2008 Offense Preview Part 2

This is the 2nd post in a series spanning the next few weeks previewing the 2008 football season. For the introduction to this series see this post, and please feel free to contribute your own thoughts and comments about the topic at hand.

Yesterday's post began this preview series by looking at the situation at quarterback and running back. Honestly I was a bit disappointed in all of you for not contributing any of your own thoughts; there's no way I'll touch on everything and I know that we will all have slightly different opinions on these things. I'm really hoping to get some good discussions started so lets see if we can get more of that going today and through the rest of the series.

Enough of the admonishments, lets move on to the good stuff: the receiving corps and offensive line.

Receivers

I think most would agree that these two units are the ones with the most questions left to be answered, however I think the receivers are more likely than the offensive line to answer those questions the way most of us hope they will.

Last season Kenny Moore was the only consistent weapon the Deacs had at receiver, but thankfully he was able to handle that roll very well. Now that he has graduated and been drafted by the Detroit Lions, we clearly need someone to step up in a big way. Thankfully I think we have the weapons to do that.

The receivers aren't lacking in experience. Chip Brinkman is a senior with plenty of playing time and catches (although he seems to get them pretty quietly), and Demir Boldin played a full season last year. Sophomore Jordan Williams had his redshirt pulled midway through last season and saw the field enough to have some experience, but is definitely still unproven. As I mentioned before, however, we can't call any of these guys a true go-to guy at this point. Nonetheless, I saw all three have a pretty strong spring and am confident that one or more of them will get the job done.

Don't worry though, I haven't forgotten Devon Brown. Some call him by that name, most call him by his nickname Y'lou (and I haven't quite figured out which is best to use here on the blog. I don't want to confuse people so I probably need to pick one and stick with it - any suggestions?). He's a very very speedy guy coming off of his redshirt year and I can't wait to see him on the field. Watching him this spring he has great hands, incredible quickness, and a guy who can definitely be a playmaking wide out. My only concern at this point is that he has a tendency at times to dance around and not get up the field. I appreciate his desire to make a big play, but I hope he develops the ability to know when that opportunity is really there and when he needs to just take what he can get. I think of all of these guys he's the one I'm most excited to see finally get on the field.

The rest of the wideouts include Danny Dembry, Matt Hartford, Casey Hill, Chris Langley, Nick Shultz, Marshall Williams, Andrew Wright, and Terence Davis. We may see some of these guys get some snaps here and there, but we'll leave it at that right now.

Tight Ends

These are a group of guys who can do big things for us this season. In Spring Practice Junior Ben Wooster emerged as a real threat in the passing game. Because we had two older tight ends for the last several years he hasn't gotten much of an opportunity until now, but it's clear he's ready to make the most of it. The tight end has become a more and more popular target for Riley the last couple years, and I can see him relying on Wooster quite a lot this season.

True freshman J.T. Dixon was also around for the spring and is definitely a talented guy, but redshirt freshman Cameron Ford should be the number two guy when the season starts. He had a solid spring as well and will definitely contribute a fair amount.

Offensive Line

And now for the scary part of this preview. While I may be excited to see what a young and inexperienced receiving group can do, I'm mostly nervous and scared about what our inexperienced offensive line will do. Trey Bailey will be the center and I am confident in his abilities. Around him are three juniors who got a decent amount of playing time last season but haven't ever been the guys we're counting on. We've got Joe Birdsong at LT, Jeff Griffin at RT, and Barrett McMillin at RG. Sophomore Russell Nenon currently holds the starting job at LG, but many people would tell you that that job will be true freshman Joe Looney's sooner rather than later. I'm personally not so sure this will be the case. Watching things this spring I didn't see anything that would indicate that Looney is any better, let alone significantly better, than Nenon. Perhaps with a summer of work and then practices in August he will be at that stage but as of right now I just don't see it. If I end up being wrong, though, you can all come back and tell me about it.

This group of guys showed steady improvement throughout the spring. It's always a little bit tough to tell exactly what a group is capable of when they pretty much only ever face the 2nd string defensive line, but they really did seem to gain a better understanding of exactly what they're supposed to be doing as well as develop some chemistry. If these guys can stay healthy all season then I think they'll be able to hold their own and get the job done.

Where I get really scared is looking at what's left behind these six guys. The current depth chart includes one junior, three redshirt freshman, and Looney as a true freshman. During the spring I never saw anyone other than starter Trey Bailey do a good job making consistently good snaps to the quarterback, nor did I see a whole unit on the field that didn't struggle in some pretty glaring ways. I think they probably do have some decent talent but just lack experience and chemistry, but there will be a pretty clear problem if some of our first string goes down with injuries and have to be replaced. We've really got to be hoping for a healthy starting five.

A couple other quick notes: 

There was a thread on the Deacon Sports message board the other day (which I can't find now - anyone have a link?) showing how much weight some of the guys on our offensive line have lost. Grobe talked about this several times during the spring and made it very clear that he wanted a lighter, and therefore quicker, offensive line this season. I definitely agree with wanting a quick offensive line, so as long as we haven't sacrificed their ability to stand up to the large line's they'll face against teams like Clemson and FSU then I'm totally on board with this strategy.

Also, I was reading the Athlon Sports preview of Wake the other day and they commented that Grobe may try a strategy of rotating as many as 10 offensive lineman to make sure we always have fresh ones in the game. I personally don't like the sound of this strategy at all because I just don't think the second string is ready to see significant playing time against the better teams we'll face, even if they are fresh. As I heard Grobe say at least half a dozen times this spring, "If you think you have two number ones, you probably really only have two number twos." If we're trying to platoon offensive lineman like this I think we're probably in even worse shape than I think we are.

Having covered all the positions there isn't a whole lot more to say about the offense. It will be a bit of a different look this season, and we do still have some issues to address. I'd like to think we can use our talent at running back to pound the ball at people on the ground, but with our offensive line I'm not sure how possible that is. We may end up needing our receivers to step up in a big way, and we'll definitely need Riley to be ready to take some contact. More than anything, if the offense can avoid turning the ball over then I think we'll be okay.

That's all I've got for the offense preview, but I'm ready to hear what you have to say. For those of you who need a bit more of a prompt to join the discussion I offer these questions: What offensive unit or player are you most excited about? Why? What offensive unit or player are you most concerned about? Why? Feel free to answer those questions and share any other thoughts you may have, and also make sure to vote in the poll to the right rating the offense as a whole (those of you subscribing by email or RSS will have to come to the actual site to vote).