(03-21-2017 10:38 AM)7 Wrote:  I don't think I'm as worried about RB and WR as a lot of people are. Huff should get the bulk of the carries this year, and assuming health that's a good thing. Somebody always seems to step up at WR, and Blake, Beebe, and Saffold have all played played plenty. The Iowa state transfer will probably play a bunch, and hopefully Tears is able to take a step forward. Really liked the Florida WRs in this recruiting class too.

WR concern for me is size....Blake is tallest at 6' 1".

It helps QBS to have couple bigger bodies to throw to that can battle for the ball.
Ex: Canada & KG in recent years.

We don't have one physical WR I can think of...Am I forgetting someone?

(03-21-2017 10:54 AM)thxjoenovak Wrote:  

(03-21-2017 10:38 AM)7 Wrote:  I don't think I'm as worried about RB and WR as a lot of people are. Huff should get the bulk of the carries this year, and assuming health that's a good thing. Somebody always seems to step up at WR, and Blake, Beebe, and Saffold have all played played plenty. The Iowa state transfer will probably play a bunch, and hopefully Tears is able to take a step forward. Really liked the Florida WRs in this recruiting class too.

WR concern for me is size....Blake is tallest at 6' 1".

It helps QBS to have couple bigger bodies to throw to that can battle for the ball.
Ex: Canada & KG in recent years.

We don't have one physical WR I can think of...Am I forgetting someone?

Best WRs in Lynch's 2 seasons were Moore and Brown, both are the same size as Blake. Kenny's big ass spoiled us the last few years. Tears, Wesley, and Blake are all of adequate size to play on the outside in college football. All 3 of the WRs coming in for the fall are 5-11 or bigger, including Robinson who is 6-5.

I may be in the vast minority here, but with Maddie back, I think the QB position may be an area of strength and depth not weakness.
Maddie - for a 5 game stint last year, he was rock solid with his dual threat capability; if healthy he is well positioned for an extraordinary year.
Graham - no doubt he struggled at times, but "he is who he is", an adequate backup that knows the offense very well, and gives you everything he has on every play
Santa - 6 quarters of work; 2 wins, struggled with accuracy against EMU (his 1st collegiate game), but gained nearly 100 yards in little more than a half of action, earning a comeback W. Against KSU, had KG not dropped a perfectly thrown ball right before half, he would have ended the game with 300+ yards throwing in his first career start (that may have been the highest total passing yards in a game all year)
Childers - he is listed at 6'0 235; it appears as if he is well equipped to play in our run heavy offense from the QB position
Hall - well based on what we read, we might as well put him in the NIU Hall of Fame (I prefer to hold judgement)

All things considered I feel good about this crew.

(03-21-2017 10:54 AM)thxjoenovak Wrote:  

(03-21-2017 10:38 AM)7 Wrote:  I don't think I'm as worried about RB and WR as a lot of people are. Huff should get the bulk of the carries this year, and assuming health that's a good thing. Somebody always seems to step up at WR, and Blake, Beebe, and Saffold have all played played plenty. The Iowa state transfer will probably play a bunch, and hopefully Tears is able to take a step forward. Really liked the Florida WRs in this recruiting class too.

WR concern for me is size....Blake is tallest at 6' 1".

It helps QBS to have couple bigger bodies to throw to that can battle for the ball.
Ex: Canada & KG in recent years.

We don't have one physical WR I can think of...Am I forgetting someone?

Andrew Parchment is 6'2". Was a freshman last year so we will see how he pans out


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(03-21-2017 10:54 AM)thxjoenovak Wrote:  

(03-21-2017 10:38 AM)7 Wrote:  I don't think I'm as worried about RB and WR as a lot of people are. Huff should get the bulk of the carries this year, and assuming health that's a good thing. Somebody always seems to step up at WR, and Blake, Beebe, and Saffold have all played played plenty. The Iowa state transfer will probably play a bunch, and hopefully Tears is able to take a step forward. Really liked the Florida WRs in this recruiting class too.

WR concern for me is size....Blake is tallest at 6' 1".

