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Fixing the OL Fast!

Over the last couple seasons we have really brought in some talent on the OL. Nelson, Donaldson, Gaynor, Scaife, Herbert, Clark, Reed, Campbell, and Hillery. The talent is there. I think now that we have a legit OL coach and a legit S&C coach, we will start to see the growth of these guys. I hated the Searells hire. All he did was yell at the players all the time but couldn't coach a lick. I really think and hope they turn the corner this season as they are the key to our season! A solid season and what we look to be bringing in next season, hopefully the OL concerns will be an afterthought.
 
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I would be a lot more worried if the OL was holding it's own at this point. The defense should be ahead at this point, especially with the talent on the DL right now. One thing that will help the OL look a lot better is for the QB's to get the ball out faster, which should happen with Enos' system.
 
Canegrad89 said:
This is totally incorrect^^. There have been some very successful position changes (that posters on here would have ridiculed) like Warren Sapp being moved from TE (which he was recruited to play at Miami) to DT. You wouldn't have supported that either. He went on to win multiple awards at the college level and made the Pro Bowl seven times in the NFL (where he had a HOF-type career including winning Defensive Player of the Year and many, many other awards). Would you have called Dennis Erickson and the coaches that moved him novices? They won two MNCs and had an incredibly innovative offense that was cutting edge at the time.

Attached are all the awards Sapp won in college & the NFL (it's a staggering list and again, he was a TE that was moved to DT -- crazy, right??).

Some people just are clearly incapable of thinking outside the box.
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Danny, is that you?
 
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Canegrad89 said:
I'm confident we'll get solid QB play this season from one the three.

My sense is our DT group will surprise to the upside (at minimum be solid). The D will be stout in aggregate.

Which brings us to the OL. A lot of us have concerns that our OTs are young & may not perform at a high level in the opener.

If you were the HC, what would you do to address this? We've heard Zion is talented but he is just a Frosh & at around 270 he's still filling out. There also seems to be concern about Kai-Leon at the other OT spot.

If I were the HC, I'd have the most experienced & physically imposing players on the field for the opener...or this may be the reason we lose. At minimum, the coaches should have Plan B & Plan C ready to implement fairly early during the first quarter if our young OTs struggle early.

Would you put one of the more experienced Guards at one of the OT spots (Scaife, Reed or Donaldson)?

Could any of our current DTs play both ways (or at least at OT)? Anyone feeling a little Nesta at OT for the Opener?

Would hate to see this cost us the game. What would you do to address this situation?
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:rk5i6fxwjlgev5j6.jpg:

GMAT QUESTION:

Which of these things is not like the other things:

(A) 6-6” OT who isn’t great but has been training and studying the position and playing it for years
(B) 6-5” OT who isn’t great but has been training and studying the position and playing it for years
(C) 6-4” OT who isn’t great but has been training and studying the position and playing it for years
(D) 6-1” DT with a broken foot who isn’t an OL, and hasn’t been training with our guys at the position, and has a broken foot, and is 6-1”
 
Canegrad89 said:
I'm confident we'll get solid QB play this season from one the three.

My sense is our DT group will surprise to the upside (at minimum be solid). The D will be stout in aggregate.

Which brings us to the OL. A lot of us have concerns that our OTs are young & may not perform at a high level in the opener.

If you were the HC, what would you do to address this? We've heard Zion is talented but he is just a Frosh & at around 270 he's still filling out. There also seems to be concern about Kai-Leon at the other OT spot.

If I were the HC, I'd have the most experienced & physically imposing players on the field for the opener...or this may be the reason we lose. At minimum, the coaches should have Plan B & Plan C ready to implement fairly early during the first quarter if our young OTs struggle early.

Would you put one of the more experienced Guards at one of the OT spots (Scaife, Reed or Donaldson)?

Could any of our current DTs play both ways (or at least at OT)? Anyone feeling a little Nesta at OT for the Opener?

Would hate to see this cost us the game. What would you do to address this situation?
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Cocaine’s a helluva drug
 
Canegrad89 said:
All of the negative comments above highlight the thoughtlessness of some of the posters on here.

The overwhelming majority of Freshmen do not perform well in their first couple of games. Zion may be talented & his weight may have increased to 285 lbs since arriving at Miami but....he is a Freshman & will likely struggle mightily against a good UF defense in a high profile opener.

Sometimes in business & in life you have to think outside the box (ahead of time) to prevent disasters. I'm concerned about the young guys set to play OT against UF. They are not Juniors or seniors but a true Freshman etc.

Players do play both ways in high school. One of our DL may have done so and may be good on the OL. He also may be more mature both physically & mentally.

I'm surprised at the complete lack of intelligent suggestions on here. There are some good ones: (1) sliding Scaife to OT and (2) using two TEs and the RBs to chip. But most of the replies are just insulting. I understand that most people "stay between the lines" in life and cannot think outside of the box to find solutions but I'm still surprised at how incredibly basic most of the responses are.

My IQ is totally fine. After attending Miami, I graduated with honors from the Wharton School of Business (oldest and #1 ranked business school in the world) and worked at elite hedge funds in NY (AUM in excess of $25 Billion). I also saved one of the biggest drug store chains from bankruptcy out of court in a highly successful $3+ billion restructuring & refinancing deal that won multiple Deal-of-the-Year awards on Wall Street for THE best deal of the year. What you got?

