Marc Weiszer has a really good piece on JT Daniels here. This is the part I found particularly interesting:
Daniels missed out on having a chance to shine in a new “Air Raid” offense run by first-year coordinator Graham Harrell, who played for Mike Leach at Texas Tech and coached under him at Washington State.
New Georgia offensive coordinator Todd Monken is from the “Air Raid” tree from his days as Oklahoma State offensive coordinator.
“I know JT and I know he loves the system,” Roth said. “I think the system fits his skill set really well. Hopefully, the coordinator and the system remains in place for a couple of years.”
Roth said he expects Monken to run a pro-style system with Air Raid principles.
That, he says, “is the majority of football these days whether you’re looking at the Seahawks, the Patriots or Mike Leach’s teams or USC. There’s a blend of, hey, get the ball out. Most teams in college don’t try to understand defenses for the most part. It’s mostly what I call pro progression reads.”
Going from a first read to a second to a third.
“You can still play fast, but you can still use your mind and manipulate defenders through changing things at the line of scrimmage,” he said. “I think that’s where JT can be special.”
Monken was head coach at Southern Miss in 2015 when it went up against Western Kentucky and Ellis in the Conference USA championship game.
Ellis sees some similarities between Daniels and Nick Mullens, who Monken coached at Southern Miss and is now with the San Francisco 49ers.
“Nick wasn’t the most athletic guy, didn’t have the biggest arm, he wasn’t the tallest guy, wasn’t the biggest,” Ellis said. “He just knew how to play quarterback. He was smart. He knew mismatches. He understood spacing on the field, he understood what defenses are supposed to do, where the openings are. That’s really what JT’s strength is, just understanding football.”
The story this year is we’ll find out how well Monken adapts to the talent he has on hand. The story next year is we’ll find out how well things mesh when Monken runs his offense with the kind of talent that fits what he likes to do.
I’m beginning to see how Kirby sold Daniels on coming to Georgia. Now, as Ellis says, let’s see if Monken can stick around for a couple of years to get everything in place.