Two Hoke comments that surprised me today

Submitted by Ron Utah on

As many of you know, Coach Hoke spent the day at ESPN fielding mostly silly questions. And, being Coach Hoke, he gave mostly boring answers.  But here are two quotes that caught my interest:

“One of the surprise dark-horse guys will be a young man we redshirted a year ago, a wide receiver, Jehu Chesson. A young man out of St. Louis. Six-four, wide receiver, track guy, can catch it, works hard.”

There's been so much talk about Darboh, I was sure that's where coach Hoke would go. Or even to RB, with all the Drake Johnson and Justice Hayes fluff we've heard (which there was some more of today). Hearing Chesson's name is a pleasant surprise and, if he were to emerge, would be a huge boost to our offense.

“We’re young in a couple places. We’re young in the guard position, offensively, the center position, but we have a lot of young depth and competition. On the defensive side of it, the interior of our defensive linemen and our strong end, our five-technique, are going to be young players, but we really like how, genetically, how they’ve worked at it.”

What I found interesting about this is that Black, Washington, and Ash are all juniors and seniors. Pipkins--the only other player on our roster to get significant snaps on the line last year--is a sophomore. Henry is a RS Frosh. The only other true DT's (Poggi, Hurst) are true freshmen. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I think this comment signals that we'll see a lot of Pipkins (starting?) and a good amount of Henry (more of a surprise) this year.

Ali G Bomaye

August 1st, 2013 at 4:50 PM ^

I think everybody's going to rotate, since that's almost always what happens on the defensive line anyway.  I wouldn't be surprised to see Washington, Black, and Pipkins get roughly equal playing time, with a decent chunk for Henry and maybe one other young guy as well.  Reading anything into the quote besides the fact that Hoke is pleased with the performance of the young DLs, which is obviously a good thing, is stretching it.

gwkrlghl

August 1st, 2013 at 7:19 PM ^

Yeah I agree. Considering that the coaching staff likes to rotate, they probably noticed pretty quick that half their rotation is Sophomores and under. Certainly not too much of a problem with the talent we have (which I think is kind of what Hoke alluded to)

Frito Bandito

August 1st, 2013 at 4:23 PM ^

The 5 tech is going to be incredibly young this year with Keith and all the rs frosh. Black should be playing the 3 tech with Willie rotating. Pee Wee should be rotating at the 5 with Q.

Young indeed

Njia

August 1st, 2013 at 4:57 PM ^

They're obviously going the way of baseball and are becoming more analytical about their approach. Maybe they're applying heuristics in the search for optimal football players; perhaps they're using a DOE (which is not really "genetics", per se) to develop the best means of getting points on the board; but it's really hard to say....

GoBlueInNYC

August 1st, 2013 at 4:27 PM ^

Good news in regards to injured players, via the Rittenberg/Bennett Twitter account:

In reply to by DoubleLegTakedown

gwkrlghl

August 1st, 2013 at 7:25 PM ^

I think the general feeling is that Stroebel is a year or so away from contributing. Likely Hoke is referencing Pipkings, Heitzman, Henry, and Wormley

jethro34

August 1st, 2013 at 4:31 PM ^

Maybe there's something to that, or maybe those are the most appropriate answers depending on the questions. If he was asked about a darkhorse, I would think the best answer would truly be someone that no one has talked about. But I feel in years past we've heard darkhorse type comments about guys like Jeremy Jackson - and if Chesson is only Jeremy Jackson this year I'll be dissapointed. As for the lines, maybe the comment about youth, particularly on the DL, is more about depth than starters. He talked about how young we were last year on the OL even when all of the starters were 4th or 5th year guys. Having said ALL of that, I, like you, would be thrilled if Chesson is a contributor (because he's that good, not because there's a need due to others not being productive) and if guys like Pipkins and Henry are so good that they can't be kept off the field either. Mattison certainly wants to rotate a lot so that makes a lot of sense.

Generic MGoBlogger

August 1st, 2013 at 4:31 PM ^

Hopefully what we lack in experience, we can make up with talent on the offensive line... This is a line that should be able to gel as the season progresses, and there is some raw talent in guys like Kalis... Really looking forward to seeing how the lines play out this fall.

bronxblue

August 1st, 2013 at 4:32 PM ^

I get a sense with the line comment that they'll be rotating a bunch of people in, and most of the line talent is young. But yeah, sounds like the 5T is going to be underclass men.

Wolverine Devotee

August 1st, 2013 at 4:37 PM ^

Project lineup for CMU. Project me if I screw the weakside and strongside up because I usually do. 

QB- Devin Gardner
RB- Fitzgerald Toussaint
FB- Joe Kerridge
WR- Jeremy Gallon
WR- Drew Dileo
LT- Taylor Lewan
LG- Ben Braden
C- Jack Miller
RG- Kyle Kalis
RT- Michael Schofield
 
SDE- Keith Heitzman
NT- Quinton Washington
DT- Jibreel Black
WDE- Frank Clark
SAM- Brennen Beyer
MIKE- James Ross III
WILL- Desmond Morgan
CB- Blake Countess
CB- Raymon Taylor
FS- Thomas Gordon
SS- Jarrod Wilson
 
K- Brendan Gibbons
P- Matt Wile
KR- Dennis Norfleet
KR- Jeremy Gallon
PR- Jeremy Gallon

Don

August 1st, 2013 at 4:39 PM ^

But I've been intrigued by the physical attributes that Chesson brings, with his height and speed. Hope there's more to Hoke's comments than just meaningless fluff for the media.

Randy Marsh

August 1st, 2013 at 4:49 PM ^

You've got a 10-man offense there. I'm not posting this as a reply because you might want to edit yours to put Funchess in at TE. Or maybe add another WR and switch Dileo to slot.

Mr. Rager

August 1st, 2013 at 5:37 PM ^

Very interesting quotes, indeed.

Let's remember that camp hasn't started yet, so there is still a month's worth of competition to be played out before week 1 starters are denoted.

My guess is that if Chesson practices well, he'll be starting opposite Gallon with Dileo in the slot.  I'd have to say that Darboh still has an opportunity here to start, though.

The youth on the interior DL is a little bit harder to figure out.  I can't imagine that Pipkins has passed QWash.  Would they play Henry over Black?  If he fits that spot, then I am guessing Henry is the one Hoke is talking about (there has been some rumblings on Rivals in the offseason that Henry is a major beast and will get PT).  The SDE note... who knows.

And with the OL, he is clearly confirming reports that Kalis and Braden will start at the guard spots.  Center is still a mystery - word out of Rivals is that Miller is far more talented than Graham, but Glasgow works harder and the coaches like that.  

TTUwolverine

August 1st, 2013 at 6:04 PM ^

If Chesson does end up being as good as Hoke says, I think we'll be seeing a lot of Darboh in the slot.  Wouldn't be a bad thing to have a big bodied, sure handed reciever running those routes.  I bet it would present a lot of mismatches.