O-line recruiting

#1
farmdogvol

farmdogvol

Vol fan living in Dawg territory
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#1
A lot of our offensive woes go back to recruiting. The current O-line has 2 from class of '20 and 3 portal guys. There are no o-linemen on roster from class of '21. There are only 2 left from class of '22. Those 2 came in undersized at around 270ish and are buried on the depth chart. The '23 class looks better with Sham, Lang, and Johnson. '24 class looks promising and '25 looks good with Sanders and others. It will take some more time for these players to get ready for SEC play. If there isn't improvement in their development by end of next year, CJH will need to make a tough decision on Ellerbee. So far the portal players brought in have been disappointing. You miss out on 2 years of recruiting o-linemen like the Vols have it really sets back the program.
 
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#4
#4
CaliVol2009 said:
Guess getting the number one offensive lineman in this years class is meaningless, lol.
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Not meaningless, but does little to make up for 2 nonexisting recruiting classes that should be the R-SR and Sr next year. That is a lot of experienced depth that is not going to be there. Help is coming just going to take a little more time and there are going to be growing pains.
 
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#5
#5
Big Orange Rob said:
Not meaningless. In fact, it's huge. However, it's going to take more than one blue chipper to compete on a consistent basis. Hopefully that improve going forward
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Bennett Warren should be getting coached up. He was very highly rated. Jesse Perry is another tackle that is promising. Where is Duncan, they moved him to O-Line and they said he was gonna be a great one over there. All 3 of these guys are young but if they are getting good coaching they should be ready to hit the field by next year. It would be nice if Warren or Perry could get us some reps down the stretch this year. GBO
 
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#7
#7
The miss rate on blue chip OL is generally higher than for other positions. (Not a comment on Sanders). It takes a lot of ranked guys to make a stout line. I wonder if recruiting in the NIL world makes getting enough OL more difficult.
 
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#9
#9
farmdogvol said:
A lot of our offensive woes go back to recruiting. The current O-line has 2 from class of '20 and 3 portal guys. There are no o-linemen on roster from class of '21. There are only 2 left from class of '22. Those 2 came in undersized at around 270ish and are buried on the depth chart. The '23 class looks better with Sham, Lang, and Johnson. '24 class looks promising and '25 looks good with Sanders and others. It will take some more time for these players to get ready for SEC play. If there isn't improvement in their development by end of next year, CJH will need to make a tough decision on Ellerbee. So far the portal players brought in have been disappointing. You miss out on 2 years of recruiting o-linemen like the Vols have it really sets back the program.
Click to expand...

Let me make an observation which could be wrong. I think lack of recruiting for those classes is related to the NCAA sanctions which are still in effect BTW.

IMO, Heupel had to prioritize positional recruiting based on positional needs when he came in based on what was left over from the Pruitt rosters and the reductions he was hit with by NCAA. Appears OL was where they had to reduce. Perhaps they were thinking they could back fill in the future from the portal. But portal is more immediate help and at some point will catch up with you from a developmental standpoint. That is if you lean on portal in one position group. They have brought in 7 portal OL in that period but only 3 have seen any sort of time playing. So they haven't found the fits if that was the plan.

Short answer, I believe OL recruiting was impacted by NCAA sanctions. Doesn't mean I'm right but that would be my observation.
 
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#10
#10
farmdogvol said:
A lot of our offensive woes go back to recruiting. The current O-line has 2 from class of '20 and 3 portal guys. There are no o-linemen on roster from class of '21. There are only 2 left from class of '22. Those 2 came in undersized at around 270ish and are buried on the depth chart. The '23 class looks better with Sham, Lang, and Johnson. '24 class looks promising and '25 looks good with Sanders and others. It will take some more time for these players to get ready for SEC play. If there isn't improvement in their development by end of next year, CJH will need to make a tough decision on Ellerbee. So far the portal players brought in have been disappointing. You miss out on 2 years of recruiting o-linemen like the Vols have it really sets back the program.
Click to expand...

CGE will probably get the 2025 season to prove that he can cobble a solid o line together.
 
