Here for the Wins

Baker, hold on the first offensive play in OT. Least think it was play 1.

My biggest concerns are his height, his age and his build as he’s kinda slight. Otherwise, all American candidate.

He’s at LG on the right side because Robinson has center locked down.

Our dreams? Our hearts?

Look at their damn roster dude. A transfer from Notre Dame. The top backup in terms of snaps. Freshman. One guy spent two years at Indiana, left and returned. The other 3 are Indiana guys. Not exactly portal city.

Yes. Yes, they are.

PFF numbers reflect him to be a poor run blocker. Let’s say he’s Kelvin Banks level pass protector. But poor in the run game. Are fans going to whimper and whine when we can’t run the ball in those big games?

Where does one draw the line here? Brooks has been in the system. He’s started or played a decent number of snaps against 4 SEC teams. Three on the road and one at a neutral site. That’s more experience than Baker had going in to last year. So say a non P4 guy has started but has few starts in such an environment are you taking that guy? Or a guy that’s a low level P4 that’s started 2 years?

I have at least 30 I can give him.

I understand what you’re saying. My initial response was a discussion/question that would lead a reader to the belief that their 2nd and 3rd units did have NFL starters. Based on what I’m seeing, that is not accurate. Even the starters from that team are struggling to be starters in the NFL.

I was responding to a comment about their 2nd and 3rd teamers starting in the NFL. However I do suspect some were a product of the system, maybe the chaos of the year too.

The 2nd team QB is starting, the first string is not. Duvonta Smith is doing well. Waddle has fallen off. Robinson, Harris both backups after being disappointing. Dickerson is probably the only lineman who hasn’t disappointed. Who else?

But that’s not how message board warriors critique our guys.

Alrighty. I reckon every guy that started an SEC game was an SEC starting lineman. Lefau was a starting LB. Wisner a starting RB. Mateer a starting QB.

Of the 47 players that played offense for Ole Miss, he was the lowest graded.

That’d be funny. I actually hope it happens.

It’s a bit ironic since every site I’ve visited complain and moan about individual players. The portal exhibition is largely an exercise in celebrating bringing in guys to replace those who “were not good enough.” Many of the opinions of the grown ass men are based on limited information too.

Big fan of horse racing.

Good question. You certainly need luck but physical games week after week add up.

Now contrast to Texas with 931 defensive snaps. 11 over 400, 21 over 200 and 26 over 100. That doesn’t even include Terry.

864 defensive snaps. 13 defenders over 400, 15 over 200, and 17 total players over 100 defensive snaps. That includes last night.

Not really. Willie Fritz another old guy with history of success. People are arrogant.

I’m with you on much of your discussion here. This year is different. Feels a bit desperate. I’m not sure the all in mantra was necessary. We were pretty damn close this year. I’m pretty confident one or more of the guards we lost will be decent elsewhere. The roster number will be interesting. You can get lower level guys to fill it out for virtually nothing. Do we want them though?

From what I gather, you seem a loyal and rather amicable fan. I commend you for that. This week I’ve watched half this seasons games. Particularly the offense. With attention to the blocking aspect. Here’s what I’m confident in saying. Singling out Stroh beyond the oddity of season long coaching decisions is wrong. A few observations about the guys upfront. The two biggest hits to Arch during my half season review were at the hands of Goosby versus UTEP and likely Brooks versus Kentucky. Hits that easily could result in injury. Believe in the first 5 games, Campbell and Baker accumulated 12 penalties combined. At least two of Arch’s picks versus Ohio State and UF but thinking all 3 were after penalties put us behind the chains with resulted in impatient play calls and impatient QB decisions. Hutson/Robertson were never clean themselves. And oddly enough, Stroh didn’t play versus Kentucky. I’m sure our worst offensive performance was because of him though. The final offensive play of the OSU game sure as hell wasn’t off his side. Now, Campbell and Baker got tagged with 9 penalties the remainder of the season. Stroh had none incidentally. But there’s evidence that Baker improved over the last half of the season. We want to attribute the improvement to the Robertson/Hutson combo. Because that means Stroh was the problem. You might also think to which game, which seem to turn the offensive tide. 4th quarter MSU, right? You might watch that quarter and see how that combo worked together. And note who it was. Now, I’m not speaking to Strohs ability, but I’m pointing out some of the things that occurred rather than making him the scapegoat, which has been done repeatedly. He certainly loses his feet too much. He does make an effort to initiate contact. He’ll gladly start on a double in pass pro then peel and help elsewhere. I saw multiple instances that he was clearly using his head to get things done. And I sure as hell saw another player who had more plays in which that player never engaged a defender. That wasn’t Stroh’s approach. Stroh probably had fewer negative plays than a few others for that matter. I am damn curious about decisions surrounding the choices regarding the offensive line. We will never know, and it sure doesn’t make sense. But the story that is told and the finger pointing is misguided and inaccurate regarding how things went down on the field. Unfortunately all the parts contributed to falling short.

Oline discussion always is interesting for several reasons. For one, run and pass blocking generally ignore the impact of the non-Olinemen. Most people don’t have a clue about individual responsibilities on a given play. And unless you run it in slow motion and rewind every play multiple times, a person cannot see it all. So when you say inexcusable, how often over the years have you rewatched games? And over that time, was it just the Horns?