OK, what gives? I know you can't lay every recruiting loss at the guy's feet. But at the end of the day, he's responsible for his RB room. And heading into year 3 he's got a D2 xfer, a 3rd down back, a former QB turned WR turned RB, and a true freshman. The most talented guy in the room left his starting spot in the SEC. Also, I was shocked at how unprepared it seemed Bell was at RB. Lloyd never reached his potential. The only recruit I can find that he was the primary for is Braswell. Honestly, what's he bringing to the table?? Literally every other position coach on the team has increased the talent in his group. MoHard is the only one that has gone backwards. Just seems very odd.
Hardesty
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Lloyd never reached his potential due to injuries, and that started before Hardesty was here.
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I think Bell had great potential at RB. He is a terrific athlete - a top-tier athlete. I came away from the season feeling we had mismanaged him overall. That has nothing to do with his family's social media input. With a greater commitment to develop him as a RB, he could have been a game-changer for us. Just my opinion.
I generally agree with you, but will disagree here. Bell is a tremendous athlete. But he's not a great FB players. We are much better off now without him.
Much better off? Respectfully, our current roster doesn't support that.
Assuming you mean we are better off team chemistry wise.
With the football in his hands in the right position/situation, Bell was very much a threat to any defense and we could definitely use him. Not so much when asked to create his own out of nothing type situations.
Trey Knox had better production in an offense that didn't utilize the TE the way we do. I think he's going to explode in this offense. Bell was given an enormous opportunity to be showcased, and he was unable to take advantage of it. As a RB, I'm confident DK/Juju can squeak out 3.6 ypc.
Nope, I said what I said. Football wise, we're better off.
I guess if you could guarantee Bell would have the ball in his hands running against a DB or smaller LB, he's a good option. Nate Adkins was a better player if we're being totally honest.
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All I'll say about his Bell is that his production didn't live up to his athleticism. Whose fault that is, I guess we'll find out with how he fares at FSU.
I'm sure he'll look better going up against weaker defenses each week. He had 2 games in 2 years. Nothing will change my mind on this.
Perhaps. But can you imagine what would have happened the first time Bell came off the field and HBC asked him what happened, and he says "I forgot the play". HBC did not tolerate receivers that couldn't run their routes.
How many elite athletes just sat on the sideline I. spurrier’s era? Idk how he did it but he figured out how to use the best players.
If I had to chose between Adkins and Bell it would be Adkins all day long. The way he played the second half of last season was impressive all the way around. He deserves a lot of credit for our offensive turnaround. Would love to have had one more year with Nate.
He could have been another Kellen Winslow. It jumps out at you. We emasculated him.
We had plenty of highly rated WRs that didn’t contribute. Bell didn’t sit the sideline. He had ample opportunities.
Bell was a liability blocking. He created mismatches because he probably wasn’t really a TE, but wasn’t a WR either. He could’ve filled the Deebo role where you find mismatches in the passing game of hand off on sweeps. But the problem is the other 80% of snaps he was not a good player on the field.
Not crazy about our RBs on paper. But we were so bad in the run game last year, could it possibly be any worse? Lloyd was great against Charlotte and those teams, but he didn’t do anything against good teams. I believe one of these backs will step up. I never expected Kevin Harris to really be a great RB, but that dude was great here.
Until it changes, I’ll always be way more concerned about the OL opening holes than the RBs.
Not crazy about our RBs on paper. But we were so bad in the run game last year, could it possibly be any worse? Lloyd was great against Charlotte and those teams, but he didn’t do anything against good teams. I believe one of these backs will step up. I never expected Kevin Harris to really be a great RB, but that dude was great here.
Until it changes, I’ll always be way more concerned about the OL opening holes than the RBs.
Spurrier had some really good TE’s. I don’t think Bell would’ve played TE under Spurrier. Busta, Justice, etc had to block. He probably gets snaps at WR.
In that case, he certainly would have rendered Calvin Johnson insignificant at the next level. It's undeniable.
But he was being asked to do a job he was best suited for. That’s at least equal failure on the coaching staff. Which highly rated WRs in Spurrier’s era sucked? Murdock and Shaq Roland? Their issues were personal and off the field issues. I just don’t remember a lot of busts back then.
