I'm already anticipating the excuses about how our offensive line sucks and that we don't any experienced WRs

I'm assuming we are going to bring in a QB from the portal to compete

boognish_bear said:

---

I'm assuming we are going to bring in a QB from the portal to compete

---

I think we need to. If Shapen wins an open competition in spring and fall, good for him. But I don't think he did nearly enough this season to be handed the starting job next year. Whether it's Blake or someone else taking snaps in 2023, we need a much better performance at that position than we got this past season ... and Blake needs to know that going in.

Where is his competition coming from?
A true freshman and a transfer from La Tech

robby44 said:

---

Where is his competition coming from?
A true freshman and a transfer from La Tech

---

The portal just opened. I would be very surprised if we didn't bring in someone to at least provide token competition.

The Hound said:

---

if it was so obvious that Drones and Zeno were overrated, that still seems like a failure to our coaching staff to recruit such obviously overrated players. Right? Basically, there is no scenario here where the coaching staff looks good. If your system is too hard for them to run, that might not be a quarterback problem, it might be a system problem

---

would love to hear your top 3 bullet points for why Drones is "obviously overrated."

There's a ton of really good QBs in the portal. Leary and McCall are 2 we should really be looking hard at

Bigkahunaww said:

---

Mitch Blood Green said:

---

Does he have a choice but to play Shapen? Are we willing to go all in on a promising freshman?

---

I have a feeling they bring in a potential starter from the portal, to compete with Shapen and Novosad.
And who knows, Novosad could bulk up (which is almost a definite) and knock it out of the park during spring training.

---

I got curious about this so I poked around and checked out how many true freshman QBs made it to the last week of the season as the starter. There were eight in D1... not many, and none finished the year with a winning record as a starter. The best was probably Weigman at A&M, so it's not completely out of the realm of possibility they keep the shirt off Novosad. But I will say it's exceedingly rare a true freshman looks like they have any idea what they're doing for a reason.

Bell would probably want to do that AFTER Austin signs, if so.

We are definitely bringing in a QB from the transfer portal. We have 2 scholarship players at the position including Novosad, and he's not on campus yet. Wouldn't be holding my breath for a big name if I was y'all.

So you think all of our offensive woes were exclusively on the QB?

Not at all at least IMO. But he severely hindered our offense there's zero doubt about that. He had 1 throw he could make consistently. The route tree was vanilla because Blake is so limited offensively. Go rewatch every game. Count how many wide open TDs he missed. I'm talking throws high schoolers see and make. Bet you it's about 15 or so. That's unacceptable. He's also the QB so naturally he's going to shoulder most of the blame

boykin_spaniel said:

---

So you think all of our offensive woes were exclusively on the QB?

---

No
I don't think our QB woes are exclusively the fault of the OL and WR

I put a 1/3 on each position group. QB, OL, WR. RB's were pretty solid minus a couple wrong reads here and there but to be expected for a young group.

I think it's an equal share for each group and a lot seem to place it all on our QB. (Minus RB's)

It's defined not an equal share. You think the RB room should carry the same amount of blame as Shapen? Yikes.

I specifically singled out the running backs as being our best unit. I simply added that the few mistakes they did make were expected as a young and inexperienced group overall.

I don't think anyone expected our offensive line to all of the sudden get wrecked in pass protection. They were very experienced. 4 returning starters. They regressed as a unit overall.

For every pass Shapen missed was a play with no one open. We also dealt with drops here and there.

I put equal blame on the OL, WR, and QB from a positional stance. Coaches also shoulder blame for underperforming units. Mix in some questionable play calling and we had an inconsistent offense.

Edit: I see how it seemed I put the RB's in there. I edited previous post. Sqwirl and Reese were great.

They shouldn't, but it should be noted that in production our RB room had the biggest statistical drop-off in the most categories from 2021 to 2022 between the units we're talking about. They carried a load for GB that a much greener group did not for Shapen. As a unit they rushed more times for fewer yards and fewer TDs, and that in particular was not a Shapen problem. That obviously includes an OL that notched grades almost uniformly below 2021 production, which I have zero answers for considering what we brought back.

The passing game was the only area of the four where we actually improved in more areas than we regressed in production from '21 to '22. Not that it was good enough, but there are shades are gray here.

Agreed. 4 returning o-line starters and we got worse. I will say that the RB room was young and a drop off in production was expected. Can't expect an Abram Smith to emerge every year.

