HOW IS THE OL DEVELOPING?

It ‘could be’ that we will see a much better, developed, maturing line this season. Time will tell. And it ‘could be’ that the same H/C came through the door with a plan to ‘take the long road’ and recruit mostly H/S guys that he knew would take 2-3 years at least to really develop. But that was ok with his 3-5 year rebuild plan. That’s not his fault even if it doesn’t turn out well for him. IF there is any fault , it is found in an A/D that even got ‘past the interview’ stage with anyone that needed 3-5 years to get a program like UF’s turned around. We will see if it works for Billy or not.

 

Apparently Sale was not on sale

 

As expected…

 

And he may be really good there

 

I guess guard is his natural position, so there's optimism there. He'll still have to learn the high science of not moving before the ball does, though.

 

Unproven on paper and they are on the clock. Come Midnight 8/31 all the questions will answered about IF football.

 

Incorrect... Your top two RB's don't average over 6.5 yards per carry if the OL is getting "owned".

UF's problem that game was the 4th pick in the NFL's 2023 draft was awful. One of the worst passing performaces I've seen from a UF QB.

 

He mentioned two games....I think you are only referring to one of them?

 

Yep, I understood that. I made it quite clear what game I was talking about.

 

LIS, and to dial back the hyperbole, I just saw that post as a hot take rant. Please point out the “constructive” criticism and “analytics” outside of complaining about recruiting rankings?!?

For the low recruited OL. What are your issues with Slaughter, Williams, Harris, Manuel and BCD? I look forward to your constructive criticism and evidence based analytical comments… FYI, I’ve done my homework on Manuel and BCD. As an old HS OG, I’m an OL nerd. So I like to keep up with the OL.

Lastly, LIS in the other thread, UF’s starting OGs in 2022 had very low recruiting rankings. How did that playout in 2022?

 

Slaughter at least has the ability to move well and showed signs last season. Tough to grade some of the bad performances last year when the folks clearly weren’t tackles. Much like us playing all those guys at DT because we didn’t have anyone then wondering why they got dominated inside.

That said, the proof will be in the pudding (record) and to see if we see coaching progress on the OL and for that matter, the DL.

 

Record. I could see myself being extremely happy with our team, being seven and five, which does sound absurd. Depending on how good the schedule really is though that may be an accomplishment. We could also bumble our way to seven and five and be very dissatisfied with the season.

 

My comment “often post evidence based …” was not necessarily meant for my post in this thread but overall.

but..recruiting rankings is a form of analytics and based on those numbers…the o line talent is projected to be underwhelming. Doesn’t mean that will be the case. But here is the player rank of every high school o linemen we have signed under Napier…(composite rankings)

2022:
Herman, JC not ranked, no longer with program
Farmer, 690. No longer with program
Williams 1232
Connor 1023. No longer with program



2023
Kearney. 112
Jones. 368
Harris. 456
Lovett. 648

2024
Westphal. 214
Williams. 1300
Portnjagin. 1050
Mascoll. 451

Not a single top 100 rated OL. Georgia signed 5 in that same time period. It may be unrealistic to compare to Gregoria but if we want to win sec titles, that is who we have to beat. Tenn signed 2 top 100 during that same time period which may be a better comparison.

I am no star gazer but in many cases…it matters. Especially for the top 100 prospects compared to the rest of recruits and even more important is to get top 30 talent. For the recruiting class of 2020 and 2019, Will Miles showed that if a player is rated in the top 30 in the 247 composite they got drafted nearly 70% of the time in the nfl draft with an average of round two. Players 31-90 got drafted at a 20% rate. Players outside the top 90 but under 250 it’s single digit %. while high school recruit rankings - to me- seems arbitrary and rife with issues - they often do get top talent rated correctly. And that top talent leads to titles.

in the SEC, no school has won the SEC in decades who hasn’t averaged a top 5 class rating. Back to O Line- the o line recruiting actually drags our overall ratings down. History has shown in the SEC that without highly rated o linemen you just are not going to compete for an SEC title.

