O-line best fits the definition of "prove it." Each year, we're promised that a better line. Each year, meh. I absolutely will not believe any claims of o-line improvement until it is demonstrated on the field.
Which Position Group needs to "prove it" this season?
- Thread starter OscarBerkshire
- Start date
The offensive line has distinctly improved over how horrific it used to be.
Last year was even decent at pass protection, and run blocking was gelling when injuries riddled the guard spots.
Yeah the o line concerns are weird to me... I don't think the expectation should be to have a bunch of future round 1/2 NFL guys most years ala prime Iowa under Ferentz or prime Oklahoma with Stoutland... there is literally only a handful of programs in CFB history that have been able to do that. Simple good quality and consistent depth (which is hard enough as it is) should be the reasonable expectation. And honestly we had that last year. Can we replace Jalen Travis? let's see.
My impression is that OL recruiting has upgraded lately—but we’re never going to bring in oodles of four and five star OL every year, in and out.
Agreed. However, I think that recruiting rankings are usually pretty bad for specifically OL and QB. OL is especially developmental.
The best Youtube video on the topic i've ever seen:
Has line play been questionable, and often substandard, in years past: yes. Did we see some potentially meaningful signs of improvement last year: also yes. Put those two together, and you have the very definition of "prove it." And that was the question of this string.
Well, yes. Garrett Rutledge is a kid they’re thrilled about, and no recruiting service noticed him. The services were meh about Ikakoula. The list goes on and on.
That said, I would cheerfully have taken Claude Mpouma this year, before he blew up. Obvious athletic freaks are obvious.
I completely agree, I think it's honestly nuts that we were as good as we were last year being so bad against the run. It's hard to see us having similar success unless we shore that up. Run defense would probably be what I'd say needs to prove it, a lot of that is on the LB group being what we thought they could be before injuries.
I am at a total loss here.
One season, devastated by a ludicrous number of injuries at LB, we’re bad against the run.
One.
That’s the outlier, and by far.
Season after season after season, we’ve been good against the run. Barring something unforeseen (and equally ludicrous), we’ll return to that mean.
Respectfully disagree. Rose/Hummel were SR's in 2021. Since then we have had a below average LB core. Some people are in love with Bacon because he was a feel-good walkon story and had a few QB pressures in 2023. I agree he's probably our best right now (assuming full health) but that's not a real high bar.
I hope they are lights out this year, but that's why this is a 'prove it' thread.
Stars typically translate pretty well at the skills position but o-line and d-line development is huge.
