someone else here about Knox. But, I do want to know why so many people here think that we don't have enough talent at LB for next year. Why the panic... and with the 2023 call we'll be signing.
Now that we have a dedicated portal man and assistants I propose we are properly positioned for perfunctory portal prowess, posthaste!
If guess that’s lineman on occasion got knocked into what was suppose to be a hole. Our offensive line wasn’t known for run blocking so much. I think Mullen’s staff coached pretty well all around on offense, they just couldn’t recruit.
I wonder why there doesn’t seem to be any mutual interest between Florida and Nyckoles Harbor. The kid is a beast. From everything I’ve read - he’s a smart kid, wants to run track, and wants to play in the SEC. With his size and speed, he could easily play linebacker in college. Florida seems like the perfect spot for him with early playing time to offer.
AP, Summerall, Wingo, Scooby all primarily played the edge in HS. Burney, Black, Reese were DB/S Ventrell & Shemar are the only ones that developed at LB in HS to my knowledge. This is what happens when you just recruit athletes for 4 years with no plan on where your going to put them
