Offensive line discussion

We've always had our best offensive lines with developmental guys over time. Almost all of them had underwhelming years before they became good. I just don't see how a portal strategy works here. If we are replacing over half our O line every year, there's no cohesion. Especially considering we aren't getting the top guys to transfer in.

Not saying someone like Luke Work is a big loss, but maybe keeping some of these guys and working on them over 3 years with affordable NIL might beat a knee jerk yearly revamp every year for our program. Now I get coaching matters here, but just a thought.

Nah.

developmental days are about over. Most guys wont be anywhere more than 2 years. Recruit grown men to play OL.

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Originally Posted by Coach34

developmental days are about over. Most guys wont be anywhere more than 2 years. Recruit grown men to play OL.

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I agree. But you don't need 5 that can play. You need 8. I think Jimothy Lewis and Luke Work had the potential to be in that 8. They might have been backups, but i think they could have been in the group. Of course, we have no idea how much money they wanted.

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Originally Posted by somebodyshotmypaw

I agree. But you don't need 5 that can play. You need 8. I think Jimothy Lewis and Luke Work had the potential to be in that 8. They might have been backups, but i think they could have been in the group. Of course, we have no idea how much money they wanted.

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Disagree, you need 5.

The bears got away with 5 all season. Hell their sixth OL isn?t even playing tonight, he is in Wisconsin.

You need 5. Now, I am not sure we have 1 currently.

You gotta be 2 deep. That is if you want to go to the playoffs. An injury will happen.

You make a valid point but as has been stated, the sharts up north have just 5 and have been injury bug free and have been lucky. We need 5 before we get out over our ski's

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Originally Posted by BlackSailsDawg

You gotta be 2 deep. That is if you want to go to the playoffs. An injury will happen.

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You are just wrong. The bears are in the damn semis and their top 4 OL have played 95% of the meaningful snaps. The only guy that wasn't a starter and played more than 100 snaps hit the portal and is in Madison.

If you can have depth, great. But what you need are 5 dudes up front.

I'm guessing people who want more than 5 are taking into account we always seem to get a few injuries at key spots. Steen going down completely derailed the OL this year. If we can only get 5, we have to pray they stay healthy all season.

I think you basically need two groups of offensive linemen.

5 that can play now and start.

And at least 5-8 to develop for the future.

The problem is Lewis and Work needed to be in the second group.

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Originally Posted by HancockCountyDog

You are just wrong. The bears are in the damn semis and their top 4 OL have played 95% of the meaningful snaps. The only guy that wasn't a starter and played more than 100 snaps hit the portal and is in Madison.

If you can have depth, great. But what you need are 5 dudes up front.

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Most people aren't that lucky.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

Most people aren't that lucky.

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Well - I think we all agree that for us to make a run at the playoffs, it is going to require some luck.

I don't want to sign 7-8 dudes and hope they develop in a year or 2. You don't know what your roster is going to look like year to year.

Hey maybe I'm wrong, but signing a bunch of guys to develop hasn't worked for us. If we get an injury on the OL, then it sucks, but i'd rather shoot my shot and go for it.

I mean, signing 8-10 dudes and knowing that half of them can't play next year makes no sense to me. I'd rather have a roster of about 50 and all of them can play.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

Most people aren't that lucky.

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Right. Got to have 8 than can play. Obviously you're 5 best need to be pretty damn good

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Originally Posted by BlackSailsDawg

You gotta be 2 deep. That is if you want to go to the playoffs. An injury will happen.

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As already pointed out by others, you only "need" 5. Ole Miss has zero depth on o line and are about to win the national championship.
I would prefer 8 or more studs there though.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

Most people aren't that lucky.

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When Kiffin played them the way he did, the football gods decided to smile upon them.

Shit- most of us are hoping for a run to 6 wins

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Originally Posted by HancockCountyDog

Well - I think we all agree that for us to make a run at the playoffs, it is going to require some luck.

I don't want to sign 7-8 dudes and hope they develop in a year or 2. You don't know what your roster is going to look like year to year.

Hey maybe I'm wrong, but signing a bunch of guys to develop hasn't worked for us. If we get an injury on the OL, then it sucks, but i'd rather shoot my shot and go for it.

I mean, signing 8-10 dudes and knowing that half of them can't play next year makes no sense to me. I'd rather have a roster of about 50 and all of them can play.

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Nope

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Originally Posted by Coach34

Shit- most of us are hoping for a run to 6 wins

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Yep

6 is what we must shoot for next year. 7 would mean extreme luck or terrible misfortune for an opponent.

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Originally Posted by HancockCountyDog

You are just wrong. The bears are in the damn semis and their top 4 OL have played 95% of the meaningful snaps. The only guy that wasn't a starter and played more than 100 snaps hit the portal and is in Madison.

If you can have depth, great. But what you need are 5 dudes up front.

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That's not the norm. Has never been the norm and will never be the norm. A study using college football surveillance data found that about 50.7% of football players sustained at least one injury in a season. Offensive linemen are among the positions most often injured in collegiate football, accounting for a large share of injuries. This data is out there for anybody to see.

In NCAA Injury Surveillance Program (ISP) data covering multiple seasons (e.g., 2014–2019), offensive linemen are among the positions with the most reported injuries, alongside defensive linemen and defensive backs. One long-term study of Division I football shows that over 10 seasons, about 22.9% of offensive linemen had an injury requiring surgery, based on institutional exposure data.

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Originally Posted by Coach34

developmental days are about over. Most guys wont be anywhere more than 2 years. Recruit grown men to play OL.

