Re: The second half scoring woes

[3]
Posted: Sep 20, 2020, 7:25 AM

They are. Caldwell is a good position coach but he had an undeniably (and sorry, inexcusably) bad recruiting run up until 2020 with the exception of Jackson Carman and Matt Bockhorst as far as blue-chip recruiting went. The others were mostly local or at best regional guys, developmental prospects...and he didn't sign nearly enough of those either, though to his credit Caldwell does seem to have largely hit on the few he did sign. He hit on Cade Stewart. He definitely hit on Jordan McFadden despite the fact McFadden is only about 6'2". He appears to have hit on Will Putnam.

It definitely became a point of emphasis in 2020 - Clemson finally raked the blue-chips in - but those guys are also true freshmen. "Experience" will help them...but it's not just game experience they lack, it's technique - hand placement, footwork, knowledge of sets and playbooks, line calls. Those things have gotta be reflex and right now they're clearly just not...and that just takes time. The even bigger problem is, these guys are mostly 18-19 years old and for the most part they're massively understrength...and that's just not something that's going to get better this year either. So while PT will help these guys some, mostly what it's helping with is providing proof positive these guys need a lot of work.

OL takes awhile to develop. Walker Parks is clearly the furthest along (by a good bit) of the young guys; I feel good about him being ready to replace Carman next year.

The others, I'd say, need a couple years. Of the other backups right now I can kind of live with Blake Vinson. The jury is still out on most of the others...mostly because they're just so young and underdeveloped at the moment.

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