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Spring practice is coming soon, and Clawson said earlier that all positions were open for competition. What all races are of great importance and who's in contention? Here's a few that stick out to me:

QB: Schilz, Hurley, Johnson
I don't think Johnson will be competing yet and will redshirt, so that means we'll have a RS-soph, RS-fresh, and true fresh. So basically the competition will probably be Schilz vs. Hurley. I don't know a ton about Hurley, but I liked what I saw out of Schilz a lot until the injury, and it seems like he never really hit again the level he was playing against Troy and Marshall. This should be a great race and the competition will make all three better players.

RB: Hopgood, Pettigrew, Geiger, Mays, Martin
I don't know a thing about Martin. I've seen very little out of Mays. I saw Geiger play in last year's spring game and I was really impressed. He reminded me a lot of a young P.J. Pope. Pettigrew put on a great show vs. Boise State's second string, but I believe he was injured most of this past year. Hopgood showed us moments last year, mostly out of the wildcat. He's got room to grow, but I think he could turn out well, especially on third-and-short. And of all of these guys, the oldest is Pettigrew as a Jr. Also, depending on how things fall, Jason Rice could get back into the mix at RB if his knee is back to 100%. He absolutely destroyed Kent's defense and Ohio's defense in 2008 and did a pretty good job against UB until getting injured. I really thought for a while he was going to be the next great tailback at BG, but it seems like his knee didn't heal really well. Also, Steve Dunlap could find his way back into the mix. Clawson really liked what he saw out of Dunlap going into 2009, and he did pretty well in that spring game.

Kicking duties: Phillips, Stein, Burkhardt, Oczypok, Tate, Schmeidebusch
Saying we've had kicking problems recently is a bit of an understatement. However, I do believe this year it is Jerry Phillips' time to shine. I do believe Phillips will be our KOS and our P. PK could go to anybody. If Phillips is handling punting and kickoffs, I'd rather see somebody else do placekicking so he could focus as much time as possible on that during the week. Schmeidebusch transferred from Findlay, and I've heard good things about him. I wouldn't be surprised if it's down to Schmeidebusch and Tate for PK and Phillips handles P and KOS.

Other thoughts on position races?

Mark:

I think it's awfully difficult to assess our offensive skill position players because of our spotty O Line play last year. If that solidifies, I believe all of our backs and receivers are going to look a lot better.

MarkL wrote:Kicking duties: Phillips, Stein, Burkhardt, Oczypok, Tate, Schmeidebusch
Saying we've had kicking problems recently is a bit of an understatement. However, I do believe this year it is Jerry Phillips' time to shine. I do believe Phillips will be our KOS and our P. PK could go to anybody. If Phillips is handling punting and kickoffs, I'd rather see somebody else do placekicking so he could focus as much time as possible on that during the week. Schmeidebusch transferred from Findlay, and I've heard good things about him. I wouldn't be surprised if it's down to Schmeidebusch and Tate for PK and Phillips handles P and KOS.

Schmeidebusch is a very good punter. Expect him to be handling those duties this year as he's the only true punter on the roster.

Directly from the source "We have 4 kickers on the roster that will never kick for us." It's comments like that that make me realize how big of a hole those guys have dug themselves into. Things can always change, of course, but someone's REALLY going to have to step up if they want to earn another shot. The pk job is already Tate's to lose.

I'm most excited to see how the QB situation plays out. I agree that it's likely Schilz and Hurley will battle it out this year, and next year we'll add Johnson to the mix and do it all over again. Now that's a good problem to have.
It'll also be interesting to see which freshmen, both redshirt and true 1st year, step up and get some pt this season.

On the QB race ...

While it's great to have competition, at some point you really want one player to pull away from the pack and be THE guy. I remember the AT/Sheehan rotation and not fondly. It wasn't until Sheehan took the reins and AT became our utility player that the offense really came together. Oh, and Barnes was in that mix at some point, wasn't he?

I think you can throw Jason Rice in the mix at RB.

Warthog wrote:I think you can throw Jason Rice in the mix at RB.

That would be AWESOME.

Loved seeing him catch fire his freshman year.

Third that on Rice. If this team cannot run the ball, we don't have a chance to win many games.

I would think Pettigrew, Hopgood, Mays and Martin are all more likely to be the primary RB than Rice...and Anthon Samuel coming in this fall could be as good as any of them.

I'm interested in seeing who emerges as DE, CB and the O-line. I think LB, interior D-line, TE, QB and WR are going to be ok. Safeties and running backs are somewhere between ok and uh oh.

DE we have one guy with any experience, Goble and he is recovering from injury. Then we have complete unknowns. Walker, Thomas, Gilbert and the incoming class.
CB we have Truss and Adrian Spencer and then Aunre Davis has a little playing time.
the combination of these two areas not producing could be trouble for us. Let's hope some unknowns show up big time.

I'd like to see who emerges on O-line as well. Hopefully Bojcic and Lewis are fully recovered. Then lets hope the JC transfers step in quickly to the 2-deep.

Redwingtom: did you say something?

Boys with post like these Im stumped for word and glad you have done your homework. My hats off to all ya and it's great reading. For some strange reason I feel better about the team. I'm not going to put the falcons down only when my meds were off.

Siborg wrote:I'm interested in seeing who emerges as DE, CB and the O-line.

On that note, I'm interested in seeing where Jordon Roussos lands. We recruited him at DT and I figured between him and Jones, we'd be set at DT nicely. Then we had all kinds of offensive line injuries and he had to switch to playing guard while Jones single handedly destroyed the CMU offense. Roussos played very well and gave it his all, though he was out of position on occasion, as expected for a guy starting in a position after learning it only for a week. You can coach how to be in the right position, but you can't coach energy, passion, and commitment, which he definitely has. So I could see Roussos hanging out on the offensive line, moving back to DT, or maybe even getting it at DE. Wherever he lands, I'm sure he'll be quite good.

Similar situation with Dominic Flewellyn. He stepped in at C after Boijicic got hurt and played really well. Obviously, Boijicic is the center, but I bet Flewellyn will still play on the line, possibly at guard. But whatever happens, I just hope we can pick five guys to play on the O line and see those five remain healthy all year. Whenever one guy gets hurt and another has to come in, the entire O line chemistry is knocked out of whack.

Was Rice moved back to Running Back?

Falcon137 wrote:Was Rice moved back to Running Back?

That's what I have heard.

Warthog wrote:

Falcon137 wrote:Was Rice moved back to Running Back?

That's what I have heard.

I just hope he stays HEALTHY this year!