Where's the beef?

What I am saying is that it was the combination of attrition and completely new OL talent needed in the new offense that caught us.

One or the other not happening and we would have been fine.

it is a moot point now anyway as we are fully stocked...you never need more than 13-15 OL's on scholarship at a time.

Yes we are short at DT next year...that has been well documented and discussed (DE is absolutely fine). The targets that were talented enough to play and like GT did not have the grades....the ones that did have talent and grades (which were few within a 5 hour drive of Atlanta) did not like GT. This will hurt us next year in the interior...potentially...but I like the long-term plan based on some of the thoughts around current and future DE's coming in.

To address another point...there will always be a problem position either from an experience or depth standpoint...that is just the way it is. Every year, nearly every team is facing a challenge to some extent...just some more than others.

One of the main problems I see is that the typical fan only follows returning starters and incoming freshmen....then forget about all of the guys in the middle busting their butt to be the next guy to contribute. There are some good players in those spots today.
 
midatlantech said:
I don't mind the gold colored glasses but we got caught short again on the OL. Next year we are at serious risk of getting caught short on the DL too.

Some of your arguments are certainly valid. We have a new system. We've had probation. But not unlike QB for many years, we've been caught short on the lines recently.

I really hope that these true freshman are ready to play this year because if anything goes wrong, we'll be needing them.

This is probably THE year, skill talent wise. Once soon, it'd be nice if all of our positions were primed at the same time.
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I'm confused about your overall message. Are you suggesting there is something we should have done this year? You want more freshmen OL and DL redshirting this season to prepare for next year?
 
BuzzCzar said:
so what is the solution, not recruit other positions just to make sure that we have enough linemen?
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By George, you've hit on it!

85 total scholarships. Take out two for PK and P. 5 O-lineman out of 22 positions is 23%. 23% of the remaining 83 is 18.8. So I would suggest that trying to get close to balancing our roster would require carrying about 18 linemen.

We only have 14 scholarship O-linemen on the roster for next year. Next year we will probably only recruit 3 because of the limited number of schollies we will have to give out next year. We may not want to carry 18 but I would feel better at more than 14 as a practice.

QB is the only position we should actively over-recruit becaue it is not often we would have a Tom Matte on the roster to take over if we had injury devastation at that position.. We have 5 for next year and apparently were willing to have 6 on the roster if you count our recruitment of DA.

But the O-Line has the least versatility in terms of playing other positions. And since we don't recruit TE's anymore we will not have them to move over (Please note two of our O-line for next year started at Tech as TE"s). Combine it with a pecieved shoratge of big uglys at DT (the other natural position left to move to OL) and you can see where the numbers game could catch up with us.

Look at the roster for next fall. Why do we have 10 CB's to play two positions but 14 OL to play 5? And this is also a position that a S could play if necessary.

I said I was comfortable with the OL situation for next year, but long-term I think we need to carry 15-16 rather than 14.
 
alirght...this was driving me nuts...here are some facts for everyone to enjoy.

Scholarship OL's on depth chart by year:

1998- 13
1999- 12
2000- 12
2001- 14
2002- 13
2003- 12
2004- 14
2005- 16
2006- 14
2007- 14
2008- 14
2009- 14
 
ncjacket said:
I'm confused about your overall message. Are you suggesting there is something we should have done this year? You want more freshmen OL and DL redshirting this season to prepare for next year?
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I just think we should have recruited more linemen in each of the last three years. Yes, we will be using many freshman OL this year. Yes, as we use redshirt or real freshman, the cycle continues. We struggle to get ahead body wise.

Now, we're behind the eight ball on the defensive tackle position.

The original post was really not meant to be a downer. I'm just analyzing where we are now. It's too bad that we can't take any JC players anymore, cause it'd be nice to have a junior DT and OT right now.
 
FWIW, I did a quick check of rosters from a variety of teams, ugag, FL, Ohio State, Penn St...the most OL I saw from any school was 16 the least 13. I'd say we're right in the range most schools are.
 
