This is P.J. writing: Why are my offensive and defensive lines so thin?

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Trisuper

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Now that I have been exposed by GopherHole posters as the head football coach at the U of M that I surely am, I feel more free to write about football team matters that really concern me. The biggest one has to do with the lack of depth on our defensive and offensive lines.
I said this week that we will have only six offensive lineman who will be healthy enough to participate in spring practice. We are heading into the seventh year of the era that began with the hiring of Kill/Claeys. How can a program established over this period of time have so few offensive linemen capable of competing. My WM team played Wisconsin in the Cotton Bowl and they had a very deep set of offensive lineman and an even better defensive line. That latter group certainly destroyed their Gopher opposition last November.
Finally, we had to really scramble to sign defensive lineman on 2/1/17. Claeys left the cupboard almost completely bare after this year's seniors graduate.
 

Trisuper said:
Now that I have been exposed by GopherHole posters as the head football coach at the U of M that I surely am, I feel more free to write about football team matters that really concern me. The biggest one has to do with the lack of depth on our defensive and offensive lines.
I said this week that we will have only six offensive lineman who will be healthy enough to participate in spring practice. We are heading into the seventh year of the era that began with the hiring of Kill/Claeys. How can a program established over this period of time have so few offensive linemen capable of competing. My WM team played Wisconsin in the Cotton Bowl and they had a very deep set of offensive lineman and an even better defensive line. That latter group certainly destroyed their Gopher opposition last November.
Finally, we had to really scramble to sign defensive lineman on 2/1/17. Claeys left the cupboard almost completely bare after this year's seniors graduate.
Click to expand...

Ski-u-mah
Row the Boat!
 

Because for all the good things the previous staff did, they were not very good recruiters. I'm not merely talking about rankings or stars, but they seemed to be sub-par at roster management. They did a great job with DBs and RBs, and a pretty good job with LBs, but it seemed like the other positions were regularly in flux. I'm not saying they were disastrous or anything because they did hit on nice players at other positions but we just never seemed to have the same sort of depth that our geographical peers enjoyed.

Admittedly, injuries and bad luck played a part - but that kind of proves the depth issues...all teams go through injuries and bad luck.
 

I sincerely want to thank GopherHomer for his serious, informed and polite reply. This is what one hopes to see on GopherHole. I think P.J. will be a much better recruiter than Kill and Claeys were. He's already shown this year he can start to do what GopherHomer discusses here--managing the roster.
 

GopherHomer said:
Because for all the good things the previous staff did, they were not very good recruiters. I'm not merely talking about rankings or stars, but they seemed to be sub-par at roster management. They did a great job with DBs and RBs, and a pretty good job with LBs, but it seemed like the other positions were regularly in flux. I'm not saying they were disastrous or anything because they did hit on nice players at other positions but we just never seemed to have the same sort of depth that our geographical peers enjoyed.

Admittedly, injuries and bad luck played a part - but that kind of proves the depth issues...all teams go through injuries and bad luck.
Click to expand...

Given that they won 8+ games 3 out of 4 years, if they weren't very good recruiters, they must've been exceptionally phenomenal coaches.
 


Trisuper said:
This is what one hopes to see on GopherHole. I think P.J. will be a much better recruiter than Kill and Claeys were. He's already shown this year he can start to do what GopherHomer discusses here--managing the roster.
Click to expand...

Why is PJ talking in 3rd person now?
 

There are 12 scholarship OL who could participate in Spring practice plus some non scholarship guys. Only about half are going to be able to fully participate due to off season surgeries. Really can't fault anyone over that. We have plenty of depth on the OL. I would imagine being a little thin at OL during the spring happens from time to time at programs across the country.
 





