OT Dan Samuelson [Michigan Commit]

kchusker_chris said:
10 top tier offensive linemen in 2 years is a great way to start if you're trying to be Alabama. I think we'd all take the same route if we could.

He'll be better just because those around him are better. Don't blame him. Our OL classes have turned out to be a real disappointment the last few years. 2010 is proving to be a bust. Who knows what will come of A-Rod, but when you only take 2 HS OL (plus cotton) the odds are pretty good you'll be staring at depth issues in the future. Moudy hasn't had any impact. OL was the core of the "stellar" 2011 class, and at this point we have a real chance of going 0-5 with that bunch. 2012 we only grabbed 2.

At this point A-Rod is the best out of our last 3 classes. That's tough to swallow. 3 classes, and we have 1 part-time starter. 9 guys over the last 3 classes and only 1 has really contributed. So we end up with DL converting, and all of a sudden we have depth issues there too. I b!^@h about Barney a lot - but the core of our OL issues is right here in recruiting. We need numbers. Then we need development. We have neither. And it's not looking to get any better based on recent recruiting.
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Could Barney's coaching be a detriment to recruiting the position as well?

 
HeyBakerMark said:
kchusker_chris said:
10 top tier offensive linemen in 2 years is a great way to start if you're trying to be Alabama. I think we'd all take the same route if we could.

He'll be better just because those around him are better. Don't blame him. Our OL classes have turned out to be a real disappointment the last few years. 2010 is proving to be a bust. Who knows what will come of A-Rod, but when you only take 2 HS OL (plus cotton) the odds are pretty good you'll be staring at depth issues in the future. Moudy hasn't had any impact. OL was the core of the "stellar" 2011 class, and at this point we have a real chance of going 0-5 with that bunch. 2012 we only grabbed 2.

At this point A-Rod is the best out of our last 3 classes. That's tough to swallow. 3 classes, and we have 1 part-time starter. 9 guys over the last 3 classes and only 1 has really contributed. So we end up with DL converting, and all of a sudden we have depth issues there too. I b!^@h about Barney a lot - but the core of our OL issues is right here in recruiting. We need numbers. Then we need development. We have neither. And it's not looking to get any better based on recent recruiting.
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Bump ... not just a bump ... but a BIG BUMP. So agree.
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Don't disagree entirely here, but I would like to point out that Moudy has a great year on the scout team and with a good fall he can help us. Not ready to say we will go 0-5 on the 2011 class. We still have three more that are here. Moore was unfortunate amd Klatcho had issues. Klatcho was in no way the staff's fault.

 
kchusker_chris said:
10 top tier offensive linemen in 2 years is a great way to start if you're trying to be Alabama. I think we'd all take the same route if we could.

He'll be better just because those around him are better. Don't blame him. Our OL classes have turned out to be a real disappointment the last few years. 2010 is proving to be a bust. Who knows what will come of A-Rod, but when you only take 2 HS OL (plus cotton) the odds are pretty good you'll be staring at depth issues in the future. Moudy hasn't had any impact. OL was the core of the "stellar" 2011 class, and at this point we have a real chance of going 0-5 with that bunch. 2012 we only grabbed 2.

At this point A-Rod is the best out of our last 3 classes. That's tough to swallow. 3 classes, and we have 1 part-time starter. 9 guys over the last 3 classes and only 1 has really contributed. So we end up with DL converting, and all of a sudden we have depth issues there too. I b!^@h about Barney a lot - but the core of our OL issues is right here in recruiting. We need numbers. Then we need development. We have neither. And it's not looking to get any better based on recent recruiting.
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Good Post.

 
dylan said:
Way too early to judge the last few OL classes. It's a position that typically requires a few years to develop. Guys like Jackson, qvale and pensick could have easily been written off early in their careers and later turned into good linemen.

2010 class had a nice hit with hardrick. Arod has obviously not lived up to his recruiting hype, but I have a hard time calling a kid a bust when he's at least seen the field a lot. Too early to give up on moudy and cotton. Each still has a chance to win left guard and start for two years.

2011 class obviously already had a couple notable misses, but reeves and sterup still have plenty of potential, and price is young and athletic. They were freshmen this year. Bit early to talk about then being busts.

Can't really even talk about the two that redshirted yet. I agree though that we need to be taking more than two linemen in every class.
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+1. We definately have some good potential waiting in the wings. So far it seems like we are batting around .500 in our O-line clasees the last few years, which is about normal, but unfortunately the attrition we have seen has been with our more highly touted guys. What can you do?

I think we have to put an emphasis on more O-line numbers if we aren't getting the blue chip guys to account for the misses but how many is the question. I think we are always going to hold a few schollies back a year for Walk-ons because that is really the carrot that motivates these guys and a good proportion of those schollies have gone to O-line recently. 2 O-lineman classes are definately too small, but I guess last year was a low numbers year and we put too many eggs in the Peat basket. It will be interesting to see what kind of O-line numbers we continue to take. I don't think we will ever see 6, 7, 8 O-line classes like some of these teams like UCLA, Michigan, Bama because of our walk-on program (and integrity... yeah im looking at you Bama.)

