Areas of Concern that got help this Spring

[gofightingducks]

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/ncfnation/0- ... pring.html

Oregon: The Ducks lost three of four starting defensive linemen, including end Nick Reed, so this seemed like as big a question mark as the offensive line entering spring. Apparently not, at least according to coach Chip Kelly. Will Tukuafu should emerge from Reed's shadow as one of the conference's best ends, and tackle Brandon Bair and end Kenny Rowe stepped up. There's still competition at one tackle, but the Ducks' recruiting class included six defensive linemen, at least a couple of whom figure to see action.

My concern is if the D-Line looked good because they were going against a very young O-Line that was terrible

[BisonDucks]

C'mon, man, Rowe and Tukuafu are top shelf players. I am pessimistic about Bair's measurables (6'7" and 265) but the coaches have been high on him, so for now it's trust in the coaches. Turner and Taylor are quality back-ups at the end position. Toeaini and Ferras don't put butterflies in my stomach but should be serviceable. Ferras and Bair were productive last year. The Dline is far less a concern than the oline. Remember to that Montgomery and Iupati are very highly regard top 100 JUCO transfers. We really did score in the JUCO market this year. I love Montgomery's bio...I am really pulling for him.

[jimmyg]

Rover is obviously an area of concern in that we have to put Talmadge back there, he is pretty undersized for that spot. We really need Marvin Johnson to get healthy for the Fall.

[ducklydoright]

I'm concerned about both lines as well, but it's the defensive line that i'm most worried about and heres why:

* Our offensive line seems to be good, at the very least, every year, regardless of who we have playing and the stats we put up every year prove it.

* The offense we run requires a high level of discipline to defend and if a defender hesitates, which they often do, it makes the job of our OL that much easier. We also run the "No Huddle" which makes me tired just watching it.

* Coach Greatwood. Nuff said

As for the issues on the DL:

*We lose 75% of our starting DL from last year and we are not deep, which is something that worries me due to the fact that our defense in the past hasn't been very good at getting 3 & outs and getting themselves off the field. This is an especially big problem for us since a lot of college teams now are incorporating some form of "No Huddle" into their offense.

* Like I said above we have little depth on the DL, but we are the thinnest at the DT position and the guys that do have gametime experience haven't been all that impressive IMO.

* We are going to have to rely on some JC guys (Clark, Montgomery, Iupati) to fill some big holes and in the past JC players on the defensive side of the ball haven't made much of an impact for us in their first year. It's usually the 2nd year, if at all, where we start to see some production out of the JC guys. One reason for that, and this goes for any JC players on the defensive side of the ball, is because our defense is not "User friendly" and it's not very often that we have guys come in and make an immediate impact for us, because not only do they have to learn our highly sophisticated defense, but they also have to adjust to the speed of the game. One way for JC guys to improve their chances of making an impact is to enroll in school early so they can participate in Spring ball and at the very least be here by summer term to take part in the summer workouts that the players take part and lead themselves. Unfortunately the only one that I know of that is in school right now is Montgomery. There could be a couple more and if there isn't i'm hoping that the young guys coming in are quick learners.

Now obviously it's not all doom in gloom in my opinion, because we do have some bright spots on the DL, but for the DL to be successful I think we need these things to happen:

* Will Tukuafu is a beast and we really need him to control his side of the field so that if we have to we can cheat to the other side of the field where we aren't quite as strong and experienced.

* Kenny Rowe needs to show us that he can do more than just pass rush. Now I love Kenny Rowe and I think he is extremely quick off the ball and has a lot of good moves, but we need him to step up his rush defense and I for one think that come game day against BSU he will show us that he can do more than just come in on passing downs.

* Some of the JC guys HAVE TO STEP UP. Sure it's not likely to think that they will all come in and be stars, but I think that at least 1 of them needs to earn a starting spot and at least one more needs to be in the rotation.

* We also need some of the underclassmen to step. Now I would be pretty shocked/amazed if one of the freshman coming in made an immediate impact, but I think one of them is going to have to play. Hopefully it will be Glover so that we can redshirt the younger guys and let them adjust to College football.

Personally i think that our guys will step up and we will have another good season, but how good we are depends on the play of both our OL and DL. Your guys thoughts?

[UOducksTK1]

I'm concerned about both lines as well, but it's the defensive line that i'm most worried about and heres why:

* Our offensive line seems to be good, at the very least, every year, regardless of who we have playing and the stats we put up every year prove it.

* The offense we run requires a high level of discipline to defend and if a defender hesitates, which they often do, it makes the job of our OL that much easier. We also run the "No Huddle" which makes me tired just watching it.

* Coach Greatwood. Nuff said

As for the issues on the DL:

*We lose 75% of our starting DL from last year and we are not deep, which is something that worries me due to the fact that our defense in the past hasn't been very good at getting 3 & outs and getting themselves off the field. This is an especially big problem for us since a lot of college teams now are incorporating some form of "No Huddle" into their offense.

* Like I said above we have little depth on the DL, but we are the thinnest at the DT position and the guys that do have gametime experience haven't been all that impressive IMO.

