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

NicKane said:
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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Yeah, his athleticism pops. He really gets moving.
 
bobbydigius said:
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.
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I don’t think lofton was elite, im just talking about how he was talked about coming out of highschool
 
I never said Elijah is elite. I said there's no reason we shouldn't have an elite tight end, this being mainly due to our history at the position and QB play over the last few years. I said Lofton was the 10th rated tight end to demonstrate that we do have the ability to recruit highly rated TEs (that could develop and become elite), we just haven't hit the evals at the position since Arroyo. At this point, we have underperformers and guys who just aren't ready yet. Mueller was much more highly rated than Lofton but hasn't taken reps from him yet. We have all the potential and ability to be strong here, just need better evals. Hope one of the young guys shows up at some point this year.
 
OrangeBowlMagic said:
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.
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Among the starters, I only remember 2-3 bad pass pro reps, and one of those was Buchanan at LG.

Run blocking was kind of a mess, but that can get cleaned up with experience and better communication. Now they just have to do it...
 
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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Say good night, sweet Prince.

CIS does not tolerate descent around Lofton.

He’s the best 6’0 230lb TE that’s ever graced Greentree.
 
SinCityCane said:
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.
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Can we hit the breaks on the bad eval button? It’s become a lazy clichè at this point. JFC this kid is two games into his third season and coming off some injuries. I’m not writing this as a defense of Lofton - his time here thus far has been disappointing especially in light of the annual Greentree Slurp reports. But bad eval? Dude has two more years left, plus the rest of this season.
 
bobbydigius said:
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.
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“The word elite gets thrown around way too much.”

Say it again. Say it louder. Say it so the folks in the back can hear it.
JFC with these overused clichès.
 
bobbydigius said:
By this board? If so there is your first mistake. He just never was elite by any metric. He was a nice player who probably benefited from playing for a national powerhouse at Gorman.
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Not just this board he was the one of if not the best player on one of the best teams in the country in high school. It wasn’t just hype cause he played for Gorman he was ballin in high school
 
BigDikDaddyFromCincinnati said:
Can we hit the breaks on the bad eval button? It’s become a lazy clichè at this point. JFC this kid is two games into his third season and coming off some injuries. I’m not writing this as a defense of Lofton - his time here thus far has been disappointing especially in light of the annual Greentree Slurp reports. But bad eval? Dude has two more years left, plus the rest of this season.
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I didn't say "bad", and you yourself just said his time thus far has been disappointing. I don't see how you're necessarily disagreeing, my comment obviously pertains to only what we've seen to this point. Of course that can change, but to this point, we both agree that he hasn't lived up to expectations, the only difference is I'm calling it out for what it is.
 
NicKane said:
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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Fans have their minds made up on SJ but his quick twitch has already been beneficial in the screen game, and he's been good in pass pro. What I think is easy to overlook is his lower half is girthier than the rest of our OL. He won't overpower defenders easily but you also don't see him getting blown several yards back. He's a little more stout than we give him credit for.
 
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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Why is the conversation essentially the same with him once season play starts?
 
rok said:
Fans have their minds made up on SJ but his quick twitch has already been beneficial in the screen game, and he's been good in pass pro. What I think is easy to overlook is his lower half is girthier than the rest of our OL. He won't overpower defenders easily but you also don't see him getting blown several yards back. He's a little more stout than we give him credit for.
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I wonder if that first part is what Mirabel likes. He talked about with guys like Sewell you can utilize pulling, in space etc… allowing you to do more. We didn’t really have that with Anez, but he did try to utilize Cici a little more creatively last season.
 
SinCityCane said:
I didn't say "bad", and you yourself just said his time thus far has been disappointing. I don't see how you're necessarily disagreeing, my comment obviously pertains to only what we've seen to this point. Of course that can change, but to this point, we both agree that he hasn't lived up to expectations, the only difference is I'm calling it out for what it is.
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It's not you; it's me. I don't mean that to sound like some cliché breakup story to avoid confrontation. I mean it because I see "bad eval" all the effin time on this board now. I get this weird tick, like Don Wooganowski in Something About Mary. I'm trying to do something before I break out in love blisters. Sports, and football to be more specific, goes through these buzzword trends and fads all the time and some of them grow old on me quickly. When we started sucking around 2005-2008, all I heard after games was "lack of player development" and "we have the talent." The latter stuck around through Al Golden and beyond. It was nauseating to me to hear many fans repeat "but we have the talent" over and over as I was watching our trench play get stuck in a bog of mid. I would ask "if we have the talent, why aren't guys getting drafted like before?" I was always greeted with "we have the talent, but it's not getting developed." So it's my own little puddle of poo that I'm tired of sitting in. You just happened to be the unlucky winner that I replied to. I guess I owe you a beer.

To keep it on topic, Lofton is in his 3rd season of five. He's not even halfway through his college experience and was pretty much injured all last season. Therefore, our sample size to assess the evaluation of Lofton is his true freshman season, an injured second season and two vanilla games to start this third season. Maybe he will be a bad eval. Maybe he won't. Maybe I'll stop getting triggered by the term bad eval. Maybe I won't. All I'm saying is can we let the sample size get a little larger before we attach bad eval to him? I think underachiever is a far better descriptor to this point and that is in large part because of his Greentree AA status for a couple years.
 
rok said:
Fans have their minds made up on SJ but his quick twitch has already been beneficial in the screen game, and he's been good in pass pro. What I think is easy to overlook is his lower half is girthier than the rest of our OL. He won't overpower defenders easily but you also don't see him getting blown several yards back. He's a little more stout than we give him credit for.
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If he can ever figure out how to block the 2nd level defenders instead of running right past em, he could actually be a player
 
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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No reason we need to use a TE with all the weapons on offense. If you want a blocker put in a 6th OL. They could all use more reps anyways.
 
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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Right? Find some tweener OT guys who are happy to grab a couple TD's a year
 
3 takeaways from the vid

1. gotta fix OL communication, holy.
2. happy on early return from McCoy outside, still waiting for better comp tho.
3. Somebody gotta step up at guard to push SJ back to just the Jumbo package sets.
 
rok said:
Fans have their minds made up on SJ but his quick twitch has already been beneficial in the screen game, and he's been good in pass pro. What I think is easy to overlook is his lower half is girthier than the rest of our OL. He won't overpower defenders easily but you also don't see him getting blown several yards back. He's a little more stout than we give him credit for.
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he needs to learn how to snap, because everything you just posted confirms he can be an excellent center.

but not if he can't handle the **** ball!
 
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