 
I would like to add I don't think that we should be concerned that we only have 1 part time starter out of our last 3 classes. In the days of the pipeline most never got any significant snaps until their Jr. and Sr. years. I realize this is not the pipeline, but that is part of establishing that. We have seen a lot more consistency the past couple of years because we haven't had to resort to putting in many guys who are green. Next year those guys from the '10 O-line class will work their way in here and I think even some of the '11 guys are going to prove they're players and have an solf schedule that sets up nice for them to get plenty of action the frist 7 or 8 games. I think we sitting pretty good for the future. Of course that hinges on how this class ends up as well.

 
blessed2bahusker said:
I would like to add I don't think that we should be concerned that we only have 1 part time starter out of our last 3 classes. In the days of the pipeline most never got any significant snaps until their Jr. and Sr. years. I realize this is not the pipeline, but that is part of establishing that. We have seen a lot more consistency the past couple of years because we haven't had to resort to putting in many guys who are green. Next year those guys from the '10 O-line class will work their way in here and I think even some of the '11 guys are going to prove they're players and have an solf schedule that sets up nice for them to get plenty of action the frist 7 or 8 games. I think we sitting pretty good for the future. Of course that hinges on how this class ends up as well.
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But that's the thing. ARod was part of that 2010 class and he's a senior. They are in their 4th year in the program. I know you say we haven't had to resort to putting in guys who are green...but we have had to resort to starting numerous walk-ons. Always a touchy subject on this board, but when you've got 3 walk-ons starting there is an issue with recruiting/development. No other way to look at it. I don't know what it is - but i'm not payed 250k to figure it out either. I compare this team to my golf game a lot. I could say the same thing about our OL. It doesn't take a lot of practice to go from shooting a 90, to shooting an 80. But it takes a hell of a lot of practice go from an 80 to a 77. We can't seem to get our line - walk-ons or recruits - shooting in the 70's (insert Fisher joke here :) ) Their development just isn't passing that point...which is why walk-ons are seeing so much time. A golf coach can take almost anyone and get them to an 80. But to consistently shoot in the 70's you've got to have some talent to go w/ it. Our talent just isn't there on the OL.

 
kchusker_chris said:
blessed2bahusker said:
I would like to add I don't think that we should be concerned that we only have 1 part time starter out of our last 3 classes. In the days of the pipeline most never got any significant snaps until their Jr. and Sr. years. I realize this is not the pipeline, but that is part of establishing that. We have seen a lot more consistency the past couple of years because we haven't had to resort to putting in many guys who are green. Next year those guys from the '10 O-line class will work their way in here and I think even some of the '11 guys are going to prove they're players and have an solf schedule that sets up nice for them to get plenty of action the frist 7 or 8 games. I think we sitting pretty good for the future. Of course that hinges on how this class ends up as well.
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But that's the thing. ARod was part of that 2010 class and he's a senior. They are in their 4th year in the program. I know you say we haven't had to resort to putting in guys who are green...but we have had to resort to starting numerous walk-ons. Always a touchy subject on this board, but when you've got 3 walk-ons starting there is an issue with recruiting/development. No other way to look at it. I don't know what it is - but i'm not payed 250k to figure it out either. I compare this team to my golf game a lot. I could say the same thing about our OL. It doesn't take a lot of practice to go from shooting a 90, to shooting an 80. But it takes a hell of a lot of practice go from an 80 to a 77. We can't seem to get our line - walk-ons or recruits - shooting in the 70's (insert Fisher joke here :) ) Their development just isn't passing that point...which is why walk-ons are seeing so much time. A golf coach can take almost anyone and get them to an 80. But to consistently shoot in the 70's you've got to have some talent to go w/ it. Our talent just isn't there on the OL.
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So, to use your analogy, wouldn't that mean we need to give the staff some time to work on improving their game? Not talking about the development side because I think your walk-on argument the other way as well - if we are developing walk-ons into starters on a very good offense, I don't think the development side is terrible.

I see the recruiting side as lacking to start but improving. The problem is, you don't see the results of improved recruiting for several years, especially on the oline. Not like your golf game where you can improve year-round. You only get one shot in recruiting then have to wait a year to try again. Bo's first class that was really his was 2009. We got a three-year starter (Sirles) and a two-year starter (Qvale) out of the four OLinemen in that class. Perhaps not great results but pretty solid. In 2010, we got a solid starter (Hardrick) and a three-year contributer (ARod) out of three lineman. You could argue the number of recruits was lower than we would have liked but we again got decent results from the guys we got. I would argue that we got a great recruiting class in 2011 but that class has fallen apart with two transfers. Results as of yet haven't been good - remember that the other three were only redshirt freshmen this past year - but I would count that as a big improvement on the recruiting side. The 2012 class was handicapped by being a small class overall and we obviously needed all the defensive help we could find - 10 out of 17 recruits were on the defensive side of the ball - and the near-miss with Peat would have made a lot of difference on the OLine.

Of the guys who've been on campus for at least three years, we have three solid starters, one contributor and three "misses". That's a pretty common bell curve. I think it might seem a little worse due to the two transfers but that seems to be more of a personality issue rather than recruiting or development.

 
If the walkons are good, I just don't see it as a problem. After all, we recruited and coached them. Long is all league, Jackson played great this year and choi was pretty good.

 
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