* We are going to have to rely on some JC guys (Clark, Montgomery, Iupati) to fill some big holes and in the past JC players on the defensive side of the ball haven't made much of an impact for us in their first year. It's usually the 2nd year, if at all, where we start to see some production out of the JC guys. One reason for that, and this goes for any JC players on the defensive side of the ball, is because our defense is not "User friendly" and it's not very often that we have guys come in and make an immediate impact for us, because not only do they have to learn our highly sophisticated defense, but they also have to adjust to the speed of the game. One way for JC guys to improve their chances of making an impact is to enroll in school early so they can participate in Spring ball and at the very least be here by summer term to take part in the summer workouts that the players take part and lead themselves. Unfortunately the only one that I know of that is in school right now is Montgomery. There could be a couple more and if there isn't i'm hoping that the young guys coming in are quick learners.

Now obviously it's not all doom in gloom in my opinion, because we do have some bright spots on the DL, but for the DL to be successful I think we need these things to happen:

* Will Tukuafu is a beast and we really need him to control his side of the field so that if we have to we can cheat to the other side of the field where we aren't quite as strong and experienced.

* Kenny Rowe needs to show us that he can do more than just pass rush. Now I love Kenny Rowe and I think he is extremely quick off the ball and has a lot of good moves, but we need him to step up his rush defense and I for one think that come game day against BSU he will show us that he can do more than just come in on passing downs.

* Some of the JC guys HAVE TO STEP UP. Sure it's not likely to think that they will all come in and be stars, but I think that at least 1 of them needs to earn a starting spot and at least one more needs to be in the rotation.

* We also need some of the underclassmen to step. Now I would be pretty shocked/amazed if one of the freshman coming in made an immediate impact, but I think one of them is going to have to play. Hopefully it will be Glover so that we can redshirt the younger guys and let them adjust to College football.

Personally i think that our guys will step up and we will have another good season, but how good we are depends on the play of both our OL and DL. Your guys thoughts?

Good post btw^
I'm not too worried about our OL either. As long as we stay healthy, Greatwood will have these guys playing at a high level after a few games.

in other news, one thing I am worried about is Blount being on the cover of educk's magazine. I hope the curse is just my imagination...

[echo31]

* We are going to have to rely on some JC guys (Clark, Montgomery, Iupati) to fill some big holes and in the past JC players on the defensive side of the ball haven't made much of an impact for us in their first year. It's usually the 2nd year, if at all, where we start to see some production out of the JC guys. One reason for that, and this goes for any JC players on the defensive side of the ball, is because our defense is not "User friendly" and it's not very often that we have guys come in and make an immediate impact for us, because not only do they have to learn our highly sophisticated defense, but they also have to adjust to the speed of the game.

While our defensive schemes are difficult to learn, defensive line is probably the easiest.

[Tray Dub]

I'm more worried about o-line because a. they'll be tested early, and b. our offense is almost entirely dependent upon them. I don't think it's enough that Greatwood's the coach and we have a history of success there. It's kind of like last year's QB talent. We had a great position coach in Kelly, and we had a history of great QB's, but we REALLY struggled at the beginning of the season. If the o-line follows that same curve, I don't see us winning the BSU game. Hopefully the young guys will step up, but they got pretty manhandled at the spring game.

I'm worried about d-line too, but even if we have a bad d-line we have the talent at LB to at least not completely break down most of the time. Plus, Tukuafu is a great player. We don't have any great players on the o-line. We have young talent and some satisfactory experience, but no offensive lineman is anywhere close to Tukuafu.

[BisonDucks]

Jeremy Gibbs came in and was a two your producer at DT as a JUCO tranfer. I really don't know the sample size of DT JUCO guys that did or did not pan out but my best guess would be that DT is fairly easy compared to DB and Linebacker. I have a gut feeling about Montgomery; the guy has gone through a lot of adversity not qualifying out high school, getting his GED, serving 2 years in the military, having a daughter and wife to look after, and getting out of JUCO early take it to spring ball. In an article I read that he wants to work on stamina, so a summer to workout with Radcliff's oversight and this guy could be a beast. The fact is that we really only had a 5 person rotation last year with Linehan and Harris taking on the lion's share with Celotto, Ferras and Bair sprinkled in. Toeaini got mop up duty in the USU game. We are not that thin with Bair, Ferras, Toeaini, Montgomery, and Iupati being the top five guys. I really haven't heard much of Glover and Bellagamba but the former is a 3* scholarship athlete. The funny thing is that most of the time someone emerges out of nowhere.

[ducklydoright]

Yeah the OL didn't look that great but we were missing some key guys who were out to injury. What's going to determine how good we are on the OL is how fast they gel as a unit and maybe i'm just more optimistic about them because ever since 94' I can think of only a couple years where we weren't as solid on the OL as we usually are. So I guess i'm just playing the odds.

You guys are right about DT being the easiest to learn, but it's not as easy as it should be. I mean how many other teams drop DT's into coverage on a zone blitz? Not many. DE's maybe, but not the slowest guys on your defense.
The DT's are going to be the key IMO to whether or not we have a good year defensively. Sure you can have amazing LB's and Secondary play, but if we don't hold our own up the middle it won't matter if we have All-Americans in our back 7, we are going to be average at best defensively. The DT's have to at the very least stalemate there guys, cause a pile in the middle and force the OL to triple team our 2 DT's. If they can at least do that the DE's can work 1 on 1 if the TE isn't blocking and more importantly it keeps the OL from getting to the 2nd level and blocking our LB's. That will be the key; Can the the DL, especially the DT's, keep the opposing OL of our talented LB's so they can shoot the gaps and run down the ball carrier. I'm hoping so and I predict that if either Montgomery or Iupati steps up and has a good year we will be pretty solid up the middle.