It helps QBS to have couple bigger bodies to throw to that can battle for the ball.
Ex: Canada & KG in recent years.

We don't have one physical WR I can think of...Am I forgetting someone?

It may be true we don't have big bodies like golladay or brescacin, but we now have dangerous speed. Wesley can flat out fly. 10.7 100m is fast. Also getting Beebe back brings experience and great routes. So while you can't replace Golladay, there should be a completely different dynamic to this year's wr group. Not to mention the hope Tears steps up. Blake, Wesley, Beebe is a really good core. Add someone else who may surprise us and I'm pretty high on this group.

We didn't really throw the ball much to Brescacin anyway (and the other big guys never played much) - except for the rare game, the ball seemed to go to the faster guys, Golladay being the only recent exception.

(03-21-2017 11:15 AM)Djud Wrote:  I may be in the vast minority here, but with Maddie back, I think the QB position may be an area of strength and depth not weakness.
Maddie - for a 5 game stint last year, he was rock solid with his dual threat capability; if healthy he is well positioned for an extraordinary year.
Graham - no doubt he struggled at times, but "he is who he is", an adequate backup that knows the offense very well, and gives you everything he has on every play
Santa - 6 quarters of work; 2 wins, struggled with accuracy against EMU (his 1st collegiate game), but gained nearly 100 yards in little more than a half of action, earning a comeback W. Against KSU, had KG not dropped a perfectly thrown ball right before half, he would have ended the game with 300+ yards throwing in his first career start (that may have been the highest total passing yards in a game all year)
Childers - he is listed at 6'0 235; it appears as if he is well equipped to play in our run heavy offense from the QB position
Hall - well based on what we read, we might as well put him in the NIU Hall of Fame (I prefer to hold judgement)

All things considered I feel good about this crew.

I think you and others are giving Maddie too much credit. He played half of the WIU game and against BSU, WMU, CMU, Buf and BGSU, which all had losing records except CMU and WMU and he had two picks in each of those games. Unless Santa steps up, I believe QB is a weakness and not sure there are enough playmakers to get to six wins. Hope I am wrong but with Carey this is going to be a rough season.

GO HUSKIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(03-21-2017 10:38 AM)7 Wrote:  I don't think I'm as worried about RB and WR as a lot of people are. Huff should get the bulk of the carries this year, and assuming health that's a good thing. Somebody always seems to step up at WR, and Blake, Beebe, and Saffold have all played played plenty. The Iowa state transfer will probably play a bunch, and hopefully Tears is able to take a step forward. Really liked the Florida WRs in this recruiting class too.

I wonder about that. If Huff didn't start last year because of something like blocking, attitude, whatever, that might have to change, otherwise he'll get passed up on the depth chart by someone else that might not be as good of a runner. Again.

I'm guessing we'll see Tommy Mister a lot on third down to protect the QB.

Tre Harbison was a highly rated back out of HS. He should be elite competition for Huff along with the other returnees.

That's the big thing for me, even if NIU did have size at WR, they don't have an offense or a coach that ever utilizes it

(03-21-2017 05:06 PM)MaddDawgz02 Wrote:  That's the big thing for me, even if NIU did have size at WR, they don't have an offense or a coach that ever utilizes it

WHAT

Marcus Jones was hurt last year. However, he looked really good at RB in the limited amount of time he played his Freshman year.

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Not a fan of Mister and Tears. See little PT for them. Size will be the TE, Shane. Maybe we see 2 TE, keeping the safety's inside for outside receivers

I hope DJ Brown gets some time. I always thought he was going to be a great RB until he was switched.

(03-21-2017 12:58 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  We didn't really throw the ball much to Brescacin anyway (and the other big guys never played much) - except for the rare game, the ball seemed to go to the faster guys, Golladay being the only recent exception.

Brescacin had a quiet but very productive career. He was 3rd in receptions twice(99 career), had more career TD receptions than TLL or Turner(13) and has a better career ypc than Golladay(14.8).

(03-22-2017 06:58 AM)Rabid Squirrel Wrote:  

(03-21-2017 12:58 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  We didn't really throw the ball much to Brescacin anyway (and the other big guys never played much) - except for the rare game, the ball seemed to go to the faster guys, Golladay being the only recent exception.

