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.
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.
Things that affect how the OL "looks":
1. Do we have a good scheme where we're responsive to stunts and twists on the DL? This was a terrible problem with Frost's OLs and we saw a lot of that last season. This bodes to scheme and coaching.
2. Do we have a QB and signal scheme that gets us into the right play? This was a problem with AM, and all of the QBs last season. You can really make an OL look bad if you run plays to the other team's strength. This is something that TO was masterful at, running plays to the other team's weakness.
3. S&C, something that takes more than a year to develop. If you look at Corcoran and Nouli, you saw a LOT of bad weight. Is that the program, or just them. Also, these 2 seemed to get manhandled a lot by opponents who were just physically stronger. Could that be remedied by training better or do these kids need to be replaced (I know that Nouli is gone)?
4. Scheme. Are we running an offense that needs different types of OLs than we have? Are 6'-10' guys the right fit for our offense?
5. Bad luck. Sometimes we call the wrong play and an OL looks bad because he's been put in a bad spot.
6. Finally, our QB play and the inability of our WRs to get open because of their youth made the OL look bad on many occasions.
My opinion, Nouli is gone, so that has taken care of itself and maybe JEJ takes over at one of the guard spots. Corcoran needs to be evaluated in the spring or the fall at OG, but if he doesn't produce in practice, he needs to transfer. He's has a lot of time to get his act together. I think the 2 tall OTs can work next season, but they need to be pushed. Scott will be better at C.