To me, most of it comes down to the receivers. We're finally getting to where we need to be with them, and it's opening everything else up with the offense.
You gotta remember just how many WRs (many of them 4*) we've had bail on us since Riley was fired. Those are the guys that should have been our upperclassmen stars the last couple years, and this year. But obviously, it didn't work out that way.
Last year's WR situation was
grim. People wanted to blame Martinez (and Verduzco) for everything, but mostly it was the receivers around him that sucked. For god's sake, we started Kade Warner most of the year! We had almost no deep threat whatsoever. Wandale is a great receiver, but he's more of a shifty slotback type rather than a deep threat burner. With no other real threats on the field, it was easy for defenses to key on him. And of course, a good chunk of the time he wasn't even playing WR.
When defenses don't have to respect the deep threat much, their job gets a whole lot easier because they can crowd the short passes and runs. A lot of those horizontal passes that people love to bitch about were mostly about trying to get
something going in the passing game in the absence of a deep threat. But between defenses looking for short stuff and Martinez tending to throw them a bit behind the receiver (so they had to spin and couldn't start running upfield quickly), they usually didn't go for much.
This year, we've got a pretty good starting WR group in Toure, Manning, and Martin - all of whom are transfers. But Martin and Manning have already been injured this season, and we're still trying to (re-)build depth behind them. A lot of jackasses on message boards like to bitch about how any true freshman in a modern system should be able to come in and be a Heisman candidate from day one and the coaches are idiots for not putting the best players on the field and letting them make plays. But the reality is still the same as it's always been - most guys need some time to develop and be ready to see the field much. Look at Manning. We had huge hopes for him last season as an immediate impact player, but he ended up barely playing. But
look at this article - he'd probably tell you himself that he wasn't really in a position to be playing much last year.
