Most of these things have already been mentioned, but I wanted to share my initial impressions from today and through the first three games.
- I think it's clear that Patterson is a very good QB. He looked great today and has been good in all three games. He's a guy that we can win with and will make some big plays from the QB position. Overall, I think Patterson and McCaffrey have been a big upgrade over the play we saw at QB last season.
- I think we need some more help at the RB position. I think Chris Evans is a great kid and representative of the university. I also think he's an average tailback. He'll make a flashy play occasionally and puts up big numbers against inferior competition, but doesn't consistently make things on his own or show up against elite teams. If this were a Carr era team Evans would be a 3rd or 4th string tailback. On the other hand, I really liked what I saw from Wilson today. He might have the best vision of all the backs. He does a really nice job of setting up his blocks and accelerating through the hole. He also blocked well today. I saw another poster say that Wilson reminds him of Mike Hart and think that is a decent comparison. I think Higdon is solid and I really liked what I saw from Wilson today, but I think overall the group is just average.
- I think our best athletes are at the WR and TE positions and that both groups are really talented. DPJ, Collins, Perry, Martin, Gentry, and McKeon are as gifted as anyone else in the country. I also really like Thomas' potential as a slot WR. We have athletes there and I think our best chance to have an explosive unit is to let Patterson spread the ball around to these guys. I don't always love our passing concepts, but hopefully, the staff is able to do a better job incorporating them into the offense going forward. Today was a good start.
- Overall, I think the offense has the potential to be pretty good. They have to keep improving, but there is enough talent to have a good unit. My concern is that Harbaugh wants to be a tough downhill running team and right now we don't have the players to be that type of team. Our backs and tackles aren't elite and we can't just run over teams. In 2015 we were in a similar position and Jim eventually started throwing the ball more. I'm hopeful that we see something similar this year.
