- Jun 19, 2014
- 12,759
- 31,858
Founding Member
I've often said the '94 class was the best recruiting class of WR ever. Quezzie redshirted because he was a HS QB and had to learn how to play receiver. Ike and Reidel played as true freshmen. I remember going to a practice before the 1994 season and watching that recruiting class play and being amazed that the ball never touched the ground. They caught everything. Nafis Karim was good and Jaime Richardson was very talented (but a knucklehead).
1995-1996
The question is whether the '95 receiving corps was better because of Doering or if the '96 receiving corps was better because those guys were in their 3rd year in the system (same goes for the RB who were all a year better in '96 than they were in '95, no point in talking about the TE, Spurrier didn't throw to them much in '95 or '96).
It's not easy to compare that group to others because they were wide open all the damn time. If you look at highlights from that era, passes are being caught by WR with no DB in the frame unless it was a slant or fade for a TD from inside the 10 yard line (Spurrier's favorite scoring plays). It's interesting to consider what those guys would have looked like in a Zook system or even a Meyer or Mullen system.
2001
The other WR corps I really liked was the group Rex had. Jabar Gaffney, Reche Caldwell, Taylor Jacobs PLUS Robert Gillespie was a real weapon catching it out of the backfield and Aaron Walker at TE got some balls thrown at him (Troupe was on that team, but wasn't a contributor). If you want to drill deeper, Carlos Perez and Kelvin Kight were the 4th and 5th WR. That group is arguably better than 95-96. It was still Spurrier's system but defenses had started catching up. Gaffney was like a vacuum cleaner out there sucking up every ball thrown in his area. Those guys snatched the ball out of the air.
Current
2019 might have been a better WR group than 2020. 2020 WR don't have great hands. The best hands on the 2020 team belong to Pitts and the little-used and now-injured Trent Whittemore (who is going to be a stud if Mullen doesn't fcuk him up). After them, I'm not sure how good Shorter's hands are. XHendo drops the ball all the time, so do Copeland and Grimes. Toney is the X factor in this group. He's finally emerged as a legit WR. He's slippery like no one I've ever seen. You can't compare him to anybody else because no other Gator WR has done what he does. Of course the jewel of this group is Pitts. Are any of the rest of them really spectacular? Is Shorter better or worse than an average guy like OJ Small?
This current group is highly productive but rules have changed to favor them. I'd still take 95-96 or 01 over the current group. They had several spectacular receivers while the current group only has one spectacular receiver, Pitts.
Alex.
1995-1996
The question is whether the '95 receiving corps was better because of Doering or if the '96 receiving corps was better because those guys were in their 3rd year in the system (same goes for the RB who were all a year better in '96 than they were in '95, no point in talking about the TE, Spurrier didn't throw to them much in '95 or '96).
It's not easy to compare that group to others because they were wide open all the damn time. If you look at highlights from that era, passes are being caught by WR with no DB in the frame unless it was a slant or fade for a TD from inside the 10 yard line (Spurrier's favorite scoring plays). It's interesting to consider what those guys would have looked like in a Zook system or even a Meyer or Mullen system.
2001
The other WR corps I really liked was the group Rex had. Jabar Gaffney, Reche Caldwell, Taylor Jacobs PLUS Robert Gillespie was a real weapon catching it out of the backfield and Aaron Walker at TE got some balls thrown at him (Troupe was on that team, but wasn't a contributor). If you want to drill deeper, Carlos Perez and Kelvin Kight were the 4th and 5th WR. That group is arguably better than 95-96. It was still Spurrier's system but defenses had started catching up. Gaffney was like a vacuum cleaner out there sucking up every ball thrown in his area. Those guys snatched the ball out of the air.
Current
2019 might have been a better WR group than 2020. 2020 WR don't have great hands. The best hands on the 2020 team belong to Pitts and the little-used and now-injured Trent Whittemore (who is going to be a stud if Mullen doesn't fcuk him up). After them, I'm not sure how good Shorter's hands are. XHendo drops the ball all the time, so do Copeland and Grimes. Toney is the X factor in this group. He's finally emerged as a legit WR. He's slippery like no one I've ever seen. You can't compare him to anybody else because no other Gator WR has done what he does. Of course the jewel of this group is Pitts. Are any of the rest of them really spectacular? Is Shorter better or worse than an average guy like OJ Small?
This current group is highly productive but rules have changed to favor them. I'd still take 95-96 or 01 over the current group. They had several spectacular receivers while the current group only has one spectacular receiver, Pitts.
Alex.
