[stupac2]

It’s also possible that in the absence of enough data to make the decision (and prior to the Rice game, there was exactly 0 film of Little playing in game conditions against FBS talent). The coaches waited until they knew Little was ready to start before starting him.  Even practice observations are going to be limited.  Sometimes you just don’t know what you have until you see him in action, and I would like to believe that the coaches aren’t starting people before they know how good they are in game situations at the college level.

As for people on this board, I would say that 90%, and probably even more comes from second hand accounts and his recruiting reputation, and virtually none of it comes from observing him in practice and games.  The reports on this board from the early games were somewhat mixed; I don’t think anybody said that he looked like a man among boys against Rice and U$C.  Even his first start against SDSU was nothing to write home about.  So, no, I don’t think the folks on this board were right from the get go beyond the overly simplistic “we struggled in pass protection last year and our line got beat by U$C, and look, we have the top ranked offensive tackle out of high school.”  Reputation counts for some, but raise your hand if last year you thought Herbig would be starting by mid year.

BC

Sure, but that's why you schedule these patsy games early on. What is the point of playing Rice if not to jump out to a commanding lead and then just see what guys can do? The competition is obviously not the best but it gets you a real A/B comparison in live game against players really trying to get to the QB. If there was any doubt about what the starting lineup should've been then they should have tried them out more thoroughly against Rice (IIRC the guys saw action but not as units and not very much), and if there wasn't doubt then why did they eventually switch?

It would be one thing if Little were still riding the pine or if there was an obvious injury somewhere that meant he was in as a backup, but the way this played out makes me think that two coaches disagreed with each other and one ended up winning out after a couple games, or something. It's very strange.

[stupac2]

It’s also possible that in the absence of enough data to make the decision (and prior to the Rice game, there was exactly 0 film of Little playing in game conditions against FBS talent). The coaches waited until they knew Little was ready to start before starting him.  Even practice observations are going to be limited.  Sometimes you just don’t know what you have until you see him in action, and I would like to believe that the coaches aren’t starting people before they know how good they are in game situations at the college level.

As for people on this board, I would say that 90%, and probably even more comes from second hand accounts and his recruiting reputation, and virtually none of it comes from observing him in practice and games.  The reports on this board from the early games were somewhat mixed; I don’t think anybody said that he looked like a man among boys against Rice and U$C.  Even his first start against SDSU was nothing to write home about.  So, no, I don’t think the folks on this board were right from the get go beyond the overly simplistic “we struggled in pass protection last year and our line got beat by U$C, and look, we have the top ranked offensive tackle out of high school.”  Reputation counts for some, but raise your hand if last year you thought Herbig would be starting by mid year.

BC

Sure, but that's why you schedule these patsy games early on. What is the point of playing Rice if not to jump out to a commanding lead and then just see what guys can do? The competition is obviously not the best but it gets you a real A/B comparison in live game against players really trying to get to the QB. If there was any doubt about what the starting lineup should've been then they should have tried them out more thoroughly against Rice (IIRC the guys saw action but not as units and not very much), and if there wasn't doubt then why did they eventually switch?

It would be one thing if Little were still riding the pine or if there was an obvious injury somewhere that meant he was in as a backup, but the way this played out makes me think that two coaches disagreed with each other and one ended up winning out after a couple games, or something. It's very strange.