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How Do We Fix The O-Line?

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Ethnicsands said:
When we start a 2* true frosh at LT, it is possible the main issue is youth. It’s also possible he’s a 2* and not good enough. Or both. Maybe he’ll develop, but contending this is just about youth kinda misses the point, IMO. Where are the people who should have started ahead of him?
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Interesting that you go back to the star system. We have more 4 star OL than the rest of the Coastal combined, and started a higher rated OL than UF. Our OL was actually rated higher out of high school than UF’s DL.

We have one junior and no seniors in our top 10 OL. That is unheard of and can’t be stressed enough. We are incredibly young on offense and it showed yesterday.
 
brock said:
We got to try scaife at left tackle at this point. I think Campbell can develop into something but he did have like 4-5 penalties and got beat a few times. Nelson looks unplayable honestly. Insert Cleveland reed at rg and move scaife to left tackle
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Umm no Jarren caused at least half of the sacks.... Zion was holding his own a good bit although the moment was too big for him which where the mental mistakes came from. but Campbell was a lot worse.

Scaife - LT
Donaldson - LG
Gaynor - C
Somebody at RG maybe move Gaynor over and start Clark at C... who knows figure it out.
Zion - RT

Zion in the starting line up is the best option we have but RT is where he needs to be.
 
DMoney said:
Only one of our Top 10 OL is an upperclassman. No seniors. This line will basically be together for at three years.
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You have a fair point on youth, but we've also got to make better evaluations than the last staff. Zion may workout to be fine, or even great, but strategically, his pool can't be the one we're fishing in for a living.
 
DadeCountyLegend said:
I wish fat Kennedy was formidable . Imagine how trash he really is smh
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He's a sloppy rural boy that looked pretty average in his own self-produced highlight reel. He's not built for this level of football. Instead of grad transferring, he should have gotten a real job.

But...Oklahoma was interested in him so he must be good.
 
DMoney said:
Scaife at T is an option to seriously consider during the bye week.

People don’t want to hear this, but a huge part of the problem is just youth. Out of the 10 OL in the the two-deep, there is only one junior and no seniors. That is an insanely young group.
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It’s an option and I agree youth is the biggest issue but with the way the next month plays out opponents and 2 bye weeks, this is a great time to get them settled down
 
DMoney said:
Only one of our Top 10 OL is an upperclassman. No seniors. This line will basically be together for at three years.
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This is such a key factor on the OL, where the additional years in the weight room & film study make the biggest difference.
 
First the starting O-line should be.

LT - Scaife
LG - Donaldson
C - Gaynor
RG - Herbert or Reed
RT - Zion or Herbert

Second, throw out all the under-center play action plays. Matter fact, just throw out all the under the center plays. Run the offense from the shotgun. The reason young QB succeed now a days is because their back aren't turned to the defense.

Third, spread the defense out. Throw bubble screens to the WRs (like how we started the game) and throw off the defense. It blows my mind we have guys like Jeff Thomas and we don't just say "here make a quick 4 yards" because he honestly could get you 10.
 
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DMoney said:
Interesting that you go back to the star system. We have more 4 star OL than the rest of the Coastal combined, and started a higher rated OL than UF. Our OL was actually rated higher out of high school than UF’s DL.

We have one junior and no seniors in our top 10 OL. That is unheard of and can’t be stressed enough. We are incredibly young on offense and it showed yesterday.
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I have been patiently explaining to you and others for years and years that I don’t care about stars as such - it is EVALUATIONS that matter. When you want to claim we have talent you point to stars. Okay. And yet once again our talent was not close to sufficient where it mattered - ON THE FIELD. Youth is a convenient explanation, because it can’t be disproven for years. And if those guys don’t develop, then we’ll have some other young guys to hope the future on.

The reason, in any case, that we have so much dependence on youth is that our TALENT is deficient. We had Brown, the LSU transfer 4*, who left the team before this season, with eligibility remaining. I guess the 4*s weren’t enough. Boulware left early.

It doesn’t really matter at all whether we can be hopeful about some young guys who may or may not be good down the road. Let’s just agree we need more game ready talent on this OL or we wil not be competitive against the top teams.
 
