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***The Official Unofficial Offensive Line Thread***

CanesAreAble

CanesAreAble

All-ACC
Joined
Nov 2, 2011
Messages
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If this unit comes together, I don't see how teams will be able to stop our offense. Just too many weapons.

I thought Landon Tengwall did a good breakdown of the OL after the first game.

STANFORD





I'm not familiar with this guy, but thought he did a good breakdown of the FAMU game.

FAMU



Looks like SJ cleaned up some of the mental errors. Side note: Lofton had a rough game run-blocking.
 
OBLIVION said:
The OL just needs time in the middle. Each week it's going to get better.

Lofton on the other hand, just looks like he is here for the ride. If you're getting blown up by FAMU or not even touching a man it's time to give the younger guys a chance. He can't get open and he can't block.
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Agreed.

I don’t know what D $ be talking about. He’s a fullback as well, if they want to flex him out cool, but he ain’t no tight end.
 
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twes.305 said:
OBLIVION said:
The OL just needs time in the middle. Each week it's going to get better.

Lofton on the other hand, just looks like he is here for the ride. If you're getting blown up by FAMU or not even touching a man it's time to give the younger guys a chance. He can't get open and he can't block.
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Agreed.

I don’t want D $ be talking about. He’s a fullback as well, if they want to flex him out cool, but he ain’t no tight end.
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Fullbacks block.
 
SinCityCane said:
This is a glaring hole that's not talked about much because they're TEs. No reason we shouldn't have an elite TE room.
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Tough to recruit “elite” TEs when we don’t throw to TEs. Which is fine if Dawson doesn’t want to use them in the pass game (Arroyo’s 30 or so catches in 24). Then just go out and get a couple 6’6” 270 lb maulers every class.
 
PennsylvaniaCane said:
Tough to recruit “elite” TEs when we don’t throw to TEs. Which is fine if Dawson doesn’t want to use them in the pass game (Arroyo’s 30 or so catches in 24). Then just go out and get a couple 6’6” 270 lb maulers every class.
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Don't really get the parentheses on "elite", what's the confusion?

Lofton was the 10th ranked TE in his class & a consensus 4 star. What he wasn't was a good eval by the staff. If we had a tight end that could consistently get open, he'd get plenty of action. Mensah's the one deciding who to throw it to, & he's gone to his TEs quite a bit in this past, especially last year at Duke (Hasley 450 yds + 6 TDs). It's not his fault Elijah looks like he's running in quicksand.
 
SinCityCane said:
Don't really get the parentheses on "elite", what's the confusion?

Lofton was the 10th ranked TE in his class & a consensus 4 star. What he wasn't was a good eval by the staff. If we had a tight end that could consistently get open, he'd get plenty of action. Mensah's the one deciding who to throw it to, & he's gone to his TEs quite a bit in this past, especially last year at Duke (Hasley 450 yds + 6 TDs). It's not his fault Elijah looks like he's running in quicksand.
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Elite is a term that gets thrown around way too much.

We had a TE (Arroyo) that the NFL valued as a top 50 pick. Yet we only threw to him 30ish times and didn’t target him much more than that. It wasn’t because he couldn’t get open. It’s because Dawson’s version of the air raid doesn’t highlight TEs which is fine.

Next year we will presumably have Toney, Moore, Upshaw, Wingo, Spafford, two 5*s coming in and a top 10 WR (Woodard). There’s only so many targets to go around. It’s tough to convince a kid like the UGA commit to come here and primarily be used as a blocker and maybe get 1-2 underneath targets a game.

Again, all of that is fine. Don’t waste the time or the resources. Go out and recruit TEs like their O-linemen. Get 1-2 270 lb maulers and grab the occasional Briggs type TE.
 
ShadowSpring said:
If we can run it on Wake; every coach in the top 15 is gonna start popping xanax.
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Agreed. I believe wake will implement **** near the polar opposite game plan that Stanford did defensively. If we light them up like a Christmas tree opposing DC’s will be kept up at night over this offense….unless they have a d line that can just blow up a game plan.
 
PennsylvaniaCane said:
Tough to recruit “elite” TEs when we don’t throw to TEs. Which is fine if Dawson doesn’t want to use them in the pass game (Arroyo’s 30 or so catches in 24). Then just go out and get a couple 6’6” 270 lb maulers every class.
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Lofton was considered an elite te recruit, getting them here is never the problem. Its the evaluations that are the problem.

When we have a good receiving te they get targets, yall have came to this conclusion based on mccormick/lofton/bauman, even uga who is the te hub now wouldn’t throw to them lol

Carver/Gilbert and idk the other names not being good enough to sniff the field in years is unacceptable.
 
E1k said:
Lofton was considered an elite te recruit, getting them here is never the problem. Its the evaluations that are the problem.

When we have a good receiving te they get targets, yall have came to this conclusion based on mccormick/lofton/bauman, even uga who is the te hub now wouldn’t throw to them lol

Carver/Gilbert and idk the other names not being good enough to sniff the field in years is unacceptable.
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This is Dawson’s 4th season at Miami. The only “elite” TE (top 50 pick) he had was Arroyo who was recruited by the prior staff. Sam Brown had more targets than he did in 2024.

