Shell says the OL is coming back in 2014

frick yea. This is a big deal

That's great news, now we just need help in the secondary.

I felt a major reason for the OL playing as well as it did in 2013 (and it did improve for the most part) was because of the # of returning starters from 2012. First time under Spurrier we had 4 of 5 returning starters from the previous season: in 2012, 40 of the total 62 combined starts by the OL were owned by one single man - T.J. Johnson.

This season T.J. was gone, but the projected starting 5 for the season returned 56 combined starts with a more even distribution amongst the five, and a total of 72 starts for the position.

If everything plays out as described in here, we will return an OL depth chart with 113 combined starts among it, including 95 starts amongst projected starters. We will once again return 4 of 5 starters from the previous season, with the benefit of having two experienced and capable starters at center, when coming into this season we had none.

The depth will also be better: Matulis will have recovered fully from his shoulder surgery, and both Sport and Zandi have had extensive playing experience, with a start each. We lose one eligible OL from this season in Patrick (also lost Vonashek but he was a red-shirt this season), and gain 4 for 2014 in Park, Rodgers, King, and Knott.

This is where I was looking forward to all the improved recruiting classes building depth under Coach Elliott: we were going to go through a transition of losing thin depth - but very experienced depth - and replacing it with improved depth, but very inexperienced depth. The point would come as long as there wasn't extreme attrition at the position where a leveling would happen where the depth in bodies would stabilize, and the depth in experience would improve substantially. At that point, we should see great improvement in how the OL performed in games, or know just what kind of OL position coach we had in Elliott.

That point IMO started this season and moves forward now....

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Right now the only 1 of those 3 I see coming back is Zandi, b/c he also is a blocking TE and on the current 2 Deep at OT. With the numbers crunch, I don't know if Matulis and Sport have a spot. Rodgers overtook Sport on the 2 Deep. I think it's a general rule in the program that if a guy is in his 3rd+ year, like Matulis and Sport and they aren't on the 2 Deep, then it might be in their best interest to play somewhere else.

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I disagree with this: Matulis seriously considered giving up this offseason due to his 2nd shoulder issue in as many years, but was encouraged by Elliott to hang in there and give the surgery a chance to correct things. I doubt heavily that the coaching staff would do that and then move Matulis out of the program when he chose to go the rehab route and it was already understood before the season started that Matulis wouldn't play this season.

As for Rodgers taking Sport's spot on the 2-deep, this is incorrect. Rodgers only appeared in one game as a reserve vs Arkansas, while Sport appeared in 7 games (including the final 2) and started for Patrick vs Tennessee when Patrick was injured. Plus Sport was a 3rd-yr RS-Sophomore this season: usually the rule of thumb is a player that's had 3 years of playing eligibility but has yet to produce usually won't have much more to offer his final (senior) year. So then they are advised to perhaps transfer for their final year to seek more playing opportunities. Sport still has 2 full years to contribute which Patrick himself was only able to contribute to any substantial degree for 2 years: Sport has a chance to contribute for 3...