Coach Warriner has to be wondering about shifting player positions from what they were projected. The reason is that Zach Martin is a "never out" position player at left tackle. That leaves one other tackle position and ALL our best unproven studs are thought to be tackles [Lombard, NMartin, Nichols, Hegarty, Prestwood]. Only Hanratty, Heggie [who got in saturday so start shutting up on the jokes], Carrico are thought of primarily as guards or centers behind Cave and Watt. [remember Nuss leaves too and Golic probably won't be offered if the 2012s are as good as they seem to be shaping up].
We can all be happy that I'm not Ed Warriner, but if I had to be, I'd be moving two of those tackle studs to guard/centers. As an related aside, Mark Harrell sees this from his high school vantage point and is practicing snapping the ball even though a tackle. Who would I pick to move??
Not Nichols, I think. Very tall and extendible --- a right tackle methinks. Nick Martin is "training" under Zach, so maybe not him. Lombard was originally thought of as a guard coming out of high school. Maybe he's TRob's replacement rather than Dever's. Would Prestwood or Hegarty be the better G/C? Prestwood's supposedly meaner, Hegarty's supposedly more quick-footed. Pretty foggy crystal ball, but I see us as tackle-heavy [with potentially great players] right now.
Addition: Warriner has been running the actual "game ready" line with generally eight players, not ten. We have had the strategy of a starting five who might go the whole distance, a third tackle who is "next man in" on either side [Lombard this year], and two interior linemen [Golic and Nuss] with the guard also being next man in both sides. Next year's line might be game-structured the same way. If so, we are mainly worried about getting a top eight rather than a top ten. For me the top eight would be Cave, Watt, ZMartin, Lombard, [the givens], and four others who would include NMartin and I'll go out on a limb and say Prestwood. Normally I'd say Hegarty but I've heard exactly nothing about him all year. Tate Nichols supposedly is ready, but is he injury prone? Hanratty is ambitious [volunteering for center] and maybe he's in the eight. Does one of the young studs really impress? Example: if we get Peat or Stanley or Banner etc, how really good are they? Does Carrico's athleticism and toughness blossom? And I have this crazy intuition that Bruce Heggie is a driven man.
There seems to be a load of talented roadgraders to form another O-Line from.
