Road is right. Reading the Thursday Speeches book recently has put a lot of shit in perspective. We are eager as shit to see a winner at U-dub. Our hated (used to be) rival down south is playing for all the marbles and will probably succeed. We just lost to OkL in a bowl game nobody gives a fuck about. It's frustrating as fuck.
Couple that with the old joke 20XX is going to be special, and it's easy to mutiny. Next year IS a rebuilding year, by all measures, hall of fame coach or not. We are shit now, and lose legitimate talent in the trenches. If Browning is the future he'll be a true frosh, mistakes will be made. Pete gets 3, and he has some serious staff eval to do on the offensive side of the ball, but when next year looks similar or worse don't be surprised.
Year 3 fellas.
$2.99 shipped for your copy of the Thursday Speeches book, thanks in advance.
Road is right. Reading the Thursday Speeches book recently has put a lot of shit in perspective. We are eager as shit to see a winner at U-dub. Our hated (used to be) rival down south is playing for all the marbles and will probably succeed. We just lost to OkL in a bowl game nobody gives a fuck about. It's frustrating as fuck.
Couple that with the old joke 20XX is going to be special, and it's easy to mutiny. Next year IS a rebuilding year, by all measures, hall of fame coach or not. We are shit now, and lose legitimate talent in the trenches. If Browning is the future he'll be a true frosh, mistakes will be made. Pete gets 3, and he has some serious staff eval to do on the offensive side of the ball, but when next year looks similar or worse don't be surprised.
Year 3 fellas.
$2.99 shipped for your copy of the Thursday Speeches book, thanks in advance.
Road is right. Reading the Thursday Speeches book recently has put a lot of shit in perspective. We are eager as shit to see a winner at U-dub. Our hated (used to be) rival down south is playing for all the marbles and will probably succeed. We just lost to OkL in a bowl game nobody gives a fuck about. It's frustrating as fuck.
Couple that with the old joke 20XX is going to be special, and it's easy to mutiny. Next year IS a rebuilding year, by all measures, hall of fame coach or not. We are shit now, and lose legitimate talent in the trenches. If Browning is the future he'll be a true frosh, mistakes will be made. Pete gets 3, and he has some serious staff eval to do on the offensive side of the ball, but when next year looks similar or worse don't be surprised.
Year 3 fellas.
$2.99 shipped for your copy of the Thursday Speeches book, thanks in advance.
@whatshouldicareabout - I hope you are right and the OL is improved. Maybe it can happen by the middle to end of the season. They will need time though. Another worry is that none of the young guys/back ups have shown much. Coleman Shelton was bad when he played this year. Tufunga is JAG at best. Brostek has been terrible when he played and expecting him to be anything more than serviceable is probably wishful thinking.
Sark whiffed on a lot of guys on the OL and most of the ones he did get aren't any good. I like some of the guys currently redshirting and it wouldn't shock me if Adams or Roberts saw the field, but it's a hard postion for a freshman to excel at. Where do you think this line will compare to the rest of the Pac?
My hope is that it can be serviceable and the young guys improve as the season goes on. It's not a good situation and we might even need more than a year to get the OL right.
At least on the DL, there are some young pups such as Mathis and Qualls who have shown they can play. Dissley was competing with Mathis and looked pretty good in limited time. Choate said Vita Vea was more talented than Shelton. Who knows if he will ever be as good, but I bet he will at worst be decent.
@whatshouldicareabout - I hope you are right and the OL is improved. Maybe it can happen by the middle to end of the season. They will need time though. Another worry is that none of the young guys/back ups have shown much. Coleman Shelton was bad when he played this year. Tufunga is JAG at best. Brostek has been terrible when he played and expecting him to be anything more than serviceable is probably wishful thinking.
Sark whiffed on a lot of guys on the OL and most of the ones he did get aren't any good. I like some of the guys currently redshirting and it wouldn't shock me if Adams or Roberts saw the field, but it's a hard postion for a freshman to excel at. Where do you think this line will compare to the rest of the Pac?
My hope is that it can be serviceable and the young guys improve as the season goes on. It's not a good situation and we might even need more than a year to get the OL right.
At least on the DL, there are some young pups such as Mathis and Qualls who have shown they can play. Dissley was competing with Mathis and looked pretty good in limited time. Choate said Vita Vea was more talented than Shelton. Who knows if he will ever be as good, but I bet he will at worst be decent.
