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Zach Myers

  • Well the good part about that team position is that we have not heard of any early injuries like we did last year. Going into the fall, over half the starters had some type of injury that they were getting over.

    UKlaw82

  • Didn't Joker say today the OLine would be improved over last year? Thought I saw that....

    jamccain

  • UKlaw82 said...

    Well the good part about that team position is that we have not heard of any early injuries like we did last year. Going into the fall, over half the starters had some type of injury that they were getting over.

    Very important.

    tWhit

  • bluedynasty said...

    To me, the OL is the key to the system and Mitchell is the weak link. I know Summers likes to take long lean guys and build them up and not every OL needs to be 320, but Mitchell at RT and sub-290 makes me nervous. I haven't been impressed with Mitchell in the chances I've had to watch him either.

    If we weren't so thin at OG, I think our best OL might be:

    OC Matt Smith (6-4/296) RG Larry Warford (6-4/343) LG Jordan Watson (6-4/324) RT Teven Eatmon-Nared (6-7/342) or Zach West (6-4/312) LT Darrian Miller (6-5/295)

    I believe we'reso thin at OL though, I expect Watson and Swindle to be forced into action as well as Meyes if Smith were to have injury issues @ C. Anyone heard much about Max Godby (listed as Matt's backup

    The current 1st line is as follows.

    RT - Mitchell
    RG - Warford
    C - Smith
    LG - West
    LT - Miller

    So you're not too far off.

    BlueRaider22

  • There are no injuries reported because practice has not started. The line injuries occurred during fall camp last year when guys are hitting and cutting full speed. That starts in August.

    zcats

  • At least 1true FR will play and possibly 2 true FR will play this year regardless of injury or not. It is highly unlikely West moves to center if Smith is injured. You just don't want a kid playing center in the SEC with zero experience. Larry took snaps at center in the spring when Matt missed practice due to his student teaching requirements for school.

    Love is a RS FR and has zero game experience. Mitchell and Teven may very well be passed by the FR midway through the year.

    If you RS all of these FR on the OL what do you think the line would look like in '13? Scary. They'll give a couple of these guys reps so they'll have some experience going in to '13 like they did with Miller. Can you imagine if Miller had zero snaps last year. We wuould've had 2 RS FR on the left side of the OL in the SEC.

    gobigblue812

  • gobigblue812 said...

    At least 1true FR will play and possibly 2 true FR will play this year regardless of injury or not. It is highly unlikely West moves to center if Smith is injured. You just don't want a kid playing center in the SEC with zero experience. Larry took snaps at center in the spring when Matt missed practice due to his student teaching requirements for school.

    Love is a RS FR and has zero game experience. Mitchell and Teven may very well be passed by the FR midway through the year.

    If you RS all of these FR on the OL what do you think the line would look like in '13? Scary. They'll give a couple of these guys reps so they'll have some experience going in to '13 like they did with Miller. Can you imagine if Miller had zero snaps last year. We wuould've had 2 RS FR on the left side of the OL in the SEC.

    I agree with everything in this post. NO WAY we redshirt all of our FR OL. In a perfect world we would have enough experienced players along the OL to redshirt all of them, but considering that we will lose Smith and Warford after this year, we can't afford to do so. In the long run, the OL will be in better shape next year and the following year if we have a few of these guys get experience this year instead of going into next season with Miller, West and a bunch fo RS Freshmen.

    mjdotson ●

  • gobigblue812 said...

    At least 1true FR will play and possibly 2 true FR will play this year regardless of injury or not. It is highly unlikely West moves to center if Smith is injured. You just don't want a kid playing center in the SEC with zero experience. Larry took snaps at center in the spring when Matt missed practice due to his student teaching requirements for school.

    Love is a RS FR and has zero game experience. Mitchell and Teven may very well be passed by the FR midway through the year.

    If you RS all of these FR on the OL what do you think the line would look like in '13? Scary. They'll give a couple of these guys reps so they'll have some experience going in to '13 like they did with Miller. Can you imagine if Miller had zero snaps last year. We wuould've had 2 RS FR on the left side of the OL in the SEC.

