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Pyne stumbled upon a golden opportunity in 2022.

We had a very good offensive line, with Alt and Fisher now having a year of experience under their belts, along with plenty of experienced veterans elsewhere.

Even though the wide receivers didn't put up great numbers, they were still getting open, and created good mismatches.

We also had one of the best running back stables in the nation, with Estime, Diggs, and Tyree.

Finally, we had the best tight end in all of college football that year in the way of Mike Mayer.

Pyne had several glaring weaknesses.

1) He either couldn't, or wouldn't, look over the middle of the field. Many times, the receivers I mentioned above were getting wide open over the middle and he would either not see them or ignore them.

2) He has very slow feet. While they're noticeably better than Tommy Rees' footspeed, that's like saying someone can beat up a handicapped kid in a fight. His threat on a QB run was minimal at best.

3) He'd lock onto Mike Mayer on the right side of the field almost every passing play, and force a pass to him in double coverage.

4) His arm strength is well below average, being maybe a small tad stronger than Tommy Rees' noodle arm. To ask him to throw a fast pass 20 yards downfield was too much for him.

If Mike Mayer weren't there, I can easily say that there would have been at least two or three more losses. The man was so good, that he could more often than not, beat double coverage and make a catch.

At Arizona State, he didn't have that superstar to throw to along with having to play behind one of the worst offensive lines, and at Missouri, even though they have a pretty good WR corps, he's not seeing them get open.


I'm grateful for his stepping in there in 2022, and managing to win a respectable number of games like Tommy Rees did in 2013, but just like Tommy Rees, his ceiling is simply way too low to be a quarterback at a big time program.

I'm of the belief that Brian Kelly was being too impatient for that Class of 2020, especially after Cade McNamara decommitted the year before, and was simply looking to grab the first willing "right kind of guy."