Logan Smothers

Mavric said:
"Offensive Identity" is a red herring - a euphemisism for "we aren't good enough".

What would you say is Clemson's "offensive identity"?  What about Oklahoma?
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I know what you mean but also don’t think it’s 100% true. My point was the skill set of Haarberg and Torres is a bit different than McCaffery and Smothers. It may indicate that they may have shifted their philosophy a bit. Or it may mean nothing at all.

 
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Farms said:
I know what you mean but also don’t think it’s 100% true. My point was the skill set of Haarberg and Torres is a bit different than McCaffery and Smothers. It may indicate that they may have shifted their philosophy a bit. Or it may mean nothing at all.
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Are you going to answer the question?

 
The Scarlet Pimpernel said:
If the QB situation doesn't improve this year I think Frost will be told to get rid of Mario & throw big $ at a legit QB coach who can lure some top-tier QBs here
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If that happens I want to see a reshuffling to have a full time ST coordinator with no other duties. Do we need 2 LB coaches? Can Dawson be solely ST and Ruud picks up all LBs? Do we need a dedicated TE coach or can they split time between OL and WR rooms?

Maybe ST takes a huge swing up this year, but if it doesn't they still aren't putting enough time and resources into it. I'm cautiously optimistic but am in wait and see mode.

Back to your question though, if we have another bad offensive year, no one at QB coach is going to be able to get a high 4 or 5 star kid here. Just not happening.

 
Farms said:
I know what you mean but also don’t think it’s 100% true. My point was the skill set of Haarberg and Torres is a bit different than McCaffery and Smothers. It may indicate that they may have shifted their philosophy a bit. Or it may mean nothing at all.
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I think philosophy is a much different discussion than your original point about identity. Their philosophy may change dependent on the skillsets of a specific team or player, but an offensive identity is often a lot more nebulous and a lot less quantifiable i.e. "we're gonna play hard," "we're going to play fast," "we want to be the most physical team," etc.

To @Mavric's point, the identity piece of this discussion has always a bit meaningless. It's a low-hanging fruit talking point any time things are either going really well or really bad. IMO, your identity is ultimately going to be determined by how well you execute and do what you're trying to do.

 
Mavric said:
Are you going to answer the question?
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I wasnt talking about Clemson and Oklahoma. I don’t watch them every week. Do they have to adjust their play calls a lot for their number two QB? I bet they they probably hang their hat on the same things regardless of who’s behind center but like I said I don’t watch them enough to know. We can’t say the same thing because we haven’t found things that work for us consistently (like you said we haven’t been very good). But also we’ve recruited very different types of players for the same offense . I’m not saying we aren’t trying to establish an identity in just saying that we haven’t done it yet. (In my opinion.) Now go ahead and pick that apart because it really seems like you go out of your way to try to contradict whatever I say. 

 
Farms said:
One thing I still don’t like is we still haven’t established an offensive identity. If Smothers comes in we are probably going to adjust our offense vs if Haarberg comes in. Wisconsin, Iowa, and Ohio State don’t have to adjust their offense for their QB’s. That being said Torres resembles Haarberg much more than Smothers. Could be coincidence that the best guy they could get two years in a row are big athletic guys with strong arms or maybe they’ve figured out those kind of QBs will be better suited in the B1G. I think this is the case and they actually prefer Haarberg’s skill set if they believe he can make the correct reads/decisions. 
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I want to see more of Haarberg only in the sense that I know he has a live arm but I want to know if he can consistently complete passes or not.  His accuracy, game management, turnovers etc.  Honestly any take on either backup QB at this point is practically pure guess work as no one knows how they are going to respond once the bright lights are on.  Then we'll know.  Both backups have zero experience besides practice so far.  At this point we'll only really find out who they are and what they are made of after it's go time and after having been in that setting for more than just a few plays here and there.

I definitely think Smothers is QB #2 at this point which I'm perfectly fine with as I am anxious to see how he handles things too.

 
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suh_fan93 said:
I want to see more of Haarberg only in the sense that I know he has a live arm but I want to know if he can consistently complete passes or not.  His accuracy, game management, turnovers etc.  Honestly any take on either backup QB at this point is practically pure guess work as no one knows how they are going to respond once the bright lights are on.  Then we'll know.  Both backups have zero experience besides practice so far.  At this point we'll only really find out who they are and what they are made of after it's go time and after having been in that setting for more than just a few plays here and there.

I definitely think Smothers is QB #2 at this point which I'm perfectly fine with as I am anxious to see how he handles things too.
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I agree with you.  It's sad so many on here bag on our backup QBs who have never had the opportunity to even show what they can do in a game.

I can remember a lot of spring game heros who stunk in games later.... It's one practice that fans should take with a grain of salt.

 
Farms said:
I think the prototype for Smothers is McKenzie Milton. If you can make good reads and make quick, smart decisions he could have a ton of success in this offense without a big arm. He is extremely athletic so he could still be very dangerous I just hope he’s not McCaffery 2.0.  Haarberg reminds me of Josh Allen. Big, strong arm and pretty athletic but he is obviously very raw. In my opinion he has an NFL ceiling but will take years to develop. If he beats Smothers out, Smothers most certainly transfers so he’s probably QB3 no matter what this year. In years past I’d be very concerned about depth but in this day and age if we need a QB we will almost certainly hit the transfer market and at minimum get somebody decent. Hopefully we have some success and Adrian shows out and we can get a big time QB like Raiola for 2023.
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Raiola could start as a true freshman. I sure hope we find a way to land him.

 
Looking to the future, I don't think there's any reason to be worried about the distance between our 4th year starter at QB and the 1st/2nd year backups. Smothers and Haarberg will get a lot better from where they are now, and if they aren't the answer when Martinez is gone I'm still pretty confident we can pull a talented QB.  I do think the presence of a guy set up to be a 4 year starter has affected who the coaches target, and who is interested.

Now for this year I'd feel quite a bit better if LMC stuck around, flawed as he was as a passer. You'd have to figure he'd improve there, and some experience/explosiveness would be nice. But it does sound like Smothers is less of a project throwing the ball, and I'd trade some explosiveness to improve on McCaffrey's INT rate. 

 
The Scarlet Pimpernel said:
What makes you think that? They haven't shown the ability to do that yet.
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We seem well positioned with some talented kids in the 2023/2024 class, and to me it looks like we've been specifically targeting talented but raw kids while we've hard Martinez - McCaffrey, Haarberg, and Torres. Smothers was actually pretty highly regarded, at least on Rivals. But my guess is we were taking shots on talent that might be willing to stick around longer instead of transferring if they didn't beat out the starter. Could definitely be wrong though.  

 
It was a great throw and catch.  I was sure that it was a TD because I thought the ball went over the pylon first (goal line) and then the leg touched it.  I wanted it reviewed.  Then I saw the score and time left in game on TV, and realized if it was earlier it would have been reviewed.  By that time, fans were rolling out, Fordham was exhausted, and we was up really big.

 
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