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We're less than 3 weeks from kickoff, and things aren't going so great. The good news is that we've still got two more scrimmages. The bad news is that we've only got two more scrimmages.
When you're heading into a season with 8 of the top 10 offensive linemen having never played a game in Sanford Stadium, you're more than a little vulnerable to problems there. The 2003-2006 offensive line recruiting has come home to roost. Saturday's practice saw a starting OL of three true freshmen, a redshirt freshman and a senior.
Luckily, Chester Adams and Scott Haverkamp should make a full recovery from their injuries in time for Ok State. Hopefully, they'll recover in time for Scrimmage 2. It's never pretty on the offensive side of the ball at this point in the fall, and this year is certainly no exception. So we can take comfort in the normalcy of it. We can also take comfort in having won the SEC East (or better) with mediocre or worse OLs in the past (47 sacks in 2003 being the crown jewel case study in overcoming OL play).
There are other issues of concern right now. Brandon Miller is "the key to the defense" according to Richt, but now he's experimenting at a new position. And there's yet to be a positive report about the Wide Receivers that I've seen.
The good news....the defense is playing pretty well over all. Plus (to quote Dean Legge in tonight's chat) Stafford went 13 of 20 in spite of playing behind a pretty rag tag OL. That's not too shabby.
See Also:
-- Unofficial post-scrimmage 2 deep - David Ching
-- Dawgs in a foul mood after scrimmage - MaconTel
-- Searels and the media - DawgPost.com
pwd
3 comments:
Paul-
Amen on this one. I'm very concerned about our OL early in the year. I always like to put it this way when people disagree: what if South Carolina was coming in with 8/10 lineman never having played in Williams Brice and 3 true frosh starting with the first team - we'd being going crazy saying how the defenses in the SEC would push them around.
The key is "early" in the season. I'm sure once they get their "mojo" going they'll do much better - but the first 4 games are going to be crazy.
Give me two 10-9 victories the first two weeks and I'll be ecstatic.
This year is like Jimmy V phrase about the NCAA Tournament: "survive and advance".
I really would like to know the real story on how OL recruiting got so screwed up, even though this staff had its noses rubbed in the issue early on given what they inheirited. I know the theories (Callway, cough cough), and maybe it's no more complicated than that, but it still seems strange that something so important got so badly off track.
CMR has done so many things large and small so well that this potential fiasco is just really out of character. That's life, I guess.
And man, let me tell you, while there is a scenario under which guys stay healthy and a couple of guys step and we thread the needle like 2003, a few bad breaks could send things totally out of control.
Stick, it's a combination of factors.
We've had an usually high amount of attrition - there are guys who were supposed to be around right now that wound up medical hardships (e.g. Trey Chandler, whom would have been welcome if just to have a warm body with some experience at OT, but who was pretty highly recruited. Indeed, that same 2003 class saw us loose 4 guys to medical hardship over the years. IIRC, we didn't lose Chandler until after recruiting had been finalized last year. We certainly tried to get OL in the 06 class, but by then it is probably too late.
Further, we signed but 3 OL in 04, and lost one of them to attrition (Watts, whose contribution level was up in the air as is). Watts was a surprise from this spring as you recall.
05? Ian Smith. One OL. And he washed out (also very recent).
We've had some misses in those years - guys we wanted but who went elsewhere. There were occasional recruiting decisions that many questioned (e.g. we never recruited Paul Duncan, an OL who went to ND and played a good deal).
We needed more balance out of the 04/05 classes and didn't get it for whatever reason. Where we stretched on guys occasionally at one point (Tommy Gainous, 03), we seemed reluctant to do so the past few years (John Miller excepted). Hopefully, Searels & co will see that it doesn't happen in the future.
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