Did we fully utilize our elite speed at wide receiver?

Yes and no.

Mertz had issues with deep balls. Lagway is a very good deep ball passer, but was a true Fr. and injured in 2024. UF still has a lot of speed at WR, if not more than last year, and Lagway isn't a freshman anymore. The deep ball will be a big part of the offense in 2025.

On Dike. As a UF/UW fan, I saw a lot of Dike. I knew he was athletic, but didn't see him as a sub 4.4 guy. I don't think he plays that fast. Still damn good.

 

Bring in some 10 personnel plays.

 

Poorly

 

Like clockwork, GW piling on
Like lobbing a softball over the center of the plate for him

 

I thought a couple of our guys were timed faster in the combine then I ever saw them run on the field in a game.
Some people are workout warriors others are gamers.

 

This one was on a tee actually.

 

Didn’t realize Badger was that fast. I seem to remember Shane repeatedly saying on his podcast that Badger wasn’t a “burner” and shouldn’t be running deep ball routes.

 

Those that watched film were aware Dike often got open, particularly on the intermediate routes. Our WRs can only do so much with hitches and slants.

 

Baffles me that Percy ran a 4.39 in his pro day and we have these guys out here running faster than him.

But even in Percy's own words, he likely was stoned - and did not care about his measurables. He knew how good he was regardless of his clocked numbers.

 

Gatorwalrus may be piling on, but he's not wrong. We used our speed poorly.

 

These guys running faster than Percy probably aren’t benching over 400 pounds either. Percy’s upper body strength was a big part of why he could do what he did

 

As much of a great game leader and reliable short-game player as Mertz was, any downfield speed advantages we had were negated when he was on the field. Bottom line, route running is probably more important than speed if your passer can't consistently hit an open guy downfield. And, I think we did use our speed better when DJ was on the field. Just highlights how QB strengths and weaknesses determine the size of the available play palette.

 

Unfortunate but true.

 

I was watching his Vikings highlights, he showed off his strength often!



Check out his catch at 3:10, Ike Hilliard all over again

Catch at 3:50 is a display of strength

13:35 is the only time I've ever seen Percy run down from behind

 

2024 - Badger was 4th in the SEC with 20.7 YPC and Dike was 8th with 18.6 YPC. Having 2 receivers in the top 10 YPC leads me to easily conclude we did utilize their speed in 2024

 

Fair, I was thinking more about creating advantageous matchups. Getting burners matched up vs LBs and Safeties.

 

How do we get their corners to guard our linemen then?

 

What? Is that sarcasm?