Disregarding the normal Dueces peanut filled piles of posting doo-doo...
Fidone is slow and cumbersome. He looked much faster and more fluid before his TWO major knee reconstructions. But maybe even before those knee injuries, he wasn't as good as he looked or was rated (possible, but we will never know).
He was used horribly by Shitterfield (as was pretty much every skill player). The absolute night and day difference in play calls, types of calls, sequencing of play calls, etc, that Holgs has already shown in only two weeks is glaringly obvious. Shitterfield put our entire offense, including our true frosh QB, all the skill players, and especially a guy like Fidone, in almost no situations to succeed.
Now Fidone just hasn't been very good, and yes Satt hurt his chances at being decent, but overall I just don't think he is very good. IDK if he is even average if used correctly.
But, yesterday we saw our backup TE's used in play calls that... made sense, and put those players in positions to succeed, and they did succeed. TE's are often used as counters to what a defense is slanting to. Defenses forget about TE's in the passing game, as they are often seen as an extra O Lineman, but that is why they can be dangerous. TE's have to be good blockers, but also need to know and be able to run the counter type routes well (and the QB and offense needs to know how/why/when to use the TE in those plays). Most importantly, the OC needs to know how to USE the TE position properly. We now have that OC.
Fidone isn't even a good blocker overall, which means his not very good receiving ability, makes him less than average. He has great size and wingspan, but the other skills he either doesn't have enough of, or hasn't developed. Satt did him NO favors, but yesterdays benching tells a lot - Holgs was fine with using backups in place of Fidone and thos backups did well.
I still say Carter Nelson - if he stays at NU - has a very high ceiling as a TE, and that is where he should be used immediately. Using him as an oversized slot receiver is silly. You can still flex him out here and there as a slot guy even if he is full time TE. Use that guy and his obvious physical skill advantage at the position he fits - TE.
