Concerns –
I don’t often pay much attention to what the so-called reporters on the recruiting sites have to say. I’m actually referring to their analysis and opinions. Facts are facts, so that’s different. jmo.
I would say it’s likely that if the staff wants to get a narrative out there then I absolutely could see them using the recruiting reporters for that. jmo.
One of the things that I’ve heard Hubbs moaning about a number of times was how thin we are at TE. Really? The past two years we’ve really only had 2 guys, Fant and Warren. So this year we have Warren, Castles, and Ethan Davis. So I’m trying to figure out how more is less. Is Castles not living up to expectations? I understand Ethan is a freshman but I almost never see him when he’s not flashing. He may be the best guy in the room, talent wise. So I don’t know what Hubbs is talking about considering our numbers at TE the past couple of years. jmo.
Of course all of this OL hand-wringing has to be considered in the light of LAVol’s recent appearance in this thread to also bemoan the state of our OL. I’m reasonably confident that LA is plugged in and in a way that goes beyond a given staff. After all, he was on here along with AtlantaVol after the Georgia State fiasco telling us how we couldn’t afford for Pruitt to fail. I’m not knocking either one of those guys and appreciate their sharing info with us so I’m only pointing this out to say there’s probably something to this OL concern, from the staff’s perspective, and they’re unwilling to talk about it themselves publicly. Of course that’s nothing that we want to hear but I think their concerns may possibly be more real than at least initially some of us wanted to admit. jmo.
So we’ve lost Cade Mays, Darnell Wright, and Jerome Carvin from the offensive line room that Heupel inherited, and now we’re down, at least for a while, Cooper Mays. So the only really capable guy we have left healthy right now from the Pruitt era is Javontez Spraggins. I’ll be pleasantly surprised if either Ollie Lane, Jackson Lampley, or Dayne Davis end up being good SEC players. jmo.
If we’re talking up Ollie Lane I tend to think something hasn’t worked out with the other guys like we thought. I sensed in the spring that Cooper had some concerns because when asked which guys were standing out to him the only name he really mentioned was Dayne Davis. He continued to focus on Dayne in his preseason interview. Now it’s possible that Dayne is really that good or maybe it’s a case of the other guys not stepping up. I don’t know. jmo.
LA said the concern was Karic hasn’t come along like hoped. Karic has a reputation of being very athletic, aggressive, and mean and nasty, and I think that’s probably why we brought him in. Texas people who follow their program thought that his future was on the interior of the line because he apparently doesn’t have the prototypical length for tackle. He actually played some TE at Texas.
I think probably with him and Nichols both it could be a matter of buy-in. What made a difference last year with Cooper, Jerome, Javontez, and Darnell, I think was ownership. Those guys were trying to compete for the Joe Moore Award for the Most Outstanding Offensive Line unit in the country. Last year was at least the 3rd year of those guys all playing together.
I think what may be especially missing with Karic and Nichols is a sense of urgency. I think that may be what has raised some concerns. Nichols came in expecting to play tackle and he said so in his early interviews. I don’t know how we recruited Karic. I haven’t seen any interviews with him since he got here. So both of those guys are playing a position other than what they expected coming out of high school. I’m just speculating but maybe they have yet to fully embrace their new circumstances. jmo.
I think Nichols is very smart and having gone through two offseasons in strength and conditioning I’d imagine he’s pretty close to being physically ready. Of course he would know he has no chance at all of unseating Cooper as the starting center this year, hence maybe a reason for lack of urgency up to this point. Of all the guys on our team, if anyone doesn’t eat, sleep, and breath football, it’s Addison Nichols. He’s legendary for all the different pursuits he’s involved with. So, again, with football, perhaps not the same sense of urgency of a Cooper Mays or one of the other four main guys from last year. jmo.
Take Tyler Baron as an example. Last year in the spring and fall I thought Tyler should be the leader of our defense. He’s a natural leader. I got the idea that everyone on the DL was just waiting for Tyler to take over. I thought then that for our DL to be all it could be Tyler needed to step out as the leader and put himself on the line, so to speak. I don’t think he ever really did that last year and the reason is because he has always been all about Tyler. He had to get past that. Coach Garner said in his preseason media appearance a few days ago that Tyler had matured a lot and he specifically said with Tyler it is not about Tyler anymore. Music to my ears.
Maybe with Cooper sidelined for a while Addison develops more of a sense of urgency. I don’t know what you do about Karic. From everything I can gleaned about our OL concerns it’s really not the OL we’re concerned about in terms of ALL the unit parts. I don’t think there’s a lot of concern about Campbell, if any. I’m almost certain there’s no concern about Spraggins. We know what we’ve got in Mincey and Crawford. Obviously there’s a health issue with Cooper. No, our OL concerns, I think, are really our concerns about Addison Nichols and Andrej Karic because if those two guys don’t step up then plan B apparently is not all that attractive to the staff. Plan B probably won’t be all that attractive to the fans either if that’s what we end up getting. If plan B was in any way acceptable I don’t think people would be fretting over OL concerns. The 7 guys for plan A I believe have always been Campbell, Karic, Mays, Nichols, Spraggins, Mincey, and Crawford, with Nichols and Crawford being the utility guys. jmo.
There are a couple of other things to consider. First, the only thing the staff, at least at this point, has to go on is who are the best practice players. Think Joe Milton starting over Hendon Hooker in 2021. You knew I was going to bring that up. I don’t know if there’s any coach in the world who can determine in advance that a guy who doesn’t do as well in practice is actually an elite player when the lights come on. You just have to wait to find out. So maybe Karic and Nichols aren’t the best practice players but could come into their own when the lights go on. jmo.
