fufanatic wrote: ↑Tue Mar 19, 2019 10:49 am
FUBeAR wrote: ↑Tue Mar 19, 2019 9:53 am
JohnW wrote: ↑Mon Mar 18, 2019 10:53 pm
Agree he's probably a PWO. However a gander at the roster shows three scholarship players gone since spring. Darius Morehead, Tyler Voyles, and Jax Hackett.
Wow...
I think Voyles would have been a 5th year guy coming off an injury. Probably went through spring and didn’t like the way the injury ‘felt’ and/or was looking at a difficult climb up the depth chart. Every young man has to do what is right for them in that situation...but I would add that FUBeAR was in a similar situation...and did not ‘need’ to return for my 5th year, but I wanted to finish on a ‘high note’ and decided to return to play with only 1 ACL & coming off a season when I lost my Starting position due to, let’s say, non-football-related, um, reasons. Best season of my life! Absolutely no regrets...and I know I would still be regretting it if I had decided not to play that 5th year. If he can return, maybe he’ll change his mind.
I know big things were expected from Hackett, primarily based upon his lineage. I believe he redshirted last year. PT at LB may be hard to come by with the studs FU has there. No idea why he’s not on the roster anymore, but that could have something to do with it...or not.
Morehead’s departure is the most surprising and, potentially, the most ‘painful.’ His production did drop considerably in 2018 (20/151/2) from when he was was an All Freshman SoCon RB in 2017 (95/588/5)...and he only had 1 ‘touch’ (a reception against Chatt.) the rest of the season, after gaining 69 total yards and scoring a TD on only 4 ‘touches’ in FU’s BIG win over Wofford. Certainly Wynn & Watkins are solid returning RB’s (178/1185/8 + 10/159/1...combined), and there may be some outstanding up & comers behind them, but losing Morehead, for whatever reason, doesn’t seem like a good thing.
Agreed on Morehead. Incredibly disappointing. He was a stud as a RS-FR, not sure what all happened last year. Didn't he have an injury at some point?
I still believe that Wynn could be a SoCon Player of the Year contender at some point, though, so we have options at the position. Good opportunity for a freshman to get some reps.
I don't want to speculate on what personal reasons may have driven the change, but I think from a pure football standpoint Morehead was seeing a reduced role in the offense every season.
From my non-stat driven observations, I rarely saw Morehead carry the ball inside the tackles. Furman has two other backs who do what Morehead does well - they are fast and can catch - but also have the added ability to be physical runners between the tackles. Furman just added another such player in this recruiting class.
Morehead's highest and best use in this offense was as a change of pace back who might only get the ball 2 or 3 times a game, but would let his speed threaten defenses for four quarters. I think that had a lot of usefulness, though, and I'm sorry to see him go.
If you look at total carries last season, though, Morehead finished 9th on the team in carries, 8th in receptions, and didn't return either kicks or punts. If I had to wager, I bet he wasn't getting the ball enough.
I guess the question for Furman is whether they can replace 20 carries and 4 receptions somewhere on the roster. I bet they can.