[CTcard]

I don't think you should judge the efficacy of the OL based entirely on the spring game. Peat is a star and Murphy and Garnett have plenty of game experience. Graham Shuler made the Rimington Watch List.

I fully expect the OL to reload in 2014 and be just as good as it was in 2013. My main concern is injuries. We've been pretty fortunate the past few years, and I just hope the string of good luck combined with good training will continue.

I have been agreeing with wim on this issue for some time now. The O-line is the scariest combination of importance and uncertain prospects of any position group on the team for next year - and I don't think it's close.

While I certainly agree that the spring game is not a fool-proof measure of where the O-line was, much less where it will be on opening day - one might ask what other measure one can use to determine it is in good shape.

The main cause for optimism seems to be high rankings as recruits out of high school. Better than not I suppose, but I'd sure rather have actual production.
I am somewhat more encouraged by some fairly positive comments on individuals coming from the coaching staff during the spring, but those were neither overwhelming nor consistent.

Going down the apparent starters:
Peat is a star and has played like one.
Murphy has clearly shown some talent, and seems to be getting up to size. Has never started - but played a reasonable number of snaps at tackle.
Garnett seems to have struggled at times. He has two career starts as injury replacement (both vs WSU). Obviously a ton of potential.
Shuler has appeared in a few games, not many snaps. He's on the Rimington list almost entirely because Stanford now has a rep for producing good linemen and maybe partially because he was a top rated center out of high school. But he certainly didn't make the list because of any accomplishments at Stanford - he's barely played and almost never at center.
Caspers was reportedly struggling to win the starting position going into the spring game - but I think he played the entire time with the first string. I believe he's seen more snaps than Shuler - but not all that many.

More importantly than a player by player run down, this group has simply not played games together. No position group needs more cohesion than the O-line. If you watch some tape of a bad line (we saw way too much of this at Stanford in the first half of the 2000s), as often as not the problems aren't individuals being beat so much as somebody simply not being blocked, often accompanied by a double team of someone else. There was quite a bit of this sort of thing going on at the spring game - along with Caspers and Shuler looking like they were having trouble handling our D-guys one-up.

I think the positive take is that as an almost entirely new group it is expected that they will struggle at first. The difficulty is figuring out on what time scale improvement is coming.

[CTcard]

I don't think you should judge the efficacy of the OL based entirely on the spring game. Peat is a star and Murphy and Garnett have plenty of game experience. Graham Shuler made the Rimington Watch List.

I fully expect the OL to reload in 2014 and be just as good as it was in 2013. My main concern is injuries. We've been pretty fortunate the past few years, and I just hope the string of good luck combined with good training will continue.

I have been agreeing with wim on this issue for some time now. The O-line is the scariest combination of importance and uncertain prospects of any position group on the team for next year - and I don't think it's close.

While I certainly agree that the spring game is not a fool-proof measure of where the O-line was, much less where it will be on opening day - one might ask what other measure one can use to determine it is in good shape.

The main cause for optimism seems to be high rankings as recruits out of high school. Better than not I suppose, but I'd sure rather have actual production.
I am somewhat more encouraged by some fairly positive comments on individuals coming from the coaching staff during the spring, but those were neither overwhelming nor consistent.

Going down the apparent starters:
Peat is a star and has played like one.
Murphy has clearly shown some talent, and seems to be getting up to size. Has never started - but played a reasonable number of snaps at tackle.
Garnett seems to have struggled at times. He has two career starts as injury replacement (both vs WSU). Obviously a ton of potential.
Shuler has appeared in a few games, not many snaps. He's on the Rimington list almost entirely because Stanford now has a rep for producing good linemen and maybe partially because he was a top rated center out of high school. But he certainly didn't make the list because of any accomplishments at Stanford - he's barely played and almost never at center.
Caspers was reportedly struggling to win the starting position going into the spring game - but I think he played the entire time with the first string. I believe he's seen more snaps than Shuler - but not all that many.

More importantly than a player by player run down, this group has simply not played games together. No position group needs more cohesion than the O-line. If you watch some tape of a bad line (we saw way too much of this at Stanford in the first half of the 2000s), as often as not the problems aren't individuals being beat so much as somebody simply not being blocked, often accompanied by a double team of someone else. There was quite a bit of this sort of thing going on at the spring game - along with Caspers and Shuler looking like they were having trouble handling our D-guys one-up.

I think the positive take is that as an almost entirely new group it is expected that they will struggle at first. The difficulty is figuring out on what time scale improvement is coming.