11-05-2018, 09:34 AM
Good analysis.
I read this as an implicit indictment of the prior O-line and D-line coaches. As I stated in a different thread, it is legitimate to conclude that Randy Hart's recruiting was not as good as recruiting under Anderson/Durkin. But for the six years he was in charge (2010-2015), the D-line was a strength of the team. I also noted the drop-off between 2014 and 2015; but we didn't really notice so much because our offense with Hogan and McCaffrey overshadowed this defect on the other side of the ball. Still, Hart's D-lines performed very well through our "stretch of excellence", which included five BCS bowls in six years.
Bloomgren joined in 2011 during Shaw's first year. I am not sure whether you have done a year-by-year recruiting analysis of the players Bloomgren recruited vs. the ones he inherited and whether there has been a significant fall-off from the pre-Bloomgren recruiting years. He seemed to be able to attract strong talent (Sarrell and Little were both 5-star in their class), but I don't have the complete overview. Nonetheless, the performance of the O-line, as you note, was strong through 2013, then began to soften. The part I don't understand is that we had a reasonably functional O-line last year that was opening up running lanes for Love. As you note elsewhere, Love's explosiveness masked some O-line issues we were having, because we had a lot of big runs and a bunch of nothing runs. This year, we have almost only nothing runs, which indicates a further deterioration in O-line play with basically the same players. If Carberry is better than Bloomgren, then he should have been able to make more out of this unit (accepting, of course, that there have been more injuries this year). In my view, the jury is still out on Carberry, but it is not an auspicious beginning; and I will be curious to see what kind of recruiting class he produces.
Bottom-line: we have a problem on both lines; and the Bradford M. Freeman Director of Football has some work to do. Ultimately, the buck stops with him.
I read this as an implicit indictment of the prior O-line and D-line coaches. As I stated in a different thread, it is legitimate to conclude that Randy Hart's recruiting was not as good as recruiting under Anderson/Durkin. But for the six years he was in charge (2010-2015), the D-line was a strength of the team. I also noted the drop-off between 2014 and 2015; but we didn't really notice so much because our offense with Hogan and McCaffrey overshadowed this defect on the other side of the ball. Still, Hart's D-lines performed very well through our "stretch of excellence", which included five BCS bowls in six years.
Bloomgren joined in 2011 during Shaw's first year. I am not sure whether you have done a year-by-year recruiting analysis of the players Bloomgren recruited vs. the ones he inherited and whether there has been a significant fall-off from the pre-Bloomgren recruiting years. He seemed to be able to attract strong talent (Sarrell and Little were both 5-star in their class), but I don't have the complete overview. Nonetheless, the performance of the O-line, as you note, was strong through 2013, then began to soften. The part I don't understand is that we had a reasonably functional O-line last year that was opening up running lanes for Love. As you note elsewhere, Love's explosiveness masked some O-line issues we were having, because we had a lot of big runs and a bunch of nothing runs. This year, we have almost only nothing runs, which indicates a further deterioration in O-line play with basically the same players. If Carberry is better than Bloomgren, then he should have been able to make more out of this unit (accepting, of course, that there have been more injuries this year). In my view, the jury is still out on Carberry, but it is not an auspicious beginning; and I will be curious to see what kind of recruiting class he produces.
Bottom-line: we have a problem on both lines; and the Bradford M. Freeman Director of Football has some work to do. Ultimately, the buck stops with him.