Going to be a pretty good signing class for the star gazers...

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Originally Posted by msstate7

While I agree about oline recruiting for the most part, CBs were a much bigger problem last season and I don't see any top flight CBs committed. There's no outrage over that though.

The USA commit is pretty misleading... we had 34 rushes for 239 yards (7.03 per carry)

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It is never about the OL with you. Coincidence?

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Originally Posted by maroonmania

^^This, glad to see someone else is seeing the issue I am that these repeated low number of HS OL signees is forcing us into the boat of HAVING to sign a couple of JUCO OL per year for the near future.

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Is there no benefit given that many of these JUCO linemen were signed and placed by us?

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Originally Posted by msstate7

While I agree about oline recruiting for the most part, CBs were a much bigger problem last season and I don't see any top flight CBs committed. There's no outrage over that though

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Only bc we're talking OL, ha. We have a problem at CB too...BUT, unlike OL, Juco guys and even young HS athletes can step in and produce at CB more quickly than OL in this league. Plus, we're all so used to seeing soft zone coverage that most feel like whatever CB talent we have will be wasted anyway by playing no press man coverage. Meanwhile, OL is the lifeblood of our offensive philosophy, yet we land nobody. When you look at it that way, it's easier to see why OL is such a big deal.

That's not even getting into the "winning the trenches" argument, "run the ball and stop the run" argument, or the fact that defense is no longer good anywhere. Hell even Bama gave up 35 or whatever in the Title game. But you're right about CBs

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Originally Posted by msstate7

He's always ridiculous

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Well, he is tied to the hip of Tom Luginbill and the ESPN recruiting rankings which is widely considered the least reliable of all the recruiting sites. Luginbill lost a LOT of credibility with me with his poor rating and lack of knowledge on Keytaon Thompson. It seems like all of their rating is done off camp drills or something.

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Originally Posted by 1bigdawg

It is never about the OL with you. Coincidence?

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I just think oline catches all the blame when it should be catching some, not all

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Originally Posted by BB30

I agree, outside of a few of the OL prospects in the country it is extremely hard to project what an OL will turn in to. There are too many variables with OL. That being said we clearly haven't knocked it out of the park on OL as that is where we have gotten beat the last two years. You have to put together a complete OL, we have had 2 or 3 guys that play well but one hole up front can kill you. Our starting 5 this year played well towards the end of the season but our depth has hurt us. I don't like using bama as a measuring stick because they have owned just about everybody up front and our OL actually held their own against them but we have to have depth up front on both sides of the LOS if we want to have a shot at them.

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I don't care where they are rated coming out of HS but when you are never getting any drafted then that shows a problem. Guys like David Stewart and Gabe Jackson were not rated high coming out of HS but they were rated high leaving college. None of Hevesy's recruits haven't panned out like that to date.

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Originally Posted by msstate7

While I agree about oline recruiting for the most part, CBs were a much bigger problem last season and I don't see any top flight CBs committed. There's no outrage over that though.

The USA commit is pretty misleading... we had 34 rushes for 239 yards (7.03 per carry)

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Yet we scored 20 points. So when the chips were down in the red zone, we couldn't run the ball and score. Same argument y'all all tried to make about scoring on Bama, LSU, etc. Our offense depends on us being able to run the ball in the red zone, especially last year with a new QB. And 239 yds is not good with a new QB & an offense built around the run...and it was USA who had several key DL out. Embarrassing.

But I don't want the debate to change into a USA game breakdown. If you have to resort to complimenting our OL in a game we lost to a SunBelt school, my point still remains valid.

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Originally Posted by CadaverDawg

Yet we scored 20 points. So when the chips were down in the red zone, we couldn't run the ball and score. Same argument y'all all tried to make about scoring on Bama, LSU, etc. Our offense depends on us being able to run the ball in the red zone, especially last year with a new QB. And 239 yds is not good with a new QB & an offense built around the run...and it was USA who had several key DL out. Embarrassing.

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I blame Mullen more than the oline. If fitz and aeris were in there, we'd have run for 500 and won by 3 TDs

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Originally Posted by msstate7

I just think oline catches all the blame when it should be catching some, not all

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They don't get "all the blame"....they are just the position we never recruit strong, so when it correlates to subpar play it makes people mad. Its an obvious problem and yet we cannot fix it. You know Mullen knows it's an issue...yet Hevesy can't fix it.

