I didn't want to write this ... but I'm weak.
If you go back through my OLine comments over the last year-plus, you wouldn't notice but I've rarely said anything about Knapp. (same, by the way, vis-a-vis Wagner.) This was because people here were generally high on him, and I felt it served no purpose to throw any cold water. But ... Knapp has not impressed me (I know that's not worth much) at any time. His footwork is just not very good. He gets extended to the point that you could call it "splayed out". (Lambert by the way looks this way too, too much of the time.) Because of this "intuition" and my view that Wagner on the other side just didn't show up powerfully enough, I remained silent that our interior was at least a violent hard mashing bunch of guys and our backs could live with that.
My "dream" for this season's OLine was Jagusah// Schrauth// Craig due to smarts-communication-and-OK-strength// (forgive me for this next one) Spindler, as a powerhouse mauler// and "Wagner" improved. When Jagusah briefly returned and got inserted at RG, I winced. OK, I thought, there must be some internal reason for this (Rather than LT) but I didn't like it. On reflection, this RG thing might also played in Rocco leaving. My reasoning was not reasoning at all -- just seeing the occasional sweeping away of defensive lines of scrimmage by Jagusah at a double-team with a strong guard. Sometimes that looked like a people-wall turning into the middle of the field, and if a puller or a TE got the kick out block, Love et al were looking at a soccer field sized area of green grass.
The interview with Rudolph convinced me that Wagner had gotten better, and I really felt that Abshur could be a Spindler clone. But what about Knapp? Nobody really was talking about him in any depth. Even Wagner's comments referred to "Ashton", "Billy", and "Sullivan", but not "Antonie." Small things ... maybe not meaningful. Then, in the game aftermath, Knapp is reported to have to leave because of cramps --- in the first half. Sick? Out of shape? What? ... can't help it// don't like it. I'm probably wrong on all of this, but Knapp reminds me (in terms of stage of development, not attitude) of the early Eichenberg. Eichenberg was NOT ready early, but gradually became so by his senior season. He also was way splayed out-of-foot-position lots of the time. There is a reason that both Kraemer and Hainsey got there first.
When Big Charles comes back, I'm betting that we install him at RG instead of where we really need him.
One last useless thought: Note that by the staff thinking of Charles as an interior lineman, that filled our interior up, and we lost three (four?) really good possible linemen to the transfer portal. ... I hate all of that.