Haven't seen this posted yet.. Pete Roussel's spring observations and

[Miss.Stake]

his 2014 MSU preview.

http://coachingsearch.247sports.com/Article/2014-Mississippi-State-football-preview-185665


High points that were interesting to me.

--Mullen is basically taking over the offense
--Mullen has officially passed over ST to Greg Knox (Who Pete says was on the staff of the 04 Auburn special teams unit which he says in article is best he's seen)
--Our D will be solid, salty and full of juice.. All the potential to be a top 4 SEC defense. (we know this)
--We're just fine at RB (like always)
-- We need a leader to emerge in the WR group
-- Our O-Line has a long way to go

Personal observations
--Mullen is putting all offense and clock management duties upon himself it looks like. Mullen has not shown good clock management skills and is now taking on more responsibility with the offense.. the Gus malzahn strategy it seems.
-- From what I've gathered from people who have attended practices and my observation of our O-Line talent... Our group will enter the season graded at best the number 12 O-Line group in the SEC.

 

[coach66]

The development of our O-Line will be the biggest factor in how our season ends

up. It is as simple as that.

 

[CookieMonster.sixpack]

I read the article. That's a ton of ifs he lists at the end.

Not to be a negative nancy, but we were 4-1 in games decided by a possession or less last season. Most of the time you can expect to go .500 in those games. So we over-performed at 7-6 last year. I think we're a better team, but how much better?

Plus, we don't have a kicker. Every missed FG and XP in spring practice ought to be shearing wool left and right. Oh for the days of Hazelwood & Westerfield.

 

[coach66]

and we have a more favorable schedule. I may be wrong but wasn't our schedule

last year ranked as one of the toughest in the country after all the smoke has cleared?

 

[NCDawg.sixpack]

up. It is as simple as that.

I agree. For whatever reason, we've lost too many recruiting battles for the top OL, and our lack of depth on the OL will probably prevent us from having a great season.

 

[Miss.Stake]

Easier schedule, Experienced sure fire #1 QB, More experienced D and receivers. We should full well compete for 9 wins this season.

 

[Miss.Stake]

I'd like to add that I'm really hoping Dak shows marked improvement in the passing game. If we try and Tim Tebow style Dak with our O-line he'll be battling injuries all year I fear.

 

[coach66]

I hope we play Williams a lot for this very reason.

ku

 

[engie]

-- From what I've gathered from people who have attended practices and my observation of our O-Line talent... Our group will enter the season graded at best the number 12 O-Line group in the SEC.

MEH...

We still don't have Jocquell in what will likely be his primary position(tackle) while he learns the offense at guard. We also haven't turned Malone loose full go yet either...

Judging our OL when Damian Robinson is at RT is a pretty big joke at this point IMO.

Senior started one game last year at left tackle and got alot of snaps in all 13. Nobody really seemed to notice when he was in the game instead of Clausell. He was our third best tackle on roster last year. Until he is moved over to the right tackle spot, our coaches obviously aren't worried about our ability to be successful at the position...

We bring back 81 OL starts next year. Per Phil Steele numbers from last year -- that would have tied us for 30th most experienced OL in the country. Hardly a brand new hodgepodge OL.

 

[tenureplan]

Agree,

Clayborn is going to be a stud and the drop-off from Gabe to him will not be huge. Siddoway was serviceable at RT, so replacing him will not be that tough. We are however a couple of injuries away from having real issues.

 

[KurtRambis4]

No doubt, we need our OLine

to perform.

 

[Miss.Stake]

I don't care all that much about experience on our OL if there is minimal talent. I would be surprised if entering the fall that industry experts rank our OL position group as any better than 10th in the SEC.

 

[57stratdawg]

Prescott staying on his feet all season is a big one too.

 

[futaba.79]

the drop off from Jackson to anybody........

will be significant. Clayborn might turn out to be a great player but Gabe Jacksons are few and far between.

 

[57stratdawg]

Minimal talent is a bit over dramatic isn't it? Robinson is the only guy I feel like has reached his ceiling in that group.

Plus, Prescott's skill set helps masks shortcomings in our OL play. Id like to see more explosiveness out of our WRs. That would lead to more slip screens and swing passes.

