Kyle Meinke discusses the guys who raised or lowered their stock during the spring. I disagree with listing Elliott Mealer as a "faller," though. As I mentioned before, I think it's quite possible that Mealer was the second string right tackle (instead of the starting left guard) for practical purposes. If Mealer had started the game at left guard, Burzynski would have been relegated to the third team while two less talented walk-ons (Kristian Mateus and Erik Gunderson) played tackle on the second unit. That seems like a poor deployment of personnel.
You make a good point about Mealer being needed at OT for the spring game. He still may be 1a at the LG position. However, the coach speak at the beginning of spring was about how Mealer had this great opportunity ahead of him to start. By the end of spring, he had let a walk-on into even competition with him. You know the coaches are not thrilled with Omameh either, but you don't hear about him being pushed by 6'1" walk-ons. Hoke has been visibly stressed about the interior OL and LG has to be a big part of that, considering they seem relatively pleased with Barnum so far at center. The writer's reasoning may not be conclusive, but Mealer definitely fell some over the course of spring practice.
ReplyDeleteI disagree that he "definitely fell some." I don't think it's that clear. I would probably agree that Omameh has a firmer hold on his starting spot, since he's been starting for the last few years and Mealer hasn't. It's a likely conclusion that Omameh is better. But I don't think their situations are similar.
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