My point is 1. The term elite is used way too much. You’re saying Lofton was elite coming out. Yet he was the #182 recruit and #10 TE. That ain’t elite. 2. Dawson doesn’t highlight TEs in the pass game which makes recruiting “elite” TEs difficult. His own words are below.

IMG_1750.png

Now you’ll see his words there and say, if we had elite guys at TE who could separate and get open he would use them. How many of those guys are there? 1-2 that come out every year? If your Dollar or another “elite” receiver type TE recruit and you see a WR room with Mali, Lennear, Sears, Woodard, Upshaw, Moore, Wingo, Spafford do you think your gonna get targets?


Go out. Recruit body types and traits like Mueller and Briggs. Maybe you get lucky and they turn into an elite guy.
 
PennsylvaniaCane said:
This is Dawson’s 4th season at Miami. The only “elite” TE (top 50 pick) he had was Arroyo who was recruited by the prior staff. Sam Brown had more targets than he did in 2024.

My point is 1. The term elite is used way too much. You’re saying Lofton was elite coming out. Yet he was the #182 recruit and #10 TE. That ain’t elite. 2. Dawson doesn’t highlight TEs in the pass game which makes recruiting “elite” TEs difficult. His own words are below.

View attachment 372877
Now you’ll see his words there and say, if we had elite guys at TE who could separate and get open he would use them. How many of those guys are there? 1-2 that come out every year? If your Dollar or another “elite” receiver type TE recruit and you see a WR room with Mali, Lennear, Sears, Woodard, Upshaw, Moore, Wingo, Spafford do you think your gonna get targets?


Go out. Recruit body types and traits like Mueller and Briggs. Maybe you get lucky and they turn into an elite guy.
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A top10 te in the country isn’t elite? Either way I remember lofton being highly touted

And you’re proving my point, Arroyo is the only elite te mainly because we suck at evaluating. Sam brown had ONE more target than him lmfao so using that is shameless.

And you are comparing a wr targets to a TE, a TE responsibilities is not only being a wr.

Dawson doesn’t highlight anyone in his offense besides the slot wr, everyone else gets theirs within the structure of the offense. And you don’t need to “highlight” TEs to evaluate better TEs. Every elite TE doesn’t have to be a high rated recruit

I have no idea what that screenshot proves. You do know good TEs are the big body types that can be good receivers and good inline blockers right? You don’t need to be an elite separator like arroyo to be good , we just need someone who isn’t terrible at it like bauman

If you’re recruiting a te to be an elite receiver only you’re evaluating the position wrong. You literally said all of this to just agree with me in the end lmao

We have had terrible evaluations. Our cb room was trash and guess who became our best cb? A 3 star cb oj, 3 star Lucas, 19th ranked safety bryce. Get it? Evaluate better
 
E1k said:
A top10 te in the country isn’t elite? Either way I remember lofton being highly touted

And you’re proving my point, Arroyo is the only elite te mainly because we suck at evaluating. Sam brown had ONE more target than him lmfao so using that is shameless.

And you are comparing a wr targets to a TE, a TE responsibilities is not only being a wr.

Dawson doesn’t highlight anyone in his offense besides the slot wr, everyone else gets theirs within the structure of the offense. And you don’t need to “highlight” TEs to evaluate better TEs. Every elite TE doesn’t have to be a high rated recruit

I have no idea what that screenshot proves. You do know good TEs are the big body types that can be good receivers and good inline blockers right? You don’t need to be an elite separator like arroyo to be good , we just need someone who isn’t terrible at it like bauman

If you’re recruiting a te to be an elite receiver only you’re evaluating the position wrong. You literally said all of this to just agree with me in the end lmao

We have had terrible evaluations. Our cb room was trash and guess who became our best cb? A 3 star cb oj, 3 star Lucas, 19th ranked safety bryce. Get it? Evaluate better
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I think you are a solid poster but a top 10 TE in the country in HS is not elite. Again the word elite gets thrown around way way too much. Cece was elite. Donte Wright is elite. Justin Scott was elite.
 
As we've all been saying since February, this team will go as far as the offensive line will take it.

I was incredibly discouraged by what I saw against Stanford, and the game against FAMU may as well not even happened. They would literally lose to STA and I'm not joking.

So, we've played 1 game. And several of the starters looked like turnstiles. WAY too much pressure and penetration from a DL we should be mauling. The good news? It's Game 1, we can get better. The even better news? Our QB is a sick individual and pressure doesn't bother him, and he's throwing to the best WR group in America. So we can mask some OL deficiencies with the absurd skill talent we have. But we're not winning a national championship with the OL play I saw in Palo Alto. Again, we have time to get better. It starts on Friday.
 
CanesAreAble said:
If this unit comes together, I don't see how teams will be able to stop our offense. Just too many weapons.

I thought Landon Tengwall did a good breakdown of the OL after the first game.

STANFORD





I'm not familiar with this guy, but thought he did a good breakdown of the FAMU game.

FAMU



Looks like SJ cleaned up some of the mental errors. Side note: Lofton had a rough game run-blocking.
Click to expand...

SJ definitely cleaned up a lot of the mental errors and communication issues he had at Stanford. If he continues to do that, he’s gonna be an excellent guard for us, especially with his athleticism in pulling. People think he’s not good because he looks small but while he is short, he’s 300 pounds and has a wingspan of someone 6’4. The dude is a powerhouse when he gets his hands on you, he ain’t losing that rep.
 
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