Dayne Young and Brent Rollins collaborate to discover the nuances of the Georgia Bulldogs and college football.
*All grades and other data via www.PFF.com*
Dayne: Florida State transfer Tre' McKitty is a valuable piece for Georgia's 2020 offense. With Charlie Woerner and Eli Wolf out of eligibility, the Bulldogs are likely to lean on McKitty's experience to help guide Darnell Washington, John FitzPatrick, and others.
Brent: Roster management. We've heard that term used quite often during Kirby Smart's tenure, and the addition of McKitty to the tight end room is another impressive example.
Touchdowns
Dayne: Florida State had McKitty listed at 6'5, 245 pounds. With that stature, he's a guy to watch in red zone passing opportunities. It was an underutilized skill in FSU's struggling offense. McKitty did not catch a touchdown pass in 2019; he had two scores in 2018.
Brent: As you can see in this contested catch highlight—a wheel route against the Louisville linebacker—McKitty has ability. He's also seen the field a lot more than Georgia's most recent graduate transfer tight end, Eli Wolf. Over the past three years, McKitty logged 1,226 snaps for the Seminoles. By comparison, Wolf's 446 this past season were more than his entire career at Tennessee (413 snaps).
Dayne: McKitty has some receiver instincts in his route running. His cuts helped him navigate through cover to find a hole in the zone defense.
Brent: This was McKitty's highest-graded career game, a 77.6 overall game grade against Samford in week two of 2018. He caught five of seven targets for 59 yards and this touchdown. Overall, McKitty finished 2018 with a 46.1 grade and 49.6 receiving. While 2019 was much improved as the Seminoles got better quarterback play, he still finished with an overall 56.4 grade and 66.6 receiving grade.
Airing it out
Dayne: This was the most impressive catch I saw from McKitty, because he expanded his catch radius to bring in the pass while staying on his feet. The Seminoles didn't send him deep downfield often, but he has the ability to make moves in the open field.
Brent: In addition to the first highlight above (touchdown catch versus Louisville), this seam route against cover two highlight is an outlier as opposed to the norm. In the past two years, McKitty was only targeted over 20 yards down the field three times, catching this and the ball against Louisville for 57 yards. This past season, he was not targeted at all over 20 yards. Going back to 2018, inconsistent quarterback play hampered McKitty's impact, as only 32 of his 50 targets were considered catchable.
