(06-15-2016 03:27 PM)mrbig Wrote:  Agree with others that D-line is an area I would love to see Rice get some recruits. Rice has had lots of issues with the d-line in the last decade, from guys getting injured to leaving the program. Last year was particularly bad with injuries. Can't have too many of those guys as far as I'm concerned. That said, Abercrumbia, Thompson and Padgett all played last year as true freshman and showed a lot of flashes. Hopefully each of them stay all 4 years.

It's a numbers game to some extent. I think you have to recruit as many d-linemen as possible and then hope some sort of normal development pattern yields enough to play.

I liked the Fred Goldsmith approach. Recruit a lot of d-linemen and the ones who turn out not to be athletic enough to play d-line at the next level can be turned into useful o-linemen. Because d-line requires more athleticism, a guy who is a good enough HS d-lineman to get onto the recruiting radar can probably be a capable o-lineman at the next level if he doesn't pan out on defense. The downside to this approach is that your o-line will probably be small, although probably more athletic than most o-lines. That tends to drive what you can do offensively--more toward option and run-and-shoot types of schemes than heavy-duty drop-back passing. You will need a mobile quarterback who is good at making decisions on the run. I'm fine with that. Others may have different ideas. Would be interested in the thoughts of ruowls on this, but I don't see him around on here much these days. Hambone?