First let's establish the fact that I'm in favor of an OL coaching change and I don't think our OL was even remotely acceptable as a unit last year. Now that that's out of the way...
Eberle was far from our biggest problem along the OL last year. RT and RG with Dickerson in were far more consistent problems. Stuck on a cross country flight I watched the 30 minute game versions of the Ole Miss, Miami, Clemson, and uf games from last year and focused solely on Eberle, then solely on LG, then RG, and then RT. Didn't take detailed notes like @CaNOLEE so this won't be quite the read that his trench posts are but...
Eberle isn't perfect, but he's actually very solid in pass pro. He occasionally gets bull rushed with brute strength because he plays high sometimes, it happened against Lawrence from Clemson and Norton from Miami. But it's not close to a regular occurrence. Rarely does he get beaten by pure pass rush speed or swim/rip moves. In the run game I know people always say we need to get more push at center, but most of the blocks we ask him to make aren't necessarily about getting push as they're about not letting defenders cross his face. So his first steps are usually lateral, not forward as you would when you're drive blocking, and he does a solid job in our zone stuff. Now again, he loses reps like every player does, especially when going against the quality of DT he played last year.
Against uf Brantley beat him bad on two consecutive plays, but Eberle rebounded and played about an entire quarter of flawless football after than. Against Miami he struggled but not nearly as bad as RT. Against Clemson he had some struggles against their big time interior guys, but I think he was better than the RG and RT overall.
Against Ole Miss LG and RT were really, really bad, I thought RG was up and down, but Eberle was fantastic.
People are enamored with Minshew because of his size, myself included. Minshew takes people for a ride when he gets his hands on them. The problem is he gets his hands on guys far less regularly than Are when Are was at LG. He needs to really improve his quickness, especially if everyone wants us to pull guards and be more of a power running team with Patrick.
Dickerson is similar, you can see why the coaches love him when he gets ahold of guys. He made some really stupid plays last year being a true freshman, but with some more experience he should be very solid.
At the end of the day everyone along our OL needs to get better but I'm more worried about the tackle opposite Leonard and LG than I am C. If anyone wants to watch the film and show me these alleged 20 plays a game where Eberle is getting bull rushed, I'd be happy to discuss.
Eberle was far from our biggest problem along the OL last year. RT and RG with Dickerson in were far more consistent problems. Stuck on a cross country flight I watched the 30 minute game versions of the Ole Miss, Miami, Clemson, and uf games from last year and focused solely on Eberle, then solely on LG, then RG, and then RT. Didn't take detailed notes like @CaNOLEE so this won't be quite the read that his trench posts are but...
Eberle isn't perfect, but he's actually very solid in pass pro. He occasionally gets bull rushed with brute strength because he plays high sometimes, it happened against Lawrence from Clemson and Norton from Miami. But it's not close to a regular occurrence. Rarely does he get beaten by pure pass rush speed or swim/rip moves. In the run game I know people always say we need to get more push at center, but most of the blocks we ask him to make aren't necessarily about getting push as they're about not letting defenders cross his face. So his first steps are usually lateral, not forward as you would when you're drive blocking, and he does a solid job in our zone stuff. Now again, he loses reps like every player does, especially when going against the quality of DT he played last year.
Against uf Brantley beat him bad on two consecutive plays, but Eberle rebounded and played about an entire quarter of flawless football after than. Against Miami he struggled but not nearly as bad as RT. Against Clemson he had some struggles against their big time interior guys, but I think he was better than the RG and RT overall.
Against Ole Miss LG and RT were really, really bad, I thought RG was up and down, but Eberle was fantastic.
People are enamored with Minshew because of his size, myself included. Minshew takes people for a ride when he gets his hands on them. The problem is he gets his hands on guys far less regularly than Are when Are was at LG. He needs to really improve his quickness, especially if everyone wants us to pull guards and be more of a power running team with Patrick.
Dickerson is similar, you can see why the coaches love him when he gets ahold of guys. He made some really stupid plays last year being a true freshman, but with some more experience he should be very solid.
At the end of the day everyone along our OL needs to get better but I'm more worried about the tackle opposite Leonard and LG than I am C. If anyone wants to watch the film and show me these alleged 20 plays a game where Eberle is getting bull rushed, I'd be happy to discuss.