Trisuper said:
Now that I have been exposed by GopherHole posters as the head football coach at the U of M that I surely am, I feel more free to write about football team matters that really concern me. The biggest one has to do with the lack of depth on our defensive and offensive lines.
I said this week that we will have only six offensive lineman who will be healthy enough to participate in spring practice. We are heading into the seventh year of the era that began with the hiring of Kill/Claeys. How can a program established over this period of time have so few offensive linemen capable of competing. My WM team played Wisconsin in the Cotton Bowl and they had a very deep set of offensive lineman and an even better defensive line. That latter group certainly destroyed their Gopher opposition last November.
Finally, we had to really scramble to sign defensive lineman on 2/1/17. Claeys left the cupboard almost completely bare after this year's seniors graduate.
Click to expand...

Defensive line was an issue.

Offensive line - - You have a ton of depth. You have 10 scholarship OL. You are returning 3/5 starters and 8/10 on your two deeps. There happens to be a lot of injuries right now in that group, but the Gophers are returning a ton of depth at OL.

I don't think you really follow the team.

I will have to say, I am SHOCKED that someone whose first post was defending the process of suspending the players also turned out to be someone whose hatred for Claeys was at least partially motivated by some non-fact they got stuck in their simple head. I'm shocked.
 

Trisuper said:
Now that I have been exposed by GopherHole posters as the head football coach at the U of M that I surely am, I feel more free to write about football team matters that really concern me. The biggest one has to do with the lack of depth on our defensive and offensive lines.
I said this week that we will have only six offensive lineman who will be healthy enough to participate in spring practice. We are heading into the seventh year of the era that began with the hiring of Kill/Claeys. How can a program established over this period of time have so few offensive linemen capable of competing. My WM team played Wisconsin in the Cotton Bowl and they had a very deep set of offensive lineman and an even better defensive line. That latter group certainly destroyed their Gopher opposition last November.
Finally, we had to really scramble to sign defensive lineman on 2/1/17. Claeys left the cupboard almost completely bare after this year's seniors graduate.
Click to expand...

PJ, quit trying to set up excuses. I thought you were elite and would communicate honestly. You have plenty of offensive linemen, just happen to maybe be a little thin in the spring due to some injuries. That happens. In fact, happened to the neighbors to the east the last couple springs and we all hoped that meant their demise.

I think the real PJ acknowledged they were thin for spring, and wasn't speaking about Fall camp.

The defensive line is in great shape this fall, and gives him time to get some players in and developed for the following year. I'm sure that's why we saw the JC recruit in addition to freshman. It's college football, you are going to be thin in spots due to some recruits not working out, a transfer or injury.


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GFBfan said:
There are 12 scholarship OL who could participate in Spring practice plus some non scholarship guys. Only about half are going to be able to fully participate due to off season surgeries. Really can't fault anyone over that. We have plenty of depth on the OL. I would imagine being a little thin at OL during the spring happens from time to time at programs across the country.
Click to expand...

You would have thought PJ would have known that. In fact, I would expect anyone who follows the team close enough to start a thread on the topic would have known that.


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Spoofin said:
You would have thought PJ would have known that. In fact, I would expect anyone who follows the team close enough to start a thread on the topic would have known that.


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Click to expand...

PJ is pretty busy.
 

Trisuper said:
Now that I have been exposed by GopherHole posters as the head football coach at the U of M that I surely am, I feel more free to write about football team matters that really concern me. The biggest one has to do with the lack of depth on our defensive and offensive lines.
I said this week that we will have only six offensive lineman who will be healthy enough to participate in spring practice. We are heading into the seventh year of the era that began with the hiring of Kill/Claeys. How can a program established over this period of time have so few offensive linemen capable of competing. My WM team played Wisconsin in the Cotton Bowl and they had a very deep set of offensive lineman and an even better defensive line. That latter group certainly destroyed their Gopher opposition last November.
Finally, we had to really scramble to sign defensive lineman on 2/1/17. Claeys left the cupboard almost completely bare after this year's seniors graduate.
Click to expand...

