I'm disappointed, what has happened to the weekly "Macky sucks and isn't a D1 center" threads?
Some people need to own up that they didn't actually watch the games last year or don't know what they're watching when the game is on TV.
He wasn't "great" last year but he was definitely unfairly blamed for all of the o-lines issues. How many kids playing their first year and being smaller then the guys they are lining up against could have performed the way he did?
Two posters I have great respect for--who unlike 99% of posters here have coaching backgrounds and actually know what they're talking about--had very different opinions about Macky. CIL was on it early last season, saying that Macky's technique was very good, and that he wasn't getting beat like some people mistakenly claim. JerseyOrange on the other hand felt like Macky was the weak link.
My concern was that Macky might end up being Justin Outten the 2nd: a guy who works hard, is smart as hell, has great technique, and that the coaches love, but that he is just physically overmatched against bigger, stronger defensive linemen. Macky got bigger / stronger in the offseason. And another important factor is how much Chibane struggled last year, which meant that Macky had to help out on his guy [they had to do all types of weird stuff last year--two TE formations, etc.] to compensate for OL deficiencies everywhere. What I'm hoping is that Macky proves to be solid--as he sure as heck seemed to be yesterday--and NOT a weak link. And two years from now, when they transition to Emerich, the current redshirt frosh will be experienced and ready to take over.
But I agree 100% with what you are saying--it appears that many of the criticisms leveled at Macky were off-target. Great to see. If this OL can approach average--and based upon what I saw yesterday, with three new guys getting their first game action and the top player [Pugh] not out there, I think we're not far off from that being the case. When Pugh comes back and Hickey shifts to RT, we'll have solid backups in Philips, Trudo, Alexander, and Robinson to give us depth / flexibility up front. 9 out of our top 11 guys return next year at OL, too, so the future looks promising in the trenches. Can't even remember the last time you could accurately say that about a Syracuse offensive line.
