PFF ranks the Wake Forest graduate transfer as its top such player in 2020, but that’s not what I want to discuss here. This is:
Wake Forest ran the second-most RPO (run-pass option) plays in 2019 in order to help its QB with easy reads. Newman wasn’t particularly adept at them, though, and his passing grade of only 72.1 on RPO throws shows this. Where Newman was great, and this is good news for Georgia, was on straight dropbacks, as he compiled a 90.0 overall grade on these plays over the course of the season.
Meeting Newman at Georgia is new offensive coordinator Todd Monken and his vertical passing attack. All Jamie Newman did on deep throws last season was put up the second-highest grade in the country at 96.5.
Newman isn’t the second coming of Cam Newton, but if he allows Monken to present a legit deep threat in the passing game, I suspect that’s going to be a bigger deal than we might think. I’m also guessing Newman is thrilled about the potential trade off between what he was asked to do last year and what Georgia will be running in 2020. Should be fun to watch for all concerned.
Get The Picture 
“Balance is multiple skill players touching the football,” he said on Thursday. “To me, it is not always just run-pass. It is, do you have enough skill players where they can touch the football? That, to me, is balance.”
-Monken in 2019 from Cleveland.com story when he was introduced
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That is straight out of the Mike Leach school of offensive philosophy.
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This is good news. I was concerned that Newman was a better RPO QB and would have to learn to adapt to our system. It’s great that he is a better fit our us.
I also, like Monken’s opinion of balance. I remember when the Senator posted Leach’s description of balance. We may have us an offense after all…well, maybe in 2021. Man, I hate the thought of waiting that long to find out.
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I’m happy about this as long as we have someone besides Pickens that can catch those deep balls.
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Landers and DRob dropping deep passes instantly came to mind while reading Bluto’s post. That, and yesterday’s “fatigue” post inferring Newman gets tired after throwing a few long balls.
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Feels like some “soft Dawg porn ” to me….
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And if it’s not there he doesn’t have to be a statue. Which is 75% of my desire.
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And he’ll have a ton more talent around him…at every position…then he ever did at Wake. That alone will make up for a lot of shortcomings he may tallied while executing RPO plays.
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And yet, if the UGA offense is disjointed due to lack of familiarity with Monken’s system and lack of rapport between Newman and the offense, Newman will be RPO’ing like gangbusters.
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Yes missing the Spring is a concern…is it so much that the Gaturds pass us????
Nope.
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Look a bit of cometary on our installing a new system. The main mountain to climb is the simple verbiage attuned to your new team’s philosophy. The X, Y and Z don’t change names but the route patterns and familiarity with a team exchange is as critical. The slots, WO’s, Twins, Trips and Quads change verbiage for all so the QB is paramount at the start of the learning curve to change a set due to a change in defensive scheme. Mathis, Beck and Bennet will be learning at the same instant as Newman.
Conversely and probably as paramount is the OL calls so when X drag, Y corner and Z post is called and whoever the QB is changes that to 346 Blast the communication between all are connected.
It’s not like this is high school and you get a 9th grader that’s has no concept of a post corner is. These kids communicate daily with their coaches. Is there gonna be blown assignments? I haven’t seen a game yet where that doesn’t happen.
For now our concern should be not timing on RPO’s, or a ball thrown before the cut. I have faith that after conditioning 3 weeks max and most will have this down. Now that won’t be 3rd week of November timing but none the less they will perform at a high level.
The main Thing is will they get a chance to play at all. The NFL thinks they can do the no fan thing, PGA same thing, MLB in Arizona and Florida. ( different leagues and different alignments)
To quote Terry Bradshaw, I know not the best source of analogy but college football is a different animal. It’s a machine that’s got a lot of different functional bodies to come together. Like one opening classes August 16th. The boosters. The corporate sponsors. Ticket sales, refunds, day to day contingencies such as travel, lodging and food these things are planned way ahead as in months. In change in dates of play is gonna throw that into ball of confusion.
Just saying the team timing will be the least of the issues starting 2020 CF in September.
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