Eric Klein & Line Play

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SamSquatch

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I live in Denver and listen to Mark Schlereth on his daily morning local spaorts radio show while heading to work. Recently, while discussing Colorado's success this season, he talked about the importance of the strength and conditioning coach in both developing and setting the attitude of the lineman. Schlereth is also a former NFL O-lineman.

Our offensive and defensive lines have woefully underperformed in the recent past. Our offensive line recruiting may be our best recruiting area, yet our lineman are consistently mediocre to poor. How much blame does Eric Klein deserve for the underdeveloped line play?

I am not sophisticated on line play but Schlereth's statements made sense and I think they're applicable to the Gophs. I'd certainly like to see better play up front.
 

I think it is a legitimate argument and one of the reasons why Iowa and Wisconsin continue to crank out pro lineman and the Gophers don't.
 

Richardson should have a chance to play on Sundays after his eligibility is up. I'd imagine Pirsig may as well. Perhaps one of the Epke bros might stick on some practice squad.
 

frannyjunk said:
Richardson should have a chance to play on Sundays after his eligibility is up. I'd imagine Pirsig may as well. Perhaps one of the Epke bros might stick on some practice squad.
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Prisig will get a shot. As has been discussed here before, Richardson is very short. It will be difficult for him to make it.

Offensive and defensive lineman currently on NFL rosters: (Not including practice squads or TE's)

Minnesota: 1 - Ra'shede Hageman
Wisconsin: 9
Iowa: 15

And if the theory is right about the S&C coach making the most impact on lineman, this is why Iowa's is the highest paid in the country.
 

Glad to see someone is coming around to finally scrutinizing Eric Klein's work. Kill said he was the greatest strength and conditioning guy in the Western Hemisphere, but I've never seen it. Our line play on both sides of the ball is lacking. Richardson is the exception, but everyone else--including an athletic beast like Pirsig--is not showing much in terms of strength or speed. I thought those were Klein's areas of expertise and we were going to have the strongest, fastest team in the B1G.
 





Maybe we can hire one of Boyle's associates at Iowa. Klein certainly isn't getting it done. The new hire would be important for Claeys to keep his job. Maybe the reason our offensive line looks so soft is because they are soft. We can only hope.
 



ruppertflywheel said:
The OL yesterday was as bad as I've seen it. No push whatsoever .
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Who cares. They play "nasty" and that is what matters. Remember when everyone on here was fluffed over Bart Millers opening Press Conference. That was funny.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

The ONLY guy who seems to have an "edge" is Tyler Moore. Conner Mayes a highly recruited lineman from Texas has been relegated to part time duty. Pirsig to me is a big soft pussycat.
 

I don't like the idea of Claeys being replaced. But, I think an upgrade in S&C is certainly in order.
 

We can't blame it entirely on S&C Coaching. Wisconsin & Iowa have long established themselves as O-Line U before Kill & company came to MN. They land more of the quality O Line recruits in the Midwest and elsewhere by their reputation for putting linemen in the pros which we hope to emulate and be successful at.

It is no wonder Wisconsin dominates our division year in and year out. They can churn out those behemoths through their RS & S&C programs. They are close to the creme de la creme of the B1G.

It is no wonder they can run. Their QB is afforded precious fractions of a second longer protection compared to the protection that Mitch Leidner gets from the Gophers linemen.

To get any consistent running or passing game, the offensive linemen should be priority no. 1 in recruiting next to a blue chip QB. We can never have enough.
 



hungan1 said:
We can't blame it entirely on S&C Coaching. Wisconsin & Iowa have long established themselves as O-Line U before Kill & company came to MN. They land more of the quality O Line recruits in the Midwest and elsewhere by their reputation for putting linemen in the pros which we hope to emulate and be successful at.

It is no wonder Wisconsin dominates our division year in and year out. They can churn out those behemoths through their RS & S&C programs. They are close to the creme de la creme of the B1G.

It is no wonder they can run. Their QB is afforded precious fractions of a second longer protection compared to the protection that Mitch Leidner gets from the Gophers linemen.

To get any consistent running or passing game, the offensive linemen should be priority no. 1 in recruiting next to a blue chip QB. We can never have enough.
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It's not just Wisconsin and Iowa though.

