How Do We Fix The O-Line?

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Everyone on the team knows Reed suppose to be starting especially the offensive linemen
I hope He does and we kick one of the guards out to tackle maybe scaife and place reed at right guard because this combo we got now isnt working
 
Catch 22

Gotta hope the WR's can get open cause if not, yall gonna be hurting having to keep Brevin in to help block but he the only one i saw get consistently open. The play calling left Jarren vulnerable as the game went on.
 
Catch 22

Gotta hope the WR's can get open cause if not, yall gonna be hurting having to keep Brevin in to help block but he the only one i saw get consistently open. The play calling left Jarren vulnerable as the game went on.
Alright you are done here. Game is over you won congrats. Go **** yourself and go back to the Florida board.
 
Catch 22

Gotta hope the WR's can get open cause if not, yall gonna be hurting having to keep Brevin in to help block but he the only one i saw get consistently open. The play calling left Jarren vulnerable as the game went on.
With that OL and our skills players, I’d like to see us try to run a more spread attack than play action. We don’t have the OL for it.
 
That's the indictment of our recruiting. There's no credible, good idea or solution, just a "we've got to try something". Sure. I guess. Why not.

And this year's OL recruiting could be more of the same. One guy (Rivers) who other quality coaches at other quality (top-10/20) programs want, and then a couple guys unwanted by any other top, proven OL evaluators at other top programs. Maybe our OL coaches are better able to identify the diamonds in the rough (Smith and Washington) than OL coaches at other top-10/20 programs. But we've been telling ourselves that year-after-year now and it hasn't borne out. The two decent OL we have right now have been our two highest rated OL over the last three years (Donaldson and Sciafe). The diamonds in the rough, have so far looked all rough - no diamond.
Yep. But also, diamonds in the rough are supposed to take a few years to polish. Wtf are we doing throwing them out there before they’re ready?

Our OL recruiting, evaluations, development and coaching has been a disaster.
 
Sacrifice a goat or something. 🤷🏻‍♂️
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There might be 2-3 OL players worthy of a UM offer.

Scaife, Donaldson, and Reed.

Mark Richt and Searles put us in a major hole.

The only way we climb the **** out is to identify and recruit good players. We need to show something offensively. We can’t have another multi sack game. People will negative recruit the **** out of Barry. Also you think guys like TVD wanna play in this bull**** offense getting sacked a dozen times?!?!

I’m already concerned about the current OL commits
 
How are we going to win this game with #60 out there? I asked myself that question at least a dozen times during the game. I believe in litmus test big picture type of perspective, rather than nitpicking every detail. Is a program really ready to win a game of this magnitude if a #60 caliber player is starting at left tackle?

That basic question enabled me to get rid of virtually all of the emotion and basically wait for the inevitable.

I was a USC student during the heyday of that offensive line. Don Mosebar didn't have to put on 40 pounds in a crash course. He was baby faced as a freshman but otherwise rock solid. Nobody messed with him. Instant starter as a freshman.

That's the type of reference point I maintain. The Canes have been out of sorts at this position for a dozen years or more. The occasional guy who slides into the NFL as a late draftee and plays a year or few skews the reality of where we've been and where we are. Last year on Senior Day it was hilarious as the offensive linemen were being introduced. One dough boy after another. Yes, this group is very young. Will they likewise be Dough Boys when they are not as young?

None of the frames ever look ideal. That was true even of a first round pick like Flowers, who had plenty of Lurch traits. We get a mishmash of kids and it varies from year to year. That is completely unlike what I experienced decades ago at USC. At least the cornfed programs like Wisconsin or Iowa or later-day Nebraska have a dependable formula. Those guys get in the weight room after redshirting. Eventually they are big strong overachieving starters. One generation looks exactly like the previous one. Meanwhile the Canes simply wing it. This guy looks good. Let's take him. Too much scattergun subjectivity for my tastes. When you don't have a coherent coordinated plan then no kidding you don't even know where they'll be playing once they arrive.

As always, I am a huge believer in preseason ratings. That is the truth and the light. Backfitted methods mean nothing except glorified deflection, as ethnic and others have pointed out. Every season there are services that rank the collegiate offensive lines prior to the season. Athlon dependably does this every season, although their reach varies from Top 30 some years all the way to Top 50 other years. I can't remember the Canes showing up within the Top 30 in any recent season. Then somehow we want to pretend we're close to championship level.

Keep finding those high preseason slots in one category after another and the results take care of themselves. Otherwise we are desperately adjusting and explaining throughout the offseason, but bottom line irrelevant.
 
One guy (Rivers) who other quality coaches at other quality (top-10/20) programs want, and then a couple guys unwanted by any other top, proven OL evaluators at other top programs.

This is the inconsistency I keep seeing. If the measure of talent is recruiting interest from other programs, we should be in better shape than most. We have four 4*s and a borderline 4* in our top 8. These guys had legit SEC and Big 10 offers.

Last night was a perfect example. Our OL had a higher recruiting ranking than UF’s OL and DL. The biggest difference was age. UF starts three guys on its DL from the class of 2015. That’s five summer weight programs. Their OL, while unimpressive, was also older.

Watching the tackles in person, I saw strength issues and horrible timing with the snap. The latter is something that can improve significantly with experience. The strength can also come with the right body type, which I think they have.

Will it come together? Who knows. They aren’t there right now and there are no guarantees they will improve. But I expected major growing pains at tackle, and my only disappointment is that we didn’t do more to help them.
 
Recruit better. If we can’t get recruits from FL (which we never do), go somewhere else to find them, even to Canada like Butch did. Get some judo kids, too...and transfers.
 
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Long term solution is to recruit better and wait cause right now we got Jalen rivers who can definitely be a future starter for the o-line and we could get somebody like Issiah Walker

Short term is to hit the portal again to get guys with skill and experience cause most of the o-line are underclassmen
 
This is the inconsistency I keep seeing. If the measure of talent is recruiting interest from other programs, we should be in better shape than most. We have four 4*s and a borderline 4* in our top 8. These guys had legit SEC and Big 10 offers.

Last night was a perfect example. Our OL had a higher recruiting ranking than UF’s OL and DL. The biggest difference was age. UF starts three guys on its DL from the class of 2015. That’s five summer weight programs. Their OL, while unimpressive, was also older.

Watching the tackles in person, I saw strength issues and horrible timing with the snap. The latter is something that can improve significantly with experience. The strength can also come with the right body type, which I think they have.

Will it come together? Who knows. They aren’t there right now and there are no guarantees they will improve. But I expected major growing pains at tackle, and my only disappointment is that we didn’t do more to help them.
How is the star thing still confusing to you?

The measure of talent is talent. Stars reflect other people’s assessment of the future potential of kids we are recruiting. They’re directionally accurate but wrong in the individual instance often enough. And they do not reflect our staff’s evals, in any case. That is why evaluations matter so much. Because once a kid gets here, it doesn’t matter what he was ranked. We find out what they can do. They may outperform or underperform or live up to expectations.

So when @PalyCane points out our recruiting for ‘20 is underwhelming on OL right now, stars are an indication. But when a kid gets here and isn’t good, it’s pointless to insist he is talented because he was given so many stars as a prospect. Maybe he was overrated. maybe we blew the EVALUATION. Maybe he’s a bad fit for our system. Maybe Florida evaluated kids better than we do.

Stars look forward, worth whatever you want to think. Looking backwards, you see what you've got. Most here have seen our OL over years now and noticed we don’t got what we need.
 
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