Dline 2024

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Out State Gopher

Out State Gopher

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Who will excel, improve, surprise & dominate with the starting 4 plus rotational players? Who leads in sacks, TFL, tackles, fumbles (forced & recovered) & interceptions? Will the Dline be the best part of the defense? Controlling the line of scrimmage controls the scoreboard.
 

I feel like we have the potential to have a really strong DE duo in Joyner and Strigow. Joyner especially has been getting better and better and could really bust out next year.

In terms of the younger guys the two I think could really take a big leap next year are Eastern and Smith. Both were highly regarded out of high school and have shown flashes.
 

Out State Gopher said:
Who will excel, improve, surprise & dominate with the starting 4 plus rotational players? Who leads in sacks, TFL, tackles, fumbles (forced & recovered) & interceptions? Will the Dline be the best part of the defense? Controlling the line of scrimmage controls the scoreboard.
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In Coaching vernicular you can’t make chicken salad out of chicken s###. Regardless how good of coach Winston Delatt### is, he needs better material to work with.
 

The last half of the year, they were blown into the next county most every single game. The defensive ends do little for me.
 

kg21 said:
The last half of the year, they were blown into the next county most every single game. The defensive ends do little for me.
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Funny, I thought or DL was our only bright spot on defense. I thought we were very underwhelming at LB and our depth really concerned me at DB, playing freshmen that had no business seeing the field
 



TheNorthernAmir said:
Funny, I thought or DL was our only bright spot on defense. I thought we were very underwhelming at LB and our depth really concerned me at DB, playing freshmen that had no business seeing the field
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We were completely blown off the ball up front the last half of the season. Little to no pass rush and teams ran all over us.

the linebackers didn't help, but we destroyed up front by teams like Purdue, Wisconsin, and Illinois. It was close to embarrassing.
 







kg21 said:
We were completely blown off the ball up front the last half of the season. Little to no pass rush and teams ran all over us.

the linebackers didn't help, but we destroyed up front by teams like Purdue, Wisconsin, and Illinois. It was close to embarrassing.
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I totally agree with this and we need a legit 6-6 330lb strong DT not just a fat dude.
 

Obviously freshman lineman rarely play as they rightfully need to get bigger and stronger, but Sunram out of ND measured in at the All-American Bowl at 6-4, 275 with an arm number a hair shy of 34 inches and big ol' paws at 10 inches. He'd still need to add some weight, but as an early enrollee, It's not out of the stretch of imagination that he could get some early playing time.
 



We got blown off the ball a bit on run downs but a big portion of that was our LB play. When you essentially run a 4-2-5, the linebackers need to be extremely gap sound (and cover a lot of ground). I like the defense but if you have poor LB play, you will get gashed at moments on the run game.

I'm not making any excuses, but this defense looks completely different with a healthy Lindenberg and Trill in the middle. We have a lot of talent returning next year across the DL (Eastern, Smith, Joyner, Striggow) but we likely could have used another year of having more beef playing alongside our young DTs.
 

The Purdue game was the only one where I thought the dline really underperformed. Even in that game had Lindenberg or a legit starting LB corp have played, the Gophers would have forced a few punts.
 

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