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2022 Fall Camp Notes - Defensive Line


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3 minutes ago, floridacorn said:

If I missed this, apologize in advance, but was there a reason for Wynn & Drew not being on campus until camp started/after camp started?   Were they wrapping up degrees?  Was this a known?  

 

Wynn was on campus before fall camp. Drew was finishing up classes at Texas Tech so we knew he would be late, but then I think there were some unexpected admissions issues that made him even later than planned.

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Hearing about the success of the running game in the scrimmages plus SSOs DL preview has me a bit worried.

 

For those of you that think ok we will just do an even front and only use 2 DL like all of the ‘DL preview’ things you’ve seen at other outlets. Ok, so Feist is small (listed at 275lbs), so we are putting Nelson, Tannor, or Mathis as 2 of our 4 guys on the line? The biggest guy there is Mathis at 260. When we play massive teams like Wisconsin or Minnesota they will just run right at us. When we play Iowa they’ll figure out they can put a couple TEs there and guys like Mathis and Tannor won’t be able to play in space. It isn’t going to work.

 

Our DL just doesn’t give us a ton of flexibility in my opinion. And i’m really worried. Northwestern has a really good OL coming back. It’s why when I read practice reports and hear that we were running all over them, it makes sense. I’m sure i’m just worrying too much. When you read what I just typed out, you almost have to go an even front with our edge players 2 of the 4. But it completely changes what we do. The last two years when we went even front, we were in our nickel so guys like Domann and now Gifford/Wright would be on the field. You can’t just get rid of DL and put in 250 pound edge guys and converted safeties as LBs in the B1G. I will get into it in my preview week, but I’ll be curious to see what Chins does, because I don’t think we can do it the same way we have been.

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4 minutes ago, Red Five said:

Hearing about the success of the running game in the scrimmages plus SSOs DL preview has me a bit worried.

 

For those of you that think ok we will just do an even front and only use 2 DL like all of the ‘DL preview’ things you’ve seen at other outlets. Ok, so Feist is small (listed at 275lbs), so we are putting Nelson, Tannor, or Mathis as 2 of our 4 guys on the line? The biggest guy there is Mathis at 260. When we play massive teams like Wisconsin or Minnesota they will just run right at us. When we play Iowa they’ll figure out they can put a couple TEs there and guys like Mathis and Tannor won’t be able to play in space. It isn’t going to work.

 

Our DL just doesn’t give us a ton of flexibility in my opinion. And i’m really worried. Northwestern has a really good OL coming back. It’s why when I read practice reports and hear that we were running all over them, it makes sense. I’m sure i’m just worrying too much. When you read what I just typed out, you almost have to go an even front with our edge players 2 of the 4. But it completely changes what we do. The last two years when we went even front, we were in our nickel so guys like Domann and now Gifford/Wright would be on the field. You can’t just get rid of DL and put in 250 pound edge guys and converted safeties as LBs in the B1G. I will get into it in my preview week, but I’ll be curious to see what Chins does, because I don’t think we can do it the same way we have been.

 

But that's not what we're going to do against Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa.  I'm not really sure why so many people have such a hard time figuring this out when it's what we've been doing for four year and especially the last two.

 

Almost everyone else on our schedule runs a spread attack.  So our "3-4" is really a 4-2-5 most of the time.  In that variation, we'll have two bigger DLs with some combination of Nelson, Tannor and Mathis on the edges.  But we revert back to more of a normal 3-4 against those two-TE, power looks and get another bigger body on the field.

 

And I'm not convinced that we're all that undersized.  Feist is fairly light at 275.  But Robinson is 310.  Hutmacher is 330.  Wynn is 305.  Devonte Wyatt was a first-round draft choice last year at 304.  Phidarian Mathis was a second-rounder at 310.  Demarvin Leal was a third-rounder at 283.  You don't have to be 340 to be an interior defensive lineman.

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3 minutes ago, Mavric said:

But that's not what we're going to do against Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa.  I'm not really sure why so many people have such a hard time figuring this out when it's what we've been doing for four year and especially the last two.

