T-10 Days to Kickoff: Offensive depth chart

Please oh please give us another one like this guy...

Jay Tate has now taken his shot at the offensive depth chart. Thanks to him for putting this together because I haven't really seen anybody else doing it and the coaching staff sure isn't going to do it for us. Not to mention we have a "Big Snacks Berry" usage! That always brings a smile to my face as I blogged about a few days ago. Here it is with my comments below...

"1" (quarterback): Chris Todd, Tyrik Rollison/Neil Caudle, Kodi Burns, Clint Moseley
"4" (tailback): Ben Tate, Onterio McCalebb, (Eric Smith), Dontae Aycock
"3" (utility back): Mario Fannin, Gabe McKenzie
"9" (outside receiver): DeAngelo Benton, Darvin Adams, Kodi Burns, (Montez Billings), (Tim Hawthorne)
"2" (outside receiver): Terrell Zachery, Emory Blake, Quindarius Carr, Travante Stallworth
"5" (utility receiver)
When they go big: Tommy Trott, Philip Lutzenkirchen
When they go small: Darvin Adams, Anthony Gulley, Kodi Burns

RT: McCain, AJ Greene, (Aubrey Phillips)
RG: (Byron Isom), John Sullen, Jorell Bostrom, Andre Harris
C: Ryan Pugh, Bart Eddins
LG: Big Snacks Berry, John Sullen, Jared Cooper
LT: Lee Ziemba, Vance Smith

QB... I think I pretty much covered that here and I covered the backup issue here. Not much else to say... We will see what happens...

RB... Thanks Eric Smith, now if we have an injury at RB we will be about as thin there as the rest of the team. Coach Luper says the running game will be "one of our strengths". Hmmm... again we will see what happens... However I do have to say that I have always liked Ben Tate. He has been one of the only consistent parts of this team over the last few years. I think he is a good solid back however I don't like him as much running out of the shotgun formation. I hope Malzahn has cured his tendency to take the shotgun trap outside where he tries to beat defenders to the corner rather than following his blocking. He just isn't that fast and that pretty much never worked last year. I also look forward to finally seeing McCalebb as well after so much hype.

"Utility" or "H" or whatever back... I know Malzahn is a better coach than Tony Franklin (heck I might be a better coach than Tony Franklin was last year) however everything we have heard so far this year is nearly EXACTLY what we heard last year. "It is all about tempo", "It is fast", etc... Now on top of that we are starting Chris Todd at QB for the second year in a row. Again it looks a lot like last year even though the offenses are supposedly different. SO... the way that Malzahn can prove to me it is NOT like last year is to play the BEST PLAYMAKER on this team, Mario Fannin. GET THE MAN THE BALL. We do that and I will automatically give a lot more props to Malzahn and this offense.

Outside WRs... Without Billings and Hawthorne this looks about right. I think we have the best two at the top in Benton and Zachary. As I have said before I have always thought Zachary was better than he was given credit for. I hope Benton is near what he has been hyped to be. I am not sure about the rest of those guys. I hope one or two steps up and stands out but after a decade of Greg Knox I just don't expect good surprises from the WRs. Hopefully Coach Taylor will turn that around. I also really hope Hawthorne makes it back. The guy has just been snakebit from day one and I would sure like to see him have some success.

Utility Receiver... Well IF Mario Fannin plays a lot this position will not get as much PT. I really don't know how this position and the H-back will play out. Will Trott and McKenzie get a lot of snaps or not? I don't know but I would much rather see two big senior players get in than a freshman or sophomore small-ish WR.

The OL... Well we have 4 good solid linemen. I am just going to have to see it to believe it on McCain. However he is at least a senior and been around for awhile. I mean how bad is your depth when you have a true freshman as the backup at TWO spots (!!!). What the heck happened to Jared Cooper? Can Bart Eddins not play guard? Good grief. That is topped off by having a converted-DE and a converted-TE backing up your tackles (!!!). Again, I have never seen a major college team with this few options at OL. And again what the heck was Tuberville doing the last 2 years? Other than pinning his hopes on Jermaine Johnson? What a complete disaster. The top four linemen are juniors. We BETTER get busy recruiting some guys to take their place and so far I have not seen anything big on that front. Please review this and hope we can turn this thing around. I have said once and will continue to say it, I will get pumped about recruiting when we have some big-time offensive tackles committed...