forums

OL recruiting and Searels

Evan Neal is a legacy kid who will literally disappoint his entire family is he goes anywhere other than The U. Anyone, and I mean ANYONE with a pulse should be able to recruit this kid to Miami with their eyes closed. The vast majority of recruiting battles are different.....if a kid signs elsewhere, it's not a total indictment of the staff. Sometimes there are other factors involved.

But in a vacuum, in this situation, letting Evan Neal get to FSU or UF or Alabama would be more telling about Searles' and this staff's ability to recruit than almost anything else. Not only is he a must get because of his talent and need, but it's the fact that he's been given to Searles in a box with a pretty bow on it, all the dude has to do is tie it in a knot on the top and put it under Richt's tree. If he can't do that, I'm afraid he's going to get schooled for the kids other schools REALLY want for his entire tenure here.
 

Advertisement
I agree DMoney. Oline is a 3-4 year fix, not 1-2 years. With tackle being a sore spot on the oline this year, any chance we get a juco or grad transfer?
 
CANE1775 said:
I'm baffled that we haven't been hearing any JUCO names.
Click to expand...


Agree with this. We are JUCO plugging/checking the waiver wire for every other position (DT, DB, DE) but OL which is head scratching.

That said, I agree with DMoney. We are in year 3 and Searles wasn't left with a cupboard full of studs. Darling was a bust. McDermott maxed out his abilities as best he could. And he was able to squeeze some talent out of some of the other guys. But there were no cant miss studs that were dropped in his lap.

Between Donaldson, Gaynor, Herbert, Hillery, Scaife, Reed, Cambpell, Eukegon (sp?), Tarquin, and hopefully Neal and maybe Wright or one of the local OT that we haven't offered yet...if he cant get us a great OL in the next 2 years he has to go.
 
Advertisement
Kehoe really sucked in the end which is unfortunate. It is what it is though. Guess he was, “Trusting the process.”
 
He’s responsible for the LSU transfer that is now a huge liability and handpicked Tre Johnson. There’s no excuses left in year 3. That goes for every coach on the team.
 
DMoney said:
Coach Searels has been the subject of a lot of discussion lately. My view on him is that he inherited dead weight and mismatched pieces from Kehoe. The beginning of his tenure was rough, culminating in a disaster at Blacksburg. But from the 2016 Pitt game on, he's put out a unit that gives our offense a chance. The pass blocking has been solid and the zone-heavy run game has shown flashes.

With that said, there is an obvious difference between Miami and the playoff OLs. We aren't as good up front as those teams. To get to that level, we need to start moving people.

Richt is dying to run more power but lacks the personnel. I'm not sure the 2018 line will be much different. But by 2019, once young guys get more seasoning, you should start to see the fruits of Searels's recruiting labor.

He has been recruiting to an identity. Guys like Delone Scaife, Corey Gaynor and John Campbell take pleasure in burying people. And the two commits this year seem cut from the same cloth:

Michael Tarquin



Kingsley Eguakun

Click to expand...


This is an on-point post.

The tendency sometimes is to find a scapegoat and thoughtlessly pile on without actually thinking through our current situation and where we are in the developmental process.

As has been mentioned in several good posts in this thread, O linemen aren’t quickly developed, both physically and mentally and we had a mismatched mess when Searles got here. Playing the O line requires more than just strength and technique, there is a learning curve. It takes time.

Some posters have suggested yanking Searles, as if a new hire could be a quick fix. It’s not. There’s no guarantee of anything, but at least it looks like the last regime’s issues are being addressed and I would expect improvement this year with major improvements to follow.
 
If he lands Neal and 1 other (Wilson, Fox, Putnam) that would be 3 classes in a row that our OL recruiting has hit it out of the park

2017 - Donaldson, Herbert, Gaynor, Dykstra
2018 - Campbell, Scaife, Reed
-Misses - Jalen Goss
2019 - Neal, Tarquin, Eguakun 1 more
 
Advertisement
The offensive line made the jump from absolutely terrible in 2016 to pretty crappy in 2017. In 2018 and beyond, more and more of Searles' recruits are going to be in the rotation. These guys have to start showing significant improvement. We don't need them to be the 2001 line that could just manhandle every opponent but they need to be able to get a legit push in short yardage situations and protect the QB a little better. I'm tired of having to throw fades from the one yard line because our line gets their **** pushed in against the likes of Toeldo and Bethune.
 
Oline recruiting has definitely got better and you are blind if you don’t think so. Jeff stoutland loaded Miami up with lineman and then it was a dip when Kehoe took back over.
 
per football outsiders' offensive line stats, we had the 97th best line in 2016 and the 27th best line in 2017. i'm not sure that the improvement felt that drastic but at least by this measure searles has already improved the line to a point where he probably deserves the benefit of the doubt.

to d money's point, last year football outsiders had us second to last in FBS -- 128 out of 130, tied w/ kansas lol -- in power success rate, which measures "percentage of runs on third or fourth down, two yards or less to go, that achieved a first down or touchdown." this definitely reflects what our eyes told us, which is that we couldn't get 1 yard on the ground when we needed it if our lives depended on it. to me, that's more of a personnel problem than a coaching/scheme problem... we just need bigger, better, stronger guys, and you can certainly see them recruiting that *mentality* at worst.
 
TrueFloridian said:
He’s responsible for the LSU transfer that is now a huge liability and handpicked Tre Johnson. There’s no excuses left in year 3. That goes for every coach on the team.
Click to expand...
Handpicked? He was a commit that was added late in the first cycle. They legitimately needed bodies at the position.
 
Advertisement
rayray said:
per football outsiders' offensive line stats, we had the 97th best line in 2016 and the 27th best line in 2017. i'm not sure that the improvement felt that drastic but at least by this measure searles has already improved the line to a point where he probably deserves the benefit of the doubt.

to d money's point, last year football outsiders had us second to last in FBS -- 128 out of 130, tied w/ kansas lol -- in power success rate, which measures "percentage of runs on third or fourth down, two yards or less to go, that achieved a first down or touchdown." this definitely reflects what our eyes told us, which is that we couldn't get 1 yard on the ground when we needed it if our lives depended on it. to me, that's more of a personnel problem than a coaching/scheme problem... we just need bigger, better, stronger guys, and you can certainly see them recruiting that *mentality* at worst.
Click to expand...

Good to know that our O line can be ranked 27th without having the ability to consistently run block or dominate in goal line....cool...
 
First, let me say that the OL position is one of the hardest to judge at the high school level because of the size and weight differences of top prospects compared to the average high school DL.

Given what I just said, what I like about Tarkquin and Eguakun is that they both like to move defenders off the ball and they do it in slightly different ways.

Tarquin gets into the defender and drives him until he pins him to the ground. Once on the ground, he stays with it like a wrestler trying to pin his opponent with only seconds left on the clock.

Eguakun, on the other hand, likes to give an explosive initial blow to knock the defender off balance, then finishes him off with a second blow like one of the bad *** characters in any Tekken game.

Hopefully, both of them become the type of impact players we need on the OL.
 
Advertisement
gogeta4 said:
iM BAFFLED AS WELL.

He seems to have an eye for interior prospects but not that good evaluator at Tackle.
Click to expand...

Good point. Our OG recruiting has been **** near elite. I have no problems with Donaldson, Herbert, Reed and Scaife and Gaynor at C.

Guy like this needs a little luck his way so maybe Neal, Tarquin and hopefully Wright can bail him out here at the OT spot.
 
Advertisement
Back
Top