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| Michael Smith receives USU's team MVP honors at the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl |
Quarterbacks
Chuckie Keeton had taken the nation by storm by the end of the first half of football he played. Adam Kennedy kept things going and then some after Keeton went down with an injury. Both of them were doing so in their first tastes of Division-1 football. They combined 21 touchdowns and only six interceptions, while racking up 2,109 yards. As good as Keeton was, Kennedy's average numbers are better than Keeton's in almost every department (even rushing yards per attempt). Keeton saw more snaps on the year, so his totals are higher, but both were stellar. And while they didn't get to open things up much and throw downfield, they still turned a position fans and coaches thought would be a liability into one of the brightest spots on the team.
FINAL GRADE: A
Running backs
Robert Turbin, Michael Smith and Kerwynn Williams... Need I say more? Combined, they averaged 6.6 yards per carry on the year and reached the end zone 31 times. Turbin continued to be the superstar we knew he was, Smith's game stepped up to a whole new level than what he'd shown before in an Aggie uniform and Williams kept up as a consistent threat in whatever role he was asked to fill.
FINAL GRADE: A+++ (one plus for each of those three)
Wide receivers
Sadly, it almost feels like an "incomplete" grade might be fitting for the wideouts, due to how seldom they seemed to be used this year. When they were called up though, they came through for the most part. Matt Austin and Stanley Morrison were both superstars, while Chuck Jacobs and Travis Van Leeuwen came up with a handful of their own big plays. One can only hope we get to see them more involved in the offense next year, because they're more than capable.
FINAL GRADE: A-
Tight Ends
At times, these guys were offensive linemen No. 6, 7 and 8 out there, and they were stellar at that, enough so that Tarren Lloyd landed on the All-WAC team with just 11 catches for 96 yards and one touchdown. D.J. Tialavea proved to be reliable when called upon as a receiver too. Brad Theurer and Keegan Andersen were solid as well. And don't forget that all of these guys were playing into bigger roles with Kellen Bartlett missing the year with an injury. In a perfect world, the tight ends would have been a little more involved in the passing game, but that's largely up to the play calling, and they delivered when called upon.
FINAL GRADE: A-
Offensive line
The part in the intro about how well they did compared to expectations; that was largely aimed at the offensive line. For a few years, the line has been alright, but really struggled at other times. To start the year, everyone thought they would be thrown to the wolves against an SEC D-line at Auburn. The end result was a stellar performance against Auburn which carried through the rest of the season to make for one of the elite rushing offenses in the nation. Pass protection was a little bit shaky at times, but the offense was one of the best in the nation and that all starts at the line.
FINAL GRADE: A-
COACHING GRADES
Dave Baldwin
This one is difficult. The offense was great, but so often the play calling left much to be desired, and it cost USU games... several of them. Colorado State, BYU and Ohio are the biggest examples of that. Arguments can be made for Fresno State and Louisiana Tech too. The offense was great against Hawaii, San Jose State and Idaho, but plenty of other offenses lit them up too.
There were seemingly countless times on 3rd and short where Baldwin had his biggest, strongest running backs out of the game. The passing game was rarely opened up, and when it was, it worked, leaving everyone to wonder why it was always kept on the shelf, what with Adam Kennedy's 70 percent completion percentage and all. And let's not even get started on the wide receiver screens... Overall, I feel Baldwin lost more close games than he won, and that is not a good quality.
FINAL GRADE: C-
Jovon Bouknight
Like I said before, grading the wide receivers is tough due to their lack of involvement. While guys like Matt Austin and Stanley Morrison are definite studs, there's a few other guys haven't done a whole lot of developing (Dontel Watkins, Xavier Martin, Austin Alder). That doesn't all fall on coaching, because work ethic can have plenty to do with it. And that may not even be the case with those guys. Still, given the lack of involvement in the offense, it's tough to grade them harshly, and I'll be kind by default.
FINAL GRADE: B
Ilaisa Tuiaki
As mentioned before, Robert Turbin, Michael Smith and Kerwynn Williams. Not much else needs to be said, but it will be anyway. In the case of Smith, his game went through the roof this year. He used to always seem to run to the wrong place when he got his attempts and was frustrating in a lot of ways during his first two seasons at USU (the second was cut short due to injury). This year, Smith patched every hole in his game. You've got to hope that Tuiaki can work the same magic on guys like Joey DeMartino, Joe Hill and Robert Marshall going into next year to give Williams some help out of the backfield.
FINAL GRADE: A
Matt Wells
Needing to look no further than how the quarterbacks have performed over the last three years with three different quarterback coaches, one can see how crucial a quarterbacks coach is to USU. Under Kevin McGiven in 2009, Diondre Borel was a flat-out superstar both on the ground and through the air. The next year, after McGiven left for Memphis and Baldwin took over QB coach duties, Borel's game regressed in a big way. Then, this year with a QB coach back in the mix, USU had a pair of stars to choose from, both with little-to-no holes in their games.
FINAL GRADE: A+
T.J. Woods
Not many players particularly cared for former offensive line coach Alex Gerke, and given the shaky performance of the line during his two years at USU, fans weren't terribly fond of him either. Woods came in this year and cranked things up on the O-line. It was a stellar progression, rounding out a staff of encouraging position coaches on the offensive side of the ball that has this team still loaded with star players despite losing Turbin, Smith and Lloyd. It all starts on the lines, and the future is looking very bright with Woods running things.
FINAL GRADE: A
Aren't you glad that Baldwin is gone Faf? You should have included that and how Wells is the new OC.
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