Spring Game Fun Exercise

[gus fleener]

I was thinking it might be fun to pretend Sark gave Quinn & Arch the opportunity to pick their players at the skill positions.  For this exercise they each get to pick 3 RBs, 3 TEs & 4WRs.  Quinn picks 1st, Arch gets the next 2 & they alternate after that. 

(Interestingly, I posed this to each of my 3 brothers without them knowing my pick or anyone else's & we all 4 picked the same player 1st.}

What I came up with picking for both Quinn & Arch in order:

Quinn:

Jaydon Blue, Gunnar Helm, Johntay Cook, DeAndre Moore, Ryan Wingo, Aaron Butler, Juan Davis, Jerrick Gibson, Jordan Washington, Savion Red.

Arch:

CJ Baxter, Amari Niblack, Spencer Shannon, Isaiah Bond, Matthew Golden, Parker Livingstone, Quintrevion Wisner, Christian Clark, Ryan Niblett, Will Randle.

 

I know Sark would never do this; & I highly doubt the picks would play out this way exactly, but it was fun to think about.  It is also a little crazy to see how much quality depth we have.

Post your thoughts & play along.

(Also, I know the portal opens tomorrow & there may be someone or two of these guys unavailable for the spring game.)

[codaxx]

9 hours ago, gus fleener said:

I was thinking it might be fun to pretend Sark gave Quinn & Arch the opportunity to pick their players at the skill positions.  For this exercise they each get to pick 3 RBs, 3 TEs & 4WRs.  Quinn picks 1st, Arch gets the next 2 & they alternate after that. 

(Interestingly, I posed this to each of my 3 brothers without them knowing my pick or anyone else's & we all 4 picked the same player 1st.}

What I came up with picking for both Quinn & Arch in order:

Quinn:

Jaydon Blue, Gunnar Helm, Johntay Cook, DeAndre Moore, Ryan Wingo, Aaron Butler, Juan Davis, Jerrick Gibson, Jordan Washington, Savion Red.

Arch:

CJ Baxter, Amari Niblack, Spencer Shannon, Isaiah Bond, Matthew Golden, Parker Livingstone, Quintrevion Wisner, Christian Clark, Ryan Niblett, Will Randle.

 

I know Sark would never do this; & I highly doubt the picks would play out this way exactly, but it was fun to think about.  It is also a little crazy to see how much quality depth we have.

Post your thoughts & play along.

(Also, I know the portal opens tomorrow & there may be someone or two of these guys unavailable for the spring game.)

I think Quinn picks Baxter. He was the best blocker last year and has excellent hands. If I am a QB, that is the RB I take. 

[gus fleener]

27 minutes ago, codaxx said:

I think Quinn picks Baxter. He was the best blocker last year and has excellent hands. If I am a QB, that is the RB I take. 

Yeah, I understand your point. I went with Blue because of speed, versatility & more speed.

[codaxx]

16 minutes ago, gus fleener said:

Yeah, I understand your point. I went with Blue because of speed, versatility & more speed.

I get the speed comment, but I dont think Blue has shown versatility. He has shown he is excellent space player. I think blocking is a weakness. I havent seen power between the tackles. All these things can be improved over an off-season, I just havent seen it yet. To be fair I think Baxter needs to work on getting his feet up in the hole and keeping his feet moving through contact. 

Edited April 15 by codaxx

[gus fleener]

55 minutes ago, codaxx said:

I get the speed comment, but I dont think Blue has shown versatility. He has shown he is excellent space player. I think blocking is a weakness. I havent seen power between the tackles. All these things can be improved over an off-season, I just havent seen it yet. To be fair I think Baxter needs to work on getting his feet up in the hole and keeping his feet moving through contact. 

I think Blue has shown the willingness and ability to run inside as he has gotten more playing time. Reports from the spring say that he has gotten bigger and stronger. He can run and he can catch; he may very well lack in his pass protection. Obviously, both he and Baxter have things they can work on to improve. It's a great problem to have. Which one of these guys is going to be the better back for us? I honestly don't know, I think they're both going to be pretty damn good. Below, are Blue's highlights from the Big 12 Championship game. I understand Texas Tech is not an SEC level defensive line. However, Blue looks pretty good running inside here.

 

Edited April 15 by gus fleener

[codaxx]

7 minutes ago, gus fleener said:

I think Blue has shown the willingness and ability to run inside as he has gotten more playing time. Reports from the spring say that he has gotten bigger and stronger. He can run and he can catch; he may very well lack in his pass protection. Obviously, both he and Baxter have things they can work on to improve. It's a great problem to have. Which one of these guys is going to be the better back for us? I honestly don't know, I think they're both going to be pretty damn good. Below, are Blue's highlights from the Big 12 Championship game. I understand Texas Tech is not an SEC level defensive line. However, Blue looks pretty good running inside here.

 

Shocking this is basically the the Tech game vs a beat up defense. He generally untouched until about 3 -5 yards (one run is just untouched). 

 

I am stealing this from NoName at Surly Horns becasuse I think it is just excellent work. (https://www.surlyhorns.com/board/topic/34915-2024-spring-practice-to-fall-camp-thread-who’s-a-jag-now/page/18/#comments)

 

pulled the per play data for only the ISU game, the TTU game, the Oklahoma State game and the Washington game - games after Brooks got hurt and those two basically split rushing attempts. here's the results

edit: fixed my %s, i had hardcoded formulas - my bad

By percentage, Baxter had fewer rushes that went for negative yards (2% for Baxter - 1 rush, 11.1% for Blue - 4 rushes), more rushes that went 5+ yards, more rushes that went 10+ yards.

Blue had more rushes by % that went 20+ yards (2.8 vs 2.0%) and 1 that went for 30+ yards, Baxter had 0.

this is just to prove that nobody was out here ripping of 18 yards very often and getting dinged by my 20 yard threshold

• Blue's rushes of 10+ yards: 11, 12, 69, 12, 16, 12
• Baxter's rushes of 10+ yards: 12, 13, 13, 14, 21, 13, 10, 14, 13, 16

Here are the straight stats

ISU: Baxter 20 for 117 (5.85), Blue 7 for 18 (2.57)

Tech: Baxter 9 for 45 (5.0) , Blue 10 for 121 (12.1)

OSU: Baxter 13 for 43 (3.31), Blue 10 for 33 (3.3)

Wash: Baxter 9 for 64 (7.11), Blue 9 for 59 (6.55)

Baxter ran better in 2 of the 4 games. OSU is a wash. Basically Blue was better vs Tech, but I would expect the speed guy to be better when the OL dominates.