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Originally Posted by msstate7

I blame Mullen more than the oline. If fitz and aeris were in there, we'd have run for 500 and won by 3 TDs

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Again, it is always someone other than the OL with you. We cannot seem to run once we are in the red zone against almost anybody.

The critical recruiting point is that if we are not going to sign highly rated HS OLs that have a better chance of panning out, then we have to either sign a bunch of under rated guys to weed through to find the diamond or we have to gamble on succeeding with JUCOs which have typically 1 to 1.5 good seasons at best.

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Originally Posted by Dawgtini

Is there no benefit given that many of these JUCO linemen were signed and placed by us?

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While its good that we have some guys in the JUCO pipeline that we will likely eventually get back there is no way that I believe they are getting developed in JUCO the way they would be if they were already in our program. I think that shows in the fact that we hardly ever get a JUCO OL ready to contribute as a Junior. In fact, its becoming common now for us to sign JUCOs and then redshirt them. But I would rather do that than waste a year where they don't help us and then only get one decent year from them.

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Originally Posted by maroonmania

I don't care where they are rated coming out of HS but when you are never getting any drafted then that shows a problem. Guys like David Stewart and Gabe Jackson were not rated high coming out of HS but they were rated high leaving college. None of Hevesy's recruits haven't panned out like that to date.

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Exactly. If Hev were making lower rated guys into NFL players, I could live with the poor OL recruiting rankings...but he's not. So...

Meanwhile, we have had tons of turnover at secondary coach but still have guys like Banks, Slay, Redmond, Calhoun, in the NFL. We've had the same OL coach for 8 YEARS and can't recruit or develop a guy into an NFL player?

Why would anyone even want to defend that pathetic shit? Just to argue?

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Originally Posted by CadaverDawg

They don't get "all the blame"....they are just the position we never recruit strong, so when it correlates to subpar play it makes people mad. Its an obvious problem and yet we cannot fix it. You know Mullen knows it's an issue...yet Hevesy can't fix it.

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'15 was terrible bc we changed philosophies... we went pass first. '16 started rough bc we were breaking in a new qb and Mullen continued to give Holloway and shump too many carries. Once fitz settled in and we got back to a power identify with aeris and fitz running, we looked a ton better upfront. Mullen has to stick with it and stop falling in love with scat backs running every down

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Originally Posted by Dawgtini

Is there no benefit given that many of these JUCO linemen were signed and placed by us?

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Other than Champion, who are you talking about? That is one, but it should be a good one. On the other hand, he has not produced yet either.

Now we may place one or two this year, but who knows if they will pan out or be back.

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Originally Posted by msstate7

'15 was terrible bc we changed philosophies... we went pass first. '16 started rough bc we were breaking in a new qb and Mullen continued to give Holloway and shump too many carries. Once fitz settled in and we got back to a power identify with aeris and fitz running, we looked a ton better upfront. Mullen has to stick with it and stop falling in love with scat backs running every down

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Excuses excuses excuses. A good OL overcomes a "pass first" excuse, and a good OL should overcome Holloway & Shump...especially against the shitty teams. Hevesy has been here 8 YEARS! Why has our run game still got excuses when our "Run Game Coordinator" has been here for 8. Damn. Years?

I agree Mullen has made frustrating choices, but bad OL play is bad OL play

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Originally Posted by msstate7

'15 was terrible bc we changed philosophies... we went pass first. '16 started rough bc we were breaking in a new qb and Mullen continued to give Holloway and shump too many carries. Once fitz settled in and we got back to a power identify with aeris and fitz running, we looked a ton better upfront. Mullen has to stick with it and stop falling in love with scat backs running every down

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'15 we essentially had to change philosophies. Yes, I know we had Dak throwing the ball but we could not run that year against ANYONE, not even Troy. What little running production we got was from Dak being chased in the pocket and taking off. Very few designed runs were successful for us in 2015. Now granted it got much better this year especially in the 2nd half of the year.

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Originally Posted by smootness

You can sign 25 in a given year, so if you sign less than 25 one year, you can sign the difference in December as JUCOs. Their scholarship numbers count back, but for recruiting sites, they're still considered part of the upcoming class.

