Sonoma State Dynasty: Team Growth
As we transition into the third season of the Sonoma State Dynasty, I thought it would be the perfect time to look back at where we started, versus where we stand today. A progress report in a sense. Not to get into too much of a rabbit hole, but one thing about progress in sports and every other facet of life, is that it can be measured and perceived in many ways, depending on perspective. It's easy to see the progress of a team in terms of on-field results, but where that progress is rooted is a more important evaluation when trying to gauge stability and long-term success. So to give a better understanding of where we have improved in terms of football talent, I put together a chart showing the change in overall ratings from the beginning of the dynasty to the start of this season.
Team Growth:
Now, the chart gives a pretty obvious straight line indication of how the team has improved, but I want to write a little about each group to give some context behind the numbers.
Quarterback- This position group has seen the least amount of "improvement". But, if we did a year by year breakdown things would look a little different. Terron Barnes, our starter the past two seasons was a 69 overall to start, but was a 79 by the end of last season. This is his senior year, but for reasons I'll describe as creating more realism for the sake of simplicity, I had him transfer. So we are very much starting over. I also had our backup from last year, David DePol, transfer as well. So our most "senior" quarterbacks are redshirt sophomore's, Bryce Frost and Deonte O'Neal. Frost will be splitting time with redshirt freshman Jon Hill this season, giving us a great chance to see how much we can truly milk from low-overall players. It's going to be the most critical and possible to get players to play above their rating at quarterback since it is such a decision making driven position. With those decisions being entirely in my control, the player's actual rating becomes a lot less important. This season we'll get a good idea as to how much I can elevate or deteriorate the team with my quarterback play. Neither guy I'll be using has the ability run like Barnes, so fundamental pocket play will be the name of the game.
Running Back- Another position that shows minimal improvement, but would also look different if we were returning our starter from a year ago. Keyonte Tyson reached an 81 overall, but has graduated, being replaced by sophomore Nolan Knight, a 76 overall. A drop-off in rating this season, that should see us out ahead in the long-term. That's good investment in my book. Running-back is also probably the position where I have the second-most ability to get guys to play above and below their overalls. Not nearly as much as quarterback, but certainly more than any other position, at least on offense. With Jon Hill getting time at quarterback, and Nolan Knight at running back, we will get a taste of a couple more guys that we recruited playing significant snaps. Joining the likes of: Miguel Weeks, Sua Chu, Kai Riggins and Josh LaBorn from a season ago. Knight offers less power, but more burst than Tyson, and his development should be fun to watch.
Slotback- Our hybrid slot receiver, pass-catching running back position will also see a change of face this season. Spencer Strickland graduated after putting in a season that emphasized the versatility of the role beautifully, racking up over 400 yards rushing and 500 yards receiving. Tye Hardy moves into the starting spot for year three, and will do so with no drop-off in overall, both him and Strickland being rated as 81's. Hardy should bring a little more explosiveness to the position at the expense of some route running polish, as he offers better speed, acceleration, and agility ratings, but lower short to intermediate route running.
Wide Receiver- At Receiver it's more about the improvement of our depth. For the first time we will carry four players above the 70 overall threshold to begin the season. As a matter of the fact, each of our top four receivers have higher overalls than any receiver on our roster at the start of last season. Finally, our top two receivers, senior, Javon Moore and redshirt freshman, Mailau Westerman, rated as 78 and 77 overalls respectively, are the highest rated receivers we have had in the dynasty so far. The upgrade couldn't have come at a better time, correlating with our new era at quarterback, and should help us maintain a somewhat potent downfield passing attack amongst the field general chaos.
Tight End- Same as the slotback position, new face, same rating. The move from Scott McLawler to Maverick Bentley has no overall drop-off with each being an 81 (at least McLawler at the end of last season and Bentley at the start of this one). Bentley should be an even better blocker than Scotty Mac, but isn't quite as quick. According to his player profile, Bentley has reached his ceiling despite being just a redshirt sophomore, so he likely won't see any dramatic rating improvements going forward. We do however have a pair of redshirt freshman in the reserves with Jaelen Vick and Bradley Ancrum. Both guys should have the ability to surpass the 81 overall mark at some point down the line. It's just a question of when. Vick will be the primary backup this season, and hopefully get his moments, but Bentley will hold the line until further notice.
Offensive Line- Oh man, I could write a novel on my vision for building the offensive line, Starting from year one, to where we are now, and the vision for the future. I'll try to keep it to the short version for the sake of everyone's time. In the game the offensive line needs to be the most self-sufficient unit because I am never personally using them. This correlates to a major truth in real football, that again for the sake of staying on point I won't get lost in, but the offensive line is the only unit in football that doesn't rely on any one else for it's success. Quarterbacks, receivers, running backs and tight ends all need each other to be successful. The offensive line does not operate that way. To keep it simple, I like to build my offensive line: Fastest to slowest, left to right; Strongest to weakest, right to left; slowest to fastest, inside to outside; weakest to strongest, outside to inside. There is A LOT of nuance and variation to this, but it's the best/simplest I can put it. With these guidelines in mind we are trending very much in the right direction. The overalls on the offensive line left to right are: 83, 84, 81, 86, 75. The weakest link being true freshman Ryan Roche at right-tackle, but he should develop well being a 4-star recruit, and standing at 6'8 327 lbs while holding a 93 strength rating. For lower rated guys I'll almost always take strength over movement. At least then we aren't always surrendering ground at the point of attack, even if we aren't holding blocks for a long time. Bentley and our running backs will be tasked with helping out the freshman Roche in pass protection this season, but as a whole the offensive line is set up well for this year and beyond with three sophomore's and a freshman amongst the starting five.
