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Anyone interested in doing an in depth look at the team position by position.

I think it would be nice to share insight and layout the roster for next year.....


Dan Macon 6-1 210 Jr. (Redshirted to compete to be the man)
Bobby Thomas 5-10 200 So. (showed flashes last year)
Chris Bullock 5-11 220 Fr. (Brings size to the position)
Recruit: 5-9 200 Fr(r?) Vincent Corner

Not much production out of the group but the top two have shown flashes and Bullock can bring a punch that we have lacked. Please expound and expand on the little I have brought to the table. How do Thomas and Macon compare?

What are your thoughts, scouting reports on individual players?, ideas about who will start etc. etc.

My two cents worth ...

Macon takes over for P.J.
Thomas takes over for B.J.
Bullock is the third back

It will take some time for our offense to gel, but I feel pretty good about our running backs. Macon is going to surprise a lot of people and Thomas will have some impressive numbers by the time he hangs up his cleats.

What do you think about QB? Is AT for sure not playing against Wisky? Who will start? What is our depth?

Barnes is the back up. The number three guy right now is a walk on named Hunter. Trye freshman Glaud and Sheehan will hopefully get a year to learn, but based on his recruiting video, Glaud could pick up our offense pretty quickly. It looks like his HS offense was very similar to ours.

I'm not worried about RB at all. Macon was good enough to force them to play him as a true freshman and the same can be said of Thomas. Bullock looks good on the film I've seen.....but who knows how he'll do at this level.

You know, QB was something of a question mark in 2004; most folks here felt pretty good about Omar and he came through brilliantly. I don't sense the same air of confidence about AT; he was put into a tough situation last year and judging him on those performances may not be accurate. But his little brush with the law certainly doesn't help his standing in most fans' eyes.

1987alum wrote:My two cents worth ...

Macon takes over for P.J.
Thomas takes over for B.J.
Bullock is the third back

It will take some time for our offense to gel, but I feel pretty good about our running backs. Macon is going to surprise a lot of people and Thomas will have some impressive numbers by the time he hangs up his cleats.

I agree with '87. Macon is gonna be one hell of a back and Thomas did some solid things as a true Frosh last year. From what I've heard about Bullock, he could be a very punishing runner. We will definitely have to go back to more of a ground game ala J5 than the passing game with Omar at the controls...and I'm fine with that. Our O line should be solid again and create plenty of space for these backs to gain yards.

Yeah, what Freak said.

and when you can run the ball you run the clock and keep their offense off the field and the defense rests more.

I haven't seen Macon play in person but hope that he is every bit as good as PJ Pope, which is a tough act to follow when you consider PJ's ability to catch the ball out of the backfield.

There is always a question mark surrounding new players, especially the QB. Omar set some high expectations and I doubt that Turner will have the kind of sophomore season that Omar had. Turner needs to play within himself first and foremost. Only time will tell. I think Coach Brandon will adjust the scheme to take advantage of Turner's strengths.

I'm interested to hear anyone's opinion about Barnes. Like Coach Meyer used to say to the 2nd string: you're only one play away from being in the game. Anyone have any firsthand information?

From what I've read and heard, Glaud could be something special.

JohnnySwoop '85 wrote:Yeah, what Freak said.

and when you can run the ball you run the clock and keep their offense off the field and the defense rests more.

J-Swoop ~ good point. You know, looking back I wonder if the coaching staff got too mesmerized by the explosive passing game in recent years. Knowing our defense was suspect, they might have done themselves a favor by running the ball more (and more creatively), giving the defense a rest. Maybe we'll get back to that in '06.

1987alum wrote:

JohnnySwoop '85 wrote:Yeah, what Freak said.

and when you can run the ball you run the clock and keep their offense off the field and the defense rests more.

J-Swoop ~ good point. You know, looking back I wonder if the coaching staff got too mesmerized by the explosive passing game in recent years. Knowing our defense was suspect, they might have done themselves a favor by running the ball more (and more creatively), giving the defense a rest. Maybe we'll get back to that in '06.

You know this has been one of my many pet peeves with our current coaching staff in recent years. You win football games by running the ball effectively and stopping the run. We've gone away from running on our end and we haven't been able to stop the run. All those offensive numbers may have looked pretty but they didn't win us jack.

hammb:

Agreed. I thought we ran the ball very well in 2003. Just seemed when we needed to eat up some clock, we could do it. Maybe that's selective memory.

1987alum wrote:hammb:

Agreed. I thought we ran the ball very well in 2003. Just seemed when we needed to eat up some clock, we could do it. Maybe that's selective memory.

We showed the capability of running the ball very well in '03. At least that was my recollection as well. I think that PJ had some good success, even in the OSU game, off the top of my head without looking back.

I think the problem is that our running game then (and it worked) was completely predicated on misdirection and the deception of whether J5 or PJ had the ball. That worked because it was like having 2 tailbacks back there and teams had to respect Harris' ability. We ran a lot of counters with the QB faking. In fact I'd bet we had less than 4-5 total running plays, but they looked similar and it was always a question of which guy had the ball.

Those same running plays were VERY ineffective with Omar back there because he wasn't the same threat that Harris was as a runner. Even though we brought in good OL guys we still didn't seem to develop a lot of the straight ahead type power running plays (like simple off tackle runs), that should've been added to the playbook.

Hopefully they'll develop a more diverse running game. Or it is quite conceivable that AT's running threat will help those old plays start opening up again.

The point is if we cannot run the ball we wll not win.

What would a defensive coordinator do if we had AT and 2 RBs in a shotgun set?

BGDrew wrote:What would a defensive coordinator do if we had AT and 2 RBs in a shotgun set?

Crap his pants.

I love that set. It seemed every time we utilized it (read:Miami), we moved the ball like it was our job. I would be a very happy panda if we were in that set over 50% of the time. Now that RB seems to be a strength and WR is a bit of a question mark, it seems like the perfect time to do exactly that.