Defense depth chart

[gtg936g]

To me, nothing is more fickle than a post spring depth chart. We really have to wait until the fall before we know who will actually be starting on game #1. I know our schedule is going to be tough down the stretch, but I am glad that we start off with three OOC games. We really need to get some game time reps in to see where we are.

 

[IronJacket7]

Why don't we just bump one our our backup DT's out to SDE? Maybe Commissiong would be great out there?

I like the thought of Gamble or Kallon at SDE.

 

[Boomergump]

As expected the concerns are at DE. The challenge for Freeman is to mature some physically by fall. There is little doubt he is a phenomenal talent, but I am not sure he will be physically ready to be a force this year. The signs of his future are all pointing up, but he is being pushed into service at a pace that might not really be fair to him. He is a hard guy to keep blocked and he has a nose for the ball. The kid needs to work his tail off the next couple months and hit the nutrition bar several times per day. He will beat out Rook-Chungong eventually I think, but it will be a battle this fall. SDE looks like a glaring hole to me. I like Stargel, but at this point, if I am being honest, he looks like he should be at #2 on a major college depth chart. He plays with a motor, which I like, but he is lacking in elite pass rushing skills and he has trouble defeating blocks. When you couple this with very average physical tools and size, you get a #2. I am rooting for the kid, but either he grows a lot, or we find somebody to push him to the bench. We will be sorry otherwise.

On the interior I am worried, but not as much so. Gotsis can play, even if he is out of position. Green has proven himself to be a good penetrator and effective against short yardage. He is limited some, in terms of pass rush etc, but he is not as easy to run directly at, as one might think. He gets leverage. Having seen next to nothing of the Commish, I can offer no opinion. However, I think for us to become the defense we all hope to have, something is going to have to happen to allow Gotsis to move to SDE. Maybe that is Comissiong having his hair catch on fire, or Kallon having the light go on. Maybe Gamble actually gets it going and takes over at SDE. I dunno. It is just this one overly confident fan's opinion that Gotsis's long term future is not at Nose, but rather SDE. It would be great if we could push him over sooner rather than later.

If you want something to worry about on the TECH team heading into fall, this is the area.

 

[ATL1]

How about Whitehead at WDE and move Chungong to SDE? (Yes I'm counting Whitehead)
I would much rather have that. Stargel just not a starter to me. Nothing against the kid. I would much rather see the kid at middle linebacker where he was recruited to play.

 

[Boomergump]

How about Whitehead at WDE and move Chungong to SDE? (Yes I'm counting Whitehead)
I would much rather have that. Stargel just not a starter to me. Nothing against the kid. I would much rather see the kid at middle linebacker where he was recruited to play.

I really didn't even consider Whitehead because he isn't in school. Obviously, there is a lot riding on his panning out like we hope. It will free up some movement of other players if he is the real deal. We need him to be.

 

[bravejason]

...
My issue with Stargel, is if he is really only 240, setting that edge and fighting a TE and OT in power sets as the SDE will be nearly impossible over of the course of a game and the run game will be tough for us in our current scheme. It tyler is now 265, I feel better...those 25 lbs matter a ton in leverage through the course of a game and year. Especially when that 25 lbs is muscle mass...not fat...We don't need a superior athlete or speed at SDE in our scheme. We need a tough player that can command an edge double team or if not use his hands play off the tackle and force the run outside for the OLB to clean up. I am concerned here because Tyler appeared to get too swallowed at times...

...

I noticed that the depth chart for the uga game has different weights listed than the ones on the ramblinwreck.com roster. I did a comparison of some of the defensive linemen:

Stargel is 251 lb on the uga game depth chart, up from 242 on the roster.
Chungong is at 263 on the depth chart, up from 248 on the roster.
Gardner is at 260 on the depth chart, down from 279 on the roster.
Kitchen is at 279 on the depth chart, up from 270 on the roster.
Menocal is at 248 on the depth chart, up from 244 on the roster.
Travin Henry looks like he has a lot of work to do over the next couple of months. The depth chart shows him at 210, which is down 15 lb from his roster weight of 225.
By comparison, Whitehead is on the roster at 220 and Attaochu is on the depth chart at 240.
Commissiong is at 305 on the depth chart, up from 275 on the roster.
Gotsis are at 277 on the depth chart, down from 285 on the roster.
Kallon is at 303 on the depth chart, up from 296 on the roster.
Green is listed at 280 on both the depth chart and the roster.
Gamble is at 271 on the depth chart, down from 280 on the roster.

