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With the oline and running attack,, he should be able to pick up easy yards on the ground on occasion.

His ability to stretch the field should allow Debrock to do all sorts of fun stuff.this season.

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In 2023, he had a very good year as a WR2. To be fair, he could have been a WR1, but Malik Washington had an amazing year.

In 2024, he also had a good year as a WR1, despite the QB situation being terrible.

Had he stayed at UVa, I think he could have had an outstanding year, now that they plucked Chandler Morris out of the portal.


Last year, our WR1 was basically Beaux Collins until Jaden Greathouse really stepped up his game. For that matter, Greathouse's stats weren't good at all until the last two games of the CFP, where he suddenly became "the man" for us.

Both of those guys put up numbers that would be good for a WR2, but neither were as productive as Fields was.

Not great

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That can run out of the pocket and get yards is essential. Also nice to have a few designed runs here and there but not as much as Leonard ran. That’s why you have RBs.

Now if a QB can run and pass equally well u r set but thats not a very likely situation. I can see minchey in on certain packages maybe if he isn’t the starter. I don’t think I would have problem with that.

Angeli (at this time). Should be excellent Oline, excellent RBs, should see very good passing and decent running qb in Carr. Should be pretty good receivers. Perhaps Minchey in the red zone and short yardage.
I believe the pass will open the run and we will have a very balanced offense. Much more success with screens. Need to see if tight ends can be consistent weapons this year. As much as I'd like to see Love in contention for the Heisman, I'd love to limit his carries in the regular season (not an option in big games) and save his health for a playoff run.

Undoubtedly teams will cram the line of scrimmage on us. To offset this, we need an effective passer rather than a running threat (ala Leonard) at QB.

Minchey from what we've seen to date. Unfortunately, neither has any meaningful college experience.

I think what we see is more of what he did with Ridder and Daniels, minus scrambling being a big part of the Offense. We just can't be as one-dimensional as we were wtih Leonard under center.

Ideally? In a non-gimmick collegiate offense (which means no wishbone, no triple option), every OC's dream is to have a QB the likes of Trevor Lawrence, an excellent WR corps, a solid offensive line, and a good stable of running backs.

There are three offensive fronts (passing, running, QB running) that can be exploited.

1) If you can do one of them very well, you can beat up the teams with weak defenses. If you get lucky, and your defense is great, you can pull off an upset of a good team here and there. Think of how we looked with Tommy Rees as the QB in 2013 or Drew Pyne in 2022. We had excellent running backs, but Rees was limited to short range throws (candy arm, couldn't throw a medium range pass with any zip), and Pyne could only make short to maybe medium range throws to his right. That, plus Pyne was slow on his feet, along with Rees being a stone statue...

2) If you can do two of them very well, then you'll have good success. Think of how we were at the beginning of last year, where the passing game wasn't very good, but the running game and the QB runs were top notch.

3) Having at least a reasonable threat on the third front makes it even better, of course. This is how we were looking about midway through the season, where Leonard got better at reading receiver routes, developed better timing, etc. This is also about where we were during the Ian Book era, where the running game was very good, his QB scrambling was very good, and his throwing abilities were decent (good with short and medium range throws all over the field). It can get you to the playoffs, or even the championship, but you need a lot of luck.

4) Excelling on two fronts, and an above average third front makes it even better. This is where I think we can be, since the running game is undoubtedly excellent, the passing game can be very good, and Carr can actually move very well. By all rights, with a competent defense, this should be more than good enough to win a championship, as long as everyone executes properly.

5) If you can excel at all three, then you can be unstoppable, like Clemson was in 2020 with their full roster in place (although that had more to do with all of their future NFL players returning on defense) when they crushed us in the ACC Championship. Had they played that well against tOSU, I think they could have given Alabama a much harder time that tOSU did, and yes, possibly beaten them.

To be fair, the running game and the passing game were working so well, that Trevor Lawrence didn't have to run the ball, but his added threat made life very miserable for us in the ACC Championship game, and all but broke our backs on that 34 yard scamper.


If my guess is correct, Denbrock will use a more balanced offense this year. There's no need to simply make CJ Carr be a game manager with a limited playbook, since the man is one of the smartest players around, and has the physical tools to make things happen.

I simply don't want him running those QB runs very much, since we have plenty of weapons to use, and don't want his getting gimpy. I'd much rather see him stay in the pocket like Mac Jones did in 2020. The only question mark is how good the receiving corps is, but I actually feel a lot better for 2025, with Greathouse and Faison being much more experienced as true juniors, along with Malachi Fields already having some experience as a WR1. That, plus the "home grown" talent with that trio of sophomores should emerge.

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That 2004 offense was all but unstoppable.

All of their players were very well schooled in the pro-style offensive scheme, and there were some really complex blocking schemes for the offensive line, TE's, and RB's that would have been all but impossible for most teams to do. The best way I can describe his offense is a modified Air Raid attack that incorporates more ball control (no hurry up / no huddle).

When you have 1st and 2nd round draft picks at almost every offensive position, it's certainly one of the best schemes, but its learning curve makes it very difficult to implement, especially if you want your freshmen and sophomores to play. He tried doing that at Hawaii, and flopped pretty badly, since the players were nowhere near the caliber require for it.

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I think Minchey fits the existing scheme/Denbrock better but Carr is where we need to move.

I’d guess we start with Carr at QB managing an offense that is 60/40 run/pass, at least for first two games, evolving to a more balanced attack over the season. But that’s a guess.

AND if you are going to adopt that strategy, especially for game 1 and 2, then do you go with Minchey or a split of Minchey/Carr to start?

At this point, it is anyone’s guess.

than last year, which points to Carr being QB1. Problem is, ND doesn't have elite talent on the outside to run a pro-style offense, at least not against really good teams.

I'd personally rather see a QB that stresses the defense with his feet more. Carr can move, but defenses don't have to gameplan for him running. That's a big advantage for any D.

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