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We are still going to have to develop.some of our own. There arent a lot of proven P5 OL that even get in the portal and the ones that do are hot commodities and dont likely want to play for someone not competing for anything of significance. So we would be way down their list. Just a place where OM has a huge advantage over us at the moment. We cant be losing guys that are playing or starting for us after 1 or 2 years just because they aren't all stars. Took Albert Reese a while as well but thank goodness we had him this year. He actually made our OL serviceable when he was healthy and playing.

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Originally Posted by maroonmania

We are still going to have to develop.some of our own. There arent a lot of proven P5 OL that even get in the portal and the ones that do are hot commodities and dont likely want to play for someone not competing for anything of significance. So we would be way down their list. Just a place where OM has a huge advantage over us at the moment. We cant be losing guys that are playing or starting for us after 1 or 2 years just because they aren't all stars. Took Albert Reese a while as well but thank goodness we had him this year. He actually made our OL serviceable when he was healthy and playing.

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I think thats the point. Reese improved. But we dont have the luxury of projects. As I see it, we are retaining experienced players(based off roster) and going after experience in the portal.

Thats where we should be. If it were up to me. I would go raid the European League for 25 to 26 year old linemen.

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Originally Posted by HancockCountyDog

Well - I think we all agree that for us to make a run at the playoffs, it is going to require some luck.

I don't want to sign 7-8 dudes and hope they develop in a year or 2. You don't know what your roster is going to look like year to year.

Hey maybe I'm wrong, but signing a bunch of guys to develop hasn't worked for us. If we get an injury on the OL, then it sucks, but i'd rather shoot my shot and go for it.

I mean, signing 8-10 dudes and knowing that half of them can't play next year makes no sense to me. I'd rather have a roster of about 50 and all of them can play.

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You have to consider the context of our situation. Right now we're in a rebuild and has 3 head coaches since 2021. We have also had four different OL coaches in that same time with three very different systems. Of course developing guys isn't going to work in that situation. And when you are in a rebuild you need guys that can win now.

But ultimately we don't want to be in a rebuild every year. So, that's where you have to consider that long term we don't want to start to develop some players. We're not trying to be Ole Miss where 65% of the roster are transfers. See Mario Nash as exhibit A.

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Originally Posted by Todd4State

And when you are in a rebuild you need guys that can win now.

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Well, we obviously want and need them, the question is do they want us? Proven OL are not very plentiful in the portal which make them premium gets that basically can choose their school. We really didn't get one last year and I don't see how we are going to be able to get 3 or 4 this year that are better than a player like Luke Work that we are losing that would have had another year in our system.

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Originally Posted by maroonmania

Well, we obviously want and need them, the question is do they want us? Proven OL are not very plentiful in the portal which make them premium gets that basically can choose their school. We really didn't get one last year and I don't see how we are going to be able to get 3 or 4 this year that are better than a player like Luke Work that we are losing that would have had another year in our system.

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There are some and we are going to get them. Got one today that will be in the 2 deep. Brandon Sneh I believe will announce for State. We have a long time and a long ways to go.

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Originally Posted by BlackSailsDawg

There are some and we are going to get them. Got one today that will be in the 2 deep. Brandon Sneh I believe will announce for State. We have a long time and a long ways to go.

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I wonder what the staff based their evaluation off of with the kid from FSU. Obviously he has everything you want with size, but I seen where he had zero playing time. Is this another hope for the best? Was he was recruited by us before? Or maybe the kid is so talented you can't miss on him? He definitely looks the part.. just wonder if he can play it.

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Originally Posted by Maroon Glasses

I wonder what the staff based their evaluation off of with the kid from FSU. Obviously he has everything you want with size, but I seen where he had zero playing time. Is this another hope for the best? Was he was recruited by us before? Or maybe the kid is so talented you can't miss on him? He definitely looks the part.. just wonder if he can play it.

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If your are talking about Nash, our staff knows all about him. He is from Kemper County MS and was committed to us last year before flipping to FSU. He redshirted at FSU as a true freshman which is pretty common for an OL.

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Originally Posted by maroonmania

If your are talking about Nash, our staff knows all about him. He is from Kemper County MS and was committed to us last year before flipping to FSU. He redshirted at FSU as a true freshman which is pretty common for an OL.

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And remember this. Arnett knows the players from FSU. He coached their this season.

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Originally Posted by BlackSailsDawg

And remember this. Arnett knows the players from FSU. He coached their this season.

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Ahhh forgot about that. I know we was big on Nash out of high school. He has had eyes on Matthews too then. That makes me feel a little better!

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Originally Posted by maroonmania

Well, we obviously want and need them, the question is do they want us? Proven OL are not very plentiful in the portal which make them premium gets that basically can choose their school. We really didn't get one last year and I don't see how we are going to be able to get 3 or 4 this year that are better than a player like Luke Work that we are losing that would have had another year in our system.

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Thing is we don't really need the Hogs from the Washington Redskins for this offense to work.

Can we build a line that can reduce our sacks from 40+ to 30 which is still not that good? And at the same time reduce our TFL's? Yes we can and if we do our production on offense could make a jump.

We need a serviceable Offensive Line and a stout Defensive Line. State averages nearly 30 points a game with a crappy o line and a crappier d line. Get the defense to the low 60?s, high 50?s national rank and State can win 7-8 games scoring 30 points a game.

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Originally Posted by CaptainObvious

We need a serviceable Offensive Line and a stout Defensive Line. State averages nearly 30 points a game with a crappy o line and a crappier d line. Get the defense to the low 60?s, high 50?s national rank and State can win 7-8 games scoring 30 points a game.

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The past two seasons we have allowed 34 and 30 PPG each season. We need to improve that to at least 26 or lower.