Rebooting Johnny Brantley

[Swamp Person]

In the post game I seen Boom tell a reporter he should come check out Rainey in practice. But then he noted he couldn't because they weren't open.lol I sure hope there is more then we've seen.

E - DRU this is the one where we will be tested. I've been jumping over to BR (Bleacher Report) those guys seem sold on JB but I'm still to unsure.I'm getting the feeling they're trying to sell us on it. Kinda sugar coated. But like you I'm hoping I'm wrong.

 

[GainesvillebornNraised]

i just think brantley sucks lol

hopefully driskel or brissett will be able to throw for 300-400 yds like this bray kid has every frickin game

 

[Escambia94]

I have a feeling that next year Driskel, Brissett, or even Murphy will be chunking the rock around for 300 yards a game. I had hoped that Brantley would throw for 300, but I held back my disappointment somewhat in the hopes that he would unleash the dragon against Tennessee. Like everyone is saying, UT will be the first test. We cannot go conservative against our first SEC foe. Muschamp needs to win his first game against his buddy Dooley. Florida needs to notch an SEC win before it faces the Gauntlet. Brantley needs to show CW that he has mastered the offense and will lead us to victory.

 

[Swamp Person]

The beginning is the redzone issue. Do you buy it? 8:50 to around 10:50. Could this be? Are we expecting something that the defense just isn't giving? Is CW sugar coating it? http://www.gatorvision.tv/mediaPortal/player.dbml?id=798434&db_oem_id=6500 . Good interview I did enjoy. I just don't know who much weight it carries. You might of done seen this, but I just seen it and thought I would throw it in here. I hope it's ok to do so.

 

[DRU2012]

First, man, you should ALWAYS throw good info., articles, columns and/or links out here on the Envy, just in CASE. I get so many email "updates" that I don't have time to investigate, app-alerts on my phone I just glance at and often don't get back to before clearing, then all the sites in my bookmark-page that I don't often have time to check more than a few of, so I( end up missing a headline or link I SHOULD check out...for example THIS one from GAORVision, hich I DID want to see but forgot about and missed 'til you put it up, so THANKS.
Now, as to his points: there's a certain amount of "Weis-speak", that dry, slightly smiling combination of the vague and the obvious--even Charlie joked about it at one point, answering a reporter's "Can you elaborate on that...?"-question with a smirking "Well. yeah, I CAN, but I won't..."--but a certain amount was pretty interesting. I think we can take from it that they're bringing Brantley along at the speed required by the competition that they face, and that the OC really is satisfied with the progress of both his QB AND his offense, that they're both ready for the next step, that there's more in the playbook than what they've used so far, and we'll see some of that this coming Saturday. Now, the exact form it will take is NOT revealed (big surprise), but it is clear how confident Weis is in what he's got, the skills, plans and preparation that has gone into it, and the poise and ability of his starting QB to do all the things that may be required of him in this game. Pretty clear they're gonna pull out all the stops to break that redzone logjam--one way is to strike from farther out in the first place, but when they DO find themselves inside the 20 I believe we'll see several DIFFERENT approaches, from that "Big Regular" we've been hearing about (Weis even said here that "sometimes we will just line up with certain personnel and you know we're gonna run it but we go ahead and run it anyway and put hat-on-hat and just go GET it...I like that..."), to the "Wildcat", and I hope eventually, if/when #12 shows them he can throw it with any consistency, the fade into the corner of the endzone.
All in all, then, among all that, it sure seemed to ME that he tells us we'll see some things we haven't seen from the offense in the first 2 games, and among those may be some BOMBS, and some different players doing some different things--but hey, even THAT I got from "reading between the lines" and GUESSING, so who REALLY knows, besides Muschamp and Weis--and Coach Boom only if he ASKS...

 

[CaliZona_Gator]

I think Dunbar is a great WR, but still needs another year for his body to bulk up and mature.

And now I would like to disagree with all of you.

Going into the UAB game I wanted to see deep balls across the middle. And I think we had plenty of them. We need to realize Brantley hasn't put up huge passing numbers the first two games because of how great our rushing offense has been.

I'm not even looking at last year when determining the quality of Brantley. Everyone is starting fresh. I think he can throw the ball just fine. He doesn't have the strongest arm, but I think it is plenty accurate from what I have seen these first two games with the balls that go 25-40 yards. I don't really want our offense to try to bomb the ball 65 yards down the field that often. I just want consistency.

 

[DRU2012]

Good points all--and I do want to note that my concerns about the deep ball is more about knowing we HAVE it, showing it sparingly but THERE when it is open: loosens things up for the REST of the offense, 'til it doesn't and you have to BURN 'em again, but ya gotta know you've got it and THEY have to believe it too.
I agree about the "starting fresh" philosophy, in fact a lot of us came into this season with exactly that outlook but have back-slid (myself included, probably inevitably, in the case of Brantley ESPECIALLY, and also somewhat with Thompson), and have begun to worry at signs that certain important things are missing from our arsenal. But you're right about consistency being paramount: Weis has a lot of weapons here and knows how to design an offense around them, and we can be sure he hasn't shown anything CLOSE to everything we're already capable of running--and he WON'T until he NEEDS them, he's said as much.
We SHOULD just learn to step back, begin to trust this team and staff and see what they can do, maybe "enjoy the ride" a bit more...but that isn't exactly in my nature, nor that of a number of our cohorts here at GE. It'll take me a while to get THERE. In fact, the only time I ever felt that kind of calm and reasoned confidence during a season was towards the end of 2008, once we'd really gotten rolling after the MSU/"Promise" game, once Tebow and the team just had it ALL clicking. Not the kind of thing that comes along very often, so I accept my fate of being almost always "the passionate-but-worried Gator fan"...but at least I know I'm FAR from alone!

 

[Escambia94]

Good points, everyone. We don't need to throw for 500 yards to prove Brantley is a deep threat. We do need to chunk it consistently when the defense jams "the box", because Shake and Bake are going to get targeted by LSU, Alabama, and SC defenses. I do not know enough about UT defense, but it would be nice for JB4 to show off his guns a few times to keep these hard hitting SEC defenses honest. This means Dunbar or Debose or Hammond need to get open and give JB4 some confidence to fire the laser from time to time. Don't abandon the run game. I love ball control offense.