10-29-2023, 12:46 PM
6. The personnel story of our season continues to be the chemistry and success between Daniels and the two key members of his battery of young receivers. Ayomanor and Bachmeier can do damage and Daniels can get the ball to them and the trio are performing despite severely limited protection (which is, as Taylor always reminds, about both an inexperienced line but also breakdowns by RBs and TEs too). This is the most exciting thing we have going right now. Big props to Daniels for his best game and against a quality opponent. He was #34 of 109 QBs nationally in Total QBR this week and got another 70+ grade from PFF, the second week in a row and the third time this season excluding the Oregon game in which he was limited in snaps. He showed great poise, made significant mistakes (intentional grounding, fumbling, etc.) but kept composure and kept dealing/surviving/improvising, and as I observed of him as a recruit has a knack for deep balls. I thought Daniels did a good job preventing the sack total from being out of control but as it happened we still gave up the most sacks anybody has to Washington this season, a reminder that pass protection remains a clear massive liability for us. That makes his performance even more impressive. On the season he has ascended into solidly mediocre territory, #76 in the nation and #8 in the Pac-12 in Total QBR, which compares to 2022 McKee being #79 and #9 respectively (2021 McKee was better). This strikes me as a Cameron Ward/Jayden de Laura kind of trajectory, the kind of QB one would expect to be very solid and quite possibly good in 2024 and potentially a star in 2025. That's a tough guy to supplant as QB1. Let's see where Daniels is in a month but he's showing QB of the future capability.
7. Ayomanor and Bachmeier both deserve tons of flowers. This is gargantuan, historic production from a duo of football freshmen wide receivers. [This week's moving the chains (first downs) leaderboard: Bachmeier (5, plus drew a pass interference), Daniels (5), Ayomanor (3, plus drew a pass interference), Lamson (2), Harris, Filkins, Raines, Roush, Smith, Farrell] Ayomanor is our best player on either side of the ball but beyond that he is one of the best players in America, straight up. brobdingnagian bummer that he is probably out for the year. [I know that hasn't been announced but if you look at the body language and that we only have a month left in an obvious rebuilding year.....I would be surprised if he's back.] Ayomanor is a genuine mega star obvious NFL player, currently 14th in the nation in receiving as a freshman (even if Stanford is too stupid to market him that way and the first player to have 90+ yards receiving per game for us since Simi Fehoko did it in a pandemic half season. In his first year of college football, Ayomanor had a prime Mark Harris/DeRonnie Pitts/James Lofton kind of season statistically. It's a real shame Stanford has its head up its butt and doesn't understand eligibility or marketing as this is historic on a national scale too. This is one of the best receiver debuts in the history of football. Rondale Moore, Richie James (Group of Five), Tyler Boyd, Davante Adams (Group of Five), Marqise Lee, Sammy Watkins, and Eric Page (Group of Five) are the only freshmen to have debut seasons like this in the last 15 years. I really hope we get one more season out of Ayomanor. And once he's gone, I think we are seeing that Bachmeier will be able to be a bona fide #1 receiver in the ACC.
8. More on the youth movement: Yesterday was triply encouraging at WR because of the shocking deep bomb to Jackson Harris. I don't usually say first names of current players but I am assuming many of you aren't tracking Harris closely. Harris was a late bloomer big high school WR with immense production (the Bobby Kennedy mold) and was the third highest profile true freshman WR in our latest class (behind Borden and Bachmeier, ahead of Cisse). As with Borden and Cisse I have been taking it as a discouraging development that Bachmeier's classmates couldn't push for travel roster spots and playing time. To have Harris come out of nowhere not only to play but to come out of the gate with an awesome and timely chunk play....brobdingnagian. It's my opinion that Farrell and Reuben are bad and need to be over-recruited ASAP, so Harris having utility is a big development. It's also encouraging more generally for the team's development that Taylor made a postgame comment about there being lots of young players like that waiting for an opportunity. We saw two of those on the offensive line with Maikkula and Baklenko not only getting their first college playing time but playing very solidly (according to PFF the best on our line, though close with Rogers). Just absolutely massive shoutouts to those two. Gotta keep playing the hot hand, right? I wonder who else Taylor could have in mind with this comment. it will be big if the 2023 class is decent, contrary to profile. One final point on offensive personnel for this week: while I am finding recent weeks encouraging at WR, I am starting to worry about tight end. We have been spoiled at TE for years but Roush.....woof. My eyes tell me he's one of the worst blockers we've ever put out there but then I look at PFF and they think he's just as bad at receiving, ranking him #109 of 120 receiving TEs and #96 of 120 blocking TEs. He's had 12 games with 20+ snaps and across those games PFF graded him 10 of 36 in terms of solid grades in receiving, run blocking, or pass blocking (his clear strength in their view). We have to hope for big year to year improvement (and TE is a position where that can happen) but he's almost half way through his college career and was a vaunted early enrollee so this might not be a TE at our historical standards. All off season and most of this season I have assumed 2023 would be the last year for Yurosek and it probably will be for a host of reasons, but now that he's lost a year and our TE pipeline behind him is arguably in shambles, I am now opening up a sliver of hope Yurosek pulls a Mike Wilson and comes back. If not, we can hope for big improvement from Roush but if it's not there I think we need to be thoughtful about the best use of personnel and scheme and hopefully take advantage of improved line play and more receiving options to rely less on TEs.
