Off Season and Pre Season Articles Thread

Sheriff Coffee said:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”​


-Theodore Rosevelt - Michael Scott
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Franklin better prove him wrong this season.
 

Another For the Blogy. Tengwall does an excellent job here breaking down the cat and mouse game of OL protections vs defensive fronts. You can see here some of the things our guys need to work on, such as:

1. Hot routes. Not sure who we can pin this on, but hopefully AK either installs it or Allar utilizes it more.

2. Short passing game. Again, not sure if AK lacks this in the playbook or if we just didn't trust our WRs to run them, but without a short pass game, you need near perfect protection. Hopefully Pena, Ross, and perhaps even Howard are part of the solution here.

3. Interior OL blocking. Just my own assessment, but I think this is why we see Donkoh at RG a lot early. He should upgrade interior pass blocking.

4. To go with that, RB blitz pickup. Allen is solid, but not a finisher. He's gotta be able to hold his man just a split second more. Singleton blocks similar to his running style: either a HR (the way he walloped the Illinois defender) or a strike out (the loss of focus that let the USC LB through).

5. We need some screen game. Might not always work against the zone blitz, but you could really burn some of them 7 man fronts.
 
LudicrousSpeedGO! said:
Hearing that Blanding is dinged up and may be out for a bit while Wafle has moved up to 4th DT and White is 5th. Not sure how accurate.
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There are always players that get dinged during Fall camp. The additional reps that players such as Cook, Adirika, and Andrews get with some players temporarily out will pay dividends in their development and be beneficial when in season injuries occur. Developing a deep depth chart at DT will be a positive as the season goes along.
 
RickinDayton said:
That is something the DT room can't afford. Every practice rep counts. Oh well, Wafle & White get reps and hopefully are ready to go on August 30th in case Blanding can't.
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Reading now that the Blanding injury is going to take awhile. Not sure if it is out for the year but sounds like it is quite awhile. Also some chatter that Gilliam looks good but isn't he still a RS Freshman? Roster says he's 302 now so probably has the size already. What they are talking about with him is his twitch. Apparently batted some balls and picked off Allar.
 
LudicrousSpeedGO! said:
Reading now that the Blanding injury is going to take awhile. Not sure if it is out for the year but sounds like it is quite awhile. Also some chatter that Gilliam looks good but isn't he still a RS Freshman? Roster says he's 302 now so probably has the size already. What they are talking about with him is his twitch. Apparently batted some balls and picked off Allar.
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Franklin mentioned Gilliam as the 3rd DT in the Spring, behing Durant and Ford, so he must have clearly separated himself from the rest of the young DT's during the Spring for Franklin to have given him that designation so early in the pre-season. The rest of the young DT's, along with Blanding were competing for the 4th, 5th, 6th,.... depth chart spots going into Fall camp. Hope Blanding's injury is not something that keeps him out beyond the 3 OOC games. Franklin and Barnes will likely play Durant and Ford sparingly during the OCC games. The young DT's seem to need some game experience to really sort things out.
 
LudicrousSpeedGO! said:
Reading now that the Blanding injury is going to take awhile. Not sure if it is out for the year but sounds like it is quite awhile. Also some chatter that Gilliam looks good but isn't he still a RS Freshman? Roster says he's 302 now so probably has the size already. What they are talking about with him is his twitch. Apparently batted some balls and picked off Allar.
Click to expand...
Next men up. Let's go, seize the opportunity!
 
GregInPitt said:
Franklin mentioned Gilliam as the 3rd DT in the Spring, behing Durant and Ford, so he must have clearly separated himself from the rest of the young DT's during the Spring for Franklin to have given him that designation so early in the pre-season. The rest of the young DT's, along with Blanding were competing for the 4th, 5th, 6th,.... depth chart spots going into Fall camp. Hope Blanding's injury is not something that keeps him out beyond the 3 OOC games. Franklin and Barnes will likely play Durant and Ford sparingly during the OCC games. The young DT's seem to need some game experience to really sort things out.
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Blanding got praise from Durant. He was clearly #4, I believe. This is not great but maybe Wafle can show us something. White...who knows but can't believe he is ready at DT.
 
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