Jeremiah Sirles moving to center

[kchusker_chris]

I am glad I didn't attend the same high schools/colleges as you guys. Sophomores hardly ever got any playing time. Qvale will be a junior next year, Moudy a Sophomore, still plenty of time for these guys to contribute. It seems like a lot of people are calling to re-develop 'the pipeline' but then are asking why Reeves, Klatcho, Sterup, Price, etc aren't in the 2 deep, you can't have it both ways.

It's not exactly like we are overflowing with senior talent yet asking for the sophomores to start. There's Choi (who plenty give credit to here), and Thompson (who we've seen nothing of thus far). The junior class is certainly solid, but they aren't going to fill the 2 deep alone. So...we have to get into sophomores. Hence the talk. And if we are trying to re-develop the pipeline, a sophomore of equal talent starting over Choi is exactly what you do....because they need the reps.

[FrankWheeler]

It's not exactly like we are overflowing with senior talent yet asking for the sophomores to start. There's Choi (who plenty give credit to here), and Thompson (who we've seen nothing of thus far). The junior class is certainly solid, but they aren't going to fill the 2 deep alone. So...we have to get into sophomores. Hence the talk. And if we are trying to re-develop the pipeline, a sophomore of equal talent starting over Choi is exactly what you do....because they need the reps.

 

I agree we have next to nothing as a senior class on the line, which should be a positive thing moving forward. I was a little unclear in my post, I don't mind having Soph's on the two deep, a lot of the discussion seemed to be around players not developing fast enough for the liking of posters - Qvale and Moudy in particular. I think it is a good thing that these guys don't have to step in right away and can develop more. We certainly didn't need them last year.

[knapplc]

I agree we have next to nothing as a senior class on the line, which should be a positive thing moving forward. I was a little unclear in my post, I don't mind having Soph's on the two deep, a lot of the discussion seemed to be around players not developing fast enough for the liking of posters - Qvale and Moudy in particular. I think it is a good thing that these guys don't have to step in right away and can develop more. We certainly didn't need them last year.

 

I think I'm the only one who mentioned Qvale, and that was in a "whatever happened to..." way. Nothing about "my liking," just that I hadn't heard much about him, and he's not appearing on anyone's two-deep. Don't read too much into it.

[FrankWheeler]

I agree we have next to nothing as a senior class on the line, which should be a positive thing moving forward. I was a little unclear in my post, I don't mind having Soph's on the two deep, a lot of the discussion seemed to be around players not developing fast enough for the liking of posters - Qvale and Moudy in particular. I think it is a good thing that these guys don't have to step in right away and can develop more. We certainly didn't need them last year.

 

I think I'm the only one who mentioned Qvale, and that was in a "whatever happened to..." way. Nothing about "my liking," just that I hadn't heard much about him, and he's not appearing on anyone's two-deep. Don't read too much into it.

 

I wasn't trying to single you out, a quite a few people mentioned Qvale, both in a positive and negative way.

[kchusker_chris]

It's not exactly like we are overflowing with senior talent yet asking for the sophomores to start. There's Choi (who plenty give credit to here), and Thompson (who we've seen nothing of thus far). The junior class is certainly solid, but they aren't going to fill the 2 deep alone. So...we have to get into sophomores. Hence the talk. And if we are trying to re-develop the pipeline, a sophomore of equal talent starting over Choi is exactly what you do....because they need the reps.

 

I agree we have next to nothing as a senior class on the line, which should be a positive thing moving forward. I was a little unclear in my post, I don't mind having Soph's on the two deep, a lot of the discussion seemed to be around players not developing fast enough for the liking of posters - Qvale and Moudy in particular. I think it is a good thing that these guys don't have to step in right away and can develop more. We certainly didn't need them last year.

ah...i'm with you. yeah seems like just the other day we were talking about Moudy's potential as a recruit. They're young. The future is bright if we can churn out classes like this years group of juniors. Imagine 4-5 guys from each class battling it out for starting time...that's the pipeline. Unfortunately when you only recruit 2 OL a class...that pretty well ensures you're numbers are going to be low no matter how great you are developing.

[da skers]

I agree we have next to nothing as a senior class on the line, which should be a positive thing moving forward. I was a little unclear in my post, I don't mind having Soph's on the two deep, a lot of the discussion seemed to be around players not developing fast enough for the liking of posters - Qvale and Moudy in particular. I think it is a good thing that these guys don't have to step in right away and can develop more. We certainly didn't need them last year.

 

I think I'm the only one who mentioned Qvale, and that was in a "whatever happened to..." way. Nothing about "my liking," just that I hadn't heard much about him, and he's not appearing on anyone's two-deep. Don't read too much into it.

 

I wasn't trying to single you out, a quite a few people mentioned Qvale, both in a positive and negative way.

My comments weren't because I think we should give up on a kid. I have not problem with a guy being on the scout teams or practice squads and showing up his Jr and Sr years. I think thats actually one of the better ways to build a line. I just know those two didn't make the expected jump that the coaches wanted to see in year 1 and 2. Year 1 to 2 is huge and if you don't feel like the guy made the strides its going to be much harder for him to contribute as a Jr or Sr based on the foundation the player has. Both of those guys missed the chance to improve like they should for any number of reasons.

 

Even if they had made the progress the coaches want in those two years it doesn't mean they should be starting. I think people hear reports that a player made huge stride over the summer and they think that makes him a starter. Most of the time the coaches mean they made the steps they wanted them to make to get to the next step. From reports last week perhaps Qvale had that summer and made a good jump up and caught back up a little.

