Matt Elam should never have to play 70-80 snaps in a football game. With the beating he takes on the line, and with all of that weight he has to move around, that is about 20-30 snaps too many. It is too many for anyone to play, really. Courtney Love's 95? Way too many.
Mark Stoops knows that, and on today's SEC teleconference, he said, "We played 95 snaps this past week, we played our starters too many snaps... Hopefully we won’t have 95 snaps again but you never know."
Stoops then suggested
Naquez Pringle, T.J. Carter, Tymere Dubose and linebacker DeNiro Laster could see an increased role this week in relief of starters who played too much against Southern Miss.
Pringle is Elam's backup at nose tackle and he can really be helpful in the rotation, if he were to step up and do it. Carter is a true freshman who was impressive in camp on the end, while Dubose is a guy who has been around awhile but is coming off a knee injury. All three of those guys have an opportunity to improve what was a pretty disappointing D-line in Week 1, and it sounds like they will be called upon to do so.
"We do have to continue to bring some guys along," Stoops said.
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