 

[thf24]

For what it's worth, I've heard several say Clayborn is already ahead of where Jackson was at the same point in his career. There might be some drop off at first, but not for long.

 

[Miss.Stake]

Not really. As a position group our O-Line will rank toward the bottom in the SEC which means a mixture of minimal talent and/or lack of experience. Obviously I hope they develop into at least a mid tier SEC O-Line over the course of the year but I doubt that's happening.

 

[121Josey]

Not really. As a position group our O-Line will rank toward the bottom in the SEC which means a mixture of minimal talent and/or lack of experience. Obviously I hope they develop into at least a mid tier SEC O-Line over the course of the year but I doubt that's happening.

You really haven't thought through this. And whatever you mean by minimal talent just really doesn't apply. Sounds like you're trying to say that there's no talent - which isn't the case. The backups are no longer 2-star recruits but 3-4 star recruits. The floor has been raised. Now they just need reps.

Here's the question you need to answer: will the O-Line be worse than last year? Sure, the line loses Gabe Jackson - probably a 2nd round guard. But it also loses a bandaid in Siddoway. Those two average out in my opinion. Guards are the easiest position to replace and we've got at least 3 of them with significant reps. We have about 5 people who could play at RT. I think that somebody will figure it out in 6 months.

 

[57stratdawg]

Agreed. OG is probably the easiest position to replace on offense other than RB. We have a pretty good LT in Clausell.

BTW, Mayock has Gabe Jackson the #5 overall Guard on his rankings today. It's not like we're replacing Derek Sherrod.

 

[CookieMonster.sixpack]

up. It is as simple as that.

Bama had a pretty good O-line last year. When you can't make field goals, you can't win games. See: The Iron Bowl.

 

[Seinfeld]

--Mullen has officially passed over ST to Greg Knox (Who Pete says was on the staff of the 04 Auburn special teams unit which he says in article is best he's seen)

I'm glad to hear that, but I swear... if Bell trots out there as our first teamer against USM this season for a chip shot 30 yarder and pulls it wide by 20 feet like only he can do, I am going to blow a gasket. If I then hear about about how well he did in practice earlier in the week, it's going to get ugly

 

[Irondawg]

I know people say O-line but to me two things will determine our fate:

1) FG kicking. This terrifies me as I can see us losing two games by 3 points where we go 2-4 on makeable FGs
2) Keeping Dak healthy. Williams was ok as a freshman and will be better but Dak is the unquestioned leader of this team

Next is Mullen just not doing stupid stuff like he's seemed to do several times in big games.

 

[Seinfeld]

Agreed on both points. I'm not going to sit here and try to fairly judge Williams based on his performance last year as a true freshman and against some pretty dang good teams, but no matter where he rates or how much he's improved during the off season, I think that most would agree that there's a steep drop off from Dak to him. There's not much he or anyone can do to help that now, but it's just reality.

For me, keeping Dak moderately healthy this year is the difference between our ceiling for wins being 9-10 as opposed to it being 7-8 at best.

 

[Miss.Stake]

All I visualize in your post is you wearing maroon shaded glasses. I'm not sure how you derived that I meant no talent when I said minimal talent. You are saying our backups are no longer 2 star recruits but 3-4 star recruits which at this point is speculation at best since we are talking about 2014 projections here. You are again talking about reps/experience when I'm saying I don't really care about reps/experience if the talent is minimal. I'm guessing you are saying that our 2 star recruits will just turn into 3-4 star recruits with reps/experience? Yes I am saying our O-line will be worse this year.. at least I am projecting that it will be going into our first football game of the 2014 season. We will have to wait and see if they truly develop into a mid-tier SEC O-Line which at this point seems more towards unlikely than likely.

 

[Philly Dawg]

That .500 expecation is probably correct in a large enough random sample of such games, but the relatively small sample size of our 5 games may not be a truly "random" sample of one possession games. That is, we may have had closer games due to missing field goals or other systemic issues, such that we were actually more than a possession better than our opponents. I don't necessarily see that as being the case, but just warn against reading too much into that stat.