My feelings on the lines are about the opposite of last year. Last year I thought the oline would be much improved the d line was a big worry for us. I think overall I was right. This year I feel like our D line will be much improved from last year and we lost some key people on the o line. Yoshi had a light switch come on last year after he was moved to 3rd string after spring ball. Had that not happened we would have been in big big trouble as he motivated everyone. I thought the technique of the line got better but we moved into some old habits once we got banged up and we lost some guys that are now back. I'll have a better feeling in two weeks when the coaches see where there guys are at after summer conditioning. This group of players is a little more tight lipped about whats been happening and there really isn't a lot of information floating around right now. I know the coaches singled out Qvale but I don't think hes healed up yet. I'd give him 85% He's going to end up getting hurt again because he's playing not to get injured.
This is a completely early guess based on early summer stuff but I would see Moore pretty solid at LT, Reeves LG, Pensick/Price as Center, Long at RG and RT up for grabs between A Rod. and Cotten with Sirles in the mix as well. And they'll actually use Sirles as a swing guy playing multiple spots on both sides. He probably knows the offense better but just isn't as strong as the other guys.
Good insight man, thanks. I'm like just about everybody else around here I'd guess: if I could only have one truly dominant position on each side of the ball, I'll take the lines every time. I really hope you're right about the d-line. I remember at the end of the Fresno game, when I realized that we didn't have a single TFL the entire game, and I thought, "What?! We might be in trouble..."
I know Bo and Co. like that amoeba type contain/rush deal, but he isn't telling kids to be stationary and not to get into the backfield and make plays. We just didn't see that happen last year, nearly enough. Too lazy to look up the numbers, but we all know them basically, anyway. We were bad in TFL and 3rd down efficiency. Those are money stats, and we didn't perform the way we've come to expect.
That said, I know full well that we'd spent four years developing a defense to counteract the spread heavy Big 12. I'm not sure any of us (I can speak for myself on this, at least) can truly appreciate just how difficult a transition it was into the Big 10 style of football. It is a different animal. Not one we can't figure out, by any means. But it takes time, I know that, and am patient when I see enough promising things to warrant it. And I saw that last year. We beat the eventual division winner (handily...so what if they were tired? We'd played some tough football games leading up to that point, too.) Fluke hail-mary deal was maybe the major difference between feeling a little down headed into this endless offseason and feeling pretty darn good about beating a pretty solid SEC team in a bowl game. Considering we went into a new conference with a new O-coordinator, I think we held up admirably last year.
But the d-line needs to improve markedly, or we're gonna have some frustrating games next year.
And you're dead on about Yoshi. That kid was TOUGH. Shattered his finger in a way that would have had me moaning for a month, and he comes back into the friggin game. That's nails.
