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Hmmm, there was never a complain about these guys until this season. puzzling. maybe thomas shouldn't have been moved from offense to defense repeatedly.
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Actually, there were complaints about the O-line last year as well, Sullivan was among them. Lambert was among the backfield members making mental mistakes last year, to his credit he did make at least one big play on the MSU pick 6 at the end of the game. Travis Thomas wasn't spectacular the first time he was on offense, see a BYU game a few years ago where he fumbled 39 times. He showed some decent runs in '05 and '06 to spell Walker, I do think he did a decent job stepping in as a LB last year considering he never played there before. As mentioned, my only guess as to why Thomas lost the starting RB position is attitude or just doesn't have the same talent as Aldridge and Allen
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here's where my little rant comes into play. all of the castigating blame on willingham for this season is just too laughable. All of these "duds" willingham recruited have been under chuckwagon's reign for going on 3 seasons. none of them has shown any real improvement. all you heard about was how good zibiboxer was in 2005. come 2007, you wouldn't even know he was still on the team. as the offense gets more reps, they'll get better? probably. unfortunately, your head coach was too busy racking up stats to bother getting any experience for his underclassmen. Sullivan was going to be the OL anchor this year, but now he's struggling.
Just like last season, ND returned 4 starting OL, Carlson, Quinn, Walker, He/She WR, and Rhema McKnight, yet were more inconsistent and less productive offensively. But, that couldn't be blamed on Willingham, so it was conveniently ignored.
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Zibby has done decent this year actually, hes a leading tackler and has caused the most turnovers I believe. Hes had a couple nice returns too, see the PSU game where he handed the offense a first and goal and they couldn't punch it in.
Willingham hasn't been the only problem for this team, they were dying before then. People like to point out Willingham was 8-0 his first season, but he wasn't exactly dominating in those games. At least half of them were nailbiters that came off decent defense, special teams, and a lot of luck, then getting embarrassed by USC at the end of the year per usual. Thats as good as it ever got for Ty, that 8-0 run, and the progress he was showing at year end '04, '05 was going to be ugly with the fresh defense and inconsistant offense.
As far as O-line play last year, not sure what happened. I know we lost Schwapp with an injury early in the year, hes been a decent blocking fullback. The running game wasn't there, and the protection just wasn't as good. The offense could still score, but it seemed more eradic. As mentioned, I do think it was a poor mistake not to get the younger guys more reps last year, I think they would have been in a better position this year and the large number of Freshmen wouldn't be starting.