Analytics is so popular among many, I thought I'd post our Gator stats guy again this year and his work. He does weekly match-ups and in-depth tendencies but those aren't out for a couple weeks. For now we have "historical team talent" and "held advantage" look at the upcoming season:
Our blue chips are mostly freshmen and sophomores and that won’t help much. We gonna have to blue collar this one out like Tech did yesterday.
Blue chip jrs and seniors mean a lot more than freshmen and sophomores. We had a dozen playing last year that were young and wouldn’t have played at all on a top roster. I think we have tge talent but it’s still too young. Our veterans aren’t too blue chippy.
Our oline still really concerns me along with our linebackers. Oline has Barber as the only guy in the system playing for multiple years. Slaughter has a half year experience.Harris too. All others have very little time in the system . George, we will see. Linebackers, Shemar has a year and a half experience in the system and should be solid.Pup better be good quick. Wingo hasn’t shown it yet. Two talented freshmen that haven’t played a down. Those two groups are concerning to me.they both have to be good for an offense or defense to be good. If they are solid, we could surprise this year.
The three O-lineman you mentioned are our best 3 linemen, so if they aren't healthy, then we have big problems on that O-line. It's a concern... However, I feel good about the talent at LB, but have we coached them up to be in the right place at the right time? The schemes are what I wonder about, and missed tackles are a concern for me. The LB's that transfer out were terrible at one statist in particular... missed tackles. And... we were 5-2 when Shemar got injured, and you know what our recorded ended up being. So, he is a force and with Pup in there from USCe. We have others with the skills and experience to shore-up that LBs. It's just a matter of making the tackles and knowing the schemes we play. IOW, talent is NOT the issue with regard to our Linebackers, IMHO.
LSU is far less talented at QB and their defense needs to improve tons to scare anyone... And A&M's problem is their O-line... We'll see if they can keep our D-lineman from crushing their talented QB. UGA and Texas in an away game will be a problem...
I like our talent but our two true freshmen are needed and I don’t like that one bit. I like experience at linebacker
We have a good room that needs more depth, but the freshman that you mention look to be very talented. Chiles and Graham should get some playing time, but we have other experienced linebackers... like R.J. Moten, Derek Wingo, Deuce Spurlock II and Jaden Robinson to back up the starters.