 

If you read the article he goes into depth that we will probably play the 3-4 vs those teams.

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3 hours ago, Mavric said:

 

So he's complaining about something that he says we're not going to do?  Well, that's one way to go about it I guess.

In my opinion he's not complaining about anything, only questioning if we have the depth to run the defense the same as we have the last couple years. He's saying against Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota that if they try and make us go big that right now it seems that we only have 5 guys to rotate with, assuming they are all still healthy at that point in the season.  You have Robinson, who is likely are best and should be very solid, yet he rotated a lot last year so didn't have to play a ton of snaps.  You have Devin Drew who is literally just got here, Feist who hasn't played at all, and Wynn and Hutmacher, again have hardly played.  That's not incredibly promising as it is and if one of those guys goes down, especially Robinson, it's going to get rough down the stretch. Basically we have one stud, one known Power 5 contributor, and the rest is potential.  We lost 70% of our snaps from last year at this position so I tend to agree when he says it's a big question mark, at best.

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3 hours ago, Mavric said:

 

But that's not what we're going to do against Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa.  I'm not really sure why so many people have such a hard time figuring this out when it's what we've been doing for four year and especially the last two.

 

Almost everyone else on our schedule runs a spread attack.  So our "3-4" is really a 4-2-5 most of the time.  In that variation, we'll have two bigger DLs with some combination of Nelson, Tannor and Mathis on the edges.  But we revert back to more of a normal 3-4 against those two-TE, power looks and get another bigger body on the field.

 

And I'm not convinced that we're all that undersized.  Feist is fairly light at 275.  But Robinson is 310.  Hutmacher is 330.  Wynn is 305.  Devonte Wyatt was a first-round draft choice last year at 304.  Phidarian Mathis was a second-rounder at 310.  Demarvin Leal was a third-rounder at 283.  You don't have to be 340 to be an interior defensive lineman.

It's almost like our defense is... Wait for it... MULTIPLE!!!

 

I know everyone loves that word around here!

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I really wonder how much the staff (if at all) will be able to rotate in guys like Buckley, Newsom, etc in some of these early games against North Dakota, GA So, NW, etc. They may not truly be “ready” but getting them live snaps early in the season will be critical should someone go down and they have to get plugged in. Can’t have a guy who isn’t ready also have zero snaps total and then all of a sudden we need him to play 30 snaps v Iowa/Wisconsin/Michigan etc. Also would help save some of our top end guys like Robinson and Feist if we can get them off the field earlier in those games than later.

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8 minutes ago, seaofred92 said:

I really wonder how much the staff (if at all) will be able to rotate in guys like Buckley, Newsom, etc in some of these early games against North Dakota, GA So, NW, etc. They may not truly be “ready” but getting them live snaps early in the season will be critical should someone go down and they have to get plugged in. Can’t have a guy who isn’t ready also have zero snaps total and then all of a sudden we need him to play 30 snaps v Iowa/Wisconsin/Michigan etc. Also would help save some of our top end guys like Robinson and Feist if we can get them off the field earlier in those games than later.

I agree.  We absolutely need some of those newer guys to be productive.  Only way is to get them snaps.  

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Quote

Dawson praised Jimari Butler and Blaise Gunnerson for not shying away from the competition with many more experienced players in the EDGE room. He said both players had good summers, which had carried over into their play this fall, with both making noticeable jumps in their performance.

 

Dawson said he wouldn’t be afraid to play either Butler or Gunnerson in a game right now.

 

Dawson added that Gunnerson was a “tireless worker,” and it was apparent how important the game was to him. When Gunnerson makes a mistake, he gets “visibly upset” because he expects perfection.

 

On3

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I am hopeful the defense rotates about 25 guys a lot. That’s how you build depth, experience etc for the future.  Same goes in offense.  
 

The wins must come this fall but to build a program, you’ve got to play 2s and 3s. Game reps have been sorely missing for years.  Time to play them.  Fresh and energetic and deserving. Unity of team purpose means you win as a team. Express faith on confidence in your players. 

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