Can Tim Davis prove he still has it?

[STPGopher]

Tim Davis coached OL for UW on their run in the late 90's and IIRC at USC when Bush and White were at USC. He appears to be stocking the OL with huge OL instead of the shorter/ smaller OL Mason preferred. My hope is we can get enough of the OL to make his style/ system work, and of course the time to do it.

Does anyone here think that he, along with Brewster, and convince Henderson that he still has it?

 

[Think Harder]

Tim Davis coached OL for UW on their run in the late 90's and IIRC at USC when Bush and White were at USC. He appears to be stocking the OL with huge OL instead of the shorter/ smaller OL Mason preferred. My hope is we can get enough of the OL to make his style/ system work, and of course the time to do it.

Does anyone here think that he, along with Brewster, and convince Henderson that he still has it?

What has he shown you in the 13 months he has been here?

 

[Gopherprof]

Two totally different questions.

There's obviously nothing that can be done performance-wise to change anyone's perceptions for this recruiting class.

That doesn't mean he can't turn things around though. Give him more than one freaking year and maybe some actual players to work with. The line is basically a patchwork of Mason recruits, transfers, and junior college players. That's really tough to put together much of anything. The offensive line has been by far the least addressed position in recruiting until this year.

 

[gophergrad]

What has he shown you in the 13 months he has been here?

Watch Wills, he got a lot better as the season progressed. As bad as the line was this year there isn't anything about either the improvement of Wills or how the young kids he's bringing in and developing that makes me worry about Davis.

 

[nc2mn]

Watch Wills, he got a lot better as the season progressed. As bad as the line was this year there isn't anything about either the improvement of Wills or how the young kids he's bringing in and developing that makes me worry about Davis.

+1

 

[Bob_Loblaw]

I actually thought we went from one of the worst pass blocking offensive lines i've seen to fairly solid at the end of the year.

 

[rudy]

Early projections didn't even have Alford with playing time - now he's become a reliable left tackle for us. Everyone can agree that the o-line is much better than last year. Night and day.

 

[RaT]

It was always questionable to me going into the season with Matt Stommes as your starting Left Tackle when he had zero experience other than a 1 bowl game start at the end of his junior year.

 

[magpie]

Davis is fine. He took the talent that was here and made them better, albeit slightly. Watch to see what happens when new recruits come in (those designed for the current offensive scheme).

 

[gopherdudepart2]

The O-line blocked pretty darn well in the bowl game

Some of it might have been the competition but there were instances where you saw them get beat this year and this bowl game they did not. Technique looked good to me. The QB had plenty of time to throw the ball this game, the pass protection was actually more than solid. A few of the runs both the left side and the right side pancaked some folks. I agree that both Alford and Wills improved a lot as the season neared the close even if the results in W-L did not reflect that. I might have shot some digs Davis way earlier in the year, but believe that by the last two games he did what he was supposed to do, coached up the line. They can only get better with bigger stronger players with this system in the years to come. I was actually impressed with Davis work the last 2 games.

 

[Saskatchewan Gopher]

I agree, the line played pretty darn good during the last half of the year. I found myself yelling for Weber to get rid of the ball (don't hold on to it so long) more often as the season progressed. Although the run game hasn't been the greatest, I think the passing game in the 2nd half of the bowl game, opened up the run in the 2nd half, since I think they ran the ball better in the 2nd half too.

 

[Maximus]

I actually thought we went from one of the worst pass blocking offensive lines i've seen to fairly solid at the end of the year.

Minus the seven sacks against a horrible Illinois pass rush and five sacks at Iowa.

 

[Saskatchewan Gopher]

How much of those sacks are as I said holding the ball too long. In fact, I believe Brewster even alluded to that in one of is press conferences.

 

[Jwill535]

Minor correction, but Jim Hueber(current Vikings Oline coach) was the Oline coach then. Davis worked with TEs.

 

[denguegopher]

Minus the seven sacks against a horrible Illinois pass rush and five sacks at Iowa.

Yes, the data is the data. I don't remember specifics but I think that some of those sacks might be attributed to the QB holding the ball too long and a lack of escapability on the part of our QB's.

 

[Think Harder]

Minus the seven sacks against a horrible Illinois pass rush and five sacks at Iowa.

And what, 40 yards rushing vs. Iowa? Iowa was what, our first game or second? SDSU? They were pretty early on the schedule too since we didn't score a TD on them and we "did improve alllllll year looooooooooong."

 

[Hates Monikers]

The line was noticeably better at the end of the year compared to the beginning, which is a testament to Davis. But it still has a long, long way to go. With better players, Davis will look even better.

 

[RaT]

The obvious question is always going to come back to, "Are we going to afford him and the rest of the staff the time?"

We need to win at least one trophy game next year, I believe.

 

[Bob_Loblaw]

Minus the seven sacks against a horrible Illinois pass rush and five sacks at Iowa.

I'll give you that they looked terrible against Illinois, but the Iowa game was largly a product of Weber holding the ball forever.

I would never argue that our OLine is good, I just thought they improved leaps and bounds over their early season play.