re: Respected football handicapper Jimmy Boyd predicts 2014 SEC season

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How is the Oline progressing? I remember our less then steller front 4 giving you guys fits last year. Your QB definitely held on to the ball to long, but his Oline didn't do him any favors either.

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Our biggest weak point last year was the LG/C group. This was especially true in the UT game when a kid with maybe one career sack broke Reggie White's single game sack record exclusively in the C/LG gap.

Our C was a 270ish lb redshirt freshman who lost a bunch of weight early in the season and never recovered.

LG was a revolving door of an undersized walk-on and a redshirt sophomore who missed spring and summer entirely with shoulder surgery and was non-contact in fall camp.

We haven't had any injuries (fingers crossed) or surgeries that have held out any of the projected starters this year. Our C has gained 30 lbs and is a year more experienced in the system. LG is still iffy, but there are some redshirt freshmen to plug gaps if West can't get the job done.

Our tackles were solid last year and will be even better this year.

Overall, I think the OL is going to be much-improved over '13. Four starters return and this will be the second year in the system and under the new OL coach. The one replacement player is a road-grader of a kid at RG that will likely be able to hold his own. We didn't get great RG production out of Kevin Mitchell last year anyway. Ramsey Meyers might not be an immediate upgrade, but he won't be much worse.