Yeah, I think it was entirely reasonable to expect some drop, and Reese/Sqwirl did as well as most would expect for a true freshman and guy coming off one devastating injury after another.

But I do think you have to factor that into the equation when telling Shapen's story from 2022. He was asked to throw 70 more balls than Gerry did in 2021 while operating behind a line that went from 9th in sack rate in 2021 to 79th, and from 73% of rushes going for 4+ yards to 47%. The holes were smaller and the time to throw was shorter. Doesn't excuse everything Shapen did, but again, it's part of the story.

boykin_spaniel said:

---

I don't think anyone expected our offensive line to all of the sudden get wrecked in pass protection. They were very experienced. 4 returning starters. They regressed as a unit overall.

For every pass Shapen missed was a play with no one open. We also dealt with drops here and there.

I put equal blame on the OL, WR, and QB from a positional stance. Coaches also shoulder blame for underperforming units. Mix in some questionable play calling and we had an inconsistent offense.

---

Are we talking the same OL that was voted best in the big 12 ?
Or are you specifically targeting them for pass protection?

Now to say that every pass Shapen missed was because we had no one open is bull.
There were plenty of passes both deep and intermediate routes they had receivers open, but Shapens poor footwork caused him to miss target. Heck even the announcers were commenting on it.

This talk on here that our o line was really bad is just not accurate at all. Was it elite no, but it was more than serviceable. Blake just doesn't have a smidge of picket awareness

Bigkahunaww said:

---

boykin_spaniel said:

---

I don't think anyone expected our offensive line to all of the sudden get wrecked in pass protection. They were very experienced. 4 returning starters. They regressed as a unit overall.

For every pass Shapen missed was a play with no one open. We also dealt with drops here and there.

I put equal blame on the OL, WR, and QB from a positional stance. Coaches also shoulder blame for underperforming units. Mix in some questionable play calling and we had an inconsistent offense.

---

Are we talking the same OL that was voted best in the big 12 ?
Or are you specifically targeting them for pass protection?

Now to say that every pass Shapen missed was because we had no one open is bull.
There were plenty of passes both deep and intermediate routes they had receivers open, but Shapens poor footwork caused him to miss target. Heck even the announcers were commenting on it.

---

Amazing how an inefficient QB will make a decent OL look bad

There is no doubt that QB performance is outsized in its effect on the success of other units and on the team as a whole.

QB is critical. At every level.

Do people on this board not understand what happens when you go from 9th to 79th in sack rate allowed? That's a serious problem…

Never said every pass Shapen missed was because no one was open. He missed plenty of throws. My statement above was that for every mistake he made a receiver or lineman also made a mistake.

boykin_spaniel said:

---

Do people on this board not understand what happens when you go from 9th to 79th in sack rate allowed? That's a serious problem…

---

A lot of those sacks were a result of Shapen holding on to the ball in the pocket or scrambling backwards for 8-10 seconds instead of throwing away the ball. The kid had terrible pocket awareness as well as no internal clock for pass protection.

Shapen does need pocket work as did Gerry. Shapen was sometimes quick to flee, sometimes fleeing the wrong way, and sometimes sat in there when he needed to bail. The offensive line play did drop and that should be factored into the conversation. Galvin was a top 10 tackle per PFF in 2021 and was 54th this year. That's a decent drop.

We had inconsistent pass protection, a lack of a go to receiver like Thornton, and a young inconsistent QB. My point is all 3 played a role in what we saw combined with some head scratching play calls that seemed to put players in spots they shouldn't be in.

O line cause Shapen to miss all those throws? Dude couldn't even throw an accurate pass to the flats. How many times w did Jones have to make circus catches in the flats. Did the o line cause Blake to leave the pocket early because he felt pressure that wasn't there? You can blame the o line all you want. The main contributing factor to the offensive woes was bad QB play. O line play was serviceable, QB play was not, not even close

boykin_spaniel said:

---

Never said every pass Shapen missed was because no one was open. He missed plenty of throws. My statement above was that for every mistake he made a receiver or lineman also made a mistake.

---

Dude, this is the exact quote from your post. Maybe you should go back and reread it.

For every pass Shapen missed was a play with no one open. We also dealt with drops here and there.

And when you have eleven men on the field at one time, there are going to be some inconsistencies.
But a decent QB makes the adjustments necessary to have a positive play. Shapen did not do that on a consistent basis.
I will say I thought Shapen was at his best when he took a three step drop and got rid of the ball. He seemed to panic too quickly when going thru his progressions. And I believe after having the mild concussion, he lacked faith and trust in both the receivers and lineman.