The pure math showing 18 OL as a target is interesting. I would guess that one reason that most teams carry a few less is that you need a few extra DBs, WRs or TEs depending on the personnel package. Also, extra non-OL players can be important on special teams. For us on O multiple packages is not an issue, so I would expect us to be at the high end of the range in terms of OL players eventually.
 
buzztheirazz said:
could you explain the long-term plan? is this going to be a change in scheme? you could pm me if it's private info.
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the long-term plan includes a couple of those DE's eventually moving inside as they think they are growing at a fast clip....as well as the training table impact.
 
hiveredtech said:
alirght...this was driving me nuts...here are some facts for everyone to enjoy.

Scholarship OL's on depth chart by year:

1998- 13
1999- 12
2000- 12
2001- 14
2002- 13
2003- 12
2004- 14
2005- 16
2006- 14
2007- 14
2008- 14
2009- 14
Click to expand...

I agree with the folks that think we need a few more. Like another poster said, if you take out P and PK, you've got 85 to give. As a % of the total team, it should look something like this:

Pos % of Team 83-man roster
QB 5% 4
WR 9% 7
A 9% 8
B 5% 4
OL 23% 18

DE 9% 8
DT 9% 8
LB 14% 11
CB 9% 8
S 9% 7

Due to rounding, I took one away from the OL, WR, and S to make it to 83. For us, I would think we need 5 QB's on the roster, and maybe one less A-Back. But, carrying 14 scholarship OL means that 17% of our team makes up a position that takes up 23% of the slots on the field.

If you look at what we have on the roster, we are underrepresented at the OL and DT positions, even when you include the new recruits.

OL: 15
DT: 4

I really think one of the 4 DE's we recruited will move to DT (most likely Euclid, if size is the main determinate), getting us another number there.

We are probably overrepresented at DB and WR.

Just my thoughts, but I'd like to see us carry 16-18 OL every year.
 
TechPhi, semi interesting statistical exercise, but find me a team that had 18 OL on their roster and maybe I'll pay attention. What you're really saying is that all college coaches under recruit OL?
 
To me, the O-line needs 13 linemen ready to play - 5 tackles, 5 guards, three centers. In addition I'd redshirt almost all freshman O-line, which means about 17 scholarships in the program at all times. Every year you need to sign at least three OL, more often four.

One thing I did not like about Gailey was that he seldom substituted on the O-line. Last year was better, but the Ross and O'Leary staffs were the best at getting playing time for the second string O-line.
 
As I showed in the numbers above, O'Leary actually carried less offensive lineman than Gailey...and Gailey had scholarship limitations.

One of the reasons you carry extra DB's and LB's is for special teams as well. Not too many OL play special teams!

Big John...don't think you were ever a gunner were you? ;)
 
Zach Krish sounds like a region of Afghanistan.
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I think I flew a mission there.


Back on topic, why do people keep citing trends that date back to the previous coaching staff or is a trend only because we underwent a coaching change? No trends have been established under CPJ yet because he hasn't been here long enough yet. It takes a couple seasons for a coach to get a program in the state he wants it. One thing we do know about CPJ is that he means what he says, and he says over and over that he never wants to have as little depth as we had this year ever again. Do you think that doesn't apply to the O-line too?
 
it is a moot point now anyway as we are fully stocked...you never need more than 13-15 OL's on scholarship at a time.
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We may be "loaded", but we aren't loaded w/ talent. Some of these guys were walk-ons under Gailey.
 
If you think you want 17-18 on the roster you have to sign 4 every yearbecause with reshirting that's 20 in a 5 year period and you will always have some attrition.

I think it depends. If you have several that are established you need a few less because you know what you have and how sturdy they are. If you are young you need a few more because you don't know that and then wash out the ones that can't play as they more through the years.

There's probably some kind of equivalent where 4 FR/SO = 3 JR/SR.
 
I think what we are forgetting is that most of this current class was being recruited before we were successful and CPJ was recruiting players in a way one would to rebuild a program into what you want it to be as a coach. Like right now we are talking about how in order for our offense to succeed we need more/better players on the O line. When CPJ started recruiting here, things probably looked like we'd need a brand new starting class of players to succeed. Just thought it might be a relavent idea.
 
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