A few observations from the practice clips today
1. Tyler Buchner is significantly taller than Drew Pyne. The difference is 5-11 1/2 to 6-1 as they are listed, but it certainly looks like more than an inch and a half to me.
2. Michael Mayer is the ultimate security blanket and used all the time...as he was last year.
3. Chris Tyree looks really good. The way he accelerates, cuts, changes direction and takes off is just different than the other guys. He looks like a guy that needs to be on the field and to get the ball regardless of how they do it.
4. Sophomore TE Kevin Bauman (Rivals 4*, 5.9, #5 TE and #130 in the country) got reps with the first team today. Mayer makes it easy to forget about him but he was a very highly rated and sought after recruit and the coaching staff is very high on him. So that's interesting.
5. Finally saw Johnson and Styles and both looked good.
6. Davis made a really nice catch.
7. Rylie Mills is a really big dude.
8. Not overly impressed with the OLine play.
9. Defense is going to be legit.
Replies to: A few observations from the practice clips today
Tyree should touch the ball a minimum of 15 times a game. If they can't figure out how to do that...
Something is wrong...
Tyree is looking awesome. He is hitting small holes very quickly and runs with power too.
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Barring injury mayer likely to go down as one of the greats here
Catching prowess like eifert ....better athlete than rudolph ..run after catch ability is legit..he will be the best pass catcher on this squad...5 stars hit more than the rest
Agreed. And, barring injury, he may go down as a great at the next level as well.
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Have you noticed that on broadcasts they will never ever mention the HS he attended?
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I have. It is contemptible, but not surprising.
Same media industry that made a hero of this random vagrant sociopath for verbally assaulting a Catholic school kid will now not mention the victimized institution.
I hope they duck tape some mattresses around Mayer's knees. The defenders in the secondary seemed
to inexplicably dive for those rather than face a straight up tackle on him.
Or maybe work on passing the ball to someone else? Like, we know throwing to Mayer works. It was
all we did the last two games of the year and Clemson and Alabama still couldn't stop it. How about figuring out how we can use the other guys instead of having our best player get tackled 50 times a practice in the spring?
They're not going to have much success trying to tackle him up high
Mike Mayer's not easy to bring down. Even as a true freshman, he was pretty stout, and difficult to bring down when trying to execute a classic tackle to the waist.
He reminds me of Derek Brown, from the Holtz era, where many a defensive back was scared shitless when it came to trying to tackle him. He'd build up so much steam, in addition to having all of that raw strength, that just about every time, he'd run over defensive backs as if they were nothing more than a bunch of midgets.
I remember being at the 1991 Blue and Gold game, and seeing him catch a pass, and Jeff Burris trying to tackle him up high. After the collision, Brown got up quickly, and casually jogged back to the huddle, while Burris needed a few moments to steady himself.
Except Mayer catches the ball, Derek had difficulties doing that.
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One bad game (Stanford, 1990)
Other that that, Derek Brown was a very good receiver, even with Tony Rice as the quarterback. That 1989 Fiesta Bowl game (for the national championship) was excellent proof of that.
He played poorly against Miami in 1989, he rounded off his pattern on the pass Rice threw to him
at the end of the 1st half and basically caused at least a 10 point swing by not using his body at least and the ball got picked off and returned a long way. He dropped other passes too especially in the pros. He could have been the best Irv Smith had a much better pro career and was far tougher to bring down. Mayer is clearly the most talented in this era although Dave Casper in a greater passing era would have been. Casper voted the tight end of the decade in the 70's in the pros. He was only a second round pick too.