You never struck me as a glass half empty guy, PJ. Has the local media already infiltrated your epic aura of positivity?
 


dpodoll68 said:
Given that they won 8+ games 3 out of 4 years, if they weren't very good recruiters, they must've been exceptionally phenomenal coaches.
Click to expand...

8 is not a lot when you schedule 4 gimmies every year.
 



dpodoll68 said:
Given that they won 8+ games 3 out of 4 years, if they weren't very good recruiters, they must've been exceptionally phenomenal coaches.
Click to expand...

I don't disagree. Now we just have to hope that PJF can be a better recruiter while not losing anything on the coaching side. There's no guarantee, but I think the next 4 years with Fleck have a higher upside than we would have had with Claeys. We shall see...
 

Bob_Loblaw said:
Then we should do it almost every year, right?
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We can't expect that. Got to change the culture and didn't you know we now have no OL or DL, breaking in a new QB, secondary is completely decimated, well now that some of the suspensions have been overturned, maybe just decimated and the schedule this year is considerably tougher. Sarcasm all the way around on this.
 

GFBfan said:
We can't expect that. Got to change the culture and didn't you know we now have no OL or DL, breaking in a new QB, secondary is completely decimated, well now that some of the suspensions have been overturned, maybe just decimated and the schedule this year is considerably tougher. Sarcasm all the way around on this.
Click to expand...

You know GFB, it's almost impossible to tell to the difference between a satirical post (like yours) and real posts.

I got a chuckle.
 

GopherHomer said:
Because for all the good things the previous staff did, they were not very good recruiters. I'm not merely talking about rankings or stars, but they seemed to be sub-par at roster management. They did a great job with DBs and RBs, and a pretty good job with LBs, but it seemed like the other positions were regularly in flux. I'm not saying they were disastrous or anything because they did hit on nice players at other positions but we just never seemed to have the same sort of depth that our geographical peers enjoyed.

Admittedly, injuries and bad luck played a part - but that kind of proves the depth issues...all teams go through injuries and bad luck.
Click to expand...

The funny part is that a large portion of this board was calling for Claeys to get the permanent job last year specifically so there wouldn't be any decommitments.
 

justthefacts said:
The funny part is that a large portion of this board was calling for Claeys to get the permanent job last year specifically so there wouldn't be any decommitments.
Click to expand...

I don't remember that being part of people's thought process. It certainly could have been. I wanted Claeys to stay on as coach, but it had nothing to do with recruiting or making sure we didn't lose commits.
 

justthefacts said:
The funny part is that a large portion of this board was calling for Claeys to get the permanent job last year specifically so there wouldn't be any decommitments.
Click to expand...

That's a good point. The unusually high amount of high caliber local recruits in 2016 made that a very nice class - probably a bit of an outlier but impressive nonetheless. At that point, I definitely wanted Claeys to stay on for fear of losing Coughlin and the rest. Maybe that makes me a hypocrite, but in fairness, I had never heard of PJ Fleck or any other dynamic options at that point.

Kind of getting off topic here, but I think the dismissing of Claeys was a forgone conclusion in the eyes of Coyle and there were probably 3 options:

1) Fire him right away (which I was against for the reasons above)
2) Fire him after 2016 if there was an exciting hire to be made
3) Fire him after 2017 when there would almost surely be a decline in performance (speculation on my part - based on breaking in a new QB)

Now, I may not be in favor of all the circumstances that transpired to making option #2 a reality, but I think we are dealing with a 'best-case scenario' with having Fleck on board right now.
 


The OL and DL lines are so thin because Old Country Buffet went out of business. Panama Jack needs to let the boys graze at the pasta bar with free pitchers of beer. Before you know it those boys will no longer be thin. [emoji481] [emoji482] [emoji482] [emoji487] [emoji489] [emoji509] [emoji513] [emoji514] [emoji507] [emoji506] [emoji482] [emoji482] [emoji482]
 

A lot of o line injuries the last 2 years with several players quitting football completely


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#coacheslivesmatter
 



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