Close your eyes and think about the offensive line from last season. Take a deep breath, and just think hard. Replay last season in your mind.
9 sacks week 1
Running for 51 yards against Central Michigan
208 yards in an entire game against Pitt
Can't score a point in the 2nd half against a 2 win GT team
51 (FIFTY ONE) sacks in 13 games
@DMoney made a very good point that I think gets lost on people too often. You don't go from FIU and La Tech to beating Clemson in 8 months. You just don't. You can and should expect improvement, but when you're literally THE WORST in the entire country in a lot of aspects, you can't expect those to be major strengths in a season. This is the same OL as last season. And especially last week when Williams didn't play, it was literally THE EXACT same kids. And we went from what we watched last year to what we're seeing this year. Again, is the offense perfect? Is it best in the country? Of course not. But you have to take a step back and look big picture here. You can't take what we had last year and go worst to first. It just doesn't happen. Even with Lashlee himself, we all looked at 2019 SMU and said "Oh wow, look how great he was on 3rd down, he can do that for us". And that's fine...but 2019 was Year 2 there. Yes, they were 29th in the country in 3rd down % in 2019. But they were 123rd in his first year (2018). Things just don't happen overnight.
King is a godsend. Lashlee is a godsend. Enjoy them while they're here. They're MUCH better than what we've seen in the past several years here. MUCH. I saw a post comparing King to Malik Rosier. I'm dead serious, you should be banned for that. That is such an insanely ridiculous take that you shouldn't be allowed to offer your opinion any longer to those of us who understand this game and this program.
So just enjoy the season. A lot of us (me included) didn't think we'd have one. Watch the team mature, watch the offense get better, watch Lashlee put his stamp more and more on these kids as the year goes along. He's one of the better coordinators in the country, no matter how much some of you guys cry about him. But if you find yourself being one of those people, take a step back. Look big picture. Remember what you watched just 1 season ago. 3rd and 7, we may as well have just punted last year. We knew we weren't getting a first down, and we'd have saved our QB from taking a brutal hit. Now I actually expect maybe we'll be able to pick this up. I have confidence that we can score points. I have confidence we can get a pass off. It's the same group...save a couple kids. Literally. Enjoy it.