7. Ayomanor and Bachmeier both deserve tons of flowers. This is gargantuan, historic production from a duo of football freshmen wide receivers. [This week's moving the chains (first downs) leaderboard: Bachmeier (5, plus drew a pass interference), Daniels (5), Ayomanor (3, plus drew a pass interference), Lamson (2), Harris, Filkins, Raines, Roush, Smith, Farrell] Ayomanor is our best player on either side of the ball but beyond that he is one of the best players in America, straight up. brobdingnagian bummer that he is probably out for the year. [I know that hasn't been announced but if you look at the body language and that we only have a month left in an obvious rebuilding year.....I would be surprised if he's back.] Ayomanor is a genuine mega star obvious NFL player, currently 14th in the nation in receiving as a freshman (even if Stanford is too stupid to market him that way and the first player to have 90+ yards receiving per game for us since Simi Fehoko did it in a pandemic half season. In his first year of college football, Ayomanor had a prime Mark Harris/DeRonnie Pitts/James Lofton kind of season statistically. It's a real shame Stanford has its head up its butt and doesn't understand eligibility or marketing as this is historic on a national scale too. This is one of the best receiver debuts in the history of football. Rondale Moore, Richie James (Group of Five), Tyler Boyd, Davante Adams (Group of Five), Marqise Lee, Sammy Watkins, and Eric Page (Group of Five) are the only freshmen to have debut seasons like this in the last 15 years. I really hope we get one more season out of Ayomanor. And once he's gone, I think we are seeing that Bachmeier will be able to be a bona fide #1 receiver in the ACC.
8. More on the youth movement: Yesterday was triply encouraging at WR because of the shocking deep bomb to Jackson Harris. I don't usually say first names of current players but I am assuming many of you aren't tracking Harris closely. Harris was a late bloomer big high school WR with immense production (the Bobby Kennedy mold) and was the third highest profile true freshman WR in our latest class (behind Borden and Bachmeier, ahead of Cisse). As with Borden and Cisse I have been taking it as a discouraging development that Bachmeier's classmates couldn't push for travel roster spots and playing time. To have Harris come out of nowhere not only to play but to come out of the gate with an awesome and timely chunk play....brobdingnagian. It's my opinion that Farrell and Reuben are bad and need to be over-recruited ASAP, so Harris having utility is a big development. It's also encouraging more generally for the team's development that Taylor made a postgame comment about there being lots of young players like that waiting for an opportunity. We saw two of those on the offensive line with Maikkula and Baklenko not only getting their first college playing time but playing very solidly (according to PFF the best on our line, though close with Rogers). Just absolutely massive shoutouts to those two. Gotta keep playing the hot hand, right? I wonder who else Taylor could have in mind with this comment. it will be big if the 2023 class is decent, contrary to profile. One final point on offensive personnel for this week: while I am finding recent weeks encouraging at WR, I am starting to worry about tight end. We have been spoiled at TE for years but Roush.....woof. My eyes tell me he's one of the worst blockers we've ever put out there but then I look at PFF and they think he's just as bad at receiving, ranking him #109 of 120 receiving TEs and #96 of 120 blocking TEs. He's had 12 games with 20+ snaps and across those games PFF graded him 10 of 36 in terms of solid grades in receiving, run blocking, or pass blocking (his clear strength in their view). We have to hope for big year to year improvement (and TE is a position where that can happen) but he's almost half way through his college career and was a vaunted early enrollee so this might not be a TE at our historical standards. All off season and most of this season I have assumed 2023 would be the last year for Yurosek and it probably will be for a host of reasons, but now that he's lost a year and our TE pipeline behind him is arguably in shambles, I am now opening up a sliver of hope Yurosek pulls a Mike Wilson and comes back. If not, we can hope for big improvement from Roush but if it's not there I think we need to be thoughtful about the best use of personnel and scheme and hopefully take advantage of improved line play and more receiving options to rely less on TEs.