 

The reason I was so surprised about Moudy is because that was a kid I had asked about last fall and again going into spring. I just felt like he was a guy who could really be something and it was indicated it would be a long time before he saw the two deep and any meaningful snaps if he ever saw them in his lifetime. Mid summer he's listed on the possible two deep for some reason or at least being close to the two deep.

 

Maybe both guys got the same speech that Yoshi did last year and took it to heart.

[FrankWheeler]

Seems like everybody is agreeing with everything, this is certainly no fun...

[The Dude]

Seems like everybody is agreeing with everything, this is certainly no fun...

Agreed.

[da skers]

Seems like everybody is agreeing with everything, this is certainly no fun...

Agreed.

I couldn't disagree more.

 

 

There happy.

[knapplc]

Seems like everybody is agreeing with everything, this is certainly no fun...

 

Listen, Mister! Your ego's writing checks that your body can't cash! This is why we can't have nice things!

[Nebula]

Seems like everybody is agreeing with everything, this is certainly no fun...

You ruin everything. Hope you're very proud of yourself.

[Danimal]

My feelings on the lines are about the opposite of last year. Last year I thought the oline would be much improved the d line was a big worry for us. I think overall I was right. This year I feel like our D line will be much improved from last year and we lost some key people on the o line. Yoshi had a light switch come on last year after he was moved to 3rd string after spring ball. Had that not happened we would have been in big big trouble as he motivated everyone. I thought the technique of the line got better but we moved into some old habits once we got banged up and we lost some guys that are now back. I'll have a better feeling in two weeks when the coaches see where there guys are at after summer conditioning. This group of players is a little more tight lipped about whats been happening and there really isn't a lot of information floating around right now. I know the coaches singled out Qvale but I don't think hes healed up yet. I'd give him 85% He's going to end up getting hurt again because he's playing not to get injured.

 

This is a completely early guess based on early summer stuff but I would see Moore pretty solid at LT, Reeves LG, Pensick/Price as Center, Long at RG and RT up for grabs between A Rod. and Cotten with Sirles in the mix as well. And they'll actually use Sirles as a swing guy playing multiple spots on both sides. He probably knows the offense better but just isn't as strong as the other guys.

Good insight man, thanks. I'm like just about everybody else around here I'd guess: if I could only have one truly dominant position on each side of the ball, I'll take the lines every time. I really hope you're right about the d-line. I remember at the end of the Fresno game, when I realized that we didn't have a single TFL the entire game, and I thought, "What?! We might be in trouble..."

 

I know Bo and Co. like that amoeba type contain/rush deal, but he isn't telling kids to be stationary and not to get into the backfield and make plays. We just didn't see that happen last year, nearly enough. Too lazy to look up the numbers, but we all know them basically, anyway. We were bad in TFL and 3rd down efficiency. Those are money stats, and we didn't perform the way we've come to expect.

 

That said, I know full well that we'd spent four years developing a defense to counteract the spread heavy Big 12. I'm not sure any of us (I can speak for myself on this, at least) can truly appreciate just how difficult a transition it was into the Big 10 style of football. It is a different animal. Not one we can't figure out, by any means. But it takes time, I know that, and am patient when I see enough promising things to warrant it. And I saw that last year. We beat the eventual division winner (handily...so what if they were tired? We'd played some tough football games leading up to that point, too.) Fluke hail-mary deal was maybe the major difference between feeling a little down headed into this endless offseason and feeling pretty darn good about beating a pretty solid SEC team in a bowl game. Considering we went into a new conference with a new O-coordinator, I think we held up admirably last year.

 

But the d-line needs to improve markedly, or we're gonna have some frustrating games next year.

 

And you're dead on about Yoshi. That kid was TOUGH. Shattered his finger in a way that would have had me moaning for a month, and he comes back into the friggin game. That's nails.

Taylor was quoted a few weeks ago as stating they didn't know how tough it was going to be adjusting to a new conference and how much tougher the defenses were in the B10 vs B12. I know there has to be some of that on the defense side too. When you see that many new teams in a year it made for a huge challenge. I don't think we as fans really understand how good we probably did last year.

 

In critiqueing last year's O folks do tend to ignore the fact that not only were they running a new offense but generally speaking playing against better defenses in the conference and bowl. Our D was running into something they weren't used to in more physical and run-oriented offenses with mobile qb's. The offenses certainly aren't better than the 12's but they also aren't what our D was used to or built to stop. It was more of an adjustment than we wanted to admit it would be.

[zoogs]

Seems like everybody is agreeing with everything, this is certainly no fun...

 

Listen, Mister! Your ego's writing checks that your body can't cash! This is why we can't have nice things!

 

[HuskerFowler]

Pelini put this to bed today saying he will not make an appearance at center this year, and he likes what he sees from Pensick, Jackson and Pelini

[bshirt]

Long was the most consistent last year in my opinion. Rodriguez, Moore, and Choi all looked really good at times. Other times, not so much (the same can be said for Yoshi and Marcel, so I don't really see any drop off here). Sirles would add much needed size and playing experience to the center position. I'd feel much, much better about that spot if he can lock it up. Not sure what to expect from Pensick, every impression I get is he's basically a Caputo clone.

 

It's really hard to expect much more than what we saw last year. If Rodriguez, Moore, and Choi can be more consistent there should be improvement. The question is; are they getting the proper tutelage to maximize their talent? Not sure there's much of a reason to believe the answer is "yes".

 

 

Is that right? I don't even remember seeing Pensick play. Oh boy, someone tell me he's road-grader. Please?