On the offensive line, players are generally trending towards 300 lb. Devine is listed at 355, down from 370 on the roster. Another player dropping a fair amount of weight is Joe, at 307, down from 326. On the gain side, Roberts is at 280, up from 270.

I know the listed heights and weights can be less than accurate, so take it for you think it's worth.

 

[Techster]

Like I said in the offense depth chart thread, this depth chart really means nothing as we still have a month of fall camp to go through. LOTS of movement will occur during that time.

Just something for fans to take up the offseason.

 

[augustabuzz]

Yep

We'll see. I won't give up until I see him grow up. I'm interested to see where he is in November after getting some pt for a few months. I expect a lot of progress the first year of significant playing time.

 

[33jacket]

As expected the concerns are at DE. The challenge for Freeman is to mature some physically by fall. There is little doubt he is a phenomenal talent, but I am not sure he will be physically ready to be a force this year. The signs of his future are all pointing up, but he is being pushed into service at a pace that might not really be fair to him. He is a hard guy to keep blocked and he has a nose for the ball. The kid needs to work his tail off the next couple months and hit the nutrition bar several times per day. He will beat out Rook-Chungong eventually I think, but it will be a battle this fall. SDE looks like a glaring hole to me. I like Stargel, but at this point, if I am being honest, he looks like he should be at #2 on a major college depth chart. He plays with a motor, which I like, but he is lacking in elite pass rushing skills and he has trouble defeating blocks. When you couple this with very average physical tools and size, you get a #2. I am rooting for the kid, but either he grows a lot, or we find somebody to push him to the bench. We will be sorry otherwise.

On the interior I am worried, but not as much so. Gotsis can play, even if he is out of position. Green has proven himself to be a good penetrator and effective against short yardage. He is limited some, in terms of pass rush etc, but he is not as easy to run directly at, as one might think. He gets leverage. Having seen next to nothing of the Commish, I can offer no opinion. However, I think for us to become the defense we all hope to have, something is going to have to happen to allow Gotsis to move to SDE. Maybe that is Comissiong having his hair catch on fire, or Kallon having the light go on. Maybe Gamble actually gets it going and takes over at SDE. I dunno. It is just this one overly confident fan's opinion that Gotsis's long term future is not at Nose, but rather SDE. It would be great if we could push him over sooner rather than later.

If you want something to worry about on the TECH team heading into fall, this is the area.

Totally agree, we are 100% on the same page...i have been posting this a bunch in the past, I am more worried about SDE than WDE right now. Good summary it reflects what I think in different words

 

[alaguy]

The little amount of starting exp on the DL is very concerning and really the talent level is also.
The back 7 may be ok except with the DL may mean they get overwhelming pressure.

 

[Whiskey_Clear]

Think we may be making our minds up about certain players a bit early. Looking forward to seeing how things unfold this season. I'm betting one or two pleasantly surprise.

 

[takethepoints]

Depth at DT worries me the most.

The big problem is Green. If he stays healthy, then we will be quite good at that position. When he has played, he has shown himself to be both fast and hard to block; he was unstoppable in the USC game against players 5" taller and 50lbs heavier. That'll be even more the case with Gotsis beside him to command some double team attention. The difficulty is that he hasn't played a full season for us yet and his wheels have been subject to a lot of medical attention. If he goes down, it'll be easier for the OL to concentrate on Gotsis, at least at first.

I'm hoping that Shawn, who has shown great courage and grit working through his injuries, will get a chance to show us what we have missed. And that, imho, is a whole lot of good DL play.

 

[GTonTop88]

If this defense can find a way to force turnovers and play solid on third down, we maybe surprised this year. If not then we could be in for another long year

 

[redmule]