So if we sign 20 one year, we can sign 30 the following year if 5 are early-enrolling JUCOs. But all 30 would be counted as part of the class signing in February on recruiting sites.

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I think Om is going to count Powe again this year.***

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Originally Posted by CadaverDawg

Excuses excuses excuses. A good OL overcomes a "pass first" excuse, and a good OL should overcome Holloway & Shump...especially against the shitty teams. Hevesy has been here 8 YEARS! Why has our run game still got excuses when our "Run Game Coordinator" has been here for 8. Damn. Years?

I agree Mullen has made frustrating choices, but bad OL play is bad OL play

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Rushing ranks in sec...
'16 = 5th (4th yds/att)
'15 = 12th (8th yds/att)
'14 = 3rd (3rd yds/att)
'13 = 8th (9th)
'12 = 10th (6th)
'11 = 5th (4th)
'10 = 2nd (6th)

Only terrible years were when we went pass happy with dak and Tyler at qb in '12

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Originally Posted by Jarius

Did you see Dak Prescott play against them in 2015? He deserves an award for not getting murdered. Our issue has been that we aren't as talented as them anywhere outside the QB position.

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Yes. Again, we're not going to have an OL that is going to knock Bama's DL off the line pretty much ever. We have to do a better job of playcalling to mask that. We've tried just running right at them and standing in the pocket, and, surprise surprise, it doesn't work.

Dak ran the ball 26 times against them in 2015. That is insanity.

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Originally Posted by CadaverDawg

Excuses excuses excuses. A good OL overcomes a "pass first" excuse, and a good OL should overcome Holloway & Shump...especially against the shitty teams. Hevesy has been here 8 YEARS! Why has our run game still got excuses when our "Run Game Coordinator" has been here for 8. Damn. Years?

I agree Mullen has made frustrating choices, but bad OL play is bad OL play

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This is right. The reason Mullen ran Holloway so much is that in practice, the way that plays were drawn up, Holloway would break one of every three or four runs for huge gains. Against real competition, even USA, the holes did not open up.

So blame Mullen for calling plays that work most of the time when the OL blocks. I guess you (Mstate7) are saying that he should know better. Mullen not being able to call things because the OL cannot execute is Mullen's fault? Never blame the OL.

Bottom line, I'm just sick of every year the question mark being the OL, and then every recruiting class the weakest position we recruited being the OL. 1+1 clearly = 2, and I'm sick of the shit. We should and COULD recruit so much better on the OL, but we pay $500k+ to cripple ourselves. So dumb. But I'll stop arguing it (if ms7 will quit provoking me ha)

What????? No 5 stars????? WE ARE GONNA SUCK

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Originally Posted by CadaverDawg

Bottom line, I'm just sick of every year the question mark being the OL, and then every recruiting class the weakest position we recruited being the OL. 1+1 clearly = 2, and I'm sick of the shit. We should and COULD recruit so much better on the OL, but we pay $500k+ to cripple ourselves. So dumb. But I'll stop arguing it (if ms7 will quit provoking me ha)

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We can end this... just admit I'm right haha

Again, I certainly don't think the oline is above criticism. I just think they're attacked 24/7 so I take up for them some

We have four HS OL commits. Other than a special teams player, they are the four lowest rated players on our commit list. Even two of those are potential sign and place candidates.

Today, we are criticizing OL recruiting. Can anyone other than Mstate7 defend OL recruiting.

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Originally Posted by 1bigdawg

We have four HS OL commits. Other than a special teams player, they are the four lowest rated players on our commit list. Even two of those are potential sign and place candidates.

Today, we are criticizing OL recruiting. Can anyone other than Mstate7 defend OL recruiting.

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Not going to defend Hev recruiting, already said where I stand on that. But that is off somewhat. Reed is listed as a OT but he is being recruited as a DT. I can see that confusion. You also need to understand OL rankings are hard and usually they fall lower in ratings eventhough their offers may be good. Suggs offer list is over a dozen Power 5 teams eventhough he is a mid 3 star. No elite offers but that is a lot of Power 5 offers. If you take a WR with that many offers he is a high 3 or low 4 star guy. It's just so hard to rate OL. So you really have to look at their offers as well.

