MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — The Blue Raider Blitz across the mid-state area has been a great chance to meet so many of you in my first month on the job, and to get a little more insight into how Coach Rick Stockstill and his staff feel about their team in the upcoming season.
For sure, they seem extremely ready to get started, and there's a palpable energy to them when you see them out on the road. Is it just getting excited to see friends old and new after over a year from these fan events? Genuine excitement for the team's prospects this season?
It's probably a little of both, with the latter doing most of the work. The coaching staff, through four stops in Mt. Juliet, Shelbyville, Franklin and Nashville, seem loose and confident ahead of the final stage of their team building process for the season: fall camp.
There are many reasons for the excitement: a full offseason program, impressive leadership from 10 super seniors using an extra year of eligibility, having 28 of their 85 scholarship players with four years of eligibility remaining. But perhaps most intriguing of all, is the plethora of transfers from all different levels of collegiate football that haven't had the chance to play for the Blue Raiders yet.
Ahead of the team's report date of August 5, and after hearing Rick Stockstill, defensive coordinator Scott Shafer, tackles and tight ends coach Mike Polly and wide receivers coach Brent Stockstill on the road last week, here are five transfers that I'm interested in watching closely when camp starts.
Definitely the highest profile transfer addition to the Blue Raiders roster this offseason, Hockman is a quarterback with experience in two ACC programs, most recently NC State, where he started nine games last season, tossing the ball for 2,088 yards and 13 touchdowns.
"Bailey is super talented," Brent Stockstill said. "He can throw it all over the field."
"(Hockman) can spin it," Polly said. "When you see it come out of his hand, it looks like it's supposed to."
As Polly notes, the quarterback job is there for the taking, and Chase Cunningham, who's shown flashes in relief of former QB Asher O'Hara in recent years, and Mike DiLiello, who's likely the best rushing threat of the three, will certainly have the opportunity to make the starting job there. But Hockman, with his cannon of a left arm, is already impressing just from a distance on the practice field.
"He makes us a better team just by being here and bringing what he brings to our unit, to our team," Polly said. "For us up front, protecting him sitting in the pocket and going through his reads, him and the other guys competing with him, it was a really fun spring."
Davis comes to MT after a wildly successful career at the junior college level, where he, alongside fellow newcomer Deonte Stanley, helped lead Hutchinson CC to the NJCAA national championship. A first-team All-American in 2021 during the spring season in which NJCAA played its last season, Davis was second on the Blue Dragons with 43 total tackles, including 7.5 TFL.
Led by DQ Thomas and Johnathan Butler, the linebacker unit looks to be deeper than ever before for the Blue Raiders this season after a 2020 filled with injuries that hurt the group's production. With players like Davis added to the fold, Shafer knows his defense has the pieces to get better.
"More than anything it's being more efficient in different situational football," Shafer said. "The good news is we've got some players coming back. We've got some good young ones that will be around for a few years. So we're excited about where we're headed."
Rick Stockstill has mentioned Pettaway and fellow transfer back Amir Rasul at every stop on the Blue Raider Blitz so far. In part because they have near identical stories: joining the team in winter of 2020 from a top program (West Virginia in Pettaway's case, Florida State in Rasul's), going back home before spring camp due to the pandemic, opting out of the 2020 season, and then returning for 2021.
Coach Stock is always quick to mention how legitimate he thought their reasons for opting out were for each back, but the excitement of adding those two to the running back room for a full season is evident at each event.
Of the two, Pettaway has had the most experience, seeing the most action with the Mountaineers his junior season in 2018, when he was second on the team with 623 rushing yards to go with six touchdowns.
Coming from a program like West Virginia, which tends to run a lot of Air Raid and Spread concepts similar to the historic identity of Stockstill's offenses, and throw in the added emphasis on RPOs that new coordinator Brent Dearmon has brought to Murfreesboro, Pettaway has a chance to make an immediate impact in the running game.
On the offensive line, the Blue Raiders were super young last season, which is particularly evident looking at their potential two-deep, which features only one redshirt-senior. There were certainly the growing pains that came with that a season ago, but bringing back nearly everyone, save for Miami Dolphin Robert Jones, offers a great deal of internal competition with the new faces the team has brought in.
Of those new guys, none stands out more than Netori Johnson, who played on both the offensive and defensive lines at Georgia at different points in the year.
"Netori Johnson could walk into the room and you would know who he was," Polly said. "He's a special player that has a bright future ahead of him."
Listed at 6-4, 320, Johnson will compete for a chance to start on the interior of the Blue Raider offensive line for the season opener against Monmouth. Watching his camp, particularly his acclimation to offensive line after switching back from defense, will be something to note as the battles go on into fall.
5. Alex Usry
My favorite line from Blue Raider Blitz is when Coach Stock gets to discussing special teams. After highlighting the returning starters (punter Kyle Ulbrich and long snapper Brody Butler), the elder Stockstill on staff will usually say something like this:
"We've got a kicker, a transfer from Charleston Southern. And I hope he's who I think he is."
Usry does have an impressive resume for a collegiate placekicker. As a redshirt sophomore in 2019 for the Buccaneers, the McDonough, Ga. native converted three of four field goals from beyond 50 yards, setting a school record with a 52-yarder against North Alabama. Overall, he was 19-for-25 on field goals, including 12-for-13 from within 39 yards.
That's the type of consistency, coupled with range, that can be an invaluable asset for a team's offense, to be able to put points up if drives stall out.
Of course, Usry still has to win the job in camp, and a new environment offers different challenges, particularly for kickers. However, in a discipline that often gets overlooked until it's too late by many fans, Usry has the potential to make the Blue Raiders' special teams unit one of the best in Conference USA.
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July 27, 2021 at 06:09AM
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Five transfers to keep an eye on in fall camp - GoBlueRaiders.com
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