I thought we had very good offensive lineman transferring in with considerable experience.. Do they need more time to work togather? Are they too small and not physical enough? I thought they would show better out of the gate. We seem to have good running backs,, but the line seems to have regressed. I thought we wouuld go 7 and 5 or 6 and 6 this year, but if the line continues to disappoint that may be optimstic.
Hard to replace the loss of an All American. Not sure why we ran off White and Tarquin. Their replacements inspire no confidence.
The OL may have seemed bad but I didn't think it was truly that bad. There were 2 things that made it look a lot worse: 1. The running game was very predictable. I don't recall the backs getting hit in the backfield much. They at least made it to the line of scrimmage but there would usually be a defender waiting for them. The backs also didn't break any, which isn't really a reflection of the OL. 2. The offense was extremely pass happy with 44 pass attempts to 21 rushes. That didn't help. It seemed a lot of the pressures were from blitzes and stunts, which isn't good, but it still means they weren't really getting overmatched very much. Not having your starting center would contribute to that.
If you’re talking about Mazzccua, he was hurt and had surgery early in the spring and was in a non contact jersey almost the entire fall, so he’s had almost zero full speed reps with the line. We were also short our starting center.
Not sure we ran them off. Tarquin followed his gf back to Cal, and White isn’t even playing football.
Our transfers OL, QB and D were mainly players that lost their jobs or were effectively pushed out. That is very different than the ULL transfers that outperformed a level and wanted to move up
The kid from Baylor did not lose his job, and was not pushed out. He was the number 2 rated guard in the big 12.
If we "ran them off", is is because they were held to a standard of accountability for which they CHOSE to not meet. This is mainly revisionist history. And as I have posted plenty of times, Napier is ALL about the process and not shortcuts to "success", a la Kelly at LSU. We shall see whether it is wisdom or a blind spot.
That's an interesting assumption on your part, but you don't have a clue why they chose to leave. While I can't speak to Tarquin, White seemed to be a very accountable player, and had improved greatly while at UF. He was never mentioned as having an attitude or being a problem.
White isn’t even playing football so that point is moot. Tarquin followed a girl to Cal. White was following his friend, but, again, he ain’t playing anyway so it doesn’t really matter where he went or why.
Walking into a more talented roster and having impact players that don't go in the portal. You know, those kind of shortcuts.
Well said. Mullen was full of shortcuts and I never want that ever again. Don’t need the immediate success, I need the long term success.
Filling a team with transfers like he had to do year one. Getting rid of coaches with deep recruiting ties for “his guys”. I mean the man let us poach C Ray