Cooper if he had better grades would get a better rating because more Power 5 schools would have looked at him. TCU came after him hard late to visit once they saw his grades trending upward. So you have to look a little beyond OL ratings to get an idea of how good they are and you need to track how those offers continue. Bateman has gone the opposite direction, eventhough he is rated higher because of several good early offers, he can't commit to a lot of those schools now. OL is tricky. That being said, Hev is an albatross to our recruiting, he can coach, but there are recruiting issues.

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Originally Posted by Dawgology

Do yourself a favor. Stop reading the CL. I canceled subscription and haven't looked at the online version in over a year. It's great not reading their propaganda.

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THIS ALL DAY LONG!! Why are we even referencing that Sh*t-Bird paper on this board?

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Originally Posted by smootness

Yes. Again, we're not going to have an OL that is going to knock Bama's DL off the line pretty much ever. We have to do a better job of playcalling to mask that. We've tried just running right at them and standing in the pocket, and, surprise surprise, it doesn't work.

Dak ran the ball 26 times against them in 2015. That is insanity.

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He was sacked 9 damn times. That wasn't working either. Our oline isn't as bad as some people like to say it is but if you think play calling is our problem against Alabama you are insane. They have way more talent than we do and it does not matter what plays we call.

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Originally Posted by Dawgtini

Is there no benefit given that many of these JUCO linemen were signed and placed by us?

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Champion is the only one that was signed and placed by us. I'm not counting Cooper and Reed yet because Cooper may qualify and apparently there is a chance Reed plays d-line.

Also of note on oline recruiting... we got 5 guys that we targeted. None of them were scrambles after misses, so we'll find out something about our oline recruiting evaluation

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Originally Posted by msstate7

Also of note on oline recruiting... we got 5 guys that we targeted. None of them were scrambles after misses, so we'll find out something about our oline recruiting evaluation

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D'Marcus Hayes says hello. And Saahdiq Charles.

Interesting that every year we "target" guys that either have no offers or are barely able to qualify to the point where no one else wants to fool with the risk.

Edit to say re-read and misinterpreted post as ms7 saying we got all of our targets. Carry on.

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Originally Posted by msstate7

Rushing ranks in sec...
'16 = 5th (4th yds/att)
'15 = 12th (8th yds/att)
'14 = 3rd (3rd yds/att)
'13 = 8th (9th)
'12 = 10th (6th)
'11 = 5th (4th)
'10 = 2nd (6th)

Only terrible years were when we went pass happy with dak and Tyler at qb in '12

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Come on now 7. We went "pass happy" when we couldn't run the ball against a crappy AU team in 15.

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Originally Posted by dawgday166

Come on now 7. We went "pass happy" when we couldn't run the ball against a crappy AU team in 15.

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Well we went pass happy because we were always behind the sticks. I don't think it was intentional. Dan needs to stay away from scatbacks. And I don't consider Josh a "small" back at 215 or whatever he was. Holloway at 150- too small.

But when we get a bigger running back it's interesting how we always go back to being run first.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

Well we went pass happy because we were always behind the sticks. I don't think it was intentional. Dan needs to stay away from scatbacks. And I don't consider Josh a "small" back at 215 or whatever he was. Holloway at 150- too small.

But when we get a bigger running back it's interesting how we always go back to being run first.

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Josh is similar, although not as fast as, Zeke. Low center of gravity about 215 - 225. Not the same thing as a scatback who isn't even that fast to begin with.

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Originally Posted by Jarius

He was sacked 9 damn times. That wasn't working either. Our oline isn't as bad as some people like to say it is but if you think play calling is our problem against Alabama you are insane. They have way more talent than we do and it does not matter what plays we call.

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I mostly agree with that. I'm saying our playcalling is dumb precisely because they have way more talent than we do. You've got to take shots against them. We just line up and try to play a conventional offense, and it's never going to work.

Anyway, my point is that of course our OL talent isn't good enough against them. But whose is?

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Originally Posted by dawgday166

Josh is similar, although not as fast as, Zeke. Low center of gravity about 215 - 225. Not the same thing as a scatback who isn't even that fast to begin with.

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Still believe Josh has the ability to have been a very good NFL RB but unfortunately his biggest problem is attitude and immaturity. If his head was screwed on straight he would have at least stayed with a team.

