Calling Vaccaro's personal foul against Mizzou a "dumb mistake" is akin to calling the 1972 Olympics men's basketball final "solid refereeing." My thoughts about each: 1. Okafor - even if he's not great, he's still going to be a first rounder in April. So I'm a little worried if his motor is in the same place as Orakpo's in 2008. He had a lot of "hit-and-miss" last year, where he'd bust up like 3 plays in a row, and then you wouldn't hear his name called for a few series. 2. Kenny V - He'll have to lead by example. I'm not as sold about his man cover skills as BR seems to be, as I recall quite a few big plays in big games against him. Either way, I'd much rather have him as the lynchpin back there than Gideon. 3. Goodwin - seems to be one of Ash's faves. Whether or not he's playing like he did in the Holiday Bowl all year will be his biggest problem. He should be spreading the field a lot more on nearly every series, instead of 3 times per game. 4. DJ Monroe - His "transition" to WR will probably be short-lived as Daje Johnson is also on campus now. He'll be relegated from jet sweeps to "every third jet sweep." I always thought he would take up the Fozzy role going back to his freshman year, but something has never clicked with him, especially in the passing game. Still, the occasional downfield pass would open up the run game more, and having a 4.3 guy at wildcat would be preferable to Brown or Bergeron running it. 5. DJ Grant - kind of like Goodwin... too many flashes and not enough consistency. Unfortunately, a lot of that falls on the QBs. I think McFarland supplants him as a go-to pass catcher, but he should still be serviceable, especially near the sidelines and in short yardage situations. 6/7. Roberson & Hills - shouldn't play much. If Hills is getting as many carries as last year, let's hope they're in garbage time when we're up by 7 TDs. While he has looked somewhat decent in his 3 prior years, it's generally because whoever was ahead of him was hurt at the time. 8. Poehlmann - apparently he's going to change jerseys midgame depending on what position he's playing. Not the mark of an "every down" kind of guy. He looked good as a blocking TE. It's kind of a shame he never panned out at tackle, considering our inconsistencies there the past two years. 9. Barrett Matthews - think he got a case of the drops at the worst possible time. Now he's mired down the chart. 10. Hales - He must really love attending class and earning a degree at Texas. 11. New punter guy from Duke - he'll play if he can get it around 40. He was averaging 41 last year. After watching Tucker shank rugby styles the last 4 years, it'll be a nice respite, even if for a short time.
Amazing thing is how little we are going to lose, and for the 2nd year in a row. But I guess that tells you why the team has struggled so much the last 2 years as well. Okafor doesn't look big enough now to play DE in NFL. I am wondering if they make him an OLB or if they are going to bulk him up. I would like to see him play DE around 280-290. Kenny has much to prove his senior year. I can't wait to see what he does this year.
"I would like to see him play DE around 280-290." Most college teams don't have a stable of DT's that big, let alone DEs. We've never used a DE that big under Mack unless you count when Ced Woodard was moved because of Shaun Rogers' emergence. Are you referring to his NFL prospects? Because you'd only need to be that big in a 3-4. Michael Strahan played at 260 for most of his career.
okay let's drop that down to 270 to 280. In 2005 we had: Robison - 275 Okam - 315 Wright - 315 Crowder - 270 That is a big DL that we just haven't had since then. We are getting back to that now and that is exactly what I want to see going forward. To also look at the 2005 OL: Scott - 315 Studdard - 305 Blalock - 329 Griffin - 275 Sendlein - 305 Dockery - 315 Allen - 315 Hills -295 We had this OL then that was build for the power running game and to block for Benson. Then all of a sudden we had this zone read game with Young, Charles, Taylor behind that and it was tough to beat.
