Could Cam Ward turn out to be a flash in the pan?

for additional reference, Miami’s QB last year, Tyler Van Dyke….his QB rating was 145.6. A notch ABOVE Ward. May mean nothing. Ward could thrive this year, be average, or bomb. Hard to know but Miami fans seem to think he is a huge upgrade over Van Dyke when Van Dyke was statistically equal or better than Ward based on QB rating.

Van Dykes QBR was actually 71.0 which is a surprise to me. I could be wrong but expecting Ward to be super duper compared to Van Dyke is a leap.

 

If we have any semblance of an improved defense then I think the combination of any pressure/improved coverage and the crowd noise at the Swamp will expose him for his deficiencies. That's a hope at this point but if we believe Robert's and company have made real improvements then I can't wait.

 

After watching our defense in the last few years, it is more likely we don't pressure him enough than he fumbles once or even multiple times.
And if we allow him to operate in a clean pocket it will our undoing. He has incredible accuracy on both short and long throws...unlike Mertz.
Major improvement to our defense will be known soon enough.

 

If Moore plays it's likely we do a lot more blitzing from the secondary than we did last year. We had to rely more on the front 4 for pressure last year because of how young we were in the secondary and how lacking in speed at LB we were outside of James.

 

We believed our defense would be better just because Grantham left but we had a mess of a roster and we had to rely on what little depth we had (Dexter playing waaayy too many snaps) and people playing out of position along with green coaching. I have to believe Robert's along with added depth, talent and real position players will result in an improved defense. If not now when?

I say this as someone who was furious going back to the utah opener in Gainesville that we still couldn't get off the field especially on 3rd down and especially in the 3rd quarter on.

 

He’s use to it by now for sure. He may have to dump off earlier than he wants but the play is still alive

 

Some QBs are better under pressure than other QBs. Mertz is better than Ward is, and Ward's numbers drop when he plays away games and is under pressure... more so than Mertz. These numbers/stats below gives Ron Roberts the recipe for cooking-up a victory against Miami in the first game


Graham Mertz had a completion percentage of 75.2% when his pocket was clean and a rate of 61.9% when he was under pressure in 2023. His splits were similar when he wasn't blitzed and when he was.

Ward, meanwhile, also had a great completion percentage when his pocket was clean at a rate of 73.4%. But when put under pressure, his completion percentage plummeted to 44.7%.


24.2% of the time, when Ward was put under pressure, he wound up taking a sack. That was 11th worst rate in the country among the 85 QBs who were put under pressure at least 100 times last season.

Three flaws Cam Ward has Florida Football can take advantage in the opener

 

Yep... fools-gold type flash in the pan, if we get pressure on him.

 

Bring the pressure. Bring the pain!

 

Miami has a good offensive line “on paper”. Hopefully Robert’s can draw up some pressure D if they are as good as their rating.

Stay Tooned.

 

I never forget my cartoons when I go places...

 

That's not saying much, it means nothing. There's a dearth of top-end players coming into the ACC this season, they had a handful of good QBs leave last season to the NFL (Drake Maye, Jordan Travis) or the portal (Riley Leonard). The returning QBs like Klubnik are weak, and the transfers that came in aren't terribly proven at this level. I don't understand why Ward got so many votes and Grayson McCall got none, but whatever...

 

Their DL is slightly better than our OL.

 

Doesnt Miami have better depth?

 

You saw both lines play?

 

There’s no way to tell until we square off. They have good DEs. About every DE in the SEC is good. Many who are better than what Miami has.

 

We don’t have a lot of all Americans or all sec guys coming back. We have a bunch of young potential that must break out if we are getting wins this year. Definitely wait and see mode but I’m drunk on koolaid.