I went back and watched several of our 2015 games over the past few days and was struck by the lack of physical domination we showed at the LOS on defense. Even against weaker teams like SDSU and Oregon State, they pushed us around quite a bit. The stats may not reflect it because we had sacks and didn't fear their passing so could slide people up to the LOS, but their OL vs. our front 6/7 was not pretty.
I was then perusing Texas' roster and was blown away by how much bigger their DL are than ours. They have 8 DTs 295lbs+; We have one player that size. Okay, that's Texas, how about a defense we are likely to want to mimic in style and scheme, Oregon? They have six!
Also, longer players on the DL can make such a difference with pass rush leverage and long arms against the run. Oregon has 6+ kids 6'6" tall and Stanford has 4, we have zero.
We're physically at a disadvantage against better Power 5 teams on the DL. Now, we did land some bigger kids in last years class with Paul and Yaghi both being 6'5" tall with the frames to hold 295lbs plus and I think Cherry and even guys like Zendae Johnson and Luc Bequette will turn out to be big strong men after some time. But they aren't the giants a la DeAndre Coleman, Brandon Mebane and others who have anchored our defense in the past. And we don't have a lot of these big bodies.
DL recruiting is critical for us, we already know that. We need more, big, athletic bodies. For this season, we're going to have to rely on quickness and penetration up front with our bigger bodied LBs needing to take on OL and play with more physicality at the point of attack.
I was then perusing Texas' roster and was blown away by how much bigger their DL are than ours. They have 8 DTs 295lbs+; We have one player that size. Okay, that's Texas, how about a defense we are likely to want to mimic in style and scheme, Oregon? They have six!
Also, longer players on the DL can make such a difference with pass rush leverage and long arms against the run. Oregon has 6+ kids 6'6" tall and Stanford has 4, we have zero.
We're physically at a disadvantage against better Power 5 teams on the DL. Now, we did land some bigger kids in last years class with Paul and Yaghi both being 6'5" tall with the frames to hold 295lbs plus and I think Cherry and even guys like Zendae Johnson and Luc Bequette will turn out to be big strong men after some time. But they aren't the giants a la DeAndre Coleman, Brandon Mebane and others who have anchored our defense in the past. And we don't have a lot of these big bodies.
DL recruiting is critical for us, we already know that. We need more, big, athletic bodies. For this season, we're going to have to rely on quickness and penetration up front with our bigger bodied LBs needing to take on OL and play with more physicality at the point of attack.
