Offensive linemen (and generally defensive linemen) need a good 2 years in the weight room to be ready for SEC play... especially kids from small town Mississippi who aren't exposed to good weight training regimens in high school.
It takes 10 SEC quality linemen to compete in this conference. Croom left Mullen with the following:
1st round NFL pick Derek Sherrod at LT.
3 year starter JC Brignone.
3 year starter Addison Lawerence
Q. Saulsberry for depth.
Gabe Jackson committed.
Tobias Smith on campus
So we had 2 senior starters and 3 junior starters. An extremely experienced starting O-Line, with another very experienced player backing him. Is that ideal? No, but it was sufficient. Our line was a strength last year.
This year, we returned 3 of those starters and it could easily be argued that they were the 3 worst offensive linemen from that starting group last year. So for this year, we started the following:
Carmon - First year playing o-line in a long time. Count him as a redshirt freshmen in o-line terms.
(3) Seniors who are average at-best SEC linemen
(1) redshirt freshmen (Day, Robinson, Clausell) after the injury to Tobias Smith
And our depth is filled with redshirt freshman and true freshmen. None of which are physically ready for SEC play.
Mullen should, 100% without a doubt, be chastised for not filling some of these holes with quality JuCo offensive linemen.... but in all reality, he needed about 3 or 4 last year and he unfortunately swung and missed on his few targets (Jason Peacock being the biggest miss).
Next year, we'll see marked improvement from our line play.
Archie Muniz, Blaine Clausell, Damien Robinson, Dillon Day, and Eric Lawson will all have 2 years under their belts (with 3 more to play) and we'll have Tobias Smith (hopefully) and Gabe Jackson back, as well as filling in with Dylan Holley. If Mullen gets Glauser and/or another big time JuCo guy, our line should be solid next year with some decent depth.