Well, since my wife tells me I'm stupid, I might just as well act like it on here, too. I just can't get too worried about the DL right now. How good you are depends on how good the other guy is. We're not operating in a a vacuum here. Before we crap our pants too much about the DL, I'd like to know how good are the OL's we're gonna be facing. Miami is probably the big bugaboo, but based on the last few years, the injury bug will slay the Canes somewhere around mid season. Seems to always happen. Does it hit them before we get them? Even if they crash and burn after they play us, you've got to like our chances in the Coastal. Clemson's not gonna line up and run the ball down your throat, and with their quick release offense how well they can move it depends more on their QB and our DB's than our DL. And we almost always play well against Clemson, especially in Atlanta. NC State? Duke? unc? Tulane? VT? Pitt? UVA? I just don't see a Murder's Row of pile driving offenses there given the new QB's and their own depth issues. Can we lose to them? No doubt we sometimes will because the ball often bounces funny, but I know where I'd put my money. If you say we're weak up front, I'll say we are stronger and deeper than we have been in a while at the back seven. I've said it before on here, obsessing over weaknesses or deficiencies is a virtue even a necessity in engineers, but it is death in relationships and death in building confidence in a football team. Coaches ***** and moan about how bad everything is, but they also know that if you can get a team to begin thinking they are good, then they will generally be good. Confidence is infectious.

And then there's uga. Freshmen will be Sophmores, and Sophmores will be Juniors by then. Who is injured might mean as much as talent by then (see Adamm Oliver and MJ). Besides we get to play them in Athens where we always play better for some reason.

We've got good Defensive Coaches, some talent, and some experience. And everybody else has gaps, too.

 

[nodawgs]

Really like Gamble. Big frame, should be able to hold up to 315 comfortably, not sure why he is staying in the 270-280 range. I see him as a 3 tech, but think he can work at NG just fine (thought the same about Gotsis last year, now it looks like he is at a 3 tech) As for Stargell, I'll wait to make a judgement. He was a huge MLB when he came in. Should be able to transition to a 4-3 DE. 240-255 is not a bad weight for him.

 

[33jacket]

Really like Gamble. Big frame, should be able to hold up to 315 comfortably, not sure why he is staying in the 270-280 range. I see him as a 3 tech, but think he can work at NG just fine (thought the same about Gotsis last year, now it looks like he is at a 3 tech) As for Stargell, I'll wait to make a judgement. He was a huge MLB when he came in. Should be able to transition to a 4-3 DE. 240-255 is not a bad weight for him.

I hear what you are saying, he is only a RS Soph. I am going off of what I see in scrimmages solely, which is very limited and against a really funky scheme. So its not the best way to evaluate a player I totally admit that up front. But based on this and the fact he is listed as slight for the position (if he can get up to 260 it would be great), it has me curious and focused on watching this spots development in Summer and early Fall.....

 

[jeffgt14]

Redmule: Most positive guy on Swarm the internet.

 

[redmule]

Redmule has been watching Ga Tech football for too long. More often than not it seems, strengths turn into weaknesses and weaknesses turn into strengths. My point is that it is sorta like picking stocks. You can pick absolutely great stocks in a down market and get taken to the cleaners. You can pick piece-of-s**t stocks in an up market and make a mint. Are we facing an up market or a down market this year?

The best two DL I've seen us play in the last ten years hands down were the guy from Pitt last year and the guy from Maryland a couple of years back. Unblockable. I thought Rock Perdoni was back on Grant Field just in a different uniform. We beat both teams. If DL strength is such a powerful determiner of success, then what happened? There are 11 players on defense. Most of the comments in this thread seem to be in agreement that the back 7 look pretty good as well as Gotsis. That is 8 out of 11 positions I'm feeling pretty good about right now, way better than normal for a Tech team. That leaves three question marks. The other DT slot is not without some talent and experience, so say it's only 2/3 of a question mark. That leaves the two DE's. We've got a promising freshman, a promising transfer, some experience, and some potential.

Before I say "Woe is me", I want to know the gaps our competition has, the injuries they will have by the time we play them, the momentum they have when we play them, and do they have the talent and system to take advantage of our gaps. You think those things don't matter as much as talent? Let me take you back to 2001, the most talented team IMHO that we've had since 1990. We lost five games in the regular season primarily because of momentum or lack thereof, timing on when we played the competition (F$U), and a couple of brain farts. Not saying talent doesn't matter, but obsessing over what you don't have does no one any good. Acknowledge the gaps, sure, but let's also admit as much as it might hurt that there might be some talent on defense also. I'm just trying to add some balance to the conversation.

 

[thagooseisloose]

Heard from my buddy at GMC again wednesday. He says barring any shockers, Whitehead is on pace to not just pass, but do very well in his classes. I'm excited for this kid...

 

[UgaBlows]

After last year i am really confident that Roof and his staff will have these guys playing well within his scheme, we will be as good or better than last year