If I'm going to rely on a receiver, it's going to be Juice/Vann over Bell 8 days a week. So I guess he's be a nice #3 WR, assuming he would have actually ran good routes.
Not wanting to block limited him as a TE. So I'm going with Nate Adkins all day over Bell at TE. I guess I'm not sure what he's best suited for?? Other than just looking like a freak athlete for his size. He should have listened to Lincoln Riley and played LB. I'm not going to blame the coaching staff for him not fitting into an offense that needs a TE to block. MAYBE you could make the argument that the staff didn't do a good job at developing him into a better WR. But not if the player isn't doing what is needed on the practice field and film room.
We had a ton of them. We missed on way more WRs than we actually got production out of. Below is a list of 4* WRs that never did anything. Some of them never even played. I included Murdock and Roland. Doesn't really matter why, they had issues that kept them from performing. Whether on the field or off, it's a bust.
Jason Barnes
Joseph Hills
Deion Lecorn
Matt Clements
Lamar Scruggs
Javon Bell
Shamier Jeffery
Jody Fuller
Kwinton Smith
Shaq Davidson
Terry Googer
OJ Mudock
Shaq Roland
Yards per carry is an incomplete stat at best and dependent on intent and utilization. In my view Bell’s design was to get that 3.6 when we needed it; commented on it many times. Moved the chains. Can’t say the same for Lloyd or juju. I was impressed with Dak; have hopes there.
If you think about him, if he played today with the NIL money, he may have had a different fate.
Maybe with NIL no need to go shoplift from the store his girlfriend worked at and get kicked off the team, but after that to his credit and talent he rebounded and ended up at Fort Hays State and had a impact and was not drafted but signed by the Titans but had the injury and then well you probably know the rest.
Of those guys I would say Shaq Roland had the best career but never achieved expectations but had a big bowl game vs Wisconsin and left before his senior year, to go pro but ended up at a small school, leaving was a mistake for him.
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We tried running Bell up the middle. We tried running him around the edge. We tried popping it to him on sweeps. We tried quick throws into the flats. We tried every way possible to get the ball in his hands. And more often than not, it was uneventful. I'm not sure what else you would have wanted the staff to do.
Barnes was serviceable from what I remember. Lecorn was due to injury. Jeffrey should’ve never been 4 stars and I only remember him getting a 3 star grade. Several on that list weren’t that highly rated.
Rattler struggled in a big way last year until the final 2-3 games. So, it’s hard for me to blame players yet. I think the narrative about Bell is just as likely made up to protect Satterfield’s awful coaching and overall philosophy of offense.
All of those guys were 4* by at least one service. You expect more than serviceable out of a 4* guy.
HAHA...ball don't lie. Juice thrived. Brooks did enough to get himself drafted. Vann was All-SEC in 21. I'm no fan of Satt, and I think he was terrible. But sometimes guys just aren't very good ball players. If Bell was such a superstar, he would have performed better.
lol. That was the intent. Somehow it got to blaming coaches for Bell not being a good football player. Go figure.
He’s an odd body type. Juice is a prototypical WR. Not enough offensive players thrived under Satt. If Bell goes down to FSU and balls out then we will have our answer.
Even if you say all those guys were busts, Spurrier always had a guy or 2 outperform their recruiting ranking. So it kind of evened out.
He doesn't want to be RB, part of moving to FSU is he won't be in the backfield and he's apparently not looking great for them.
We're way better off at TE. If the RBs we have can read zone blocking, we'll be better off there, too.
I really don't care what he does down there; we were maladroit in our handling of the offense here for all but two weeks of the SEC slate. He was a significant victim of the bunglement.
Lloyd still averaged highly against good teams. He was the offense against Mizzou and we really lost that game when he went out. The problem was he couldn't stay on the field. Unless you're thinking of him struggling against Clemson, but he was not playing at 100%.
You said you'll wait to see what he does there to know whether or not he was the problem. He's not expected to start. Why do you think we bungled it if he was less productive than the alternatives at the positions? He was always a raw athlete and that's not good enough to be a regular contributor at this level.
Lloyd was a complete matador in pass protection. We passed a lot. We HAD no offense against Missouri. Miserable performance.