Defensive line- On the defensive front the name of the game for our squad is depth and versatility. Of course it always helps to have a couple of top-level dawgs that can really get after it. For a smaller school like ourselves however, when you aren't picking from the cream of the crop talent, I think it's important to have a deep rotation of guys that have variations in skillset. We want to make use of both speed and strength to change angles of attack against opposing offenses. Typically our strongest guys are as strong as very good team's strongest guys. The problem is their guys are strong and can do a lot of other things, our guys can't. Just keeping it real. To make up for this we need to utilize strength to not get pushed back at certain parts of the line, while also using smaller, quicker players at different parts of the line to create angles, and shoot through other gaps to create negative yardage plays. The variety necessary to do all of this is taking shape. DJ Dean has the strength, Nick Forsythe and Joshua Townsend have the twitchiness, and Stephen Brents has a little bit of everything. All together there are eight or nine guys who could rotate in this year on defensive line. Lessons will be learned early with Oregon on the schedule for Week 2, but I'm optimistic this unit can give them a few problems of their own.
Linebacker- We lost a couple of key pieces at linebacker this offseason with Bubba VanClaiborne and Jacquez Blanks graduating. We'll be sacrificing some size and run-stopping ability with their replacements, Palaie Faoa and Alexander Valentine. That will come with a theoretical upgrade in pass-coverage. Ratings wise at least that is the case. We can't get any worse from a rankings perspective, having finished dead last nationally in pass yardage allowed in each of the first two seasons. The mesh of overall improvement on the defensive line and coverage improvement at linebacker should allow us to be a better defense as a whole.
Edge- This position is essentially a hybrid of a linebacker and defensive lineman. We return both guys who held down the responsibilities a season ago in Jordan Underwood and Koby Garland. The chart shows significant improvement and there certainly is. Underwood is listed at an 82 overall at his primary outside linebacker position, but is an 86 at the other. For the life of me, I can not figure out why, even with the most rigorous of investigating. The authenticity of that 86 is up for debate. Nevertheless the improvement is substantial at a role that demands it. We ask our edge to cover in the pass, fit the run and rush the quarterback. For the most part your classic outside linebacker in a 3-4 defense. This is the most polished unit we've had so far, and it should be fun to see where that takes us.
Rover- The other hybrid role on this defense. In most modern defensive units there is some variation of this position commonly referred to as the "star". Typically it's a hybrid safety and corner who plays in the slot. I went with the Rover term because I wanted to emphasize our use of the position as a linebacker and safety hybrid. Kai Riggins was a borderline star on the defense playing the position as a true freshman last season. He has jumped to an 84 overall from his original 72 rating from when he first arrived on campus. His mix of skills allows us to allocate our resources in a number of ways, and therefore defend a variety of offensive attacks with similar concepts.
Cornerback- Layered. That's the way I would describe the improvement amongst this group. Of course there's the overall ratings, but it's the athleticism, and ability to do the things that allow us to not get beat in the worst ways. Cornerback wasn't always the primary issue, but our lack of speed and play recognition put pressure on other position groups that they just weren't ready for. Something you could say is true to some degree amongst every position at the start of this journey. That has changed. Jayden Bowie has 98 speed and 99 acceleration, giving him the ability to run with the fastest players in the country; Randall Glenn has zone coverage in the high 90's, making him best at the type of coverage we like to play the most; and DeMarvin Holland, who cut his teeth as a return man a season ago, features a little bit of everything. Improvement that, beyond simple numbers, allows this team to do a lot of the things that I feel it needs to do, to win the games we want to.
Safety- If you watched season one, you encountered the Niko Solomon frustrations. While a good amount of it was user error, he certainly struggled to stay over the top of vertical threats, leading to some really long touchdowns for opposing offenses. Last season there was SUBSTANTIAL improvement, and this year there should be even more. While Solomon himself certainly improved mightily from year one to two, he unfortunately will not be part of the starting crop for year three. Malik Moon passed him in development, and I believe his ratings also will prove to be more helpful in what we want from our free-safety position. Last year strong-safety was more of a specialist role for us, but with a tweak to how I construct the defense it becomes a starting spot. Sophomore Josh LaBorn will hold down the for there. He was a standout on special teams he also had his moments rotating in on defense as a freshman. This year he should see a significant number of snaps with the primary defense.
To sum up: Heading into year three we have our best collection of strength, athleticism and technique. While the pressure will be on me to perform with a pair of lower-rated quarterbacks (not to mention orchestrate a way to play both in a flow that feels at least semi-realistic), the rest of the team is in much better shape for that to be possible. We'll be taking on some of the best teams we have played so far in Oregon and Florida, giving us a good indication as to how well my initial roster building strategy plays against better overall competition. I'm excited to bring you guys season three, and hope everyone enjoys. God bless, and take care!
QUARTERBACK COMPETITION VIDEO LINK: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhAD7Nlgrb8