Your question on 2022…we finished 6-7. Was o line better in 2022? Sure. I guess. Did we dominate? No. Our offense had the 61st best ppg in the country at 27.7. A whole .3 better than the Emory Jones Dan Mullen year in 2021 under the 2021 o line.

Your question in reference to my take on some current players…

I am super high on Crenshaw-Dixon. I don’t know about Manuel. I think he will contribute but I think Dixon is more a sure thing to excel. The younger guys…I posted to you in another thread I am higher on Christian Williams than most since this will be his third year in the system. While I also like Kearney and Harris, year two is even hard for O linemen. I don’t think the true freshmen will contribute. I am not as high on Slaughter as PFF. I watched him get tossed around by UK, Georgia, and anyone with large d linemen. I expect him to be improved in year two as a starter but I don’t think his ceiling is very high.

regarding PFF…I put zero faith in their numbers, especially college players. I recall when Trask was a senior and lighting it up…PFF consistently ranked him outside the top 40 qbs. Every week. Even though he was putting up huge numbers. It came to light late that season that the individual responsible for rating college qbs for PFF was a 19 year kid literally working in his mom basement. No joke. He never coached nor played football. This is who they have grading players?

 

OK, I told you I'm an OL nerd and I keep up on The OL. I did that so you wouldnt make stuff up... Too bad it didn't work.

So, no actual "constructive and often evidence based analytical comments", just doubling down on the ranting... That's OK, it was expected.

But, to make up stuff about Slaughter and PFF is embarrassing.

You know that Slaughter wasn't the actual starter in 2023, right? The actual starter only started and played in four games because of a high ankle sprain. Two of the four games he started were "UK, Georgia", right?

You know that GC posted snap counts for each game last year, right? So, go review Slaughter's snap counts against "UK, Georgia", and update your rant.

Let me know if you need the links to GCs snap counts for "UK, Georgia".

 

yeah I know slaughter wasn’t supposed to start, he ended up starting most games. Did Kingsley start those games against UK and Georgia? I honestly don’t remember. But I stand by my statement I saw him tossed around this year. He is not big and not strong. I think the staff would like for Kearny to add size and supplant him at center.

I am not an o line nerd. But in all measurements our offensive line was poor last year. It was rated dlike 130 of 132 teams in successful block rate (analytics). Every returning player was part of that. I am hoping that turns around this year. Maybe it will happen.

it is not just the players. Our recruiting - not the rankings - but the type we have been signing don’t make much sense to me (nor the “professionals” who follow and blog and podcast (such as gator nation football podcast). We run a zone blocking scheme which requires fast and good athletes to get out in space - that is typical of the scheme (think lighter faster o line like the 90s broncos) and yet we have mammoths at all positions on the line (Slaughter is actually best suited size). They are not suited to the scheme. Too slow due to size in space. But that is separate.

thanks for the banter. It is fine to have different opinions. Be boring if this was an echo chamber.

 

Those mammoth offensive lineman that you speak of didn’t really get very many snaps. Those guys stayed on the bench for the most part

 

Offensive lineman are the hardest of all players to evaluate at the high school level. That position is a developmental position period.

Slaughter was playing at a much high level at the end of the season than he was at the beginning of the season, and Kingsley lost his starting spot to him, and he was grading out the highest of all the linemen.

We are returning 3 starters from last years line and 2 more with good experience. Also, we brought in 2 more with a lot of experience. This is the most experienced and deep line we have had in a long time and should do well. Experience is super valuable to the production of an Offensive line.

Also, make no mistake about it, we do have a lot of size, length and talent too.

 

It's OK, just keep making stuff up to complain about. It's the thing to do on Gator Country.

God bless you and everyone on GC!

 

Great post. You posted facts about our OL recruiting and how that projects. But that doesn't go over well here. Sale is a WEAK recruiter. There's no evidence he can develop a cohesive position group. It was two days before SD he was photo'd on an in-home with a PWO. If we already had three top 30ish OL committed, great. But we didn't. Should we expect to be better? Of course, because we cannot be worse.

 

Not fair. Lets hope you are correct and spike is wrong, because it's true our OL recruiting is not great, and so far there's no history that proves Sale can develop OL. I agree Slaughter played better than spike believes, but do not believe Sale is a strong OL coach.