1. The Daryle Hawkins experiment is over. The kid can't play receiver. He had three drops tonight, two of them were huge. You don't get much more wide open than he was when he dropped that TD pass. 2. Maldonado is probably the worst FG kicker I've ever seen on this team. He has zero range outside of 35 yards. Compared to some of the great kickers we've seen in a Duck uniform, this guy is a disgrace. I don't know why Kelly keeps going to him.
Why does Kelly bother having him attempt FGs beyond 40 yards? He obviously can't get it there. May as well punt and try to pin them deep or go for it. Wasn't Beard our FG kicker before? Why isn't he kicking? Why do we have 3 kickers?
Beard is a solid kicker but I believe he is injured. I have no idea why Kelly has him kick when we already know what the result will be. He simply doesn't have the leg strength to kick from that range. They should have went ahead and ran the ball so at least you have a shot of getting the first down or, at the very least, they move the starting position of Washington back a few more yards. I've actually been really surprised at how few fakes Kelly has run this year. I keep expecting a fake but it never happens.
I'm not ready to give up on Hawkins yet. As to our kicking game, Maldonado is OK inside the 45. Hell, 'bama missed 3 outside the 45 and they pay their players in the SEC a lot more than the PAC-12. Evidently, good kickers are hard to afford, er, find.
Injury. Maldanado seems accurate (which is great) just lacks range. We just need to score TD's. Hawkins. Yikes. I'm not willing to give up on him after one tough game though. He's just a SO and has a lot of potential. He was running solid routes, had some good downfield blocking and this is really the first game he's seen extensive time. He'll improve. I can throw out lots of great Oregon WR's names who struggled but had solid careers. At 6'4" and 200# with godo quickness - hopefully he'll improve. Hopefully.
But he was a QB by trade that they decided to try at WR. The guy doesn't have good hands. He's big and he's fast but he can't catch anything... except maybe a cold. Maldonado does seem extremely accurate within 40 yards, but that's a pretty limited range. Basically he's a last resort if you fail to get into the endzone within the 20 yard line.
It's one game. Let's see what happens. Didn't he come up big last year with an important TD? I can't remember...
I vaguely remember him making one big play last season, but I haven't seen much from him this year and we have a lot of talented athletes waiting in the wings for next season. I think he'll be benched for good.
I like Hawkins upside and he needs to get more reps out there. I'm sure he was doing all the right things in practice to get as much playing time as he did in that game, just needs to translate that to the field. It's going to be tough for him, as Bishop said, he is a QB to WR convert, and with last years great class of wide receivers around the corner things wont be any easier for him to show us what he can do.
I'm going to have some patience with Hawkins. I've seen guys like Randle-el and Ronald Curry transform from QB's to good recievers. Hawkins has good size. Its going to be a process.
I can understand why these two things are being discussed... they occurred to me, too The Maldonado seems pretty solid inside of 35 or 40 yards. The last-second FG attempt in the first half made sense, and the other long attempt was on a 4th and 17, right? I don't expect he'll get many more chances from that range any time soon. Hopefully Beard will be back soon. With Hawkins? Bad game, clearly, but at least one of the drops was because the pass was behind him. Should he have caught all three? Yes. Was I cursing at the TV after his drops? Sure. But I'm not willing to consider him useless. Of course, with the freshmen we're redshirting at WR this year, he might have to do the other things (blocking, mainly) to get significant playing time next year and beyond... but catching the ball would be good, too Ed O.
I've got to imagine that Maldonado isn't 100% either as he wouldn't have landed multiple D1 offers with that little leg strength. Not only was he short on the 40+ FGs but his kickoffs were coming down around the 10-15 yard line. STOMP
He has been doing that for weeks. I haven't once seen him kick it into the end zone. He had one good kick last night, but for the past three weeks I've noticed that most of his kicks are between the 15 and the 5 yard line. The average return is between the 25 and 30 yard line.
one thought I had read on the short kicks had to do with opting for height and hang time to allow the Speed of Oregon to get back there and try to make some plays. I doubt if they would try for more of a line drive that they would be for Touchbacks. Not sure if thats the actual case, but it was an interesting counterpoint.