WhatTheHell said:
Serious schematic/personnel discussions only.

Short of building a time machine and making guys like Evan Neal sign at gunpoint the last 3 seasons, what are our options?

1. Any chance Cleveland Reed be put at guard and Scaife/Donaldson be kicked out to Tackle? Are either of them versatile enough to slide out? How ready is Reed?

2. Herbert and Hillery should be given snaps vs UNC without a doubt. See how they respond in-game. I know people use this line a lot, but this time, it might actually be impossible to play worse than our tackles did last night.

3. Enos needs to go back to the drawing board. Spread the field, wider splits, stop trying to power run people like you’re at Bama. I believe our best runs of the night were made by DeeJay breaking 35 tackles out of the wildcat. We’re not bulldozing anyone in traditional offensive schemes.

4. Enos needs to help the tackles more. These guys were on islands a majority of the night. I think I saw some chipping and releasing toward the end, but let’s keep a tight end or a back in more often to help. Late in the 4th quarter, for example, DeeJay had one of the most beautiful blitz pickups I’ve ever seen.

5. I’d say more screens as an initial reaction to this issue, but I feel like we threw several.


So can we reconfigure the line and move a guard out to tackle? If not, Hillery and Herber have to get snaps vs UNC early. Find someone who can even put up a fight.

We allowed 16 tackles for loss, 11 sacks, and 5 QB hurries. Something has to change if we want any success in conference this year.

What’s your solution?
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Hire you as the coach...
 
The Online can’t be fixed this season. You can make tweaks here and there, but it’s recruiting and experience that makes it better. Can’t do that during a season.
 
JeddTheFisch said:
There is no scheming around weak *** OL recruiting.

OC/QB and DC should be Xs and Os technicians. Everyone else needs to be a recruiter.

Sign better offensive linemen.
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But that begs the question. Have we recruited Ol weakly? Some here think we have recruited it well.
 
brock said:
We got to try scaife at left tackle at this point. I think Campbell can develop into something but he did have like 4-5 penalties and got beat a few times. Nelson looks unplayable honestly. Insert Cleveland reed at rg and move scaife to left tackle
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Any move other than this is stupidity. And how ******* bad can Kennedy be that he’s worse than Nelson??
 
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CanesAreAble said:
Well, sure.

But Leon Searcy is not walking through that door. Bryant McKinnie is not walking through that door.

I’m just thinking about practical solutions for year one.

Ultimately, we need more talent, but I doubt last night’s performance was the ceiling of this unit.
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We better figure out how to go find and recruit searcys and mckinnies. Otherwise, we won’t be playing for titles like those guys did.
 
The middle of the offensive line needs work too. We couldn’t handle the delayed inside backer blitz.
 
BoxingRobes said:
The man you are quoting has gone on the record saying that our starting left tackle looked like Tyron Smith, to him. Last night, that left tackle gave up more sacks in one night than Tyron Smith has given up in his life. You and I both know that there are serious talent issues on the offensive line, but some people ain't gonna want to hear it and they are going to do mental gymnastics to justify their takes.

Proof was in the pudding last night. This fanbase needs to stop pumping sunshine up their own asses. We're on Year 16 of this nonsense. Some insanity is running wild over this fanbase at this point.

People are going to rail on WhatTheHell's kind of racist interpretation of Manny in blackface...but his point that we may be revisiting the Randy Shannon years is something to be concerned about.
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There is a seriously delusional element to the fan discussions here. 17 years of face plant, but this time it’ll be different.

We started a LT against a top 10 SEC team who finished HS months ago, had no other P5 offers, and was 235 lbs less than a year ago. I hope like heck he turns out to be amazing. But think about that. WTf?
 
rokulika said:
LT Scaife / Zion
LG Reed / Hillery
C Clark / Kennedy
RG Gaynor / Campbell
RT Donaldson / Herbert
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Good adjustment. In hindsight, this is the line up that should’ve faced Uf. But the level of competition just dropped dramatically. I want to see the line that played against Uf versus UNC. I believe we’ll see what the coaches were believing in after all. They just shouldn’t have believed it vs Uf.
 
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