Let’s take those three and examine them. Gervon was overrated based on his measurables and potential. He still can be really effective if he had help on the DLine and not be double teamed or had to play 60 snaps every game. Lingard probably needs to be rerated as we really don’t know how he is after the knee injury at Miami. As far as playing time goes, I would think his issues are off the field more than on the field as he does look decent when he got the chance. Marshall is a solid corner that was forced into early action last year. He’s fine in man as you would expect, but is struggling in zone. I think he’ll be fine as it’s normal especially with the coaching changes. I’ll add the other two…Cox is playing himself into a high draft pick this year. He’s got the skillset to be very effective, but with our deficiencies on the line, he sometimes feels like he has to do too much and runs himself out of the play. That was much more prevalent last year and he’s doing a much better job this year. Shorter was overrated as often is the case with guys coming out of NJ. I think he’s proven he can be a hard worker and a reliable receiver. It’ll be interesting to see where he goes in the NFL as I’m not sure there’s a high demand for possession receivers right now. Maybe he can line up at TE.
How that talent is spread around a roster and how consistent that talent is and how it picks up a new system and what the culture has been in that talent weighs a lot on how much a new coaching staff can do to win games. Just having holdovers from a historically bad defense and an inconsistent QB is enough to kick us way out of the top 25. CBN has serious work to do.
i think the problem with our program even when we were winning under Mullen is that we don’t sense the moment. There were moments in all three of our SEC losses where we had complete momentum that could have propelled us to victory, and we let it slip away. Not because those programs are/were so much better than we are but because we just did not value the moment. Donovan used to urge his teams to stay in the moment. That is especially applicable when momentum is in our favor.
