I think loss of Corey Smith hurt a lot more than most realize. While he had his struggles with consistency on the field, he was seemingly always open. His route running as a pure receiver was the best on the team after Michael Thomas.
The current roster construction with Curtis Samuel and Marshall is so scary similar to UF when they tried to spread the field out with Chris Rainey, Jeff Demos, Deonte Thompson and Andre Debose. I think it's a huge struggle for any quarterback to have 1 true/pure WR and then a litany of hybrid playmakers. Marshall has developed nicely but he's far from a field stretcher deep threat like Devin Smith was. Braxton is explosive but raw as hell. Curtis Samuel is developing well but shouldn't be seen as a primary deep threat or pure WR.
I think Corey was supposed to be that pure #2 receiver and he had a lot more ability than what he had shown to date, but his broken leg obviously derailed what was supposed to be his breakout season.
I'm still really bummed they didn't incorporate Vannett more into game plans either. Talking to people around the program, they thought he was the best pass catching TE in a long time, even better than Heureman (just in terms of route running and hands). For some reason they really went away from the TE seam routes they've exploited the last 3-4 years. We seemed to hit 1-2 TE Seam routes a game with a healthy Heureman and Vannett the previous 2-3 years and it's just disappeared.
Listening to Urban yesterday, I will be surprised if Beck survives the off-season. At a minimum I see some type of demotion with another bright offensive mind joining the staff. This year has been pretty pathetic from a strategic POV.
