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2023 WR AD Mitchell *Transfer*


Hiphopopotamos

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The last 3 of those 4 were contested catches with a defender draped all over him that Mitchell just fought for and won. I don’t think I saw that out of any of our WR’s all year. Great get. 
 
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Whittington had a few catches where he had a DB on his back, think Sanders as well, but not many.
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12 hours ago, Reese Bennett said:

I don't know, but in this case I'm sure it would be accompanied by a faint whiff of chlorine which would remind me of skinny-dipping in high school.

if your skinny dipping memories include the smell of chlorine ... so sad 

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Spoiler

Steve Sarkisian finally made a splashy transfer portal addition to the Texas Longhorns’ 2023 offensive roster with the commitment of Georgia transfer Adonai Mitchell.

Mitchell was a former 4-star recruit but he gained a lot of prominence for his playoff catches during back-to-back National Championship runs by the Georgia Bulldogs.

Mitchell’s postseason production is actually amusingly predominant in his young career as a collegiate wideout. In two years with the Bulldogs he caught 38 balls for 560 yards and seven touchdowns. He caught eight of those passes for 149 yards and four touchdowns in the playoffs. Mitchell was only a freshman in 2021 and missed most of 2022 with injuries so his career hasn’t quite taken off like it’s been expected to do in 2023, but now we’ll look for that to happen in Austin with the Longhorns instead.

Texas will be banking on a breakout season for the playoff star as they reconfigure their offense in the post-Bijan Robinson era to emphasize Quinn Ewers and the passing game.

Finding a third receiver

One of the issues confronting Texas all season was the lack of a ready-made outside receiver to play in 11 personnel. They played Casey Cain in that role at various points in the season but he wasn’t quite ready to make big, winning catches against the better teams on the schedule.

Jordan Whittington ended up as the outside receiver much of the season as Texas lined up in 12 personnel on a majority of their snaps. They may use 12 personnel (two tight ends) pretty frequently again in 2023 with Ja’Tavion Sanders and Gunnar Helm both returning but there’s a lot of reasons to believe they’ll rely much more heavily on 11 (one tight end) personnel.

The most recent reason is the addition of Mitchell.

He has more pedigree and proven skill on film than all but save Whittington, Xavier Worthy, and Isaiah Neyor from the existing wide receiver corps and has some strengths those three lack. His profile at Georgia was basically what an optimist would have hoped to see from Casey Cain based on social media hype clips from practice. At 6-foot-3 he has the size to be a big target in the red zone and his footwork to get open is safely proven in several high stakes games against teams who can play grown man coverage.

He’s quick and skilled enough to get to his spots and is a big target once he gets there. There’s a fair amount of Collin Johnson to his game although he’s not as large as the former Longhorn and might be a bit quicker as a route runner. Like Johnson, his specialties include the back shoulder fade, the curl route, and slants.

How does he help Ewers?

Positionally Mitchell is an X receiver who will line up outside and on the line of scrimmage. He knows how to get a good release off the line and does good work in confined space when he’s in the boundary. His addition to the lineup in that role is perhaps a little bigger than it seems on the surface.

There are obvious benefits to Texas for adding him. He’s obviously a good player given his success at the highest level of this game and we’ve already discussed how Texas lacked a top line third receiver to make their 11 personnel formations work well last year. His likely position is otherwise likely to be manned by Isaiah Neyor, who’s recovering from an ACL surgery and may or may not be ready to stay healthy and play at his previous level.

The less obvious boost of adding Mitchell is getting his specific skill set involved on the weakside for Texas in the passing game. This was an issue for the Longhorns in 2022, most notably against Oklahoma State.

The Cowboys played bracket coverage in the boundary against Texas and generally shaded their Mike linebacker in the box, even against trips formations while manning up to the field receivers. They moved star nickel Jabbar Muhammad inside so they could hold up there and keep veteran safety Jason Taylor II over the top of man coverage underneath in the boundary.

Inside-Texas-diagrams.jpg

Trying to connect with Xavier Worthy on in-breaking routes against bracket coverage was a disaster, so they also tried to hit the running back underneath on various routes against the weakside linebacker in man coverage.

Also ineffective.

Late they started playing 2×2 so they could work the ball to JT Sanders in the boundary…

…which nearly tied up the game before the interception.

The goal was to make things simple and create short-range targets for Ewers to get the ball out quickly. You also wonder if throwing these sorts of concepts to Neyor had been considerably more effective in fall camp than they were in-season without him. In the Alamo Bowl against Washington Texas revisited some of these ideas with more success but still couldn’t dominate the game like say, when Sam Ehlinger would work these concepts to Lil’Jordan Humphrey in 2018.

With Mitchell in the fold, the boundary should once again become a concerning place for opponents when Texas can stack him there with Keilan Robinson or Jonathan Brooks and potentially Sanders. Meanwhile, the field will then boast Whittington and Worthy.

Will opponents still dare to man up the field receivers if Worthy and Whittington are aligned there? If Ewers can consistently hit them out wide, how will teams address Sanders in the middle of the field and the running back/X receiver combinations on the weakside?

Texas needs mega-growth from Ewers to unlock the weapons they’re collecting around him with a true, progression passing game. With the return of the entire offensive line and Whittington, along with the addition of AD Mitchell, all the pieces are in place if he can put it together.

Ian Boyd article @TheMailBox357 spoilered to avoid making someone read an Ian Boyd article without consent.

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6 hours ago, TheMailBox357 said:

Now I don't read the man myself, but after lurking on this board for a good while, I feel comfortable guessing he's calling for a position change and projecting Mitchell as an all-conference linebacker.... in just under 4000 words.

If I missed on this, I blame the surly folk who misled me...

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