Anyone have an early mock depth chart for Spring football?

Destruction always gives way to improvement.

 

I think one of the reasons Collins wasn't moved to left tackle last season was because of being unsure if Chris Faulk was coming back or not. What would have happened if they had moved Collins to LT and Faulk comes back? Do you then move Collins back to guard?

 

I don't really know what the reasoning was.....maybe someone with better insight can shed some light on that. I thought I remembered Collins being projected as a tackle when he came out of high school but who knows for sure. Red says the Pocic kid that just signed shows a lot of promise so maybe he's the answer. Either way, we will have good experience on the O-line which is always good

 

I'd like to see Pocic in Spring, his brother, took a Red-Shirt his first year in college.......

http://www.fightingillini.com/sports/m-footbl/mtt/graham_pocic_349386.html

 

Whitworth and Black both redshirted as true freshman and then started their 2nd-5th years. as for Pocic, you'd think he has to redshirt at only 6-7, 285 lbs (which is what he's listed as on the LSU roster). as a true freshman, Black was listed by LSU at 318 (he was 6-5, 327 at the NFL combine) and Whitworth, as a true freshman, was listed by LSU at 6-7, 315 (he was 6-7, 334 at the NFL combine). i looked over the list of the top ten OT prospects for the draft all the way back to 1999, and in the last six drafts ('07-'12), out of the 60 OT prospects that were top ten for their respective drafts, not a single one was below 300 pounds. and in the eight drafts before that (99-06), of the 80 OT prospects that were top ten for their respective drafts, there were only 3 that were under 300 pounds:
A 6-5, 299 OT was taken 2nd R in 2006
A 6-4, 296 OT was taken 4th R in 2004
A 6-5, 291 OT was taken 2nd R in 1999
So of the last 140 OTs that were top ten OTs for their respective drafts, only 3 were under 300 pounds, that's just 2%

as for LT, the consensus i've seen is that either Collins moves over from G, or that it goes to Jerald Hawkins, who was listed on last year's roster as 6'6, 300 (he's still listed as such on the current roster which hasn't update the height/weights since last year). and according to an 11/13/2012 article by Rene Nadeau, "Hawkins...has added about 45 lbs. since his college arrival."Hawkins redshirted last year as a true freshman, so if he becomes our LT next year, he could be the next 4 year starter at LT like Whitworth and Black, all of whom redshirted their true freshman years

Hawkins is a guy that didn't get the press that Pocic did, because Pocic played for a major 6A high school powerhouse (four Final Four appearances in the last six years) in a major media market (Chicago). Hawkins, meanwhile, played for mediocre 2A high school team (6-5 record Hawkin's senior year) based out of Baldwin, LA (population 2,416), which is located between Jeanerette (pop 5,542) and Franklin (pop 7,600) on highway 90 about 45 minutes south of Lafayette

what's interesting is that when Frank Wilson addressed the lower-than-normal rankings of Hawkin's recruiting class last year, Baldwin is the one of the places he specifically mentioned:

"Here's what I can tell you. It's hard from me to take credence in a guy who's scheduled to evaluate in Louisiana, and he's based in Oklahoma and he's assigned four different states [and Louisiana alone has 400 high school football teams, which is about 9,000 starting high school football players every year]. And he doesn't come to Louisiana in three years. He's never been to Pointe Coupee. He's never been to Baldwin. They don't even know where it is. So how can you possibly give a ranking to someone you've never seen?"

so Hawkins is a guy that was likely underrated by the recruiting services in comparison to Pocic. yet, 247 Sports still put Hawkins on their Top247, same as Pocic and Alexander:
#72 on Top247 -- Pocic (6-7, 287)
#158 on Top247 -- Hawkins (6-6 300)
#165 on Top247 -- Vadal Alexander (6-6, 350)

finally, if you look at LSU's roster page for Hawkins, it says he's "A versatile athlete with the ideal size and speed to play the offensive tackle position at LSU."you can also see all the evidence of how athletic of guy Hawkins is for a guy playing OL:
--he won the state championship in the shot put
--he played both ways for the football team (DT and OL)
--he played basketball
--he played baseball
and of course, he "Didn't allow a sack as a senior," which was his last season of playing football

 

like our Pocic, his older brother is also 6-7 and was a highly touted 4-star OT recruit by Rivals and Scout (he had offers to Wisconsin, Florida, Michigan, Penn St, Florida State, Tennessee, etc)

And at Illinois, he "started 36 games at all
three offensive line positions (center, guard
and tackle). - Illinois football"

So if he was projected as an OT as a recruit and could play all three OL positions at Illinois, it's possible that our Pocic can too

It's interesting that the older Pocic, at 6-7, 310, ended up at C for Illinois...

" It's rare to see
tall players snapping the football with most
centers, both college and pro, measuring at
6-4 or shorter, but Pocic is listed at 6-7 and
is the tallest player on the Illini offensive line.
...
He is the unquestioned leader of the
Illini offensive line in 2012, a group that will
need as much guidance as possible.
...
Pocic has
been routinely tested as the rock of the
Illinois line."

 

I didn't even notice how light Pocic was! I'm in agreement; 285 is nothing especially in this conference; I'm certainly down with Hawkins being starter at LT if he can move some bodies.

 

It's hard to believe that Pocic is only 285. Considering he's 6'7", he sure as heck looks a lot heavier than that.

 

It is easier to go from smaller and leaner to larger and muscular than it is coming from larger and a little fluffier. But generally, the bigger guy is stronger in the first place due to the higher bodyweight. There's really no way to avoid the fluff when you're above 300 and under 6'9". I also think the athleticism is either there or it isn't, weight will skew it someways, but I don't think it matters what weight the kid comes in at if he's going to be playing at a certain weight. Look at Sheldon Richardson and Star Lotulelei.

So basically, I think Moffitt could do it either way, but these HS kids tend to be smaller than they need to be.

I think Moffitt does one of the best conditioning jobs in the country, but I don't like the way he handles their weights. I'd like to see more adding and cutting over time(in the offseason) than just getting up to a certain weight and staying there. Then again, I imagine getting these kids to eat enough to get big enough to play once is ahrd enough.