Spaulding Report: Offensive Linemen Discuss Bruins' Experience
Sean Rhyan and Jon Gaines II both discussed what having an experienced team means to them heading into this season.
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Now, on today’s Spaulding Report….
We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Line wins games.
Yesterday, two Bruin offensive linemen met with the media and discussed the experience that this year’s team has on the offensive line.
There is a lot of experience on the offensive line this season. The entire starting offensive line returns this year.
Tackle Sean Rhyan made it clear that things are a lot different this season. “Last year was the COVID year. So, I mean it's totally different but, as a team as a whole, I think we're just flowing,” Rhyan said. “We’ve got so many returners that the team is bonding stronger than ever before.”
Meanwhile, Jon Gaines II put it another way. Gaines said:
I think, honestly, we're all old now. It's on us to have that standard that we hold ourselves to. That's kind of been the mantra throughout summer…throughout spring…throughout camp. It's just the time’s now. We have to keep saying that, but we have to keep executing because we're primed for whatever challenge you come up against.
Rhyan discussed that the advantage of the experience the starting offensive line has is that they “get to teach the young guys and, with all the experience, we have it's kind of just flowing fast.”
He also explained how that experience translates to running plays. Rhyan said:
It's almost kind of fun to go out there and run plays when you have a bond with the guy to the left and to the right. Being on the edge a little bit, I've bonded with the tight ends too as well as the guard. When we call a specific play and we kind of both know it's just a little bit fun because you know what to do and you're just rocking off and you know it's going to work. There’s not too much worry about “Oh man, does he know you know how i work on this block?” There isn't too much guessing going on between the players now.
After a week plus of training camp, the maturity of this year’s team seems to be coming through in player interviews. Overall, the team seems to be really invested in their mission.
The only problem is that, at this point in the season, talk is cheap and it’s what actually happens on the field starting on August 28th which matters.
Here’s yesterday’s full interviews, courtesy of UCLA Athletics.
According to Thuc Nhi Nguyen of the LA Times, the Bruins are off today and will practice Tuesday through Friday this week.
Go Bruins!!!
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Long ago someone used to write O Line previews every year and he would tally up the number of starts by the returning linemen and compare that to previous years' tallies. Surprisingly he found that those numbers really didn't matter a whole lot. Our experienced lines weren't necessarily any better than our inexperienced lines, and our O Line play really came down to the quality of the players, which subsequently came down to the quality of recruiting of the players (which was usually decent) and the quality of development of the players (which was usually poor) and the utilization of those players in the overall scheme of the game (which was also usually poor). Most observers would suggest that our recent O Line recruiting has been average at best, so it will really depend on how the current staff develops and schemes with the current players as to how the O Line performs. Hopefully the latter two aspects are really good because, as you rightly say, line wins games.
I’m with the o-line. They keep the QB upright so he can throw his fancy pants passes to the receivers who have enough time to get open, again thanks to the o-line. They open up the holes that allow the swivel hips halfbacks to swivel through for the big gain or the massively muscled fullback to pound in the first down. They wear the other team’s d-line down play after play after play right down the field, keeping our defense rested. They blast into the end zone leading the sneaky QB into the end zone for the TD. Everything good, happens first at the o-line.