Brescacin had a quiet but very productive career. He was 3rd in receptions twice(99 career), had more career TD receptions than TLL or Turner(13) and has a better career ypc than Golladay(14.8).

I like Brescacin, he was solid. (I still wish we would have played him at TE personally but that's a whole different conversation) Hard to compare him to KG though. Brescacin had much better and much more stable QB play as well as better WRs opposite of him to get good matchups (Da'Ron Brown, TLL, Martel Moore). Most of the time KG played he was basically the only threat and was keyed on with a bunch of young QBs throwing to him. I'm still shocked he put up the numbers he did. It really is incredible


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(03-22-2017 07:04 AM)NIU32 Wrote:  

(03-22-2017 06:58 AM)Rabid Squirrel Wrote:  

(03-21-2017 12:58 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  We didn't really throw the ball much to Brescacin anyway (and the other big guys never played much) - except for the rare game, the ball seemed to go to the faster guys, Golladay being the only recent exception.

Brescacin had a quiet but very productive career. He was 3rd in receptions twice(99 career), had more career TD receptions than TLL or Turner(13) and has a better career ypc than Golladay(14.8).

I like Brescacin, he was solid. (I still wish we would have played him at TE personally but that's a whole different conversation) Hard to compare him to KG though. Brescacin had much better and much more stable QB play as well as better WRs opposite of him to get good matchups (Da'Ron Brown, TLL, Martel Moore). Most of the time KG played he was basically the only threat and was keyed on with a bunch of young QBs throwing to him. I'm still shocked he put up the numbers he did. It really is incredible


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It wouldn't be fair to compare him to Kenny. I was just pointing out the luxury we have had with quality, big wide receivers for the last five years we no longer have. And Brescacin at TE, yes! He'd be Julius Thoms-esque(jax, not den.)

(03-22-2017 06:58 AM)Rabid Squirrel Wrote:  

(03-21-2017 12:58 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  We didn't really throw the ball much to Brescacin anyway (and the other big guys never played much) - except for the rare game, the ball seemed to go to the faster guys, Golladay being the only recent exception.

Brescacin had a quiet but very productive career. He was 3rd in receptions twice(99 career), had more career TD receptions than TLL or Turner(13) and has a better career ypc than Golladay(14.8).

Hard to compare him to TLL in that TLL missed a lot of games due to injury. And he had way fewer catches - 33 was the most he had in one year. And his senior year he only had 24 catches and 1 TD in 9 games, which isn't a whole lot. Though admittedly they had Golladay that year. It seemed like he would get used more since usually good things happened when they did throw his way.

(03-22-2017 08:51 AM)NIU007 Wrote:  

(03-22-2017 06:58 AM)Rabid Squirrel Wrote:  

(03-21-2017 12:58 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  We didn't really throw the ball much to Brescacin anyway (and the other big guys never played much) - except for the rare game, the ball seemed to go to the faster guys, Golladay being the only recent exception.

Brescacin had a quiet but very productive career. He was 3rd in receptions twice(99 career), had more career TD receptions than TLL or Turner(13) and has a better career ypc than Golladay(14.8).

Hard to compare him to TLL in that TLL missed a lot of games due to injury. And he had way fewer catches - 33 was the most he had in one year. And his senior year he only had 24 catches and 1 TD in 9 games, which isn't a whole lot. Though admittedly they had Golladay that year. It seemed like he would get used more since usually good things happened when they did throw his way.

He wasn't really a play maker so he was a bit of an offensive after thought. I'd rather have the ball in Tommys hands as well. But Brescacin could have been a weapon in the right offense. There was game, I think Toledo, where brown and Lewis were injured, and Brescacin went for a bunch of catches and 100+ yards. Those big catch radius or jump ball guys are nice when you have a less than accurate QB. Little guys, like Lewis get half there catches within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage. Blake is 6'1, but not a guy I'd want in a battle to pull down a tough catch. my concern is Carey limiting the route tree to safe, but predictable passes.