    We were all kinda thinking that this would be our 1 lean year OL-wise, with several misses or departures recently, leaving a few upperclassmen, and a bunch of frosh coming in. Anything above "serviceable" across the OL will make me incredibly happy, and I think with some of the young guys pushing, we could see something beyond "serviceable" and more in line with what our preseason expectations were a year ago.

    As far as the #2 C (in a game, not necessarily on depth chart), I would think it would be Warford for 2 reasons: 1) he's the older guy, and a leader on the line, and 2) from a schematic standpoint, many teams have the RG step in at C, as it is less a transition on reads/etc.

    BigBlueNation 7

  • gobigblue812 said...

    At least 1true FR will play and possibly 2 true FR will play this year regardless of injury or not. It is highly unlikely West moves to center if Smith is injured. You just don't want a kid playing center in the SEC with zero experience. Larry took snaps at center in the spring when Matt missed practice due to his student teaching requirements for school.

    Love is a RS FR and has zero game experience. Mitchell and Teven may very well be passed by the FR midway through the year.

    If you RS all of these FR on the OL what do you think the line would look like in '13? Scary. They'll give a couple of these guys reps so they'll have some experience going in to '13 like they did with Miller. Can you imagine if Miller had zero snaps last year. We wuould've had 2 RS FR on the left side of the OL in the SEC.

    We lose two OL starters after this season. That means 3 current starters will be here next year in 2013. If returning 3 starters next year is SCARY, how do you characterize this year? (only 2 starters returning from last year).

    Adding to that, the 3 new starters this year have minimal experience (West has none, and the other 2 current projected starters have minimal-to-some experience).

    That said, yes, we will have to play some of these true freshman this year...if they are better than our current backups in the program now. No question about that.

    This post was edited by Chiuk on 7/19/2012 at 4:04 PM

    Chiuk

  • Chiuk said...

    We lose two OL starters after this season. That means 3 current starters will be here next year in 2013. If returning 3 starters next year is SCARY, how do you characterize this year? (only 2 starters returning from last year).

    Adding to that, the 3 new starters this year have minimal experience (West has none, and the other 2 current projected starters have minimal-to-some experience).

    That said, yes, we will have to play some of these true freshman this year...if they are better than our current backups in the program now. No question about that.

    I think SCARY is how you do characterize this year, and thats the point. Alot of unproven guys out there. The guys who we do have back are sure fire SEC guys who can get the job done (Warford, Smith, Miller). Next year could be more scary because there might not be a senior in the group with SEC level talent. Miller will be our most experienced guy in 2013. Scary considering he had limited reps last year.

    This is why we need to continue to load up every year along the O-Line. Considering the front lines we'll be up against, we can't expect RS Frosh and Soph that aren't 4 or 5 star players to ever get it done on a consistent basis. We can still win games, but it certainly is stacking the deck when you consider the D-Lines we face.

    MossCat15 ●

  • MossCat15 said...

    I think SCARY is how you do characterize this year, and thats the point. Alot of unproven guys out there. The guys who we do have back are sure fire SEC guys who can get the job done (Warford, Smith, Miller). Next year could be more scary because there might not be a senior in the group with SEC level talent. Miller will be our most experienced guy in 2013. Scary considering he had limited reps last year.

    This is why we need to continue to load up every year along the O-Line. Considering the front lines we'll be up against, we can't expect RS Frosh and Soph that aren't 4 or 5 star players to ever get it done on a consistent basis. We can still win games, but it certainly is stacking the deck when you consider the D-Lines we face.

    agreed that's why i love last class and the future one. we are loading up on both lines big time. each year getting 4-5 on each line is how you build a program.

    nbtoppers2

  • nbtoppers2 said...

    agreed that's why i love last class and the future one. we are loading up on both lines big time. each year getting 4-5 on each line is how you build a program.

    Yup. Especially when you don't recruit on the level I LSU or Bama, because some guys aren't gonna pan out. That's just the way it is.

    MossCat15 ●

  • zcats said...

    There are no injuries reported because practice has not started. The line injuries occurred during fall camp last year when guys are hitting and cutting full speed. That starts in August.

    Thats not true zcats, a couple of guys had injuries repaired after the season last year that lasted all summer before they were healed. This downtime hurt them severely in getting back into shape.

    UKlaw82

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