The unofficial online home for fans of the UAB Blazers. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

Wanted to take a look at our 2-deep from the beginning of the season and see how many games those guys played to judge the impact of injuries. Earliest depth chart I could find was for the LSU game. And, of course, a game played (gp) could be just one snap:

POS Player, YR; games played-games started

Z - Nelson, JR; 10/7
- Green, FR; 9/0
- Powell, SO; 11/4

OT - Ike, SR Offensive line is not broken out in the published stats
- Green, SR so if anyone can fill in the blanks please do.

OG - Byrd, SO
- Sylvester, JR

C - Autrey, SR
- Hix, JR

OG - O'Leary, JR
- Blankenship, SO

OT - Salako, R-FR
- Carter, SO

TE - Backman, JR; 12-8
- Pruitt, SR; 11-3

QB - Brown, SO; 9-7
- Perry, SR; 10-5
- Briscoe, FR; 0-0

RB - Reaves, JR; 12-6
- Franklin, SR; 12-0 (only 19 carries so most time was at SAFETY)
- Howard, FR; 11-5

FB - Jones, SR; 12-5
- Gray, R-FR; 6-0 (looks like all PT was on defense)

W - D. Adams, SO; 11-1
- N. Smith, JR; 10-2

X - Staples, FR; 10-8
- Height, SO; 11-2

*I know we were counting on Humphries at WR even though he never appeared on a depth chart.

DE - Boyett, SR; 10-4
- Walton, SO; 8-4

DT - Morris, SO; 11-4
- Casanova, SO; 8-0

DT - Scott, SR; 11-10
- Wright, SO; 0-0

DE - Watkins, JR; 11-11
- Rabb, SO; 11-7

JACK - Slaughter, SO; 11-8
- McCollum, FR; 0-0
- Alston, FR; 7-0

MIKE - Bastien, SR; 12-5
- D.J. White, SR; 11-8

WILL - Challenger, SO; 5-5
- S. Jones, SO; 12-0

BUCK - Ganus, SO; 12-11
- Crews, SO; 8-1

CB - Jean, JR; 12-12
- Farmer, SO; 7-5

SS - C. Jones, SR; 2-2
- N. Jackson, FR; 12-4

FS - Maclin, FR; 5-3
- Landers, SO; 8-5

CB - Webb, SR; 11-4
- Brackett, SO; 11-7

Guys that had to step up (or earned a step up):

(Again, if anyone can fill in the OLinemen that had to step in. Plus, I'm not going to try to guess the class for these guys.)

RECEIVERS
Henderson; 10-5
Hrabowskie; 10-2

DEFENSE
Petty, 10-7
Landers, 8-5
Grissett, 12-2
Crumbley, 6-2
Parrish, 8-0
S. Roberson, 9-0
D. Brown, 10-0
J. Davis, 2-1
Noriega, 12-0

No help with OLine info? I don't think our injuries there were too severe. Can't remember if we moved a bunch over to DLine or just a couple.

The OL was a mish mash unit this year.

Blankenship may have started 2 games or so, but filled in for several others.

Sylvester & Neumann started at least 1 game with Sylvester maybe even starting 2. He played the last couple of games.

Hix also played in a few games, possibly starting a game or two before his injury.

At the end of the season we had almost all "backups" sort of speak with Autry on the line.

(Blankenship & Hix started some the previous year)

I think Autry may have started & played every game even though he might have been injured as well along the way.

It would take a major detailed audit of our player's playing time per games to get an accurate read on the effect of injuries on our team this season. It is also a problem that injuries might have slowed several players more than a step or two while not keeping them out of games entirely. The coaches may not publish such info since it may sound like excuse making, but it can be the very real reasons for failures on defense. Arriving a step or two late for a tackle can mean "grabbing" rather than "hitting" an opposing player.

Going from memory, most of our oline stayed intact during the year as far as starters until the last couple of games when a couple went down w/ season enders. Some did see some playing time during the odd game during the season w/ a player going down w/ some kind of ankle injury type thing that kept them out for the rest of that game or part of it but back for the next. As far as injury bug the OL stayed pretty healthy till the end of the season when it fell apart.

This depth chart shows some glaring holes on the D.

(12-13-2013 05:52 PM)Big Dee Wrote:  This depth chart shows some glaring holes on the D.

That jumped out to me as well. Of the 22-23 players on our early season defensive depth chart, only Scott, Watkins, Ganus, and Jimmy Jean were constant presences all season long...and Ganus had to be moved back to the secondary after looking like a stud at LB in our first few games.

Offense doesn't look as bad, but with no firm numbers on OL snaps that squad is kind of subjective (and didn't seem to be a problem until late in the year).

We always seem snakebit by injuries, but our defense was just decimated. The good news is that young guys got to play and we are unlikely to be hit as hard next year...if only because it's statistically improbable.

Well to my knowledge all scholarship OLinemen played outside of the true freshmen. If I had to guess a spring lineup while some may be injured

Salako Carter
Byrd Hunter
O'Leary Hix
Slyvester Sims
Blankenship Naumann

Which is not much of a second unit as of right now

Defense we have no interior line depth and Crumbley may be our best DT. We have six LB's with playing experience two former walk-ons. Top three corners one was a former walk-on. Safeties injured like the pick up of the JuCo kid Jackson to help here. I say until we get a lot of the walk-on back on the bench this defense will continue to suffer. Reminds me of my Cowboys with all these undrafted free agents.