North Dakota St, South Dakota St, South Dakota, Northern Iowa, and Minnesota State - Mankato all have more offensive lineman currently in the NFL than the Gophers.

Developing offensive lineman has been a huge issue since Mason left.
 

kill told us for years that Klein was the best s&c coach in the nation. that claim doesn't change just because we have a new coach.
 

Go4 said:
kill told us for years that Klein was the best s&c coach in the nation. that claim doesn't change just because we have a new coach.
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Same song and dance whenever there is a coaching transition. Didn't they make a big deal about changing training methods this offseason for the OL?
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
It's not just Wisconsin and Iowa though.

North Dakota St, South Dakota St, South Dakota, Northern Iowa, and Minnesota State - Mankato all have more offensive lineman currently in the NFL than the Gophers.

Developing offensive lineman has been a huge issue since Mason left.
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This sucks, but the fact that our facilities for developing linemen really sucks right now might have something to do with this. What I see is a lack of movement and agility in our linemen, we may have strength, what we don't have is the agility and quickness to maintain and sustain blocks driving forward. Low man, with leverage wins and we cannot maintain low enough pad level and drive forward with the legs enough right now.
Many do not understand that we do not have the specialized training equipment and areas that Wisconsin and Iowa have for linemen and we are just trying to catch up facilities wise. Minnesota hasn't made the investments in those programs that Iowa and Wisconsin have made, yet we want the same success. Takes a little money and investment to make these things happen.
 

gopherdudepart2 said:
This sucks, but the fact that our facilities for developing linemen really sucks right now might have something to do with this. What I see is a lack of movement and agility in our linemen, we may have strength, what we don't have is the agility and quickness to maintain and sustain blocks driving forward. Low man, with leverage wins and we cannot maintain low enough pad level and drive forward with the legs enough right now.
Many do not understand that we do not have the specialized training equipment and areas that Wisconsin and Iowa have for linemen and we are just trying to catch up facilities wise. Minnesota hasn't made the investments in those programs that Iowa and Wisconsin have made, yet we want the same success. Takes a little money and investment to make these things happen.
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What are the specialized training equipment and areas that Wisconsin and Iowa have that the Gophers do not? I'm honestly curious, as I'm pretty certain Wisconsin's lineman don't have anything different than the other players on the badgers do.
 

Gophers7NatTitlesBadgers0 said:
Maybe the line should be juiced up.
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The reality is that I believe close to 100% of NFL players are taking some form of PED and close to that at the elite college and high school level. And why wouldn't you if you school had a good program with micro-dosing, etc? I would like to see a true USADA testing done leading up to the CFB playoffs. You can't cost-effectively test all players on all teams - but they should institute a passport-style anti-doping program for the projected starters of all CFB playoff teams starting the day after the conference championship games and ending after the national championship game. If this were legitimate testing, I guarantee you get a bunch of players testing hot and/or having huge performance drop-offs. People thinking PEDs are not a huge part of the game in college are deluding themselves - testing even at the NFL level is no better than the WWE.
 

"What are the specialized training equipment and areas that Wisconsin and Iowa have that the Gophers do not? "

On a half-serious note - I would say that Iowa and Wisconsin have a slightly different genetic make-up than the Gophers. Obviously - this does not apply to out of state recruits. But, I think the Scandinavian body-type of the typical Minnesotan is different from the mainly German and Slavic body-types in Wisconsin and Iowa. The main difference being center of gravity. So, you are fishing from a different gene pool. Makes Scandinavians great at strongman contests but Germans/Slavs better at football. Now, this is not my argument originally - it was originally forwarded to explain the difference between black lineman and white lineman. And that ends on genetic/racist comment of the week.
 

MNBadgerGuy said:
What are the specialized training equipment and areas that Wisconsin and Iowa have that the Gophers do not? I'm honestly curious, as I'm pretty certain Wisconsin's lineman don't have anything different than the other players on the badgers do.
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Nm
 

Recruiting Stars Experts

I don't follow it closely enough, but of our recruits...aren't our offensive line recruits pretty highly rated coming in? Are Iowa and Wisconsin's offensive line recruits that much better on paper coming out of high school than the Gophers, the last couple years? It seems Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin are achieving better results with strength and conditioning than we are...if are our recruits are somewhat comparable coming in? And some of those higher rated O-line guys still are not on the field for the Gophers too, right? What's that say? Plus we have... what? 3 offensive line people from junior colleges who just walked in and started that our strength coach didn't touch prior to the season....hmmm
 

Lets say our strength and cond coach is not up to par. Bart Miller would realize this and go screaming to Claeys I am sure. His job is the one on the line.
 

