depth

[John Galt]

Last year we had a fifth year senior in Pirsig, the three jucos (Greene, Wright, and Calhoun), a third year sophomore in Weyler, a second year sophomore in Moore as the core of our offensive line.

We return four of those six. Those four should be more seasoned, better conditioned, less prone to injury, stronger, and better coached. Some of those were playing hurt and have now had clean-up surgeries- that should help.

Replacing Pirsig is a question mark, but I think they have plenty of candidates at tackles up to coming at least close to the task.

I am confident we can replace Moore with one of Olson, Schmitz, Davis or Weyler.

We had four depth guys in Mayes, Oseland, Connelly and Dovich. Three of those four return.

We return 7 of top 10. I am not convinced two of the three we lose would be starters if they stayed.

We add two redshirt frosh in Olson and Schlueter.

Previous staff and this staff both really like Olson. Olson almost had redshirt pulled last year.

Schlueter is a high end recruit offered by Wisconsin, Michigan State, Northwestern, Louisville, Iowa State before he committed way early (April of his junior year).

We add a handpicked juco by Warinner, arguably one of the top oline coaches and recruiters in all of football.

We add one of our most heralded recruits ever in Andries, and two hand-picked Fleck guys in Sassack (Big Ten and SEC offers) and Schmitz (number one ranked center in midwest).

We take the redshirt off a juco walk on with very good size.

If someone can present an objective, logical reasoned argument that doesn't conclude we will have a better, deeper, more experienced o-line, please do so.

And make sure you factor in that the tight ends assist the oline and ALL the tight ends return and we add a redshirt and three frosh and a tight end coach who was co-oline national coach of the year last year.

Plus, you have to factor in running backs can help make an oline look better and we return our top three (all physically mature and experienced), plus have a fourth that looked very solid on Saturday and we add two more frosh rbs. Fleck said the one is like Barry Sanders and Christian Okoye. The new coach has already stepped up the running backs games in 14 weeks.

Plus, you have to figure in an offensive scheme that doesn't allow the defense to out number your offensive line in the box every play has to help.

And, you have to figure the combination of Fleck and Simon will develop at least three wide receivers better than what we had last year. We lose only Woli...return all others, add bunch more, remove three red-shirts.

And, you have to factor in how much better motivated the offensive line will be by this staff. It is a position where that intangible is especially significant. The level of discipline and organization should also be going way up, two other key intangibles in o-line play.

If we can only find a qb who can complete more than 56% with better TD/INT ratio than 8 to 12 who can run better than 3 yards per carry...look out.

Saying that the o-line will be more motivated and disciplined in 9 months is a stretch... Limegrover had quite a bit of success at Penn St last year and Miller was pretty highly regarded as well. I think Warriner has a better track record and should be a better coach over time, but not necessarily immediately.

The upside for the line is Greene, Calhoun and Wright all take a significant step forward from last year, Weyler is fully healed and plays really well at guard, and Olson immediately makes us forget about Tyler Moore.

The downside is if the JUCOs are pretty much the same as last year, 1-2 guys get injured, Olson plays like a freshman, and the other players who have seen limited time or no time (Connelly, Dovich, Schlueter) still aren't ready.

Other than Greene at LT, I don't think we really have a clue who is going to play where on the line. Wright was originally brought in as a guard but had to play some tackle last year. Where does he fit this year? Was Conner Olson playing Center because that's where the staff sees him long term, or was it because there was no one else available? Who else will play center? Does Weyler stay at guard or move to center? Is Connelly ready to play RT, or will Wright need to play there out of position again? Lots of questions and unknowns on the o-line.

 

[John Galt]

First off I will say that our o-line coaching is likely to be the best it has been since at least the Mason days so I'll agree with you there.

You left off the loss of Connor Mayes who played in all 13 games and started 6. So we lost 3 of our top 7 lineman as Mayes would have either been a starter or a primary backup this year.

Our rushing offense was ranked 101st in the country by S&P even with Smith and Brooks totaling 1800 yards. A big portion of their yardage came from them making something out of nothing. We were stopped repeatedly on short yardage situations when our line could not generate any push. We could not run the ball vs the best teams in the west - Iowa, Nebraska, and Wisconsin.

All of that was with our two best offensive lineman - Moore and Pirsig who are now gone. Recruiting and developing offensive lineman was a huge issue with the previous staff and I think that is just as much of a talent issue as anything. I don't think the coaching was that bad, and it isn't the only reason why the Gophers have not had an offensive lineman drafted in the last 10 years. Based on that it's hard for me to believe the young guys who have redshirted will be significantly better. Claeys and Miller were looking for more Jucos for a reason.

It's hard to rely on true offensive and defensive lineman. Those are the positions you want to redshirt more than any other position. I think Blaise will contribute, but I wouldn't count on many of the Freshman being ready.

We also couldn't run the ball against Washington St. If our defense hadn't played the game of the decade, the storyline would have been how inept our offense was.

 

[NotAFanOfBecky]

Actually both Swingman and GWG make some valid points....but I lean more towards swingmans thoughts. I think the key variable is Warriner...he could very well make that o line into what we want. Now will that be next year? Guess we will find out.

 

[Bob_Loblaw]

We also couldn't run the ball against Washington St. If our defense hadn't played the game of the decade, the storyline would have been how inept our offense was.

We ran the ball well against Iowa, we just chose to stop running the ball. It was an atrociously called game by our coaches.

Brooks was 10 - 55
Smith was 11 - 44

In a tight game, nursing a second half lead, we didn't run the ball.

As far as Washington State, we didn't run it great, but not horrible. 150 yards, 3.5 avg. 1 TD.