What's wrong with having an intelligent & creative discussion? I'm sensing there will be a problem at OT. What about thinking outside the box to fix it.
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He may be a freshman but he is being compared to upper class men. Don't forget that Quarterman and Pinkney started as true freshmen and performed quite well from the get go. If Nelson proves better then any other left tackle, of course he should start game one.
 
marshallrc13 said:
Over the last couple seasons we have really brought in some talent on the OL. Nelson, Donaldson, Gaynor, Scaife, Herbert, Clark, Reed, Campbell, and Hillery. The talent is there. I think now that we have a legit OL coach and a legit S&C coach, we will start to see the growth of these guys. I hated the Searells hire. All he did was yell at the players all the time but couldn't coach a lick. I really think and hope they turn the corner this season as they are the key to our season! A solid season and what we look to be bringing in next season, hopefully the OL concerns will be an afterthought.
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You say this is a lot of talent, but you have no evidence of that. And you observe that the guy who brought them in was awful.

The truth is, most of our OL have performed as you should expect based on their rankings and relative youth.

- Donaldson and Scaife were the highest rated guys on your list, and their play supports it (6.0 Rivals rankings, high 4*).
- Herbert was a low 4* at 5.8, but he had a shoulder injury lingering since HS.
- Campbell was a low 4* kid (5.8) who is a RS freshman and needed to develop. He will probably get there to contributor. He is not behind schedule.
- Reed was a low 4* kid also (5.8) - and maybe the only kid you could say looks to be underperforming at this point, as he had the strength to compete early, but so far hasn’t worked his way into the lineup.
- Gaynor I like but objectively he was a low level 3* recruit (5.5 on Rivals). He is out-performing his ranking.
- Hillery was a mid level 3* (5.6) project who for some inexplicable reason is overrated by our fans.
- Nelson is a 2* true frosh who no one would be talking about except for our general deficiencies on the line. He appears to be ahead of schedule.
- Clark is a low 3* true frosh.

Two conclusions:

- Our fans significantly overrate the ‘talent’ on our OL, at least relative to the schools we aspire to compete with.
- Our OL needs just can’t be met by the types of recruits we bring in - certainly not if we expect them to play as freshmen.
 
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Nah this oline issue isn’t a fast fix... the best olines always have atleast two years of experience together with the very best three years.

No way an oline with a true freshman LT and first year starters are going to go through this season without adversity.

We should be able to hold up against the obvious teams but Florida, FSU and Clemson are going to be an uphill battle.
 
Electricity can get ANYONE to run through a wall and/or push aside any obstacles......since that's considered torture ....we must rely on the OL to improve with coaching, hardwork and S/C
 
Starters: Nelson / Reed / Gaynor / Vaughn / Scaife

Reserves: Campbell, Hillery, Herbert, Clark

Scout: Kennedy, Elgammal, Griffith, Dykstra
 
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Ethnicsands said:
You say this is a lot of talent, but you have no evidence of that. And you observe that the guy who brought them in was awful.

The truth is, most of our OL have performed as you should expect based on their rankings and relative youth.

- Donaldson and Scaife were the highest rated guys on your list, and their play supports it (6.0 Rivals rankings, high 4*).
- Herbert was a low 4* at 5.8, but he had a shoulder injury lingering since HS.
- Campbell was a low 4* kid (5.8) who is a RS freshman and needed to develop. He will probably get there to contributor. He is not behind schedule.
- Reed was a low 4* kid also (5.8) - and maybe the only kid you could say looks to be underperforming at this point, as he had the strength to compete early, but so far hasn’t worked his way into the lineup.
- Gaynor I like but objectively he was a low level 3* recruit (5.5 on Rivals). He is out-performing his ranking.
- Hillery was a mid level 3* (5.6) project who for some inexplicable reason is overrated by our fans.
- Nelson is a 2* true frosh who no one would be talking about except for our general deficiencies on the line. He appears to be ahead of schedule.
- Clark is a low 3* true frosh.

Two conclusions:

- Our fans significantly overrate the ‘talent’ on our OL, at least relative to the schools we aspire to compete with.
- Our OL needs just can’t be met by the types of recruits we bring in - certainly not if we expect them to play as freshmen.
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Completely agree with what you've said... But at the same time OL is always the hardest position to evaluate and project. Always has been and always will be. Our best OLs, especially the one for our 2001 team were all lower ranked unknowns for the most part. Nobody could have predicted the succes they all had.
 
Canegrad89 said:
I'm confident we'll get solid QB play this season from one the three.

My sense is our DT group will surprise to the upside (at minimum be solid). The D will be stout in aggregate.

Which brings us to the OL. A lot of us have concerns that our OTs are young & may not perform at a high level in the opener.

If you were the HC, what would you do to address this? We've heard Zion is talented but he is just a Frosh & at around 270 he's still filling out. There also seems to be concern about Kai-Leon at the other OT spot.

If I were the HC, I'd have the most experienced & physically imposing players on the field for the opener...or this may be the reason we lose. At minimum, the coaches should have Plan B & Plan C ready to implement fairly early during the first quarter if our young OTs struggle early.

Would you put one of the more experienced Guards at one of the OT spots (Scaife, Reed or Donaldson)?

Could any of our current DTs play both ways (or at least at OT)? Anyone feeling a little Nesta at OT for the Opener?

Would hate to see this cost us the game. What would you do to address this situation?
Click to expand...

Canegrad89... entering week 7... I think its time I apologize...

Nesta at LT may not have been the worst idea ever!
 
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