I want to start with this; I don’t care and will not respond to any of the nonsense from the other Roy thread. But I did have a thought on O-line recruiting and the Coach Longo offense that I wanted to bring up before the other thread got locked. This is just my opinion. And I’m posing looking for feedback from other people. Please, every opinion counts, so no disrespectful replies.
From the moment Phil Longo was hired, I was curious as to how O-line recruiting would be handled. Barry Alvarez often said he would recruit O-linemen from Wisconsin and skill position players from Florida, Texas, and Ohio. And to his credit, Wisconsin puts O-linemen in the NFL at a pace greater than its population would suggest.
But the typical Wisconsin O-Lineman is built for a team that runs the ball 66% of the time, play action passes 20% of the time and a screen or two thrown in. (Keep in mind that there was nothing typical about Joe Thomas. He was a wonderful unicorn type of player. He doesn’t count in this discussion).
That being said, are guys like Roy being passed over by Coach Fick & Co because they need guys who are better suited to pass blocking than the typical Wisconsin kid, or are they recruiting the Wisconsin kids but the Wisconsin kids aren’t interested in pass blocking 60%+ of the time?
I think the answer is quite simple; I believe that this trend will become closer to the norm than a 1 year fluke. Wisconsin will recruit the kids from Wisconsin they think they can teach to pass block (Jensen) and then pass on the kids they think will struggle (Roy and Harbour). I think I’m the future we’ll see more and more highly rated O-Line kids from Wisconsin that the Badgers will show little to no interest in.
I could be totally wrong here. Jon said that Wisconsin had a bunch of kids higher on their board than Harbour, so my theory could apply. But Jon has never really mentioned (that I’ve seen) what happened with Roy. Maybe he just never liked the Badgers. Maybe he really liked the Gophers growing up. Maybe his girlfriend is a Gopher. Maybe Fleck just flat out recruited Coach Fick. Or maybe Roy just is not the type of O-Lineman Coach Longo wants for his offense.
From the moment Phil Longo was hired, I was curious as to how O-line recruiting would be handled. Barry Alvarez often said he would recruit O-linemen from Wisconsin and skill position players from Florida, Texas, and Ohio. And to his credit, Wisconsin puts O-linemen in the NFL at a pace greater than its population would suggest.
But the typical Wisconsin O-Lineman is built for a team that runs the ball 66% of the time, play action passes 20% of the time and a screen or two thrown in. (Keep in mind that there was nothing typical about Joe Thomas. He was a wonderful unicorn type of player. He doesn’t count in this discussion).
That being said, are guys like Roy being passed over by Coach Fick & Co because they need guys who are better suited to pass blocking than the typical Wisconsin kid, or are they recruiting the Wisconsin kids but the Wisconsin kids aren’t interested in pass blocking 60%+ of the time?
I think the answer is quite simple; I believe that this trend will become closer to the norm than a 1 year fluke. Wisconsin will recruit the kids from Wisconsin they think they can teach to pass block (Jensen) and then pass on the kids they think will struggle (Roy and Harbour). I think I’m the future we’ll see more and more highly rated O-Line kids from Wisconsin that the Badgers will show little to no interest in.
I could be totally wrong here. Jon said that Wisconsin had a bunch of kids higher on their board than Harbour, so my theory could apply. But Jon has never really mentioned (that I’ve seen) what happened with Roy. Maybe he just never liked the Badgers. Maybe he really liked the Gophers growing up. Maybe his girlfriend is a Gopher. Maybe Fleck just flat out recruited Coach Fick. Or maybe Roy just is not the type of O-Lineman Coach Longo wants for his offense.