#13
#13
CaliVol2009 said:
Guess getting the number one offensive lineman in this years class is meaningless, lol.
Click to expand...

And the fact that he will most likely start for us next season speaks volumes at how terrible this staff has been at recruiting/developing Olinemen over the last 4 years.
 
#14
#14
LWSVOL said:
UNLESS. GE leaves on his own for another gig (I would not anticipate that happening) then CJH ain't dumping him unless things get really, really ugly. I don't believe CJH would think they are near that point. JMO
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Yeah Elarbee has been with him a long time. He was Heupel’s first hire at UCF when he was named head coach. He’s also been promoted to be kept on staff at UCF. Out of all the guys on staff I would think he has the most leash.
 
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#15
#15
Brave Volunteer said:
And the fact that he will most likely start for us next season speaks volumes at how terrible this staff has been at recruiting/developing Olinemen over the last 4 years.
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I wouldn’t say recruiting at least not in the last cycle and this one. Before that we’ve struggled. Heard was supposed to be one of the more sought after OTs in the portal.
 
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#16
#16
DaddyChad said:
I wouldn’t say recruiting at least not in the last cycle and this one. Before that we’ve struggled. Heard was supposed to be one of the more sought after OTs in the portal.
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Heard is a fatass and out of shape. He was absolutely skull drug by Landon Jackson on Saturday. He was also sucking wind most of the game. There's a reason why LSU wasn't crying too hard when he left.
 
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#19
#19
LWSVOL said:
Let me make an observation which could be wrong. I think lack of recruiting for those classes is related to the NCAA sanctions which are still in effect BTW.

IMO, Heupel had to prioritize positional recruiting based on positional needs when he came in based on what was left over from the Pruitt rosters and the reductions he was hit with by NCAA. Appears OL was where they had to reduce. Perhaps they were thinking they could back fill in the future from the portal. But portal is more immediate help and at some point will catch up with you from a developmental standpoint. That is if you lean on portal in one position group. They have brought in 7 portal OL in that period but only 3 have seen any sort of time playing. So they haven't found the fits if that was the plan.

Short answer, I believe OL recruiting was impacted by NCAA sanctions. Doesn't mean I'm right but that would be my observation.
Click to expand...
Exactly. Plus when JH took over you could literally say that most all position groups sucked and didn’t have depth. He has for sure built up talent. My opinion is it’s really tough to be like a UGA or OSU or Bama w two deep studs at every position anymore. You’re always going to have a weakness of some sort. The question becomes how well does the head coach mitigate weaknesses and possibly change/adapt, sometimes mid season. The coaches that successfully do this have longer term staying power in SEC.

At this point I’m choosing to think JH had a bad ARK game strategy. We’ll see pretty soon though.
 
#22
#22
orangemadam said:
If continued OL recruiting is mediocre at best, need to raid our DL for 1 or 2 men.
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Fulmer did that consistently and had really good lines. Heard looks slow.. I hope that was just conditioning because he got beat repeatedly. I'd put Davis back in if that is what we're going to get from him. UF gets a free run or two from that side Saturday i'd yank his azz.
 
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#23
#23
Brave Volunteer said:
Heard is a fatass and out of shape. He was absolutely skull drug by Landon Jackson on Saturday. He was also sucking wind most of the game. There's a reason why LSU wasn't crying too hard when he left.
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I know what happened. Perception was he was the best OT in the portal.
 
#24
#24
i don't know that players are the issue. CJH has admitted they don't know how to block odd-man fronts Arkansas made that even worse by lining up a 7-man front and dropping 2. That sounds like being outcoached.
 
#25
#25
Expecting anything out of the 21 class was a pipe dream. We had a horrible 20 season, the coach got fired & NcAA major violations were exposed. Most of that class was signed BEFORE Heupel was hired. Only 1 player in that entire class became a starter. 22 class has some players but OL kids are usually identified early. 23 class was the first sign that this program had life but the NCAA issues were still there. 24 & 25 classes are big improvements
 
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