It's really no big deal if Cooper doesn't qualify. It sounds like he is at the point where if he doesn't make it he can go to a prep school and then sign again next year with 5 to play 4. If we can sign 5+ solid guys in the 2018 class, I think we will be in pretty decent shape going forward, numbers wise.

On the JUCO OL recruiting... If you don't like it, you probably just need to get over it. Mullen has signed 8 JUCO OL since 2010(if you include Carmon). That's one a year on average. Most of them were just depth guys, and I'm ok with that to balance the classes. Let's try to stay away from the Joq Johnson, Dylan Holley and Joey Trapps of the world though.

Anyone with eyes can tell that we need to recruit more talented guys on the offensive line. The offensive line has the most guys on the field out of any position group, yet it's the only position, other than safety, that hasn't had a guy signed by Mullen get drafted(Gabe Jackson was a Croom recruit). Hevesy is clearly the problem here, and if I am a offensive line recruit, I would probably stay away too. My point was only that we will be ok numbers wise, talent wise, however, is a different story. Going into next year, Suggs, Champion, Moon, Rankin, Cooper, Reese and D. Williams will be the only guys on our roster that could have legitimately signed at another P5 school. Need to double that number.

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Originally Posted by maroonmania

Still believe Josh has the ability to have been a very good NFL RB but unfortunately his biggest problem is attitude and immaturity. If his head was screwed on straight he would have at least stayed with a team.

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Which is precisely the reason he didn't not get playing time early on in his career.

Boom. Nailed it.

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Originally Posted by CadaverDawg

We're not signing enough high end HS offensive linemen. Period. Signing 2-3 HS linemen per year that qualify is a death wish in this league....especially when 1 or 2 of the 3 aren't prospects that anybody in our league wanted anyway. We can make excuses or cite the Juco guys all we want....but we simply aren't signing enough of the Lashleys, Pattersons, or God forbid an actual stud OLman out of HS. We have a run first system that had Dak Prescott and now Fitz & Keytaon, as well as Aeris & Hill....there's no excuse for us to be losing on linemen to South Carolina and that shitty offense. We should be elite OL recruiters with our offensive style...but instead we sign three low end 3 stars every year and then hope that after a redshirt year, and then 2 development years, we MIGHT get a "serviceable" OLineman for his last 2 years. That is pathetic, embarrassing, and inexcusable. Even unacceptable imo.

ETA: And stop with the "who has an OL that pushes Bama around?" stuff....how bout a line that can dominate South Alabama? Is that too much to ask? Stop with the excuses...we aren't getting the job done by a long shot on OL recruiting. The first step is everyone admitting it.

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Originally Posted by DeviousDawg34

It's really no big deal if Cooper doesn't qualify. It sounds like he is at the point where if he doesn't make it he can go to a prep school and then sign again next year with 5 to play 4. If we can sign 5+ solid guys in the 2018 class, I think we will be in pretty decent shape going forward, numbers wise.

On the JUCO OL recruiting... If you don't like it, you probably just need to get over it. Mullen has signed 8 JUCO OL since 2010(if you include Carmon). That's one a year on average. Most of them were just depth guys, and I'm ok with that to balance the classes. Let's try to stay away from the Joq Johnson, Dylan Holley and Joey Trapps of the world though.

Anyone with eyes can tell that we need to recruit more talented guys on the offensive line. The offensive line has the most guys on the field out of any position group, yet it's the only position, other than safety, that hasn't had a guy signed by Mullen get drafted(Gabe Jackson was a Croom recruit). Hevesy is clearly the problem here, and if I am a offensive line recruit, I would probably stay away too. My point was only that we will be ok numbers wise, talent wise, however, is a different story. Going into next year, Suggs, Champion, Moon, Rankin, Cooper, Reese and D. Williams will be the only guys on our roster that could have legitimately signed at another P5 school. Need to double that number.

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Very accurate assessment!

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Originally Posted by maroonmania

Still believe Josh has the ability to have been a very good NFL RB but unfortunately his biggest problem is attitude and immaturity. If his head was screwed on straight he would have at least stayed with a team.

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I kinda think there is a team or 2 out there that could possibly use him too ... but you're right about the internal demons he's chasing.