(06-30-2020, 05:25 PM)Langdude Wrote: Ayden Hector would have been our best safety next year.
Probably looking at Antoine/Williamson as starters. Maybe McGilll, Jones, Gilman, or cornerback-convert-to-be-named-later will get minutes. But it will not be fun to watch deep coverage and crossing routes. McGill can tackle vs. run, not sure about the rest.
-m.
Antoine and Williamson will start.
McGill will play a lot at nickel (or safety with Antoine at nickel), and I'm actually pretty sanguine on him given the flashes he showed as a true frosh. The jump from freshman to sophomore year is usually sizable, and given the amount he has played already I can see him breaking out. Could end up being a poor man's Honey Badger depending on his development trajectory. Dude is an extremely hard worker and will continue to improve. He does have some athletic limitations but devouring film, letting the game slow down, and playing smart and disciplined is easily half the battle at safety.
Stuart Head will play a lot and JJ Parson will play significant minutes. Neither of these should happen on a P5 defense.
Jones is a CB.
(06-30-2020, 04:30 PM)Papa John Wrote: I mean it's not like we don't have safeties, SamuelMcF. You don't see the likelihood of any improvement over last year? Maybe from the second-year players?
You're right. We do have 10 safeties on the roster. Here's a breakdown of the room:
- 2 converted CBs, both starters
- Jonathan McGill
- A veteran RS Jr who couldn't beat out one of the above converted CBs, even though said convert was 2 years younger and new to the position
- A true frosh
- FIVE current or former walk-ons
Does this inspire confidence in you? The room is a total mess under the watchful eye of "the best DB coach in college football."
To answer your question, I do see likely improvement over last year from the ONE second-year scholarship player, Jonathan McGill. I suppose Williamson could count as a second-year player too as this will be his second year at safety. I honestly didn't notice much about his play, which probably means he's alright given how much I scrutinized the position last year. Now that I think about it, there's definitely the possibility of improvement in his second year fully entrenched at the position, but again our track record with converted CBs has me concerned until proven otherwise.
Looking at some others:
Spencer Jorgensen and Brock Jones were both walk-on true frosh who played every single game on STs because half the team was dead. I do wonder if we'll see anything from them. Oregon comeback hero Noah Williams received his scholarship, made that insane game-saving forced fumble in Autzen stadium, and then just...disappeared from the position, pretty much only appearing on STs after that. I also thought Nicolas Toomer would come in as a safety for us, but apparently he's a CB - we could really use him here instead, at the very least for credible depth. Now if we convert him, he'll be yet another converted CB. Bummer.
All this said, we might legitimately be taking FOUR bonafide safeties in this recruiting class. That's fine by me, if a bit of an over-correction. The position clearly needs a ground-up rebuild (McGill isn't a bad start and Gilman is obviously TBD), you can play three at a time in nickel packages plus use the depth on STs, and the CB conversions haven't been working.