The OL this year was experienced in a sense they had played in a lot of games but the OL was not very talented. In terms of experience, the 4 SR OL had played together for years, so you figured they'd continue right where they left off in 2013. However, the 4 SR OL had 4 years experience with zone blocking, meaning they were taught zone blocking for 4 years and played zone blocking for 4 years. When there was the coaching change, we shifted to a man blocking scheme, so in a sense, those 4 years of experience are somewhat misleading since they were now learning and trying to perfect a new blocking scheme. Yes, they have game experience, but it's not the same as if they had Petersen for 4 years and had practiced man blocking for 4 years.
Of course, experience is integral to a successful OL, but there needs to be talent, too, and this OL lacked talent. For example, how many Pac-12 teams would have Atoe as a starter on their OL? How many teams would have Coleman Shelton as their first replacement for a RT that was injured for most of the year? How many players deep was our OL? Sark neglected OL recruiting, so it won't be for another year or so before we see a significant climb in talent.
However, the reason why I have hope that the OL will be better than last year is due to a number of reasons. The first and foremost is that we'll have another year of Strausser and another year of Socha and another year of practicing man blocking. The OL next year will have had twice as much time as the current OL. I don't know what kind of line you work in, but think about where you were at the 1 year mark versus the 2 year mark. Or you can think of your podcasts, where you were at point A and at A x2. The second is that the offense should adjust next year. Petersen won't accept how the offense performed this year and he'll make it his mission this offseason to improve it. If he's the coach we think he is, the offense is his top priority. I don't think he'll pull the trigger on Smith after one season (though I wouldn't mind it), but they'll change their philosophy to reflect the personnel which will help mask the deficiencies of the OL next year. Whether we imitate Sark and go back to Bubble-screen City or what remains to be seen. However, I do know that Petersen will identify the weaknesses in from this season.
As for the DL, we will be taking a step back from losing Shelton and Kikaha, but I think we'll see a step up in place of Hudson and Hudson. If it were up to me, we'd be seeing Vea at NT, Qualls at DT, Dissly at DE and Mathis at Buck.
Comments
Sark whiffed on a lot of guys on the OL and most of the ones he did get aren't any good. I like some of the guys currently redshirting and it wouldn't shock me if Adams or Roberts saw the field, but it's a hard postion for a freshman to excel at. Where do you think this line will compare to the rest of the Pac?
My hope is that it can be serviceable and the young guys improve as the season goes on. It's not a good situation and we might even need more than a year to get the OL right.
At least on the DL, there are some young pups such as Mathis and Qualls who have shown they can play. Dissley was competing with Mathis and looked pretty good in limited time. Choate said Vita Vea was more talented than Shelton. Who knows if he will ever be as good, but I bet he will at worst be decent.
Of course, experience is integral to a successful OL, but there needs to be talent, too, and this OL lacked talent. For example, how many Pac-12 teams would have Atoe as a starter on their OL? How many teams would have Coleman Shelton as their first replacement for a RT that was injured for most of the year? How many players deep was our OL? Sark neglected OL recruiting, so it won't be for another year or so before we see a significant climb in talent.
However, the reason why I have hope that the OL will be better than last year is due to a number of reasons. The first and foremost is that we'll have another year of Strausser and another year of Socha and another year of practicing man blocking. The OL next year will have had twice as much time as the current OL. I don't know what kind of line you work in, but think about where you were at the 1 year mark versus the 2 year mark. Or you can think of your podcasts, where you were at point A and at A x2. The second is that the offense should adjust next year. Petersen won't accept how the offense performed this year and he'll make it his mission this offseason to improve it. If he's the coach we think he is, the offense is his top priority. I don't think he'll pull the trigger on Smith after one season (though I wouldn't mind it), but they'll change their philosophy to reflect the personnel which will help mask the deficiencies of the OL next year. Whether we imitate Sark and go back to Bubble-screen City or what remains to be seen. However, I do know that Petersen will identify the weaknesses in from this season.
As for the DL, we will be taking a step back from losing Shelton and Kikaha, but I think we'll see a step up in place of Hudson and Hudson. If it were up to me, we'd be seeing Vea at NT, Qualls at DT, Dissly at DE and Mathis at Buck.
Sark's best