GopherWeatherGuy said:
It's not just Wisconsin and Iowa though.

North Dakota St, South Dakota St, South Dakota, Northern Iowa, and Minnesota State - Mankato all have more offensive lineman currently in the NFL than the Gophers.

Developing offensive lineman has been a huge issue since Mason left.
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Mason and Shaw developed good college linemen, but they didn't send many to the pros either, which shows that sending linemen to the pros can be a bit misleading as a measurement of success in this department. That said, the game has changed fairly dramatically in some ways since Mason's departure and you need bigger and stronger guys now. We don't have them.
 

csom_1991 said:
The reality is that I believe close to 100% of NFL players are taking some form of PED and close to that at the elite college and high school level. And why wouldn't you if you school had a good program with micro-dosing, etc? I would like to see a true USADA testing done leading up to the CFB playoffs. You can't cost-effectively test all players on all teams - but they should institute a passport-style anti-doping program for the projected starters of all CFB playoff teams starting the day after the conference championship games and ending after the national championship game. If this were legitimate testing, I guarantee you get a bunch of players testing hot and/or having huge performance drop-offs. People thinking PEDs are not a huge part of the game in college are deluding themselves - testing even at the NFL level is no better than the WWE.
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Agree. It has crossed my mind on more than a few occasions that our main rivals might be playing a little fast and loose with the rules regarding PEDs while we are being straight and narrow. It's baffling how they can continue to take basically the same athletes and turn them into NFL caliber specimens while the Gophers struggle to keep a cohesive unit for the whole season.
 

Gophers7NatTitlesBadgers0 said:
Agree. It has crossed my mind on more than a few occasions that our main rivals might be playing a little fast and loose with the rules regarding PEDs while we are being straight and narrow. It's baffling how they can continue to take basically the same athletes and turn them into NFL caliber specimens while the Gophers struggle to keep a cohesive unit for the whole season.
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This is terrific. So Iowa and Wisconsin produce better linemen (not to mention pretty much every other Big Ten team), and the only possible reason for this is because they use PEDs? Really strong takes in this thread.

I'm still wondering what the specialized equipment and areas that UW and Iowa linemen have that the rest of the team doesn't have. But now I realize it's just steroids.
 

a little OT, but my only concern with Steve Richardson is tackling, I don't know if it's short arms or what, but he's always in the vicinity but often misses the tackle.

On Topic, I really don't think it's about S&C and it's more to do with the type of lineman Limey recruited. At least I'm willing to buy that argument. I don't think Orlando Pace or Steve Hutchinson would have been average lineman in our system with our S&C staff. I think NFL players are NFL players.
 

Dedicated areas for sleds and indoor areas.

MNBadgerGuy said:
What are the specialized training equipment and areas that Wisconsin and Iowa have that the Gophers do not? I'm honestly curious, as I'm pretty certain Wisconsin's lineman don't have anything different than the other players on the badgers do.
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Your program and Iowa have dedicated practice areas for sleds, for year round work, indoor areas that linemen can work on agility training that Minnesota does not. Even Nebraska has this and we do not.
That and our indoor practice facility is shared with a lot of other groups, something that is more dedicated at Wisconsin and Iowa and other Big 10 programs. Minnesota is in the process of building some new facilities that should help the program but one of the things they want to cut is the small indoor building dedicated to indoor work for linemen from the upgrade. Cutting that is a bad idea.
 

Spoofin said:
Who cares. They play "nasty" and that is what matters. Remember when everyone on here was fluffed over Bart Millers opening Press Conference. That was funny.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Agree. Like my long-dead father used to say (again and again and again . . .): "Talk is cheap. Pork costs money."
 

Players seem to improve in the S&C program. That is not an issue for this program. It just takes longer for o lineman to develop. Look at our Oline roster and the bulk of the squad has only been in the S&C program for 1-2 years with the exception being Pirsig.

It feels like our oline has been ok in the running game but improved from last years pass protection.
 

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