So you're okay with the numbers if everyone is healthY? Or you're not believing the reports that the guys who were held out will be fine? Or youi're concerned that adding 4 new OL to the mix this year while losing 1 somehow gives us fewer OL?
RB position at GA Tech
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BuzzLaw
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I don't think you are second guessing PJ too much. Its just summer and nobody can wait for fall to get here so we think of things to worry about.
stinger78
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I think UNC ran their mouths a whole lot too much after that win last year for PJ's liking. I think this year at our house won't be pretty.
MtownJacket
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Both healthy and skilled would be great.
The surgeries will affect those players through the season even if they have fully healed. I had surgery 4 years ago and never regained full strength or range of motion. Maybe 1 freshman will burn a redshirt this season on OL and he will not fill Gardners void in his first season.
I am glad the redshirt freshman and some walk-ons got reps this spring because it will improve our depth but the three returning from injuries were not getting better as they recovered and they did a pretty bad job last season (of course they could mentally prepare by watching film but its different than being on the field).
When you think to yourself "which position are we weakest at?" what comes to mind? For me it is OL. Then think to yourself "what position are we strongest at?". RB of course. So in a hypothetical situation wouldn't you want to take some of the excess skill at RB that is unlikely to see the field and add it to the OL? Thats all I'm trying to say here, no need to read into it and think I'm disagreeing with the coaching staff or ignoring reports of recovery.
GoldenTornado
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For me the problem position is the DL. I like the top 5, but there is not nearly enough depth.
I think we are going to be night-and-day better on the O-line, for a lot of reasons.
First, not all surgeries are the same. From the article, it sounded pretty clear that Claytor's surgery may actually make him BETTER than he was last year, when he was really playing hurt. The same thing is true of Gardner's quitting the season and having surgery so he could be ready for the NFL draft. Top level athletes can and often do recover from surgery surprisingly quickly.
Second, the coaches have said from day 1 that the O-line had the biggest learning curve. The obvious corollary is that they still had the most learning to do at the end of the 2008 season, and that we'll see the most improvement from them going into the 2009 season.
And I think if you look at the history of PJ's previous teams, this is exactly what happened.
The coaches said that Nesbitt made the most progress on O in the Spring, and the second most progress was made on the O-line.
They've said that we effectively have twice as many OL's seriously competing for playing time this year as we had last year.
Now it's probably true that we still won't be really good at pass blocking. But I personally think we'll never be a really good pass-blocking team. We clearly de-emphasize it in both recruiting and development. Everyone else wants huge tackles with good footwork and long arms. We want quick, aggressive guys who block with flat backs at every position.
There are always trade-offs. You have to make some choices, and the choice we make is to be so good at running the ball that passing only needs to be complementary.
And then we don't have to worry as much about really good pass blocking. First, defenses are focused so much on stopping the run that they can't tee off on the QB on passing downs. They'll still get to you sometimes, but taking a sack on every tenth pass play hurts a lot less when you call 160 passes than it does when you call 400.
HD just posted a good article on our O-line at ESPN, if you haven't read it yet.
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So you're really not talking about anything that can happen, you're just hypothetically imagining what you would prefer? Okay.
BTW, some surgery takes more time to recover from than others. No offense, but how long it takes you to recover from whatever injury you had isn't really germaine to this conversation unless it was the same surgery. Also we had 4 RS OL last season so I'm not counting any true freshmen available for this year.