I have seen enough of corcoran to last me a lifetime. Absolutely a bust. They do say O-line is the toughest to grade but everyone missed on him.
I thought Corcoran improved as the year went on. Benhart is the overrated one if you ask me. But the bottom line is they all have to play better. Teddy, despite the hype, has never really been the same since his injuries. I hope there is some real competition this year for starting jobs on the line and we don't just hand those starts to the veterans simply because they are veterans. We need our young talent to start doing some things. We need better run blocking in particular. However, there was for all intents and purposes zero threat of a real passing game last year so teams could load up against the run. It will be interesting to see if our passing game opens up if the run-in game does not improve dramatically as well.
Good list. I think you may see one of those young OL in the mix on the left side. Last years class was pretty good, and the incoming class is pretty solid as well. Going to have to get stronger, but did here some reports that some of the young OL were looking pretty good, just needed more S&C to be ready.
The OL will be decent. Corcoran is not a left tackle. Hopefully, he can focus on getting healthy and can finally play guard where he belongs. Teddy will be healthy for the first time in the off-season. He'll be better. Jenkins surprised me-- I agree with you that he's the odds on favorite at RG. We'll lose a lot of vets after next season. It will be crucial to develop backups and get them some playing experience.
Coleman can grow into a possession WR, but right now he and Lloyd can outrun most DBs. If Neyor is healthy, he and Fidone can be working at the line to gain and catch the balls in the middle.
Bullock should never see the field again. Awful.
If Nelson's the stud we think he is, there could be a hybrid pass-catching role for him in limited situations.
TE play has a direct correlation to the running game. If you can't run the ball with 5 OL, then you need to keep the TE in to block. If you need to keep the TE in to block, then the play action passes to the TE are ineffective.
The receiving ability of the TEs is suspect, but their blocking was a much bigger problem. That said, there's no reason not to think that they could improve next year.
Agree with the blocking, but with only 136 total receptions and 10 TD receptions, and the QBs inability to throw with any sort of accuracy, I am not sure we can really make much of an evaluation on the pass catching abilities of any receiver.
The TEs did not do the QBs any favors. None. Judging from last year, the passes better hit them between the numbers. Anything that wasn't put right on the TE's was dropped or tipped. But the blocking was worse. We lack that TE who can line up next to a tackle and handle an edge defender. Maybe Fidone can be that guy yet. Nelson will be a huge upgrade as a receiving TE, but next year opponents will know that he's always going to be split out if he plays TE. I would like to see him actually play WR next year. Huge target, work on his route running, and move to TE after he's been here a year.
My skills to evaluate what happened in the passing game are minimal, but I have to figure DCs looked at a kid like Fidone as someone who could gash them and planned accordingly. His limited playing experience plus the limitations of the QBs in the passing game did the rest.
You know, the vast majority of people on this board, and almost all of the other board, distill OL play to "well, if we run for a lot of yards and our QB doesn't have any pressure, then we're good. If not, then we're bad. It's way more complicated than that and it doesn't distill down to one play or one situation.
I agree with all of this. But there is also another possibility. You can have all of the things you mention above and still stink. Why? Because your lineman are just not very athletic. But all you say is of course true and more than likely we will see improvement. That is, if Raiola is a good coach and is not just here so that we got the QB we wanted...
To me Benhart's selection was a head scratcher. But what the hell do I know? I was a skinny wide receiver in high school and not a lineman.
Until Banks commits, we don't have a WR1 at the moment. I think one of the incoming guys will step up, but not to the level of a true No. 1.
This isn't a class that has a bunch of instant impact players other than DR and a wr or 2. We return most of the offense from the end of last year and our best players are more developmental like Nelson, Brix, and the other olineman. I think Barney and Smith play at wideout.
Teddy gets lumped in Benhart and Corcoran but he hasn't played even close to as much football as them even though he's been around a while. He really isn't that experienced. I haven't given up on him improving a lot.
QB was THE BIGGEST ISSUE in my opinion. I know everyone likes to dump on the OL but honestly you don't have a near the top of the conference rushing performance against B1G defenses if the OL was as bad as posters here make it out to be. Other than QB turnovers the next biggest issue was injuries.
I wouldn’t say Brix is developmental. He was the #6 tackle and #75 overall. He will be at NU for winter and spring. He should be ready to play and expected to compete for a spot on the depth chart.
If Brix plays significant minutes than things either went really good or really bad.
Agreed, I’m sick of sparing kids feelings. This is a generation of player that Insisted on being paid like pros. Well guess what you get to be evaluated like pros also. Corcoran is absolutely a bust. We’ve had 2 stars and 3 starts be far better lineman than him in the past.
I was on Benhart's ass for 2 years, but last year I thought he was totally serviceable. Nothing to shout about, but he improved a lot from 2 years ago.
One thing we often forget is that your left tackle is almost always drawing the defense’s best pass rusher. He played guard in high school. No high school team plays a D1 OT at guard…..unless he can’t play tackle.
Early on, i thought he had talent. Really good feet, good mobility, the best athlete among all the OLmen, but he just looks like he hasn't improved in the 4-5 years he's been here. huntered could be right, he might be lazy, but that won't play well at the next level.
I'm thinking we see about the same improvement in Corcoran next season that we saw in Benhardt last season. Since he's finally settling into his true position, maybe we get lucky and see a bit more development. Uncle Riaola is a good coach.
There's no way he's making an NFL roster at the current trajectory. It's a little surprising he even made our roster.
