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Message: [QUOTE="Jersey Orange, post: 3164107, member: 979"] I think Dino is an outstanding coach with a strong system and is a dynamic sales person. He is more self-aware about the problems in the program than people give him credit for given his press conference and typical demeanor. There is a plan in place for fixing this and Wildchak is involved. There are good young lineman in the program and some excellent skill position players. The staff unfortunately got caught in "no-man's" land between graduation and the natural evolution before the next-generation is ready. That is a mix of a few recruiting and evaluation misses - and that is on them - they gambled that they had enough to bridge the gap and the loss of one player (Heckel) just cause a domino-effect meltdown (a position that we should never be in). I do believe that the young guys in the program are going to form a strong ACC-caliber line in 2 years - but we need to hit free agency hard to bridge that gap period. Anyone who saw spring practice could tell you this was going to be a disaster - our starting offense could barely handle the second team defensive line in scrimmages. Yes. You are 100% correct. This is absolutely Dino and the staff's fault. As I noted above - they gambled on being able to bridge a gap year and lost that gamble badly. The loss of Heckel hurt in so many ways (causing us to play two lineman who should NOT be playing and playing Servais at a position where he simply should not be playing). It was obvious from the beginning that Alexander was not going to make an impact. We should never be in that position. Remember - even Dino says that "the elephants and not the lions are the kings of the jungle". He needs to add a few elephants in the offseason. Yes - that is exactly right. They are paying badly for a "gap period" where there were a number of recruiting misses and we gambled that we could bridge for a year or 2 until the more talented young players were ready. Heckel's loss wreaked havoc as noted above but you can never be in that position where losing two players (mckinley on DL) can completely decimate two lines. Going forward he really needs to add 20% more lineman in each class that he typically would take and then stop recruiting the undersized wide receivers. [/QUOTE]

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