Another thing maybe to consider is Coach Garner said that now our defensive line is finally beginning to look like a championship caliber unit. I don’t think too many people are going to accuse Coach G of beating around the bush or blowing smoke. So if we accept that our DL group is well ahead of our OL group then I don’t know that means our OL group is all that bad. Last year our run defense was 2nd best in the conference behind only Georgia. If we’ve improved that much coming into this season then we may be first this year and not only would our OL struggle against those guys but it’s likely every one of our opponents will as well. jmo.
Bonus consideration – the sense I got from the scrimmage was that our defense got the better of our offense in the first half of the scrimmage but the offense had more success in the second half of the scrimmage. In the Jaylen Wright video clip posted after the scrimmage, I broke out the offensive line on the field at the time. I think that was the first team defense too. If that was from the second half of the scrimmage then I wonder who manned the offensive line in the first half, Ollie Lane? Jackson Lampley? Obviously, we don’t know because the people who know aren’t telling us what we want to know only what they want us to think. jmo.
I’m not going to make excuses for anybody, staff or players. Our representatives said at SEC media days that our team goal this year was to win the East. Spraggins and the other OL guys speaking to the media this past week said our goal this year is to win the national championship. So I have to agree with SpringBokVol, those supposed goals are all bull if we’re already making excuses before we’re halfway through training camp. jmo.
So while I’m not making excuses there is one fact that may go some ways to explain our concerns about our OL in the present moment. In the chaos of 2021 we signed only one HS offensive lineman, William Parker, now at UAB, and 1 JUCO lineman, Crawford. The lack of OL recruits in that class may be coming home to roost this year and I don’t think the present staff should be accountable for Pruitt’s failure. Obviously, they’ve made a tremendous investment in rebuilding our OL room, Nichols in 2022 and Umarov in 2023 and a good crop of blue chip OLinemen in the ’24 class. It’ll take time for that to pay off but I think it will. jmo.
After the spring game I went through each possession to see the makeup of the offensive line. We played with a number of different combinations as spring is a time for evaluations. That’s why I said recently that Reddick and Clipper had stood out to me. One other thing I took away from that is when Cooper came off the field it was Addison Nichols that took his spot at center with the 1st team OL. Karic was also running with the first team OL along with Campbell. As noted, I think I know what plan A is and I still think we’ll be relatively okay if that’s what we end up going with so even with Cooper out for a while I’m not anywhere close to panic mode and I don’t think anyone else should be either. It’s more like a wait and see mode. jmo.
My biggest concern for our team right now remains the secondary, until proven otherwise, including the talent and how we use that talent. If the guys up front can have an effective pass rush without us having to rob the pass defense by sending the coverage guys (LBs & DBs) on blitzes so often then maybe our secondary will have a more favorable opportunity to adequately acquit themselves. I think our style of play has had more of an adverse impact on our pass defense than the athletes themselves but I also think we’ve been doing what the staff thinks has been best given our capabilities at the time. jmo.
On a brighter note as others have previously posted, Bill Connelly of ESPN has anointed Joe Milton as the #1 most important player in the college football playoff race this year. Connelly is an analyst that I often cite especially with his SP+ model. And since he figured out the importance of returning OL production we now agree on more than ever. jmo.
Clark Brooks is the man behind SECSTATCAT. He does a really good job with the site and also works for On3 as an analyst. He has Joe Milton as the #1 Impact QB in the SEC coming into this season and it’s not based on some feeling. It’s based on performance metrics. I said a few days ago Joe is actually scary good and the metrics back it up. jmo.
There are things Joe can improve on but it’s not that big of a leap. If Joe stays consistent on his mechanics he’s on fire but sometimes he reverts to sort of being a gunslinger, throwing off platform, which he’s always been able to do due to his athleticism and cannon for an arm. If he can stay more disciplined in his mechanics this year , especially his footwork (don't throw off his back foot), he could actually have a record breaking performance and possibly end up an early pick in the first round of the ’24 draft and of course we would have won a whole lot of football games along the way. jmo.
It won’t be easy. I developed a strength of schedule model which divides opponents into quality levels. Using SP+ I considered any team with a rating less than 10.0 a cupcake, rating 10-15, a low but quality opponent, 15-20, a medium quality opponent, and 20+, a high quality opponent. So for example, OU SHOULD have a pretty easy year as they have 9 cupcakes and 1 each from the quality groups. Texas has 5 quality opponents. We’re tied with Georgia and Ole Miss in the SEC for fewest quality opponents this year. We each have 7 and that’s the lowest of all SEC teams. Using this model I looked at all the teams in the recently released coaches preseason top 25 poll. The SEC plays the toughest schedules in the country bar none. Georgia actually has the weakest schedule overall among SEC teams but still tougher than anyone from outside the conference except Utah. Utah has a slightly tougher schedule than Georgia but not as tough as ours. All other SEC teams the coaches put in their preseason top 25 have the toughest schedules of the group. So no, making it through the SEC gauntlet is never easy and this year will be no different. jmo.
I have been following all of our regular season opponents all year long and moreso now as they go through fall camp. I continue to believe against our schedule Heupel has built our team with the idea that we can go all the way. This year he has repeatedly praise the depth of our roster relative to when he first took over. In spite of concerns and the adversity that may arise from time to time, at least for now, I continue to have high EXPECTATIONS and remain VERY optimistic for the coming season. jmo.
