EDGE 2024 EDGE Colin Simmons

18 minutes ago, Park Gothic said:

I'm honestly more worried about how he plays against counter / pulling guards in the run game. Instead of crashing down on the pulling guard to jam the lane up from the outside, he tries to dip inside the guard to put himself in the lane. It happened at least three times on Saturday. I understand wanting to get in the running back's lane, but when he goes inside he gives up contain. It did not look like Gbenda or Blackwell were prepared to trade jobs, and that shit can bite us on the ass with how bad their run fits have been. Maybe Simmons isn't not big enough to effectively crash down, but we can't give up contain like that.  

At any rate, it's not a huge issue. Burke struggled with it too back in '22 and figured it out soon enough. I'm just picking nits because he's otherwise so good as a true freshman. 

Edit: Here's an example of what I'm talking about 

 

He did that a few times. I was wondering if they were teaching him to wrong shoulder the puller (it looked intentional). He also knifed in a couple plays. I am guessing he went 1 for 3 on those. Got 1 TFL and gave up couple decent runs. 

Edited September 30 by Codaxx

8 minutes ago, Codaxx said:

He did that a few times. I was wondering if they were teaching him to wrong shoulder the puller (it looked intentional). He also knifed in a couple plays. I am guessing he went 1 for 3 on those. Got 1 TFL and gave up couple decent runs. 

Yeah - at first I thought that it must be something they coached him to do, because that's not how you defend counter as the edge. But the LB's didn't seem prepared to keep contain. 

Although considering which LBs were in at the time, that may be more on them than Simmons. 

1 hour ago, Park Gothic said:

I agree with pretty much every thing you've said, but with one caveat. I've watched a bit of his high school tape and all of his snaps at Texas. I think he is actually a sophisticated pass rusher, but is still working out what he can and can't do as a college freshmen. He used the basic rip move pretty well in high school and was happy to bull rush, but has avoided those at Texas, which is probably smart. He's not strong enough (yet) to bull rush most OTs he'll face and the rip move is really more useful after you've gotten tangled up with the tackle - something he's avoided as much as possible. I've haven't really seen him use the swim move in college or high school, but maybe that's because he doesn't like giving the tackle a chance to get under his pads. I think he's been relying primarily on speed rushing because that's the advantage he has at this point in his game and at this level. 

But I recommend watching his feet. He very good at playing the "game within the game" against the OT across from him. He'll use a stutter step inside in a series after the OT scene a stunt or two, making the OT pause and lean inside just enough to give Simmons an easy path around. He'll also change his pace up from down to down, making it harder for the OT to get into the same rhythm.

To be clear, he's still playing like a freshman. But his pass rush is probably a little more developed/sophisticated than it seems so far this season.  

Just to add to this, I recommend watching his third and longhorn interview for those that haven't seen it. He talks about his bag of rush moves and goes into some detail with Alex Okafor. I think he's a pretty advanced rusher. There's only so much to show in five games. 

Wisner is just getting better and better after watching that clip. He's a man-child. Dude runs between the tackles, has burst, and is a tough SOB. 

 

Anyway, Simmons is an athletic freak whose ceiling probably won't be reached until he's in the NFL. He'll be almost unstoppable by the end of next year and his JR year. 

Simmons was a really high profile recruit, has played great as a freshman. But man he’s not very big. I don’t know how he will be able to handle bigger  fast tackles.   

1 minute ago, Dbeasy said:

Simmons was a really high profile recruit, has played great as a freshman. But man he’s not very big. I don’t know how he will be able to handle bigger  fast tackles.   

I was surprised how much taller than Simmons that UF OL is .. 😳

2 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:

Simmons was a really high profile recruit, has played great as a freshman. But man he’s not very big. I don’t know how he will be able to handle bigger  fast tackles.   

There are so many of those in college football. And he definitely won't grow as an 18/19 year old

8 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:

Simmons was a really high profile recruit, has played great as a freshman. But man he’s not very big. I don’t know how he will be able to handle bigger  fast tackles.   

He’s as big as Micah Parsons lol

Seems very good at football. 

Floridas tackles are 6’6 315 and 6’7 320 lbs fwiw