apaladin wrote: ↑Sun Jun 30, 2024 11:45 pm
The Jackal wrote: ↑Sun Jun 30, 2024 6:19 pm
apaladin wrote: ↑Sun Jun 30, 2024 1:55 pm
DEFENSIVE LINE:
Nose Guard-(4) Xavier Stephens and 3 have not played.
Defensive End-(4) Jerimiah Jackson(12 tackles last year) and 3 have not played.
Defensive Tackle-(4) 1 career tackle total, 3 have not played.
Summary-2 players have played out of the 12 with one being elite. 10 of the 12 DL have not played. Only CCH and staff knows why this obviously inexperienced group was not addressed with the portal. A head scratcher for sure. Maybe CCH has bern talking to Dabo?
First, if the coaching staff was gravely concerned about our defensive line depth, they likely would have addressed it in the transfer portal. They haven't yet, so they probably aren't that concerned.
Second, you keep saying "have not played" and it's still wrong every time you say it. You can believe me or look it up yourself. There's literally photos of these guys playing.
Ok according to the bios on the FU page from last year stats:
Player. Games. Tackles
Stephens. 13. 35
Jackson. 13. 12
Harrison. 5. 1(assisted)
Dudek. 4. 4
Alabi. 1. 0
Stoneking 1. 1(assisted)
Have not played: (6) Dobbins, Kauserud, Baldwin, Hernandez, Bussey, Knauber. All are either freshmen or redshirt freshmen. So Stephens and Jackson played in every game last year. Harrison and Dudek have only played in a few games(5&4) in mop up time. Alabi and Stoneking only appeared briefly in one game. Besides Stphens and Jackson the other 10 combined have a career total of 2 solos and 4 assisted tackles. So if you want to count the last 4 just getting on the field as having played then ok. IMHO we have 2 players out of the 12 that have played.
If you have concerns that the defensive line does not have as much in-game experience as you would prefer, then that's fine. You can make that argument.
I would also note that most of the players you highlight with no game experience are true freshman. They haven't even reported to Furman yet. So, no great shock they have not played much considering they were in high school two months ago. You can also do that for every college football team in the country.
Beyond that, I do not think your assumptions hold a lot of weight.
It's not uncommon for Furman to run out "inexperienced" defensive linemen. Just off the top of my head:
- Bryce Stanfield played extensively as a true freshman.
- Cam Coleman had mop up duty as a true freshman and then started as a redshirt freshman.
- Parker Stokes played a lot as a true freshman
- Jaylan Reid went from scout team player to starter as a redshirt freshman.
- Matt Sochovka went from playing three games a redshirt freshman to starting the next season
- Jack Barton was an undersized lineman that played sparingly his first three seasons. He had something like 6 tackles in 3 seasons. In 2022, he became one of the most dominant defensive linemen in the conference and anchored one of the nation's best defenses.
It is not uncommon for Furman to run out inexperienced, yet talented, players along the defensive line. We do it all the time.
If Furman ran out crappy defenses every season, then maybe I would be concerned. They don't. Furman puts arguably the conference's best defenses on the field every season. So, you can't really argue this approach doesn't work. Furman recruits well. Develops well. And the guys are ready to play when their name is called.
Furman rotates their linemen constantly. Even for those guys that have not seen a lot of game time, a number of them will have well over 100 snaps to their credit before even sniffing the first SoCon opponent.
Remember, too, most of these guys aren't brand new to Furman. They've been in the program several years. They've worked behind all conference and all American players. They've practiced against the SoCon's top offensive linemen every day.
Trust the process.
