No talent offensive line

[Duncan Idaho]

Coaching & development, no star guys without a sniff from other schools, like Will Beatty, made the NFL. We saw this repeatedly. Donald Thomas another. Different system, different coaches. Suddenly our 3 star kids with offers from the B1G and ACC can't do anything right.

Repeatedly? you named two. The three starish kids on the line last night were Bennett (god bless him) who is playing on very bad knees and too injured to lift , Hemingway who is noticebly light and Greene. Dont remember Friend, Bullock , Mateas , Masters, Samra or Cruz being 3 star types that played the last 13 games.
I appreciate all of them and their hard work. Begining the 3rd year of any system and you still dont know constantly who to block? At this point no one really knows if they would be better 30lbs heavier and a power blocking scheme. Its a mess and could very well be a combination talent, scheme and coaching. Is the staff asking them to be something they're not?

 

[Carl Spackler]

Repeatedly? you named two. The three starish kids on the line last night were Bennett (god bless him) who is playing on very bad knees and too injured to lift , Hemingway who is noticebly light and Greene. Dont remember Friend, Bullock , Mateas , Masters, Samra or Cruz being 3 star types that played the last 13 games.
I appreciate all of them and their hard work. Begining the 3rd year of any system and you still dont know constantly who to block? At this point no one really knows if they would be better 30lbs heavier and a power blocking scheme. Its a mess and could very well be a combination talent, scheme and coaching. Is the staff asking them to be something they're not?

Who the knows. I don't. All I know is we had essentially no control over the line of scrimmage throughout the game, offensively and defensively. Against Towson.

 

[ruskin]

Weist probably called plays early before DeLeone took over.

Im telling you there was something very strange / different about all the posessions after the first one. DeLeone with a headset standing next to P when UConn had the ball was extremely suspicious

 

[upstater]

Repeatedly? you named two. The three starish kids on the line last night were Bennett (god bless him) who is playing on very bad knees and too injured to lift , Hemingway who is noticebly light and Greene. Dont remember Friend, Bullock , Mateas , Masters, Samra or Cruz being 3 star types that played the last 13 games.
I appreciate all of them and their hard work. Begining the 3rd year of any system and you still dont know constantly who to block? At this point no one really knows if they would be better 30lbs heavier and a power blocking scheme. Its a mess and could very well be a combination talent, scheme and coaching. Is the staff asking them to be something they're not?

What does repeatedly refer to? I said over the years we had a bunch of kids with no other offers go on to do great things. There are a lot more than 2. Beatty, Thomas, Krug, Gray, Ryan, Hicks, Olivier, Hurd, Lamagdaleine. That's 9 players, 8 of which were in NFL camps. and this is over a 5 year period!!!!!!! These are the lineman that Caulley, Brockington, Dixon, Donald Brown, Todman, etc. ran behind.

 

[Carl Spackler]

What does repeatedly refer to? I said over the years we had a bunch of kids with no other offers go on to do great things. There are a lot more than 2. Beatty, Thomas, Krug, Gray, Ryan, Hicks, Olivier, Hurd, Lamagdaleine. That's 9 players, 8 of which were in NFL camps. and this is over a 5 year period!!!!!!! These are the lineman that Caulley, Brockington, Dixon, Donald Brown, Todman, etc. ran behind.

THe common thread there, is that most of those guys were multiple year starters, and as they progressed through each year, our team got better too. I think that list of linemen probably has a few players in it, the rank historically among those having started the most games in a UCONN uniform. There are many more opinions I can add on this, but summarily, IMNSHO, when you've got an OL that has players with multiple years of starts under their belt - it's usually a good thing. It sure looks like the 2013 Huskies are going to put that opinion to the test.

 

[Jimdish255]

You whiff because your schemes are bad. Belichick talked last week about how even he can't tell when an opposing linemen screws up because he doesn't know what the responsibilities are.

Here's what I see: people running around the edges on our tackles because Whitmer is taking deep drops and then he thinks he can run out of there. What is a tackle supposed to do? Whitmer takes the same deep drop and they are chasing a much speedier guy downfield, then Whitmer turns upfield. The tackles don't have eyes behind their heads. They are being put into a position to fail.

In the first quarter, when Whitmer was taking shorter drops and actually stepping up in the pocket, he had all day. The OLs job was a ton easier. They didn't have much to show for it, but at least it looked like they could get it done.

Weist probably called plays early before DeLeone took over.

Nobody wants to hear this but I agree it was a big part of the problem. Never played at this level but spent about 9 years of my life in pass protection and on the opposite side of the ball.