Apologies if my grammar does not make sense to some. Perhaps I should've added the word "subsequent".

Shapen was most comfortable making quick throws. Yet our coaching staff seemed intent to not give him a ton of quick easy throws. Perhaps I'm the idiot here and we did and y'all are right and all of our offensive problems fell on the QB, but I saw a lot of slow developing pass plays. Coaches need to put players in positions to succeed. Shapen clearly had confidence issues, so give him more easy quick throws early in the game. Don't wait till 3rd and 12 to dial up pass plays that'll take at least a full 3 seconds to develop with mediocre at best pass protection.

Shapen bares plenty of blame. I just ascribe less to him than most others on here. He was most comfortable with quick slants and crosses yet Grimes didn't seem to call up many of those early in games or he would on a drive and then stop. With a young QB call some easy plays for him to build up a little confidence.

Shapen did struggle with screens and backs flaring out. Definitely something that needs work. But some of that is footwork. Where is Shawn Bell and Grimes? They are supposed to fix shoddy mechanics. Bohanon's mechanics appeared to regress last year with more back foot throws and Shapen did not improve.

My main point is that not all of our offensive woes can be placed around the neck of a first year starting quarterback. If people can't even admit a regression in the o-line and highly inconsistent receiver play I'm not even sure we were watching the same team.

There is point that many on this thread are missing.

Bohannon was essentially led to the portal. The reasoning behind this boggles the mind. When we had Bohannon at QB we would have had a top 10 running game this year.

Blake was told, in no uncertain terms, to play as cautiously as possible bc the staff spent so much with Shapen/Bohannon that we did not have anyother alternatives.

I was at the BYU game and have commented on this before, the student section at BYU were laughing that our QB would not run the ball when the opt. provided itself. Bohannon would have steam rolled BYU again and they all knew it. Pretty sad commentary.

We were embarrassed by the dead end schemes we were running. If Bohannon is encouraged to stay and split time as a dual threat guy, we have an easy 10 wins.

If we want to go on about the lack of stunts on the DL, another book could be written about that.

OldBurlyBear86 said:

---

There is point that many on this thread are missing.

Bohannon was essentially led to the portal. The reasoning behind this boggles the mind. When we had Bohannon at QB we would have had a top 10 running game this year.

Blake was told, in no uncertain terms, to play as cautiously as possible bc the staff spent so much with Shapen/Bohannon that we did not have anyother alternatives.

I was at the BYU game and have commented on this before, the student section at BYU were laughing that our QB would not run the ball when the opt. provided itself. Bohannon would have steam rolled BYU again and they all knew it. Pretty sad commentary.

We were embarrassed by the dead end schemes we were running. If Bohannon is encouraged to stay and split time as a dual threat guy, we have an easy 10 wins.

If we want to go on about the lack of stunts on the DL, another book could be written about that.

---

This is all speculation on my part, but in 2021 the OC wanted a RUN VIOLENT OFFENSE or RVO, and I think Baylor did really good with that. Set a school record with 12 wins.
It's possible the coaching staff recognized that even with all the returning OL players, our running back corp was not up to that challenge. So they anointed Shapen as QB1 because supposedly "he gave them a better vertical passing game". It didn't happen.
I have to think if they would have stayed with the RVO and Bohannon ( who had better legs), dialed in Reese, and
Worked with Q. jones more, we would have done much better in the win/loss column.

Looking at the second half of the season, with the exception of the Texas game, Baylor avg 4.5 YPP running the ball. And this I blame on the offensive coordinator.

Run the ball five times, get two first downs, oh look, we should run a flea flicker, next thing you know it's 1st and 21 SMH.

DanaDane said:

---

The Hound said:

---

Very frustrating. I'm not sure how anybody could look at me in the eyes and tell me that the quarterback situation here hasn't been mismanaged. Have no clue if he's the real deal or not, but there's no way he can't at least equal what shapen is currently bringing to the table . When you have 1 three star scholarship quarterback on your roster, you screwed up somewhere.

---

Something's wrong when you recruit 3 Elite 11 level QBs and not one of them is your starter or even with your program 1 year later (Bohanon, Drones and Zeno, who departed 12/21). Someone needs to look at their QB coach and figure out why not 1 of the 3 was developed enough to be good enough to start this year in the eyes of the OC and HC.

---

This, I'm afraid ...