Now the Hokies are not that good, but have been hot, winning 8 straight til sunday. I'm not one that blames Leggett for every loss, nor am I calling for his head, but this weekend is on him. A coach's job is to keep his team on an even keel and have them ready to play, and we were neither this weekend. This team needs to get their shit together. Every time we look like we're ready to reel off win after win, they fall on their face.
Jacoby Ford won the 100m dash in the ACC Outdoor Championships, Clemson finished 6th overall as a team. Woohoo, great for him, now catch me 80 balls. Wanna know why track guys never end up as great WRs? CUZ COACHES DONT MAKE EM PRACTICE FOOTBALL IN SPRING.
Larry Williams' blog shows that Jon Richt has ended up at Mars Hill, which is where Max Lennon went after Clemson tossed him out, by the way.
GNews has an article up on how Parker is juggling football and baseball, article number 400 by my count, and there'll be 1000 more between now and September.
Dorell Scott really went through some struggles, and hopes for a real shot in the pros.
Scott, speaking about the improvements of the interior linemen this spring.
"There's no doubt we got better this spring. Those guys, it's important to them. And our offense is a little better because the offensive line is a little more experienced than they were a year ago. They're playing with a little bit more confidence.
"You never want to say too much, but I sure do feel a lot better about this spring coming out of there than I did last spring."
He has revealed, for now, the starting lineup out of spring.
1st Team
LG-Austin
C-Cloy
RG-McClain
However, Cloy is the one who is in the most danger of losing his spot, to Dalton Freeman, who got a lot more snaps this spring because Cloy had conflict with classes. Scott mentions that the battle at Center will be neck-neck this August.
2nd Team
LG-Wilson Norris (lost 25lbs, much better at run protection than pass)
C-Freeman
RG-David Smith, the 3rd G overall
Barry Humphries is the biggest wild card, and has only had light contact so far. He will be eligible by August and will push at Center and RG. Recall he's still the strongest guy on the team.
"We'll give him a chance to compete for a starting job, because he's been a starter in our program. He'll get his reps initially as a second-team guy, but then when we scrimmage we'll let him roll some with the ones. And if he outplays McClain or outplays Austin – or if I play him at center and he outplays Cloy or Freeman – we're all about putting the best 11 on the field.
"And I can also see him, with his experience, being a guy that would allow us to rotate him in and be a guy that can rest any of those three positions if we needed to. So we'll see how that works out."
I just want a center who can snap the fucking ball properly please. There was no excuse for that shit last season.
3rd Team isnt split from side to side, but Ben Ramsey can play both G and C, Matt Sanders has become more focused, and Kenny Page probably has the furthest to go of all the interior linemen. Page is overweight, likely aided by a shoulder injury that kept him from lifting.
If Humphries starts, then I think it will probably be at center, because I do not see him beating out Austin or McClain. More than likely, though, he will just come off the bench and give us some quality minutes in a reserve role.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I hope to goodness we develop a decent second string on the OL, because I don't want to fall victim to the injury bug again. That should not be a problem, since we have plenty of guys with experience up front.
Is it me, or are we flying under the radar right now? I tend to think that is a good thing.
I hope, I'd like to be surprised by Clemson playing well for a change.
ReplyDeleteDoes this mean that we may actually have enough depth (finally) to be two-deep on both the o-line and d-line?
ReplyDeleteI have been pleasantly surprised at the quality of play (from reports) of our o-line this spring. I am glad Tom finally realized that you have to recruit fucking linemen to win football games...
We need to recruit some good interior defensive lineman in this class, but we are otherwise well positioned to be good on both lines for the next several years. I believe being good up front cures a lot of other problems.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure they thought we had a two-deep along the lines the last few years, so I'm not putting any damn faith into this til I see it on the field.
ReplyDeleteI think we're going to have problems on the DL either way. It looks like we've got 5 guys that can contribute at DT, and I think thats a couple too few.
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