Our offensive line has been sub par since the middle of the 2013 season when JuCo David Born went down, leaving JuCo DJ Morrell to carry the load.
Here we are going into 2016 with way too many questions.
Connor Mewborne (like Morrell and Born, an FCS recruit), arguably our best O Lineman since 2013, is gone. Good kid but no Born or Morrell.
This move had to be made.
Our almost fully FBS O line in 2015 was not nearly as good as our 2012 FCS offensive line was. In fact, I submit it has actually gotten worse each season since.
We blamed it on being young. Sure. Young players lack technique, miss assignments, get penalties.
I don't know how many missed assignments we had.
I don't know how many technique issues there are.
I DO know that we should have seen substantially more holding, as young players are called a lot on holds until they learn how to mask them.
Aggression/frustration penalties ie personal fouls. We had almost none the whole season! Seriously, to me that indicated a marked lack of intensity; and when protecting the QB along with almost no holding calls, an inexplicable lack of urgency. Let's face it, a proper offensive lineman will do almost anything, including holding, tackling, tripping, clipping, cut blocking, etc. to protect his quarterback. If I had been an ODU QB I would have been scared to death.
Likely in 2016 technique will be better, reads will be better.
Intensity can be drilled somewhat, but a lot, if not most of that is personality.
Speed can be improved somewhat at this level. but I have my doubts with this group.
The 2015 line was big, but very slow.
These guys were likely the biggest on their respective teams in high school and basically just had to stand there.
Easier said than done of course, but IMO we should be recruiting smart aggressive
athletes that may not be the beefiest right out of high school, but can use a redshirt year to bulk up and learn the system.