I think the issue that most people have is that with Billy gone, you're starting guards, on paper, are a guy who didn't exactly light the world on fire and a guy who couldn't stay healthy in 2024 and 2025. That's very scary. If Billy comes back, we'd be all set at 1 guard spot and you'd have Jagusah and Absher at the other, with the latter being insurance if (and probably when) Jagusah gets hurt again.
This repeated line about Jagusah being injury prone is the oddest thing. He might get injured again but he's had one injury since being at ND that was football related, right? Didn't he tear a pec or something should related? Then he had an ATV accident with a setback because it wasn't properly set or it needed to be cleaned up.
With that said, we still have a lot of options on the line. Craig, Knapp, Jagusah, Lambert, Otting, Will Black, Absher, M. Augustine then to a more unknown extent: Cam Herron (can he add some lbs and develop at center?), Prescod, Peter Jones, Strebig and the incoming SIX freshman.
So if Schrauth declares for the draft, we'll have 6 OL who have started games for us. 2 ascending sophomore who have had high reviews leaked out of the gug, 4 players going into their 2nd years that we know nothing about and 6 freshmen to work into the mix.
That's 18 players without Schrauth so I'm guessing we'll see a few put their name in the transfer portal. Still, there is a lot to like about our OL room. But it'd be so much nicer if Schrauth came back to lead the room.