 

[IMind]

Fire GDL, put Foley in charge. One guy has put multiple linemen into the NFL. The other has taken a running game that produced multiple all conferences backs and turned it into one that can't get a 3rd and 1 against Towson St.

 

[Bootsthemonkey]

One player summed it up a few weeks ago; said they got up to line of scrimmage and guys did not know who they were suppose to block. Looks like no change from last season. GDL

Spot on IMO. Watching the o-line this seems to be the problem - either communication issues or read issues regarding assignments. I don't think physical talent is an issue they just don't seem to be able to piece together who has what assignments. Example: Watching one play for a loss last night the right tackle is blocking a defender who takes an initial outside rush, swims and changes direction to rush inside. The guard, who has no defender rushing in should be covering his zone looking for help areas but he's locked on watching inside towards the center and doesn't seem to be aware at all of the defender just to his right getting inside the tackle. This stuff happened all night long.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

When some OL whiff on a goal line situation its not just the coaching. Then there is the coaching...
Hemingway is an Ivy League size OT as of now. Should have had more/better TE help, Oh wait...

Hemingway is a RS soph (as is Nwokeji for that matter).

One of the people I brought to the game last night was a huge Iowa fan from the Hayden Fry days and said that the first thing Fry did when he got the HC job was lobby for a training facility (primarily weight room). He (Fry) said 'as long the lineman at Michigan and Ohio St can push our linemen around we won't have a chance'.

We have as good of a training facility as any school in the country. We have (supposedly) a top SC coach. That Hemingway is not large enough (with solid weight) at this point to play at this level is on him, the SC coach, his position coach and the head coach. Many people (starting with Hemingway) should have been demanding (from two years ago) he put in the work (including carb loading) necessary to get his body weight within shouting distance of 300 lbs by this point.

 

[Duncan Idaho]

What does repeatedly refer to? I said over the years we had a bunch of kids with no other offers go on to do great things. There are a lot more than 2. Beatty, Thomas, Krug, Gray, Ryan, Hicks, Olivier, Hurd, Lamagdaleine. That's 9 players, 8 of which were in NFL camps. and this is over a 5 year period!!!!!!! These are the lineman that Caulley, Brockington, Dixon, Donald Brown, Todman, etc. ran behind.

Must have misinterpreted your post, it seemed to me you implied we repeatedly turned no names into NFL linemen and I do only consider both Beatty and Thomas as having made it while also acknowledging that getting invited to a camp is no small feat.. Both great stories and we have had a number of good college players on the OLine.

 

[upstater]

Must have misinterpreted your post, it seemed to me you implied we repeatedly turned no names into NFL linemen and I do only consider both Beatty and Thomas as having made it while also acknowledging that getting invited to a camp is no small feat.. Both great stories and we have had a number of good college players on the OLine.

Gotcha. I was referring to kids who became excellent lineman, the kind of kids who were drafted late or else were prime UDFAs. Then there were the kids like Gray with little hype who somehow stuck it out on practice squads, never mind simply making it to camp.

 

[BlueDogs]

This much is true: PP has more loyalty to GDL than his players. He won't fire his boyfriend. If Manual had any nuts he tell PP to fire GDL immediately. If he even utters an objection or hesitates, he'd fire PP on the spot for cause and have the UCONN police escort him off the campus. I hate these disloyal, arrogant, self serving MFrs.

 

[Srqhusky]

Makes the entire offense look bad.

Its not just coaching. They suck.

They have size and strength. Just need to get meaner.

 

[Kingspoint]

To those who have bashed the entire O line in this thread with your - nonsensical lack of (no knowledge) of blocking schemes, techniques, etc. -

 

[Stinger92860]

To those who have bashed the entire O line in this thread with your - nonsensical lack of (no knowledge) of blocking schemes, techniques, etc. -

Tell us what you saw and how to fix it?

 

[ibleedhuskyblue]

This much is true: PP has more loyalty to GDL than his players. He won't fire his boyfriend. If Manual had any nuts he tell PP to fire GDL immediately. If he even utters an objection or hesitates, he'd fire PP on the spot for cause and have the UCONN police escort him off the campus. I hate these disloyal, arrogant, self serving MFrs.

This is so true. It's obvious to anyone with eyes that George is this teams weak link...but PP wont do anything about it.

Moving him from OC to OL coach isnt enough. The OL is too important to the success of the team for this idiot to be in charge of it

 

[Excalibur]

Makes the entire offense look bad.

Its not just coaching. They suck.

That's a failure of player development, and on the coaches too.