Michigan Football: Mailbag Question — The Offensive Line

Posted at 6:00am — 8/16/2008

Michigan Football: Mailbag Question — The Offensive Line

My question is why the big concern about our offensive line? I understand the in-experience part, but if you look at the recruiting of Michigan’s verses WVU, we have recruited better rated lineman with comparable speeds in the 40. These of course are only numbers on a page, but with the conditioning from Barwis, speed should not be an issue. I truly believe our running game should shock the country for a first year system. Have faith people and remember these kids that were recruited are top-notch athletes.

GO BLUE and Thanks.
From a Michigan-man born in the GREAT STATE UP NORTH, living behind enemy lines in Columbus, Ohio.
David

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GBMWolverine Response:

Concerns are threefold in our opinion.

First is lack of experience, only one returning Offensive linemen has any meaningful playing experience. At more than any position with exception of quarterback, experience counts in the offensive line.

Second is time together. Cohesion, working together is major bonus in offensive line play. Linemen need to have confidence that the linemen next to them are going to be there when they work a combination block together.

Third concern is we are not sure exactly how talented these people are. We are not overly concerned with how the services rated these players, or how many stars they have. What we judge them on is performance.

After watching the offensive line this spring, we came away with concerns about play at offensive center, especially the snap. We also have concerns with group’s ability to pass protect and pick up blitzes, etc.

We did see enough talent to have hopes that if group stays healthy they have ability to be competent offensive line.

We should add a fourth concern, depth. There were seven solid linemen and an eighth we thought had potential to contribute.

We love the excitement and enthusiasm, but we try and be realist here as well. We don’t see the running game being anything special or for that matter this offense this coming year. One example we can tell about that happened during spring practices was it took 4 shoot-gun snaps to finally get the ball back to the quarterback and believe us Coach Rod wasn’t very happy about it. One time he even kicked the ball back and hit the center in the back.

We think the offense can improve a little bit from this spring, but we don’t believe it will improve enough to warrant all the excitement that your showing, but each is their own and it is nice to be able to believe that things will be picked up that easily and we hope we are wrong.

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Written by GBMWolverine Staff

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