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.
I'm forcing myself to temper my distain for scUM long enough to be objective about Ward. But the more actual data I see, the less intimidated I am. To my eye, Ward looks like a quite proficient QB with some holes in his game and a subpar win/loss record who has much to prove. IMHO, he'd be a 2nd tier QB talent in the SEC - at best.
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
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.
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...
Miami is a real tiger according to many. TBH, I'm leaning toward paper tiger until proven otherwise. Their roster has some really nice talent in a number of places, but most still have a lot to prove. With a 12-12 QB sporting a 4-8 road record, plus Mr. 74-73, .503 leading the charge, I'll have to see it to believe. If we get some consistent pressure and give Mertz any time at all, I believe we'll be fine. I can't wait to see what GM does to that UM secondary. And yes, I'm now officially optimistic.
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.
I've seen and heard what little is available. But at this stage of the preseason, I'm still not ready to throw up my hands and quit on the OL quite yet. I totally don't mean you Wanne, but there has been such so much negativity and apprehension surrounding this program for such a long time, that it's become the knee-jerk reaction of many in the fanbase and most of the media. Obviously, the rot that occurred under Dan Mullen has been a disaster for both the program and the fanbase - and it's still being scraped away. We're obviously not there yet. But does anyone here seriously think that the vast majority of other programs are NOT looking at plugging a hole or three at key positions at this very moment? In fact, no one here or in the blogosphere knows for a certainty what the OL can become. No one knows exactly how good our DL can be at rushing the QB or stopping the run. Prediction-wise, I've, been in the 7-5 or 8-4 range with a possibility of 9-3 if things break our way. If that means I'm ignoring impending doom as some seem to believe, fine. We'll all know soon enough. I just honestly don't see us being dominated by Miami. They are not a first-tier SEC program in any regard other than being able to attract good talent with big NIL money and South Beach. To be fair, Mario can really pull in the talent, but he also has 13 years of textbook mediocrity on the field to show for it. And as for me, I'm just sick and tired of being sick and tired. GG! Beat scUM!
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.
