RB Depth
Depends on how Sanders’, McClellan’s and Williams’ recoveries are going. It might be an embarrassment of riches. It might be that Jamarion Miller is the second-best RB as fall camp opens.
With rare exceptions, ACLs just take 12 - 15 months to fully rehabilitate both mentally and physically. And that assumes no damage other than the ACL itself. If there’s ancillary damage, that could be longer. Modern rehab practices can accelerate the timeline, but there’s no getting around the fact the full healing process simply takes longer than we would like.
Sanders is an interesting question. You can’t help but admire the kid’s heart. As I understand it, his injury was similar to Tua’s (apparently, it’s much more common in car wrecks than on the football field). I never expected a RB to recover from that in one year, so still showing the effects last season wasn’t really a surprise. Where he is now, almost two years later, I think will signal his post-injury upside.
Talent and numbers aren’t in question. Post-injury effectiveness on the football field is. I just don’t think there’s any way to know what our RB depth situation is until the second half of fall camp.
WR Depth
As with RBs, numbers and talent at WR aren’t at issue. On-field effectiveness is. As in, can anybody catch the stinkin’ ball?
We have a Heisman-winning QB tossing passes. Yet these guys were far from playing consistently winning football last year, especially when the two bell cows went down. So we had to go out into the portal and get two guys who appear to have immediately passed all of the others the day they set foot on campus.
Aside from the transfers, I think Ja’corey Brooks is the most reliable today. After that, it’s all kinds of questions. Good news is that catching is mostly mental. Did they learn from the NCG? Will they put in the work? We’ll see.
TE Depth
Here we do have a bit of a talent issue. Latu started his college career as an OLB. He’s decent to good as a receiver, but a bit suspect at a blocker. Ouzts is the opposite — questionable as a receiver, really good as a blocker. Trouble there is Latu in the game signals likelihood of pass to the opposing defense. Ouzts in the game signals likelihood of run.
Freshmen are wholly unproven.
Point of all that being: We definitely have numbers at RB, WR and TE. We definitely have talent at RB and WR. Do we have multiple players at those positions who can be effective against SEC-West competition? For varying reasons, I think that’s impossible to know today, and we might not know until after the UTw game.
